Hello from Oakland, California where the first day of Wondercon 2002 was a good first day. Nice attendance, but not too crowded. (Tomorrow, it'll look like a Where's Waldo? puzzle in that hall.) And a couple of good panels. First, I got to interview John Romita for an hour, which is always a joy. Mr. Romita is not only a first-rate talent; he's one of those men who are passionate and articulate about their field — and, above all, sincere.
We got into a discussion of his days as Art Director at Marvel Comics and the problems of saying to one of today's "hot" young artists, "Your drawings are filled with errors." Sadly, this did not always result in compliance or even a recognition of any flaws. I asked him how many times, in all his years of looking at art samples, he ever knew — instantly — that the applicant was good enough to immediately get work. I didn't mean how often the kid got work. The question was how often the samples were so good that the person couldn't help but get hired. Mr. Romita said it had occurred but three times in all those years: Ron Wilson, Tom Palmer and Dave Gibbons. Since most who present a portfolio are dead-certain they're of professional caliber, I thought that was an interesting statistic.
Later in the evening, Sergio Aragonés, Paul Dini, Carolyn Kelly and I drove — well, actually, Sergio drove and the rest of us rode — over to San Francisco and the gala event at the Cartoon Art Museum, in honor of the John Romitas (Senior and Junior) and the new Spider-Man art exhibit. The museum is a wonderful place and, if you like Spidey, a great place to visit while the current show is up. There, you can see maybe a hundred pages of original art by Steve Ditko, Gil Kane, the Romitas and others who've drawn the wall-crawler over the years.
I have one beef, not just with the event but with a lot of gatherings and parties I attend. And hey, if you can't bitch on your own website, where can you bitch? We have this lovely exhibit of artwork that everyone loves (other stuff besides Spider-Man art, by the way), plus the place is full of great and fascinating people, many of them cartoonists and great illustrators. There's also plenty of food and drink. All great. Now, here's the beef part: Why do we need music? Especially in the form of a live band?
The noise level was oppressive even before they began to play. Once they commenced, everyone had to shout to engage in any form of conversation with all those interesting attendees, and repeat everything three times. I am not faulting the quality of the band. For all I know, their musical skills dwarf the Boston Pops, the London Philharmonic and the Beatles, all in their prime. But no one can sound too good in a set-up like that, nor can they be heard especially well. This happens at too many gatherings I attend — perhaps, most. Someone thinks it's not a party without music and the louder the music, the livelier the party. If the idea is that people may want to dance, great. If the idea is that we might want to stop talking to one another and listen to the music…okay, fine. Let's do that. But it seems to me that it's usually not necessary and, at times, the people at a party really, really do not like the music that has been provided, ostensibly to give them a merrier time. Tonight, I think if they'd polled the room, 90+% would have been delighted to send the band packing so that it could be a little less impossible to hear and be heard.
In spite of this, we all had a fine time at the museum. And I think we all had a fine Day One of the Wondercon. (We did a "20 Years of Groo" panel too, by the way.) This is your Oakland Correspondent signing off…