I'm still without a working Internet connection in our room and you wouldn't imagine the machinations I go through to get these deathless postings up onto ye olde website. But you're worth it.
I had a very good time at The National, which is the giant, economy-size version of New York's popular Big Apple Comic Conventions. I did two panels, starting with a war comics panel (with emphasis on Sgt. Rock) featuring Russ Heath, Dick Ayers, Billy Tucci and Mark Sparacio. Billy's responsible for a new Rock mini-series from DC Comics that's just coming out (with Mark assisting on covers) and if they're all as good as the first one, they'll have a real winner there.
The other panel was — and I know you'll find this hard to believe — a Jack Kirby Tribute Panel. This one featured Roy Thomas, Joe Sinnott and Stan Goldberg, answering questions about the legendary comic creator. One thing I learned is that when Joe inked a page of Jack's, and I suppose he did this with everyone's pencil art, he'd ink the bottom panels on a page first, then work his way upward. This is because if he started at the top, his hand might smear the pencil work below it. I've known Joe for close to forty years and interviewed him thirty times and this was the first time I heard that. Makes sense.
A few other folks I saw: Herb Trimpe, Ken Gale, Richard Howell, Irwin Hasen, Neal Adams, Chris Claremont, J. David Spurlock, Steve Saffel, Jim Salicrup, Danny Fingeroth, Bob Smith, Larry Hama, Elayne and Robin Riggs, Dan Gheno and I forget who else. I ran into Richard Bensam. Richard was the first person to offer 364 in our contest to guess Barack Obama's final electoral total. We do not yet have a winner. Obama is currently at 365, which no one guessed, and Missouri is still out. They say it'll report by Tuesday. (This'll make someone mad: A lot of us arrived at our guesses by figuring out which states might go black and not go back, and how many electoral votes each represented. Richard may have beaten us all by, he says, picking a number that just sounded about right.)
Speaking of political stuff: I spent a fascinating hour-or-more with Fred Kaplan and his lovely wife, Brooke Gladstone. Those who listen to NPR know Brooke from her program on that fine network. Those who read this weblog know Fred because I'm forever hectoring you to go read his articles on Slate, which have been concise and pragmatic insights into what's going on in our government, particularly with regard to matters of nation defense and Iraq. Fred actually understands things like military budgets, even if no one at the current White House or press corps seems to. Other reporters let our leaders get away with promising to send soldiers we don't or won't have but Kaplan has accurately predicted much that has happened, just by being aware of how many troops we had and when their tours were up.
He has other good insights…so it was a pleasure to meet the man and get to know him a little. People ask me why I go to the time and trouble of this weblog. There are a lot of answers to that but one is that because of it, I get to meet people I respect and can maybe learn from.
That's about everything I have to report about the con. Saturday evening, Carolyn and I went to see Gypsy and I'll post a review in a little while. More to come from New York in a day or so.