It's about time for my annual joke about how if you want to get a parking space for the Comic-Con International in San Diego, you'd better leave now. Hard to believe it's — what? — like twenty-six days away? Didn't we just do this, week before last?
I will, as usual, be hosting more than a dozen panels. They'll include one where Marv Wolfman and I mercilessly grill the great comic book artist Gene Colan about his work, and another where Marv and creators who shaped comics in the seventies will be grilled by me. There'll be a panel with the last three surviving Golden Age Batman artists where they'll discuss what it was like to be Bob Kane. The annual Golden and Silver Age Panel will feature Ramona Fradon, Leonard Starr, Gene Colan, Russ Heath, Jack Katz, Jerry Robinson and Murphy Anderson. If you read comics before 1970, I'll bet several of your favorite artists are on that list.
Sergio Aragonés and I will do our annual panel which usually consists of us explaining why no Groo has come out lately. But this year, we actually have several Groo projects heading to press so that'll be a nice change. Sergio, Scott Shaw! and Disney Legend Floyd Norman will be competing in our annual game of Quick Draw! on Saturday morning…and I don't have to plug that one because we always fill the room and turn hundreds away.
My pal Earl Kress and I will be hosting a buncha panels about Cartoon Voice acting. Among the vocal thespians who've agreed to participate this year are Bill Farmer, Charlie Adler, Laraine Newman, Greg Cipes, Susan Silo, James Arnold Taylor, Vanessa Marshall, Tom Kane, Hank Garrett and everyone's favorite TV legend, Chuck McCann. There are a few more names I should be able to announce soon. On Sunday afternoon, we'll have our special panel for wanna-be voice actors with one or two casting directors, an agent or two, a couple of actors…and a lot of free info that some coaches will charge you a fortune to hear.
I'll be introducing one of my heroes, the great Stan Freberg, along with his spectacular spouse-partner, Hunter. And Earl and I will be hosting a spotlight on the First Lady of Cartoon Voicing, June Foray.
In fact, this is a good place to announce that June's long-awaited autobiography should be published in time for the Comic-Con. If you ever loved Rocky & Bullwinkle or any of the countless animated classics in which June starred, you're going to want to buy a copy and get her to sign it. A few people have already told me this is at the top of their "must-do" list.
And I'm involved in a few other events which you'll learn about when the full schedule is posted in a few weeks. Whether you attend my panels or not, I suggest you study the schedule when it's up and jot down a list of what you want to see and when it is. Every con, I hear a lot of whining that includes the phrase, "I didn't know about it until it was too late." I'm getting to the point where I tend to reply with some snide remark that includes the phrase, "Tough toenails, fella. You should have studied the schedule."
I'll nag you again about this before the convention begins. But I won't be able to nag much. Twenty-six days. Good grief.