Monthly Archives: July 2010

During the last presidential election, Sarah Palin did a couple of interviews in which she seemed so clueless that…well, she pretty much gave up doing interviews with anyone who'd be more probing than Sean Hannity. Of the interviews that caused her to retreat, she has sometimes claimed that they were edited to make her look bad…especially that ABC one with Charlie Gibson where, among other failings, she didn't seem to know what the Bush Doctrine was. She claimed that again recently and in response, ABC has released the full, unedited transcript of their two taping sessions. Palin actually comes across a little smarter in some of the exchanges that didn't make air…but those also don't make news, which is why they don't make air. In short, she was edited the way all those things are edited.

I've been waiting to see what Fred Kaplan had to say about the recent dump of documents relating to what's really happened with the War in Afghanistan. Here he is.

A friend of mine who didn't attend Comic-Con this year wrote, "I hope you're not going to fill your blog with stuff about what a great time you had." Well, yes, I am. (This same friend, who once thought George W. Bush was the greatest president ever, writes me similar notes about how it's cruel of me to remind him how that played out.) I couldn't have had a much better time in San Diego this year. The paucity of posts here was because every minute was filled with something fun to do, usually just conversing with a good chum or a great talent.

I continue to be amazed at how little goes wrong at these conventions. I've been going to cons, good and bad, for four decades now and I think I know a little about how difficult they are to organize and how many disasters can occur. Even when things go wrong at Comic-Con International, the crew knows what to do, how to do it, how to keep things running smoothly. That was one thing that was often on my mind this year. Another was a new (to me) way of looking at the attendees…

This may sound odd but I think an awful lot of folks who show up at this event do not come, at least primarily, because they're interested in comics or cartoons or in the movies and TV shows being promoted. I think their main impetus to be surrounded by all the creativity and talent. There's an energy in the building that is infectious: All those artists, all those writers, all those performers. Everywhere you look, someone has created something. It can be as basic as a guy in the Small Press Area who's self-publishing new comics of his new characters…or it can be the next (maybe) movie blockbuster that's going to take your head off in ways that your head has never been removed before.

Obviously, a lot of those who are already writing, drawing or otherwise creating walk in that door and get something out of the experience…and not just some promotion or a key business contact. I just wonder how many people who aren't already creating stories or visuals in some medium go home from Comic-Con determined to start. I'll bet a lot.

In posts to come, I'll be doing more of what my absent friend asked that I not do and I'll tell you more about my panels and adventures. Right now, I leave you with one of many favorite moments of the last few days. It occurred when I was in a men's room. Behind me by the sinks, I heard an adult male voice say, "Wash your hands." And then I heard a rather young male voice reply, "I'm Harry Potter. I don't have to wash my hands."

And by the time I turned to look, there was a twelve-year-old boy…dressed as Harry Potter and washing his hands. I don't know why that struck me so funny but it did.

There's no cellular reception in the ballroom where the Eisner Awards are being presented at the moment. Not a lot of oxygen, either. Which explains why I'm outside on a bench overlooking the water.

My panel-free day was exhausting. I'd forgotten that one of the reasons I started hosting all them panels at cons was that I get bored sitting at a table all day signing my name and it's hard on the feet to wander about on concrete floors for four days. The noise level can get to you as well. I heard Tijuana has been calling to complain about the noise.

Did some interviews. Had some business-type meetings. My meals bookended my relationships: I had lunch with my first girl friend…first time I've seen her since 1972. Then dinner was to celebrate the birthday of the current light of my existence, Carolyn Kelly.

Kevin Drum (hi, Kevin!) explains why we don't have Climate Change legislation and probably won't for quite a long time. My guess is that at least three states will have to be completely destroyed before the Limbaugh crowd will grudgingly admit, "Well, maybe there's something to this worry." And it can't be small states, either. The obliteration of, say, Rhode Island wouldn't be enough to budge the folks who chortle, every time it snows anywhere, "Well, so much for that Global Warming crap." It's going to take losing a big one, probably Florida. (Louisiana won't do it since we've already kinda decided it's expendable…)

I was a few minutes late for my first panel yesterday at Comic-Con 2010. Fortunately, I was not the moderator. But running around before, doing errands and getting Frebergs to their table, I suddenly found myself behind the convention center, where few venture. Recalling a shortcut inside that I last used around 2001, I hurried this way and that way, only to find myself in what is now a restricted, high-security area, arguing with one of those security guards who think you're supposed to vanish off the face of the planet just because they tell you, "You shouldn't be here!" Getting rid of me did not seem to include telling me a proper way I could get upstairs to Hall 6A and flashing my Guest badge only seemed to irritate him further.

Ordinarily, I feel for such folks and sympathize with the "dirty job but somebody has to do it" reality of their assignments. Hurrying later from my first panel to my second, the easiest route was to enter through an exit. A guard there tried to stop me but when I pointed to my badge and said, "I'm the host of this panel," he saw the wisdom of saying, "Come right in." But that first guy, and an older woman who hurried over to confirm I was forbidden to be where I was, reminded me of all those stories Sergio and I have done wherein our character Groo wreaks havoc and destruction merely by following his orders exactly and mindlessly as he understands them. I said to the two guards, "You know, you could get rid of me this second if you told me which way to go to get into the convention center." "That's not our job," the woman said. "Our job is to make sure people like you aren't here."

I thought of about thirty great sarcastic replies but I was already tardy for the panel. Fortunately, I found another guard nearby with an I.Q. higher than his body temperature in Celsius and he directed me to a door the other ones could have told me about but wouldn't.

So there you have it: The only thing that went even vaguely wrong yesterday. Otherwise, it was as much fun as these things ever are. I continue to marvel at the stunning skill with which this convention operates. Among the many reasons I pray it doesn't relocate to another city is that the convention crew has learned how to do this convention in this building with about as much efficiency as is humanly possible. I don't want to endure the learning curve while they reinvent everything for a new venue. (No word yet on how likely a relocation is. The fact that the city hasn't done the sane thing and given the con everything it wants to stay suggests that somewhere in the San Diego government, there are some officials who are recklessly trying to play hardball in the negotiations. No one affiliated with the convention staff has told me anything but it's the only possible reason this wasn't a done deal months ago…and if I were a nearby San Diego merchant, I'd be pissed. Hey, great time to be gambling with the local economy, guys!)

Oh, you want to know what happened with the much-promoted protest by the Westboro Baptist Church yahoos? You know them: The folks who are so embarrassing with their corruption of God's message that real Baptists have written to ask that I not refer to them with the "B" word. Well, what happened seems to be not much. Some of the assholes showed up to find they were vastly outnumbered by counter-protestors, some of whom had very funny signs and costumes. I guess when the a-holes saw they were looking even stupider than they usually do, they largely retreated…but this is a third-hand report. In the hall, we didn't hear a word about them.

I had a great time panelling and roaming that hall. Stan and Hunter Freberg were a smash with their panel and after, their table was mobbed with folks who wanted to say howdy and also purchase the new Freberg CD that debuted at this convention. I'll have details here later on how you can get a copy and hear all-new Freberg funnies…but if you're here and anywhere near Table II-15, drop by and get a couple signed by The Man himself.

I'm about to go do more roaming for today, inexplicably, I have zero panels to host. I make up for it tomorrow but today, I am without purpose or meaning. Or panels. This has happened before at a Comic-Con, most recently in 1976. I may, out of force of habit, just wander into someone else's and start moderating. I hope Brad and Angelina don't mind.

Fred Kaplan on the state of our intelligence community…where they're supposed to know everything that's going on except within other portions of the intelligence community.

It's showtime!

If you browse the political crannies of the Internet, you're probably already sick of reading about the bogus "scandal" that yesterday cost Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod her job. Basically, a video was disseminated by right-wing hatchet guy Andrew Breitbart that seemed to show her admitting that she, a black person, was actively (and currently) discriminating against white people. Turns out, of course, that the video was from a decade or two ago and that it had been edited to make it appear she'd actually done that when in fact, she was explaining why she hadn't.

It's rare when you see an issue like this where just about everyone has embarrassed themselves. The White House and the N.A.A.C.P. look bad for rushing to condemn/fire the lady without, obviously, waiting to see if Breitbart's reporting was, as it usually is, inaccurate. The folks who might ordinarily side with Breitbart (including Fox News, which yesterday thought this was The Story of the Century) are denouncing the story as inaccurate…but mostly in ways that don't fault their side for spreading it. And of course, Breitbart — who pounces on the media every chance he gets for slanting news and not accepting responsiblity for what they do — seems to think it's everyone's fault but his that he spread a lie so egregrious, even Glenn Beck couldn't endorse it.

The real sad part is what it shows about the playing of the race card in America. Lately, it seems to be used primarily to get white people rallied against minorities. Fox keeps flogging tales of the New Black Panthers — who as someone else said are about as threatening as the New Christy Minstrels…and smaller in number. There's also a big to-do about a Muslim mosque being planned for the vicinity of the old World Trade Center that has some folks hauling out their religious intolerance.

It all reminds me of a friend I lost once whose bigotry became so all-consuming that I was afraid to let him walk into my bedroom for fear he'd come out wearing the sheets. He officially denounced all racism but the only kind that really bothered him was any allegation, no matter how small, that some white guy (like him) might ever lose out on anything. He kept drawing these false equivalences between minorities being lynched or forced into poverty and the real and outrageous discrimination, which was that at this place of work, some Asian guy had been promoted over him. With the economy being what it is and some folks already paranoid about That Scary Black Man in the White House, I fear we're in for a lot of this.