In the Comic-Con of my mind, I only hosted five panels today but I had a great lunch with one group of friends and a greater dinner with others. I feel like the Alternate Reality con is winding down in my mind and I may be about ready to head home to where I really am.
Folks keep asking me if I think "this virus thing" will abate soon and we'll see a return to normal events. I think "no one knows" is still the only safe answer but I can hope it'll be safe to attend WonderCon next March 26-28 in Anaheim. I can also hope that if they can throw it, it won't be a difficult decision to decide whether or not to attend. But there are still people in this country who'd rather catch a painful, life-threatening disease than admit they were wrong about COVID-19 being no worse than the common cold or some kind of Liberal Hoax.
Question: Will cities or states mandate that you'll have to have a proper face covering to go into a polling place on November 3 and cast your ballot? I can almost hear the arguments: "I have a Constitutional right to vote and there's nothing in the Constitution that says you can deny me that right if I refuse to wear a mask." November third is going to be a long day.
In other news: My next live Cartoon Voices Panel will be at 4 PM Pacific Time on Saturday, August 8. I know that's a ways off so I'll remind you before then but here's a preview of who I've wrangled into participating…
If you're a follower of Cartoon Voice Actors, there must be a couple of folks on there who you'll be delighted to see in the lineup. And I will be resuming my one-on-one webcast Conversations week after next. Some of the ones in the near future won't be live because I'll need to record them at times that are not conducive to gathering a crowd…but some of them will be.
By the way: Folks who've seen my podcasts keep writing to ask what the deal is with the books they see in the background — What are they? And which books do you keep that close to your workspace and why? The answer is that just before the pandemic hit and my assistant stopped working here most of the time, we were rearranging all my bookshelves. So what's on the shelves closest to me is just whatever we stuck there at that moment and not necessarily the final location of those particular volumes. Move along. Nothing to see there.