So This Is What It Looks Like

I grew up in Ohio. And although I spent a quarter of my life living out of state, I have somehow remained a Cleveland sports fan. Because of this, I have never experienced a championship first hand. The closest thing I can claim is the 2002 Ohio State National Championship (and that does count, and it was glorious). But, on a professional level, “my” team has never won it all, rarely even sniffing the opportunity. So it was a very cool and completely foreign experience to be in a bar in Chicago with my local friends and packed to the seams with a rollicking bunch of hockey fans to watch the Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup in Game 6 overtime.

And walking out onto North Avenue in Wicker Park after the game was over and Lord Stanley’s Cup had been presented was like stepping onto another planet. A barrage of car horns honking, drunk and sober fans alike sharing high fives, every restaurant and bar overflowing with patrons out into the street. I'm not even a big hockey fan, but enjoyed every moment of the evening, soaking it all in. The celebration was unlike anything I’ve seen before, but something I hope I experience again… but in celebration of a Cleveland team.

The View from the Blue Line platform at Damen

Zen and Art of Lawn Mower Maintenance

My parents bought me a gas-powered leaf blower back when we lived in the house on Merriman and had mature trees and autumn leaves to deal with. To this day, I can never get it to start consistently or run well, to the point where I simply refuse to take it out any more. But I’m nearly certain it’s more because I’m an idiot than because of any sort of mechanical problems. Along these same lines, when we moved to our current house in 2006, I purposely bought an electric snow thrower which I have had no issues with and works great with virtually no maintenance.

When we moved to the Merriman house in 2000, it was our first foray into homeownership and lawn maintenance, and my dad gave me his old push mower. He doesn’t remember how long he had the mower before then, but it served him well and got the job done for me at both our old house and our new one, up until last summer.

As evidenced with the leaf blower, I’m horrible when it comes to understanding and maintaining outdoor/lawn appliances. Outside of gassing it up regularly, I pretty much ignored that mower. I never changed the oil. Never changed or even sharpened the blade. Seriously. I’m terrible with this stuff!

In the fall of 2008, the mower started acting a little buggy, nothing major, but just enough that I noticed, so I took it to a local shop for a complete tune-up, oil change, the works. While it was in the shop, I borrowed my neighbor’s self-propelled mower and was amazed at how easy the mowing was on our side hill when I didn’t have to do all the work myself. My eye started to wander while my mower was being tended to. Suddenly I was seriously considering buying a new one. I began researching brands and features, even narrowing it down to a couple of specific models I liked… then never pulled the trigger. I figured I didn’t need to spend the money when I had a perfectly good one and mowing is a good work out (at least, that's what I told myself).

As contrition for my roving eye, I bought and installed a new blade for the old mower at the beginning of last summer. And then last fall the universe meted out its justice, lawn care style, for flirting with infidelity by killing my mower.

The poor thing started spewing nasty, thick gray-black smoke and emitting a rattling death knell of protest whenever pressed into service. It would seem that my old mower had found its own delicate life-balance, learning to survive – even thrive! – in my neglect. I can only assume that my too little, too late attempt at taking care of it threw off its equilibrium. Like giving a starving man a fancy meal, the fresh oil and new filter and all was just too much of a shock to its system.

So I now have a new mower. It’s pretty fancy, what with its “Guaranteed to Start” system and “Personal Pace” self-propulsion and mulch/side-discharge/bagging options and all. I took it out and used it for the first time this week (after a month of borrowing my neighbor’s mower again), and it was all pretty slick. But it was with a certain sadness that the old girl went to the curb, leaving in its place not just the burden of lawn care maintenance, but also that of maintenance on the tools used in lawn care maintenance.

The dam is broke. I may need to have my dad over to teach me how to properly use the leaf blower now.

Bullitt Time

Tracy and I watched Bullitt for the first time this past weekend. This is one of those situations where I can’t believe I haven’t seen it before. I loved most everything about it…
The Location. As much as I love the feel of ’70s era New York City, I almost equally love ’60s era San Francisco.
The Cast. Steve McQueen. Jacqueline Bisset. Robert Vaughan. Norman Fell (Three’s Company’s Mr. Roper!), Robert Duvall, Vic Tayback. And uncredited bit parts by Walter Matthau, Barbara Bosson, Joanna Cassidy, and Suzanne Somers (Three’s Company, again!).
The Cop. From Dirty Harry to Die Hard, McQueen’s Frank Bullitt (rumored to be based on Zodiac killer homicide investigator David Toschi) is the blueprint for every young, hip, near-insubordinate cop who plays by his own rules.
The Chase. A brilliant, nearly 10 minute long car chase elegantly unfolds around the movie’s mid-point. Completely devoid of dialog and filled with driver point of view shots, it’s a standard-bearer for how to effectively present an action sequence.
The Dialog. Conversations are quiet and economical in their portrayal, and sometimes take place out of the camera’s/viewer’s earshot.
The Mood. Director Peter Yates (surprisingly also responsible for 1976’s Bill Cosby/Raquel Welch/Harvey Keitel vehicle Mother, Jugs & Speed, and the woeful 1983 sci-fi dud Krull) sets up small, character-defining scenes that add depth, like Bullitt getting some food at the hospital, or his time in bed with his girlfriend. And the shot composition is well thought out and full of impact.
The Score. Rarely used, it didn’t hit you over the head, allowing the story to dictate emotion.

Certainly a movie of its era, Bullitt is the kind of film that doesn’t spoon feed every last detail to the viewer. It requires you to actively participate in the experience, pay attention to what’s going on, invest in the characters, and enjoy the ride!

The Fuzzy Blue Elf

Since the kiddo couldn’t make it to Summit City Comic Con with me, I made sure to pick him up a few things. Top of the stack were these two great sketches of the Nightcrawler!

The first is a sketch card by my friend Andy Jewett. The kiddo was so pleased with it he had to email Andy to thank him for it.

And you can almost smell the faint scent of brimstone looking at the second sketch by Art Baltazar.

MTU122

Conspicuously missing from my Summit City Con recap is my Dave Wachter commission. And that was by design… because it deserves its own blog entry!

When it comes to comic-related money well spent, Dave Wachter will always have my support. I didn’t buy anything at the Summit City Comic Con. Although technically I wasn’t charged for it until this week when the campaign ended, the Athena Voltaire page I got from Steve Bryant was already accounted for when I pledged my support weeks ago. And the commission I requested from Dave was paid for at least a month ago, but, man, was it worth the wait!

I have always loved Marvel Team-Up #122, featuring Spider-Man and the Man-Thing. It’s one of the issues I reference in Deus ex Comica and falls squarely in the category of “indelibly tattooed in that portion of my brain still ruled by a 12-year-old boy.” I also have come to know Dave as a master of monsters. He loves drawing them, and that affection comes through in his painstakingly gorgeous art. So it was a no-brainer to commission him to recreate this classic cover from my youth.

Dave gave me a sneak peak at the piece when we were at the Pittsburgh Comicon. It was basically finished then, but without the lettering and cover dress. He mentioned to me then his ideas for how he was going to do the issue title and all, but it didn’t really sink in for me until we were standing at the bar at the Summit City after-show party and he explained the effort and time he invested in getting that lettering just right that I truly appreciated what he’s accomplished here.

Dave has once again outdone himself.

A Fort Wayne Weekend

Last week was a long one. I was working in Chicago from last Monday until I flew home last Thursday. Tracy and the kiddo had school events planned Friday night and Saturday morning and had tickets to the Jake Shimabukuro show Saturday night, so less than 24 hours after arriving home from Chicago I was on my own again, this time out the door on my way to Fort Wayne. I took the day off work Friday to recover from the business trip, pack, and drive to Indiana for the much-anticipated Summit City Comic Con.

The three hour solo trip breezed by quickly with a combination of podcasts and the new Black Keys album, and soon enough I was pulling into Chad and Heather’s drive. My base of operations for the next few days, the Seewalds were putting up not only me, but also Matt and Sarah Kramer, and Mike and Aimee Sims.

Summit City Comic Con was conceived and realized by Zack Kruse and the folks at Discount Comic Book Service, so the pre-show party was at the DCBS store. (Since I’ve been using DCBS for my monthly books for over a year now, it was nice to finally see what is I guess, technically, my LCS in person.) We made a couple of appearances there between some nasty passing storms. The first visit was early in the evening to take advantage of the sale the store was having. After stepping out for dinner, we returned later for drinks and conversation. I love hanging out with Dave Wachter and Amber, and guys like Steve Bryant and Shawn Pryor and Zack. It was good to have time to visit outside the con itself, where we could catch up and visit.

Saturday began with a made-to-order breakfast at Casa de Seewald, then we made our way over to the Grand Wayne Center to get set up and ready for the one-day con. From a creator’s perspective, things were well-organized and smooth. Zack and his host of volunteers (which included Chad) were greeting guests at the entrance and directing us to our tables, and throughout the day they were continually coming by to see if we needed anything.

Sales-wise, May has been good for Deus ex Comica. I did as well at Summit City as I did on Free Comic Book Day at the beginning of the month. But more than that, I got to hang out with so many cool creators and fans. Not sure what I did to deserve it, but Zack placed my table in the best possible location: I was between Ryan Stegman and Mason Easley, and across from Mike Norton and Art Baltazar. It was a plum spot, and I am forever grateful to Zack.

Hard to complain about eight hours of hanging out with Ryan. Fresh off the official announcement of his Marvel exclusive contract, Ryan’s the most down-to-earth guy you could imagine with a great sense of humor and perspective on his fortunes. We had a blast talking about comics, sports, travel, and heckling each other at every opportunity.

During a lull in the afternoon, I walked across the aisle to Mike’s table and had the opportunity to get to know him better. I had briefly met him at Wizard World last year, but was able to talk with him for a long while at Summit City about all-ages comics (a topic I love) and he was interested in hearing about Deus ex Comica (or at least humored me with polite questions).

I also had a chance to wander the floor every now and again when I could recruit Chad to man my table. (Both Ryan and I were impressed with Chad’s sales skills. At one point I was chatting with Steve Bryant at his table, and I looked over at my table to see Chad closing a sale for one of my books! I immediately had to run back over to thank the guy and sign the copy for him.) I really wanted to say hello to Jim Rugg and let him know how much I enjoyed Afrodisiac. I’m always still amazed when someone I don’t know personally knows about my book, so I was kind of floored when Jim said he’d heard of it. We talked about Pittsburgh (where he lives), the local comic shops there, and his AdHouse books publisher. Very cool guy, very cool conversation.

As I was making my way over to Jim’s table, I was stopped by Jay Sternitzky who asked me if I was the same guy who is on the Marvel Noise podcast. When I told him I was, he said he’d heard my voice and recognized it immediately and that he really enjoyed my contributions to the podcast. He also insisted on hooking me up with a copy Short-Stack: Tales of a Super-Human Plumber #1, the comic he writes and letters and that his brother draws and colors. I glanced through it, and it’s visually stunning, along with the Summit City exclusive ash-can of Jay’s other book, The Skeptic. I’m looking forward to sitting down to give them a good read.

Between the pre- and post-show parties and the con itself, I also had a chance to meet a bunch of forum and Twitter folk, like Jim Nelson (How have we not met before now?!), Jonathan “Jonny the Homicidal Drummer” Westhoff, George Cavalenes, and Mike Schwartz.

The ever-present Chris Neseman stopped by our tables multiple times throughout the day to scare off customers. In the final hours of the show, Chris hooked me up with Patrick from Challengers Comics + Conversation, who was attending the show as a vendor. Patrick graciously agreed to take some promotional postcards for Deus ex Comica for his Chicago store and ended up buying a copy of my book, too. I’m looking forward to stopping in to see him on my future trips to the Windy City.

I have always enjoyed talking with Steve Bryant. We had a chance to catch up and talked at the pre-party the night before about selecting my Athena Voltaire original art page that is one of the incentives at the level I pledged to his Kickstarter program. When I could get away on Saturday, I had fun picking out my page from Steve’s Athena Voltaire portfolio. He actually had the page I chose with him, handed it over to me, and told me to go ahead and take it now. What a great piece of art and well worth the money pledged to his cause.

After the show wound down, I packed up the considerably lighter stack of my books, thanked Zack on the way out for a great day, and headed back to Chad and Heather’s house to say good-bye to Mike and Aimee and decompress before heading out for dinner, then over to the after-party at J.K. O’Donnell’s. The place was hopping by the time we got there. Shawn and I had a chance to compare notes on the successes of the day and make plans to take over the world… or at least figure out how to help each other out as we find our places in this medium we love.

Chris, Steve, Jim, Zack, Dave, Hilary, Amber, Andy, and I’m going to forget people if I continue this list… were all there, too. It was a good ending to a fabulous day.

The next morning, after Star Wars pancakes courtesy of Williams-Sonoma and Heather, I packed up my car, said my good-byes to the Seewalds and Kramers, and headed east toward home a little bit exhausted, but it was the kind of exhaustion that can only follow a really good weekend.

Hat Trick

I have talented friends. I’ve said this over and over the last few years as I’ve gotten to know people in the comic book community. I am impressed every time I discover another friend who makes these books I love. So I set out last week to read collections by my friends...

I started things off with Shawn Pryor’s Mercury and the Murd, Volume 1: Collateral Damages. Now this was a lot of fun! Think buddy cop movie with a little bit of sci-fi tech thrown in. Shawn is the writer of Mercury and the Murd, so unlike the other two books I read there is a certain kinship I feel towards Shawn as a fellow writer. I picked up this trade from Shawn while at the Pittsburgh Comicon a few weeks back, and it came with a CD of music he composed as a soundtrack to the book. That Shawn is a writer, comic producer, and composes music just floors me. Surrounding myself with ridiculously (multi) talented people like Shawn is a humbling yet inspiring way to go through life. (As a bonus, the cover to issue #6 was drawn by the ever-awesome Andy Jewett. Double prizes!)

Next up was a re-read: creator and artist Steve Bryant’s Athena Voltaire: Flight of the Falcon. I got this from Steve at Wizard World Chicago last year when I traded him for a copy of Deus ex Comica: The Rebirth of a Comic Book Fan. I have wanted to revisit the book since pledging to Steve’s Kickstarter project a few weeks ago to help fund the next Athena Voltaire miniseries (the campaign ends May 25, so there’s still time to get in on this). The book has a great Indiana Jones vibe – Nazis, 1930s pulp adventure, supernatural artifacts... it’s all good stuff!

Lastly, I read Blacklisted. This one’s drawn by Pat Loika. Adam Witt’s story of conspiracy theories and secret government organizations is a really original tale that doesn’t spoon-feed the reader. Pat’s art is sparse, gritty, focused, and appropriate for the story being told. It’s a self-contained one-and-done that will challenge you without talking down to you.

Two-thirds of these creators – Shawn and Steve – will be at the Summit City Comic Con with me this Saturday in Fort Wayne. Visit with them there and pick up your own copies of Mercury and the Murd and Athena Voltaire. And if you can’t make it to Summit City, or want to get your hands on Blacklisted, you can find all these guys online. Pat is a fellow regular on Marvel Noise as well as producing his own podcast called Loikamania, and Shawn has his PKD Black Box podcast. For a bonus, check out episode #24 of Black Box for Shawn’s chat with special guest Steve Bryant!

Reading these three books back-to-back-to-back over the course of three or four days was incredibly entertaining. Whatever your pleasure – comedy-action, adventure, or dark intrigue – there’s something here for everyone! Check out these great books and support independent comic book creators!