cwisnia

diary entry: February 23-25, 2007, part two

NEAL ADAMS

I went and spoke with Neal Adams, who was proudly announcing he’d be working on a Batman book with Frank Miller. Wow, what a combination.
While I waited in line, I heard him talking about how he was supposed to have done a Mad Magazine story some time ago, but it never happened. He said it had sounded like it was all lined up, and then he couldn’t get the go-ahead, and finally he surmised that it must have been Gaines who put the kibosh on it. He decided it must have been because Gaines always insisted he keep the original art of all the stories, and at that time Neal had been a real fighter against publishers keeping the art. The argument he used was, “Did you pay me sales tax?” Neal said, that’s how an item is purchased from someone. You have to pay sales tax. If you didn’t pay the tax, you don’t own the item, and that’s how original art should be treated by publishers.

I introduced myself as the guy who’d spoken with him about the Skeptic Society at the San Diego Con. Previously, when we’d met, it had been a nice subject of conversation, but this time it seemed perhaps they’d had another exchange that wasn’t pleasant for him, and he wasn’t as warm about the subject.

I told him he’d said we could take a picture at that previous con, and we’d never had the opportunity, and he invited me behind the table for a photo.

UPSTAIRS DOWNSTAIRS

The con was set up with the main floor downstairs, and the artist alley upstairs. When my friend and I had gotten to the con, we walked in downstairs and looked everywhere for that artist alley, and finally had to ask someone. After they told us, we still thought it was tough to find. It didn’t seem particularly well-labeled, and it was easy to walk past. I wondered if anyone would find their way up there.

What the area had going for it was that Brian Bolland, David Mack, Tony Harris, Michael Avon Oeming, Rob Liefeld, Walt Simonson, Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti, Bill Sienkiewicz – a literal hall of fame – were upstairs in this area. That ended up being more than enough to get everyone up to the second floor.

Downstairs were the comic shops, and publishers like DC, Darkhorse, Oni, Top Shelf. It was a fair amount of work getting downstairs if I wanted to see anyone.

I popped over to the Oni booth, because Stephen Colbert was listed as a guest at the con. He had a comic coming out through Oni of his Tek Jansen Adventures. I got there I think around noon, and I asked if there was any chance I might be able to meet Mr. Colbert. They said, Nope. They had 75 tickets that they gave out, and those tickets disappeared immediately. They said they were supposed to give the tickets out to the public, but someone handed them all out to all the industry folks this morning. They said even some comics celebrities had poked around asking about tickets, but they weren’t even able to do favors for any of them.

Stephen, I guess, got driven in, bustled to a private back room with his guards, met these seventy-five people and signed Tek Jansen posters, and then took off. Quick and easy. Shucks.

Supposedly Stephen King was at the con somewhere too, but I never heard anything about that.

Stan Lee was there too. I had emailed his representative to see if there was any chance I might be able to get something signed, but I never heard back. I assume he’s VERY busy.

Before the con, I saw at the website that Heavy Metal Magazine would have a booth at the con. I had emailed Simon Bisley to see if he would be coming out to New York. Of course, I never heard back from Simon. I checked at the booth once, but it looked like a very small booth, and not like one that artists would be sitting at.