New York Comic Con: Bring the Pain

Well I tried. I worked up my sense of childish wonder and planned on going to my first comic con in about six or seven years. I had been getting e-mails from WizardWorld (though their name isn't actually on the con) for about a month to buy advance tickets but I knew better than that. I don't know how it is with comic cons around the country but my experience with the ones in NYC is that they will take your money and run. No advance tickets for me because too many things can go wrong (and have) and they will already have your money. Plus I still would have to pick up my tickets at the box office and have to wait in line to get them.

My buddy John came down from the northlands to pick me up and we drove into the big city. An uneventful drive and a price jacked parking lot latter we were hitting the Javitz Center. The show started at 11:00 AM and it was 1:00 PM when we arrived. There was a long line of people on the outside of the Center but about 6 out of 10 of them were female so we knew that couldn't be the comic con line. John asked a woman with a comic con badge where the line was. That is when we found out that the fire marshal threatened to close them down and there were no more tickets being sold for that day. Wonderful.

This wasn't even my first fire marshal comic con closing. Back in the early 90's when they held conventions at one of those big NYC hotels I was at two in a row that the marshals shut down. But I was already inside those ones. I'm not sure if the fire marshal closings were what directly lead to the end of the big NYC comic cons but that is what I heard back in the day. It couldn't have helped anyway.

We walked aimlessly away from the Javitz Center and got on the blower and tell our friend Ed what had happened. He was supposed to meet us at the con. Ed had purchased his ticket earlier that week at Midtown comics and was anxious to see if they would let him in.

For consolation John and I headed off to a nearby comic shop; Jim Hanley's Universe. So did a lot of people who couldn't get into the con because they were crowded and we stayed only briefly.

Next we wandered midtown until we hit the NY public library (the famous one with the lions out front) and saw they had a show of maps. The map show was good. It was free too.

Then we waited for Ed. As disappointed as John and I were with the day Ed was even more so. He had already paid for his $25 ticket. He met us on the library steps and told us how they wouldn't let him in nor would they give him his money back. He was told it was a five hour wait to get in. This was at 1:30 PM for a show that ended at 7:00 PM. Do the math. They were willing to take his ticket and mail him a refund but this is NYC the rip off capital of the country so he wasn't falling for that one. Midtown Comics, the place he purchased the ticket from, was Ed's next destination. They just didn't care there either. 25 bucks down the crapper.

The pain didn't end there. We decided to go see a movie. There was nothing out that any of us really wanted to see so we just picked one starting soon. I don't go to the movies very often so this might not be that bold a statement but it was the worst movie I have ever sat through in a theatre. It was "The New World" and it was long, boring, pointless and ugly. Stay away. I came out of there with a headache.

To end on a positive note I had some good pizza afterwards. Of course that was after I got home so there was no reason to actually hit NYC that day. Uh-oh, I think I lost my positive note. Maybe I'll try again in 6 or 7 more years.

New comics I got this week.

I just got back from the shop and I got four new comics. Two regulars: Usagi Yojimbo #91, The Savage Dragon #123 and two first issues. I got issue #1 of the relaunch of the Warlord from DC. Bruce Jones is writing it which is good and Bart Sears is drawing it which isn't as good. But I'll give it a try. I also got The Portent #1 from Image. It's by a writer/artist who I have never heard of but it looks good so another gets a try this week.

Question of the Day #4

Would Superman's preference for women with the initials LL (Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Lori Lemaris) be considered a fetish? Does he go to websites dedicated to LL girls? Is he just not attracted to women without those initials? Does love at first sight exist for him or is it love at first learning her name? Chime in.

Musical Time Travel

There is something to be said about context when listening to pre-recorded music. The specific context being what that music is played on. I appreciate good sound equipment but I am not an audiophile. I've never had a really good stereo system; mine have usually been made from hand me downs and cannibalized parts of previous systems. I've had some good boom boxes in my day and my sound systems have always been good enough for me to enjoy my music on but nothing to make an audiophile squeal.

I do insist on a good pair of headphones. I never listen to the ones that come with the Walkman, Discman or iPod. But the context I want to talk about is not Hi-Fi but Lo-Fi.

My musical tastes are as broad as my sound systems have been and there is an interesting convergence at one particular sound system. My little Panasonic RQ A200 cassette player. It is a Walkman style cassette player with two little speakers built right into the front of it. The speakers are tinny little Lo-Fi jobs that are great for one thing; listening old Lo-Fi recordings. Especially big band swing from the 30s and 40s.

I've listened to the same music on my Hi-Fi systems, and there is nothing wrong with that, it is just that the music sounds more authentic on the Lo-Fi system. That is how people originally heard these recordings. They take me back in time to the early days of radio where everyone only got a peek at what it was like to hear the big bands play. It is not really what a live band sounded like but it is how a lot of people heard them; wishing they could have the band in front of them.

A favorite trick of period filmmakers is to have some one listening to a big band on a Lo-Fi radio and then cut to a scene of the actual big band in all its Hi-Fi glory; thus emphasizing how people were only getting a small fraction of the musical experience. But I find that small fraction fascinating. With today's Hi-Fi technology you can feel like you are right there with our modern musicians as they record. We always have them right beside us. When I am listening on my Lo-Fi system I feel like I'm hearing something ephemeral. A moment from the past where people were out having a good time listening to a live big band and I am with all those other people listening at their radios. We are all longing to hit the clubs and listen to Jimmie Lunceford, Glen Miller or Tommy Dorsey swing our blues away.

And speaking of blues I also like to listen to old blues recordings on my Low-Fi Panasonic.

So remember to play your music on a variety of machines and you might just hear something new in that old stuff.

Comics I Bought This Week

The drought continues as I only got two comics this week. Conan #25 and Red Sonja #6. I fear these two may fall off in the coming months as Sonja #5 was pretty mediocre and Conan is losing its writer, Kurt Busiek, after two more issues. I need some recomendations for new comics.

Lamenting the Death of the Mix Tape

I have an iPod just like everyone else. It is not a big fancy one but when I need music on the go it's ready to rock 'n roll. I also have my entire CD collection on my hard drive as mp3s. I almost exclusively listen to music played on my computer or iPod. I fully embrace the digital age. It offers a lot of flexibility and ease of use. But one thing is missing. The mix tape.

I had an occasion to drive my sister's car today which has a tape player in it. I never purchased one of those contraptions that plays the iPod over the radio so I grabbed an old mix tape made by my friend Bunch (of The Vault of Bunchness). As I was driving along really grooving to the tape I began to feel a little nostalgic. I'm sure some of it was because of the music but some of the nostalgia was because of the format. The mix tape.

What makes the mix tape special is twofold:

1) Ease of use. You pop the tape in and let it go. It's linear and plays in the right order no matter what. As easy as mp3s are, in general, to use if some one were to give me the same songs digitally with a playlist I would have to copy them to my hard drive, integrate them into my music library, i.e. put them some place so I know where they are, and then load up the playlist and start from the beginning (make sure it's not on shuffle). Not terribly demanding but not pop in the tape easy. Also, integrating them into the music library can be daunting depending how big and complex the library is. Even if not daunting sometimes I don't want to bother trying to find a place for new music I've never heard before and may never even listen to more than once. If once. It is actually a little harder to keep order in a digital music collection than a cd collection.

2) Someone has thought about the music. Making a mix tape takes hours and the person making it is thinking about the music the whole time. If a person bothers to put together a mix tape it is because he cares about the music, how it is presented and how it fits together. What song goes first? How do I follow it up? How do I stop some one from being bored and turning it off in the middle? To make a mix tape is to share the love of music. People put so much time and care into mix tapes that they consider them little works of art.

Oh, and that thing I mentioned two paragraphs above about sharing music digitally with a playlist, well it never happens. People swap music all the time but it is usually, "Oh, you like Bob Dylan, well here are 15 albums". I don't know anyone who makes a mix playlist and mp3s to pass around. People play their mp3 players on shuffle rather than make a playlist. It is easier. Now if some on says, "Wow, you gotta check out this band" they drop forty song on your hard drive and who has got the time to listen to forty of an unfamiliar band's songs? They just sit there. Unlistened to. Not so with a mix tape. Pop it in and let it run.

Mixed cds enjoyed a brief period of popularity but mp3s soon took over. All of the people I know who made mix tapes have stopped making them. The technology of the cassette tape is dead but nothing has replaced the communication tool that was the mix tape. I knew him, Horatio.

For your information here was the mix tape I was listening to Named "Rejoice! The Vault Re-opened 8/30/96":
Fields of Fire by Big Country
Telepathy by Lene Lovich
Full of Love by Dr. Calculus
Don't Box Me In by Stanard Ridgway
Marguya by The Trashwomen
Pants by Randy Newman
Sparkling Brown Eyes by Wanda Jackson
I'm Nin'Alu by Ofra Haza
Attack of the Molemen by The Dickies
Jungle Boy by Bow Wow Wow
Praying Hands by Clawhammer
Chu! Chu! Chu! by Carna Beats
The Monkey's Uncle by Annette Funicello & The Beach Boys
Digital Tenderness by Adam and The Ants
Spinderella's not a Fella by Salt 'n' Peppa
Mr. X and Mr. Z Drink Old Gold by Mr. X and Mr. Z
Beats to the Rhyme by Run -DMC
Something Inside Me Has Died by Kommunsty FK
My Work Is so Behind by The Residents

And that is just side one.

Comics I bought this week

Another slow week for me at the comic shop. I only bought one comic: Jonah Hex #4. I also picked up Back Issue magazine #7. That came out in Dec 2004 before bought it regularly. I, once again, recommend Back Issue magazine.

Dancing in the Footsteps of the Past

I've been working on a mutli-year project to scan in all of the 35mm negatives of my photos. They go back to about 1985 or so and it has been quite a big project. It involves a lot of loading negatives one strip at a time into my scanner, labeling them and organizing them by time and place. It take a lot of energy and stamina. I expected that. What I didn't expect is how much emotional stamina it would take.

Digging through one's one past via photographs can be a difficult experience. What makes it so difficult is that photos are usually taken during happy times. I don't take photos during boring or miserable times. There are no picture of people sitting around moping. All the photos are of happy times. Friends and family gathered round for parties, get togethers, trips, holidays or whatever the occasion. Everybody and everything looks so shiny and fun in the photos. That past is one hell of a great place so how come the present doesn't hold up? That's the emotional question that takes it's toll.

It is not even a rational question. I'm no more depressed or unhappy now than I was then. In fact I'm generally a happy guy and tend to be an optimist but pain in the present is right here and now and pain in the past tends to fade. And with no photos of the past pain it is soon forgotten (unless it's severe and traumatic but that is another thing entirely).

So it can be depressing giving constant attention to the happy photos of days gone by. Even as I smile some part of me asks, "why can't every day be like a party" and resents that it isn't. Even though I know I'm looking backwards through rose colored glasses part of me feels that they were better times. It is a tough thing. The present is full of the mundane details of life and we all have to deal with them. Exciting is so much better than mundane. But I'm finally almost finished.

Comics I bought this week

I only bought one comic this week. Red Sonja #5.
Speaking of Red I give a thumbs down to last weeks Red Sonja vs Thulsa Doom #1



So what comics did you get this week?
I just read Back Issue #14. It's a magazine about old comics series and has interviews with the creators. Unlike all the magazines about current comics, which are mostly press realeases and ass kissing, this magazine can be more honest about which comics are good or bad. I get to learn about some old comics that I've never read and read about some of my favorites. Lots of behind the scene remembrances by the creators involved.