Hey bros.
I’m back on the East Coast in New Jersey. Land of crispy bread, excellent cheesesteaks and strange smells. The last day in L.A. was pretty long. It started at 8am. Hopped in my rental car and got the experience the “joy” that is driving the 110. (And you thought blowjobs were good!) Oh, wait, sarcasm doesn’t work on a blog. Let me rephrase that. Driving sucks in L.A. Still at 8am, it wasn’t so bad. Got to the con early, grabbed some overpriced Starbucks Iced Tea and hit the floor.
Brother Hollywood had an early meeting (and by meeting, he meant hike with movie execs) in the hills, so I moved my table and manned both mine and the Silent Devil booth. It was pretty slow in the morning. Finally, 12:30 rolled around and Brother Hollywood squeak in just in time to do our panel with Ahmet and Ken Levin. Ken has put together many comic book movies and worked on such current movies as Wanted and Hellboy. He also worked on the Road to Perdition. He had a pretty impressive list of creds, I must say. The panel, which I moderated, was called something like “Turning your graphic novel into a movie”. We answered a lot of questions and had a lot of fun. Most of the room was pretty shy about getting advice, but they seemed to have a few pointed questions about moving their work to the big screen. (And as I always say, “Build a webcomic!”)
After wolfing down a few convention hot dogs, I went back to the table and sold stuff with Brother Inappropriate, who had been holding the line. Of course, the moment we left, he had to go to the bathroom. Fortunately, James and Karen stopped by and Brother Inappropriate, who had never met them, was like, “Wait, you know Tony? Stay here, I have to go to the bathroom.” And off he went before they even answered.
There were lots of movie people in the room shopping for the next comic book hit. I gave away a couple of books, but I was mostly out of my back stock by that point. (The backstock being Jersey Devil, Fix and The Travelers). Sad to say, but I got to let it go for a $1 a pop because my basement is just too full. Happily, though, it’s getting into the hands of fans, which I like.
The show ended and we had the usual Geneva Convention-type negotiations on where to eat. Chris Moreno was there, but he was busy helping Tommy Castillo break down his table. I inducted Ahmet in the frat as Brother Thunderdick and Brother Homewrecker’s buddy Hal as Brother Chimo. So, Brothers Inappropriate, Hollywood, Homewrecker, Thunderdick and Chimo went to Roy’s for some Hawaiian Fusion cuisine. Pretty awesome ribs, sushi and other goodies.
After that, it was then I had to part ways with the bros. We shared a few non-gay hugs. I was kinda sad because they were going to see Doomsday without me, then I read Brother Inappropriate’s blog on myspace. Dropped off my car and hopped the redeye back to Philly. It’s cold here, 33 degrees, but at least the bread is good. Plus, this is where all my stuff is. I’m back to waiting for some word on our secret project, making comics, zombie movies and the like. Hopefully, I’ll have something to announce before the US economy collapses. (Remember to hoard your canned food, folks!) Look for a new strip this week, the pics from Los Angeles and more news to come. And soon (I think I finally talked him into doing it) Chris Moreno will be blogging here. We’ll be just like the guys on Penny Arcade!
