Happy Halloween 2008

Preview for the long-awaited Dark Knight post:


Well, long awaited by Sara, at least. Won the costume contest at work yesterday. And I didn't even bother to do the face scars. More soon...

*And though I haven't watched this week's The Office yet, be advised that I was the only one.

The Magic Word is Hodgman

So I took Tilda to see John Hodgman at Politics and Prose last night. Which was kind of a mistake. About ten minutes into his thing, she decided that she would rather run around screaming. So we went outside. Just like for Neil Gaiman two years ago. For this, I will be traumatizing her with Coraline next February. In 3-D.

And to prove that I am completely stupid, we stayed for the signing, even though we were towards the end of the line. I had a pile of books - mine, two for a co-worker, and a couple of others for people who shall rename nameless who I don't believe are aware that this blog exists. But leaving would have made the whole trip to DC a waste of time. The line was long and slow, but Tilda was surprisingly good. She rode on my shoulders most of the time and appeared to entertain the woman behind me. At one point Tilda wanted to see her book and she asked what the magic word was and Tilda said:

Hodgman

I told him that when we got to the front. He seemed to think it was a good idea. He was very nice and made the whole thing worth it, though I am still sore from Tilda wrangling and lack of sleep. But the best part of the evening was when he was done signing my books and shook my hand. Tilda, still on my shoulders, leaned down and shook his hand too. The few people left in line said "awww" and it was incredibly cute. I wish I had a picture.

Maybe next time.

That is all.

Foresight

Of course, the scariest thing about this is when you notice the publication date.

Last Last Weekend, Part 2 (Now that Last weekend is no longer Last Weekend)

Whenever we travel, I like to eat at places I cannot easily get to where I live. It's a general rule and works out pretty well most of the time and is the primary reason that I didn't drink Starbucks once when we were in Seattle (Tully's rules, but still isn't as good as the coffee at Top Pot Doughnuts). As we reached the exit that we needed to take for Brad and Sara's we saw a huge billboard for a place called Biscuitville.

Looked a little kitschy. We had to try it.

The first morning we were prevented for venturing out to purchase biscuity goodness by Brad and Sara making a damn fine breakfast (including a damn fine blueberry tart thingy), which was nice and big and prevented us from getting too messed up at the World Beer Festival. Got some Indian food at the fest for lunch. Which was nice.

For dinner, we met up with some more friends at a lil family friendly diner in Durham called Elmo's. I got the jambalaya. I'd go back. Even though they never did bring my milkshake. But they didn't charge for it either.

On Sunday we were due to be brunching at Enotica Vin, a wine bar in Raleigh, but more on that later. Because first we went to Biscuitville. Or, Brad and I eventually got to Biscuitville. Because we got lost. Who knew that some streets in Mebane, NC, seem to randomly dead-end? But we got biscuits. And they were nice. And cheap.

And you know what, I'm going to wrap this up, because if there's two things I'm fairly inarticulate at writing about, it's music and food. It basically boils down to "Me like it, it good, you try" for both topics.

But it's good to know people who good places to eat.

And I will let Jamee talk about the barbeque.

Something's Bugging Me


This one's for Emily and Maria, because I know how much you love The Mist. Been trying to get this pic off my phone since August. Jamee finally succeeded tonight. Hoo-Ray.

Not sure whose head that is behind me.

Non-Beer Interlude

Now this is just cool. Man, I love The Goon.

Last Weekend, Part 1

So we went down to the World Beer Festival, Jamee, Mathilda and I. We stayed with my friends Brad and Sara, who are two of my favorite people in the world. And we saw my friend Sarah, and my friend-in-law Blair, and my friend Amy, and her daughter Yoko, who Mathilda adored. Kelly and Kevin were there too. All of them are some of my favorite people. Actually, I think everyone who's even aware of this blog counts as one of my favorite people, which fifteen years ago would have seems like an alien concept to me. You know, the actual long term liking of people. But then, I've known my friend Kevin since I was in ninth grade, which was eighteen years ago this month. And I've know my friend Jasper since I was in pre-school, so that's going back almost thirty years. Which blows my mind.

But there's really not that many people that I actively dislike, at least among people I know (and you know who you are, Mister). But I genuinely like people, which the fifteen year old me would find to be an alien concept, even if he did it too. I think it drives Jamee nuts.

I also like beer.

I had the privilege of not drinking in high school and most of college. Again, an alien concept. My first real beer was in Ireland and it was a Guinness and it was lovely. Most of the people in my group found it abhorrent. But it lead me towards the good stuff. I think the microbrew explosion of the 1990s was a wonderful thing and I love how you can find some really interesting things in the grocery store on the shelf next to Budweiser (except in Maryland, where you'll find neither in a grocery store).

The World Beer Festival was big and crowded and loud. And we brought a three year old. People were generally nice and the beer was nice too. I was especially fond of the Foothills Sexual Chocolate Stout (which we went back for too late to get more) and the Kuhnenn Fourth Dementia Olde Ale, which had a 13.5% ABV and was just fantastic, even though nobody else seemed to like it. I thought it was so good that I want to go to the Kuhnenn Brewery and Brewpub. It's only eight and a half hours away. And in Detroit.

Jamee really liked the New Holland Ichabod Pumpkin Ale. I bought her a shirt for it, but she can tell you more about that.

Coming soon - a trip to Biscuitville.

My Big Fat Geek Weekend

As Emily already pointed out on her blog, we did the geek thing this past weekend. The problem with being a geek is that sometimes multiple strands of your geekery converge and this year both the National Book Festival and the Baltimore Comic Con happened on the same weekend. Neil Gaiman was at the bookfest, signing at 1:00 and Mike Mignola was at Baltimore. I'd met them both previously, but Emily wanted to meet Mignola so we decided to do something crazy and do both in the same day.

So...

I got to the National Mall around 11:00 and bought The Graveyard Book and then headed over to camp out in the Gaiman line. As I said, I've met him before and this would be my fifth signing, so camping out is the thing to do. You may be waiting for a while, but it ultimately saves time in the long run and you usually meet some nice people.

Neil started scribbling on things at about 1:00 and by 1:35ish we'd gotten to the front of the line. Neil was nice, as usual, and scribbled on the new book, my UK American Gods, and my advanced reader's copy of Good Omens, which he said was in surprising good shape for a twenty year old ARC.

And then we turned around.

I estimate that we were about fifty people from the front of the line. On Neil's blog he says that there were approximately 1400 people there for him. I have never seen such a crowd. And he signed something for all of them. With a broken finger.

That is why I love Neil Gaiman.

So Emily and I rushed up to Baltimore, getting there at 3:30, about two and a half hours before the Comic Con was due to close. We headed straight for Mike Mignola and were amazed that there was no line. Emily got her stuff scribbled on and I got a pile of stuff signed. So then we walked around the place and from here I'm just going to combine the rest of Saturday and Sunday into one big pile.

If I was forced to name my five favorite comics artists, I'd probably have to go with:

1. Mike Mignola
2. Bernie Wrightson
3. Darwyn Cooke
4. Tim Sale
5. A constantly changing roster of about ten different people

All of these guys were there. To my amazement, Bernie Wrightson had no line at all during the weekend and you could just walk right up and talk to him. He was extremely approachable and a pleasure to talk to. He was selling production art from The Mist that was way out of my price range, but if I had a spare $200 to drop I would own the spider sketch. But I didn't, so I don't. He did sign my Mist poster and a couple of Stephen King books that he illustrated and I bought a lovely print of one of the illustrations he did for Frankenstein. I've loved his work since I was in high school and it was nice to meet someone whose work I've admired for so long and have him be as great as I'd hoped.

I feel like I almost took advantage of Mike Mignola. He signed a ton of stuff for me and he said that if he didn't want to sign things, then he wouldn't have been there. So I don't feel too bad about it. It's not like I'm going to sell all of it.

Eric Powell, who writes and draws The Goon, which you should read, was there too and drew a quick sketch of my favorite character, Willy Nagel, which will go up in the zombie dining room at some point.


The only real wait we had was for Tim Sale, which is understandable since he was only signing from 4-5 when we were there on Saturday because he was doing commission sketches for most of the day. I did get a pile of stuff signed and he drew the Batman jack-o-lantern in my Absolute Long Halloween.


Between Tim Sale and Darwyn Cooke I've now got all six issues of the Kryptonite story they did for Superman Confidential signed. Cooke was unfortunately sick, so I wasn't able to get him to do a sketch of Catwoman for Tilda like I'd hoped, but chances are I'll get to see him again. He's doing a tour next year to raise money for the Hero Initiative, so hopefully I'll be able to get a Catwoman sketch then, or a Wonder Woman, or anyone. His work is beautiful. Especially The New Frontier, which is one of the best graphic novels ever. It's as good as Watchmen. Jamee likes it better. And though he wasn't really sketching, he did draw a quick Hal Jordan in the clouds when he signed my Absolute New Frontier.


After ditching the massive hardcovers in my car, I swung back to see Steve Dillon, who drew Hellblazer, Preacher, and The Punisher. He was very nice (I've met two of the three main people who worked on Preacher - Steve Dillon and Glenn Fabry - and though they should by rights be degenerates, they were both lovely. I have not yet met Garth Ennis). And Dillon cleared up, for me at least, how John Contstantine's name should be pronounced: It's "tine" as in part of a fork, not "teen," as in someone who's older than twelve and younger than twenty.

He also drew me a sketch of the man. Note that he looks nothing like Keanu Reeves.


But the highlight of everything was meeting J.G. Jones. I only have the first three issues of Final Crisis that he drew, and they were giving out promo posters of the first four Final Crisis covers. I really didn't know much of his stuff, but what I'd seen I liked. So I brought my stuff that he drew with me as a last minute decision. And he turned out to be one of the nicest people I've ever met. Very friendly and generous - he even offered me a raisin chocolate chip cookie, which turned out to be the only think I ate between 9:00 and 3:30 on Sunday, but that's pretty much my fault. Still, 'twas a damn good cookie.

So now I'm a huge fan of the guy's stuff, and I'm adding his 52: The Covers to my X-Mas list and pretty much telling everyone to go check out his stuff. He does good work and seems like a genuinely good guy. Here's the image for the Supergirl poster - I got one signed for Mathilda and
one signed for Aurora:


Hopefully he'll be attending next year. That was a damn good cookie.