New York Comic Con Report

So Charlie and I hit the road at 4:30AM and made it to the Javits Center around 9:30 or so, at which point we had been in five states in five hours. Which may not be legal.

There was a massive line of people waiting to get in, but it seemed shorter and moved faster than last year. There were an impressive number of costumes, some unfortunate, some obscure, and one Spock whose ears were so well done they may have actually been a birth defect.

I actually managed to forego lunch while I was there, subsisting on bottled water and granola bars, so by the time we hit the 4:14 train back to Jersey I was pretty wiped out, being on my feet with several heavy bags for a good seven hours. But at least I decided to leave my Absolute Watchmen at home.

Especially since Dave Gibbons wasn't signing til today.

So here's the highlights:

I spent a good portion of the first hour trying to get a couple of things for Maria. I'm still not quire sure what they are. Go visit her. She can tell you.

Picked up a handful of books: The Brian Azarello Joker graphic novel, the second volume of Darwyn Cooke's Spirit comics, and Ben Templesmith's book about The Presidents.

Met Templesmith and got a quick sketch of the tenth Doctor for Mathilda.

Began my ridiculous quest to get the 20th Anniversary Sandman poster signed by as many of the artists as I can. So far I've gotten Colleen Doran and Kevin Nowlan to sign it. More at Baltimore in October.

Got the remainder of my Final Crisis issues signed by JG Jones and a quick pencil sketch of Wonder Woman for Mathilda. Refrained from telling him that his contribution to Final Crisis 7 was the best part of the issue.

Looked in vain for Darwyn Cooke.

Forgot to actually see how long the lines were Garth Ennis.

Met Jerry Robinson, who may or may not have created The Joker. Got two editions of The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told signed for a friend of mine and a copy for me. Also got him to sign one of my teaser posters for The Dark Knight.

Also got the Dark Knight poster signed by producer Michael Uslan (At this point it has been signed by one person named "Michael" and another named "Robinson." Go figure.). Also got it signed by Bill Sienkiewicz, who did a lot of character design for The Joker, and picked up his sketchbook of the work he did for it.

And I got presents for Tilda.

DC was giving away Wonder Woman tiaras to promote the upcoming animated movie, so I picked one up for her.

And I got her a huge remote-controlled Dalek. It is belligerant and it kinda freaked Tilda out a bit when I showed it to her this morning by having it go towards her screaming "Exterminate!" as she came out of her room. But she was smiling, so it's all good.

But I am exhausted and my eyes are still bloodshot.

And I'm still taking Tilda to Coraline this afternoon.

Can't wait to go back to work tomorrow.

Thirteen Things I'm Looking Forward to in 2009

1. The beginning of the end for Scrubs and Battlestar Galactica (January) - I know that Lost and 24 are both back this month, but those two have at least one more season to go while these two are heading towards their conclusions. The final episode of Scrubs sounds mind-blowing and I don't know anything about it other than practically every character who has even been on the show should make an appearance. And as for Battlestar Galactica, I'm convinced that John Hodgman is the final Cylon. He's already all over tv saying he's a computer.

2. Henry Selick's Coraline (February 6) - The coolest thing about this right now is over on Neil Gaiman's blog he seems to be geeking out about the movie as though he wasn't the guy who wrote the book it was based on. I can't wait to take Tilda to this one.

3. Watchmen (March 6?) - The first thing on this list not featuring John Hodgman. Hopefully Fox will allow us to see it in March. And hopefully I'll only be a little disappointed by it.

4. The Decemberists' Hazards of Love (March 24) - It's a rock opera. And the one song I heard from it during Colin Meloy's solo show last year was sick and brilliant. Songs about murdering children really shouldn't be funny. But this one was.

5. Elvis Perkins in Dearland's currently untitled second album (Spring) - Just found out about this and I've heard the first and last songs when he was touring for Ash Wednesday. Probably won't be happy, but it should be good.

6. Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol 3: Century (Spring) - The first volume "What Keeps Mankind Alive" is due out in April and is apparently a musical. Volumes 1 and 2 are some of my all-time favorite comics and although The Black Dossier was a bit of a letdown, I'm looking forward to these.

7. Disney/Pixar's Up (May 29) - It's Pixar and it has nothing to do with Cars, so I'll probably like, if not love, it. And based on the trailer before Bolt, the 3-D effects look incredible.

8. The four 2009 Doctor Who TV specials - I just got into Doctor Who and though I have no idea when they'll air in the US I should be caught up with the series by the time they do. And then I'll get excited about Stephen Moffett (who wrote "The Girl in the Fireplace" and "Blink") taking over the show in 2010.

9. Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds (August 21) - The release date was announced yesterday. Tarantino doing World War II with Greg Nicotero in charge of makeup effects. Can't wait.

10. Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (September) - Heath Ledger's last movie and Tom Waits as the Devil. Throw in Gilliam and stir. I have no idea if it'll be any good, but at least there will be a Gilliam movie in more theaters than showed Tideland. (Bonus points if you've even heard of that one.)

11. Untitled Neil Gaiman nonfiction book about China (Fall) - Dunno anything about it, but it's Gaiman, so it should be interesting.

12. John Hillcoat's The Road (Fall?) - This should be no fun at all.

13. John Waters' Fruitcake (December) - John Waters doing a holiday children's movie. With Johnny Knoxville. Probably the most wholesomely freaky thing since David Lynch released a G-Rated movie through Disney.

Something or Other

So I'm home today with Mathilda and the twenty-four hour vom-a-thon. Started around four AM. She's miserable and I'm exhausted. But Jamee has to go to work and teach tonight, so she'll probably be even worse off.

Recently Tilda's been watching a lot of movie trailers. She's obsessed with the one for Pixar's Up, and has been watching it as part of her nightly bedtime ritual. If you can tell how the boyscout got on the porch, please let me know.

She's also been wanting to watch "Joker Movie," which translates to the two trailers for The Dark Knight. There's no way I'm letting her watch teh full movie, but she seems really taken with The Joker, most likely due to Halloween. But last night, unprompted, she said "Why so serious" while we were having dinner and it was the creepiest thing in the world. So we're probably going to have to cut back on that one.

But today, one of the few things that makes her happy is the trailer for Coraline, which just got posted yesterday. It's a little more colorful that I was expecting, and there's a few too many things coming towards the camera because it's in 3-D effects, but I'm still going to take her to see it come February 6.

There's two posters out for it too. This one:


And a UK version that came out this week:


For once, I actually prefer the US version. I asked Tilda which one she liked better and she said that she liked "the scary one," though I think we have differing opinions on which one that would apply too.

Too bad I already got her the Other one.

Me Want

From Neil Gaiman's site.


If only I'd had one of these a week-and-a-half ago for the Hodgman event. Of course, carrying one more thing would have been a bitch.

Halloween post soon. Still recovering.

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.