Post by Van Plexico on Sept 5, 2006 22:16:14 GMT -5
PART 2: SATURDAY CONTINUES
I headed to the Comics Track room to check in with
the ever delightful Ray Rappaport, director. (Let me also say that I
thought Sue Phillips in "SF Literature" did a wonderful job, too--both
top-notch directors.) Turns out I had been scheduled to do my annual
"State of Marvel Comics and Avengers" address on FRIDAY. Oooookay.
Not Ray's idea-- he knew I wasn't there yet. But he said several
people were asking where I was and were disappointed. Good to know
that after a decade of doing this stuff, a few people actually missed
me when I wasn't there on Friday! :-)
Marvel vs DC Jeopardy was the 7 pm event-- Ray calls it (and me!) "a
DragonCon institution," and that makes me proud. And good lord, but
we had a turnout! The entire Trinidad-Madrid room was overflowing,
and when I called for contestants, we filled the entire front of the
room, with a line going down the middle isle. Probably 45 people
wanted to play!
Now, I was in no way prepared for this. My usual method is to go one
by one, asking questions with single elimination. But there was no
time for this, with so many people. So we came up with a new method
to pare down the field. "I will ask a question of everyone; the
answer is A or B. Close your eyes, raise your hand for A, don't raise
it for B."
First question everyone got right. Second question, everyone got
wrong! Amazing. Third question knocked us down to about 20 people.
Fourth question--something involving Bloodwraith-- took us precisely
to the three we needed! So we were all set.
After a good, solid, competitive match, the winner (Mike) defeated the
guy in the Doctor Strange outfit (I just called him Doc-- think his
name actually was Seamus). Winner got some cool stuff donated by my
stalwart assistant, George Kopec (thanks as always, George!), and the
biggest loser got a copy of my SENTINELS book. :-)
(In fact, I gave away or sold most of my remaining copies of
SENTINELS. Very pleased about that. Time to order more for myself.
And next year, I'll have at least two, if not three, volumes with me.
As I was advised to do by a pro writer at Trinoc-Con this year, I kept
a copy standing in front of me on the table of my various panels.
When I did the second one in SF Lit, a young lady in the audience
shouted, "YES, WE'LL BUY YOUR BOOK, OKAY??" hahaha)
Somewhere in here I ran into writer Terri Osborne, and got a really nice hug
from her, along with getting to chat with her for the first time in
years (probably since our old Babylon 5 track days). I warned her I
was looking for her boyfriend, my pal Keith DeCandido-- I had been writing
"THE BANDITO!" beside his name on the boards outside the rooms where
he was listed as a panelist. Old-school Jarvis-Heads will appreciate this.
The final panel of the day-- and by this point I was just a zombie,
not having slept or showered or shaved in two days-- was "Dead
Authors' Society." How appropriate. But it went really well, I
think. Larry Davis and James Palmer (I don't have my notes handy) played the role
of Isaac Asimov and KM Kornbluth-- Larry did this great "superior" riff with
Asimov, very entertaining-- while Dawn Benton covered an author I'm
not familiar with, who has slipped my mind. But all three did
wonderfully. RevolutionSF's Joe Crowe played the role of Robert E. "Two Gun Bob"
Howard, CONAN creator, and he was hilarious-- "Fightin' and
killin'!!"-- as anyone who knows Joe would have expected. I was Roger
Zelazny, and spent half my time talking about poetry and immortality
and mythology and stuff, and the other half trying to set Joe up with
"Robert E. Howard" jokes. I ended with a line to the effect of,
"Today Greg Betancourt is making money off my characters, and Steven
Brust is making money off my style." That got a nice laugh. I think
it all came off well.
It was one of the better days I can remember at this con. Though I
was sleep deprived, dirty, and worn out, the three panels were all
successful and well-attended, and seemed to entertain the crowds.
Then it was back to the hotel, to crash and sleep for nine glorious
hours, shower, etc.
CONCLUDED IN PART THREE: THE SECOND RINGO PANEL, AND MARVEL/AVENGERS UPDATE!
I headed to the Comics Track room to check in with
the ever delightful Ray Rappaport, director. (Let me also say that I
thought Sue Phillips in "SF Literature" did a wonderful job, too--both
top-notch directors.) Turns out I had been scheduled to do my annual
"State of Marvel Comics and Avengers" address on FRIDAY. Oooookay.
Not Ray's idea-- he knew I wasn't there yet. But he said several
people were asking where I was and were disappointed. Good to know
that after a decade of doing this stuff, a few people actually missed
me when I wasn't there on Friday! :-)
Marvel vs DC Jeopardy was the 7 pm event-- Ray calls it (and me!) "a
DragonCon institution," and that makes me proud. And good lord, but
we had a turnout! The entire Trinidad-Madrid room was overflowing,
and when I called for contestants, we filled the entire front of the
room, with a line going down the middle isle. Probably 45 people
wanted to play!
Now, I was in no way prepared for this. My usual method is to go one
by one, asking questions with single elimination. But there was no
time for this, with so many people. So we came up with a new method
to pare down the field. "I will ask a question of everyone; the
answer is A or B. Close your eyes, raise your hand for A, don't raise
it for B."
First question everyone got right. Second question, everyone got
wrong! Amazing. Third question knocked us down to about 20 people.
Fourth question--something involving Bloodwraith-- took us precisely
to the three we needed! So we were all set.
After a good, solid, competitive match, the winner (Mike) defeated the
guy in the Doctor Strange outfit (I just called him Doc-- think his
name actually was Seamus). Winner got some cool stuff donated by my
stalwart assistant, George Kopec (thanks as always, George!), and the
biggest loser got a copy of my SENTINELS book. :-)
(In fact, I gave away or sold most of my remaining copies of
SENTINELS. Very pleased about that. Time to order more for myself.
And next year, I'll have at least two, if not three, volumes with me.
As I was advised to do by a pro writer at Trinoc-Con this year, I kept
a copy standing in front of me on the table of my various panels.
When I did the second one in SF Lit, a young lady in the audience
shouted, "YES, WE'LL BUY YOUR BOOK, OKAY??" hahaha)
Somewhere in here I ran into writer Terri Osborne, and got a really nice hug
from her, along with getting to chat with her for the first time in
years (probably since our old Babylon 5 track days). I warned her I
was looking for her boyfriend, my pal Keith DeCandido-- I had been writing
"THE BANDITO!" beside his name on the boards outside the rooms where
he was listed as a panelist. Old-school Jarvis-Heads will appreciate this.
The final panel of the day-- and by this point I was just a zombie,
not having slept or showered or shaved in two days-- was "Dead
Authors' Society." How appropriate. But it went really well, I
think. Larry Davis and James Palmer (I don't have my notes handy) played the role
of Isaac Asimov and KM Kornbluth-- Larry did this great "superior" riff with
Asimov, very entertaining-- while Dawn Benton covered an author I'm
not familiar with, who has slipped my mind. But all three did
wonderfully. RevolutionSF's Joe Crowe played the role of Robert E. "Two Gun Bob"
Howard, CONAN creator, and he was hilarious-- "Fightin' and
killin'!!"-- as anyone who knows Joe would have expected. I was Roger
Zelazny, and spent half my time talking about poetry and immortality
and mythology and stuff, and the other half trying to set Joe up with
"Robert E. Howard" jokes. I ended with a line to the effect of,
"Today Greg Betancourt is making money off my characters, and Steven
Brust is making money off my style." That got a nice laugh. I think
it all came off well.
It was one of the better days I can remember at this con. Though I
was sleep deprived, dirty, and worn out, the three panels were all
successful and well-attended, and seemed to entertain the crowds.
Then it was back to the hotel, to crash and sleep for nine glorious
hours, shower, etc.
CONCLUDED IN PART THREE: THE SECOND RINGO PANEL, AND MARVEL/AVENGERS UPDATE!
