New York Comic Con 2011 Overview Part 2

Posted on 10/20/2011 by Pop-Culture Spectrum

Quick clarification… as the Tom Morello concert was over before 8 PM I ducked into Jim Hanley’s and got to get an awesome drawing from Eddy Barrows as part of a signing and say hello to long time friend Ian Brill who just happened to be in the store.

DAY TWO-FRIDAY

The morning consisted of walking more of the very large convention floor. The show this year took over the entire building, so it was a lot to explore, especially in between panels and meetings and press sessions. I got some good snaps in my first two hours on Friday, but before long it was time to head down to my press session for the new adult animation show Good Vibes which will be premiering on MTV October 27, 2011 after the new Beavis & Butthead.

In this press room were Adam Brody, Josh Gad, Olivia Thirlby, the show’s writers/producers and one of my long time crushes, Debi Mazar. The panel was done round table with 4 different press folks to a table and the actors coming in separate sections. This is what I’ve been used to do for these press rooms, but would get different experiences this year during the con. I had a lot of fun talking to everyone but talking to Debi was the highlight. I was amazed that neither Adam or David Gordon Green knew anything about the O.C. Cartoon, The Atomic County though. That was interesting to discover they made it without their knowledge or if maybe Adam forgot it? Who knows…

The press room ran long so I only ended up having time to make my way through the show discovering more of the floor to go to the HUSBANDS autograph signing with Sean Hemeon, Brad “Cheeks” Bell and Jane Espenson. Alessandra was supposed to be there too, but by the time I was there she was running late and wasn’t there by the time I was done. Before the show I tweeted to Brad that I wanted to have a photo taken where Brad and Sean were giving me a double kiss on the cheek. They obliged me and even did it in character instead of their actual personalities, which is awesome! I actually showed HUSBANDS to my mom for the first time recently and she was laughing and wanted to know what channel it was on. So there we go, the show must go on TV!

From there it was back to a quick floor walk and desperately trying to reach my friend Alesha. She really wanted to meet Doc Hammer and being the kind of friend I am, I had to indulge her and I know Doc and Jackson would have no objection to meeting an absolutely amazingly gorgeous mentally, facially and physically woman like Alesha. After finally giving her instructions I got over to the press room and set up my camera as Doc and Jackson did a press room like they usually do press conferences on TV, the people sitting at a table in the front and pointing to journalists for their questions.

Alesha popped into the room looking like a goddess dressed up as Lana Kane from Archer and took a seat next to me. She even got to ask a couple questions and like I promised she got to some one and one with Jackson and Doc after wards. Even though I’ve known Chris McCulloch (Jackson Publick) for years I had never met Doc Hammer either so it was a pleasure.

Based on the time I decided I would just walk around with Alesha for awhile till my 6 PM session for Pizza Man press. We just explored the show and had a good time talking and walking. She got a ton of “Lana, Lana” “WHAT?” “Danger Zone” cat calls, a major change from last year when only one person recognized her. She still got one dude confusing her for Tomb Raider though. Only one though, she actually got like 20-30 cat calls as we walked around which was awesome.

I rushed over to my Pizza Man and this was run really differently than anything I’ve ever been to. It was a free for all and no one was moderating, so you grabbed who you could and when you exhausted what you could talk about or felt you had enough, you moved on to the next person. DDP ended up being super late, but I really did enjoy talking to Frankie Muniz and Corbin Bernsen before he showed up. Great interviews and soon on Youtube.

Once it was all done I had planned to go to the Pizza Man panel to see the full special trailer (luckily posted online), but with my mom in the hospital I rushed home to grab her a few things as she learned it would be a longer stay than ever hoped.

Despite this I had an excellent second day which I loved immensely.

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New York Comic Con 2011 Overview Part 1

Posted on 10/18/2011 by Pop-Culture Spectrum

To get a clearer idea of where my head was in a jumbled state and the factor of this being possibly a serious mishmosh, let’s set some background.

I’m working from memory mostly, with the notes of my schedule for reference. Twitter and Facebook were impossible to get onto while in Javits. I tried, and was successful sometimes, but mostly nope, so my notes are photos, videos, what I bought, sketches and my good ol noggin. Another thing to note is that on Wednesday my mom admitted herself back into the hospital. She was there throughout the weekend and is still there as I write this on Monday night. It is nothing serious and they are getting down to the bottom to various problems she has had lately, but it added a stress factor to what usually is my most exciting weekend I New York for the last six years.

DAY ONE- Thursday

I got to the convention center and down into the press room, registered and ready to hit the floor just around opening at 4. The first person I saw before even getting on the show floor was Steve Talkowski. He introduced me to Tim Jester and I got to see his GibbyGop figure while admiring the Tokidoki car as well.

For this first official preview night where I had no panels or scheduled press interviews or autograph sessions I wanted to hit up so it was all about hitting the floor, getting whatever goodies I could and seeing as much as I could before 7 PM hit and it was time for the Tom Morello concert.

I gave my hand at Dead Rising 2: Off The Record and I’m thinking I’ll want it eventually, although I’ve yet to beat Dead Rising 2. A lot of the game booths pertained to genres I didn’t care about or had no interest in, but at least Ubisoft was there with some Assassin’s Creed and their game for the TinTin film. I played that and found it really fun.

Over at the Rockstar booth they were showing off the 10th anniversary edition of GTA3 which is a port for mobile devices and tablets. I got the feel for it and with some final tweaking it’ll definitely find new life on iPhones/pad/droids/whatever.

They were also showing Max Payne 3 in an early build in a closed off room. I’m thinking I’m probably not even supposed to TALK about the game, but damn it, it’s not video or photos, it’s just some dteails on awesomeness. They showed us a sequence flashback with Max Payne looking like his old self in New York City. In this wild sequence we find out why and how he ended up in the games main part of Brazil. They showed us the awesome mechanics and amazing graphics that are still in process, which means they’ll get even better. They then showed us a section of the Brazil part where Max is running around protecting his girl. The bullet time and final kill shots are just mesmerizing and there’s even SPECIAL bullet time sequences to allow for balls out ballistic kick ass action and Max is way more brutal now. After a dive he can be on the ground and turn around while still shooting. While Batman: Arkham City, Uncharted 3, and Assassin’s Creed: Revelations are going to keep me busy, I look super forward to Payne right now after that preview they gave us.

Walking the floor exploring awarded me seeing various other industry friends and acquaintances such as Dean Haspiel, Chris Miskiewicz, Joe Infurnari, Michel Fiffe and Kat Roberts (aka The ACT-I-VATE Crew) and in the Cultyard, Jared Deal. I also got to see the FIRST comics booth and had a good conversation with the owner of the returning publishing venture. I was also happy to see Jarret Williams, writer/artist of Super Pro K.O. from ONI Press. He was the first of the very few sketches I was able to pull off at the convention this year.

Other things of note were the awesome Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City action figures on display the DC Booth, the Hasbro Announcement of bringing back Jem and The Holograms and while I found the new Rayman game way challenging it looks freaking awesome and that visual standpoint should help it overcome it’s pretty high difficulty in 2-D platforming.

I also really enjoyed meeting street artist/cartoonist Tito Na Roa. When he hit New York City as part of visiting for NYCC he hit up the legends rooftop in Manhattan. I am hoping he somehow finds/found time to hit up more walls before going home, but even if he didn’t at least he solds his books at NYCC and his project is so mesmerizing.

Before the show floor closed on Sunday I was staring at Mattel’s collection of WWE figures, because no matter what I can’t seem to quit this shit. No matter how bad it gets. I’m still not the kind of fan they want though and never will be. My TV’s aren’t counted in market share, I don;t buy PPVs, I don’t go to live events, I don’t buy the toys and I criticize them left and right whenever I can. So I’m an addict, but at least I take my methodrone.

I almost decided to not go to the Tom Morello concert, but I am very glad I did. It was a super enjoyable and fun concert to listen and watch. He did a full amazing set of Night

I fell like I’m leaving out essential information in that the evening before I was off buying an iPhone and while I was about to go home is when my mother called me to tell me she was going into the hospital. She didn’t even know if she was being admitted till much later, which is why I wasn’t worried on Thursday. She wasn’t put into a room into late Thursday.

After the concert I went home knowing that the next few days were going to be intense and brutal.

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Some additional NYCC notes to be aware of before the show!

Posted on 10/12/2011 by Pop-Culture Spectrum

Bob Camp, one of the co-creators of Ren & Stimpy has been doing production background art for an upcoming mobile game called Tanks of Fury. They’ll be handing out cards with QR codes for a free demo.

LEGO will giving away a free Superman lego, which is also part of a contest.

Cartoon Network has an awesome Finn of Adventure Time toy they’re giving away.

This NY food/restaurant guide from CB Cebulski is really cool and also directs you on how to get a free exclusive pin by Cliff Chiang during the con. It seems a lot of work for someone without an iPhone/Android, but that’s what up.

There’s a lot of special Foursquare stuff like that too and you can’t do Foursquare without an iPhone/Android either…so I think it’s a bit unfair that the better off you are financially the more free stuff you get… like celebrities with their Oscar swag bags.

On top of the appearance at the convention, Chad Michael Murray will be signing at Barnes and Nobles on the Upper East Side on Friday night.

There’s some excellent after the convention events happening:
James Marsters is performing all the way out in Amityville on Saturday.

Also on Saturday a slew of street artists, toy customizers and graffiti artists are doing live painting in Alphabet City.

Zombie/Horror artist Wrona has a solo show in Brooklyn on Saturday as well.

and in New Jersey on Saturday there’s a Jack Kirby art tribute show with live music

a few other notes of interest:

The folks from Irattional Games will be giving out a BIOSHOCK INFINITE litho to those who come to their signing

Andrew W.K. is doing a signing

Foxtrot’s Bill Amend has a panel and a signing

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Beer, Glorious, Beer!

Posted on 10/11/2011 by Pop-Culture Spectrum

I am not much of a beer drinker is what I tell people when I go out drinking. This isn’t exactly true. I just really can’t find enjoyment in what most people drink when they say beer. They usually mean PBR, Heineken, Coors, Budweiser or Guinness. Sometimes I get lucky and it’s folks who actually mean a brilliant creation of flavor involving a hops. An independent brew developed by a master who gave a damn about what he was creating instead of just putting yeast piss mixed with barley or wheat in a can or bottle.

I know how beer is made. I have studied it intensely in reading, but I have never taken the time and energy involved to make my own brews. I’ve even come up with various ideas, percolated how certain flavors and mixes would bring both body, taste and a good buzz worthy to say “Dude, I’m drunk and happy about it!”.

When I was in New Jersey recently for an arts event I got to not only meet people who do home brewing, but sample many different flavors and tastes. There was a vast amount of deliciousness here and some truly passionate people.

The group is called the Jersey City Brew Club and they meet monthly to plan, discuss, arrange and organize beer brewing, events and whatnot. Their event at the 4th Street Arts and Music Festival was also a contest. While all the beers were absolutely amazing, they still decided to have purveyors to vote for their favorites.

The favorite that won was a Dark Chocolate Cherry Stout which I unfrotunately could not taste as I have an allergic reaction to cherries, but I got to try another beer he had made that was not in competition and it was quite amazing. Second place went to the Buffalo Porter, an aromatic beer suggested best with earthy cheese just like its flavor and third place went to Hopasaurus in the Dark, this was very dark and really jumpy as the name suggests. Other excellent beers that really caught my tastebuds were the Pumpkin Cider, the Apricot Wheat Ale and the simply called HurricanAle.

I am amazed at what these individuals achieved and I wouldn’t mind getting into it myself.

Unfortunately for me their next meeting in which they’ll not only discuss these beers but other brewmaking genius is this weekend during New York Comic Con. If you aren’t heading out to that and you live in a place where Jersey City is easy access for you, I totally recommend checking these guys and gals out… it seems like an awesome club to belong to.

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Oh, my Pasta!

Posted on 10/07/2011 by Pop-Culture Spectrum

Whenever I’m out with a friend and decide its time to get a nice meal I have three types I’d gear for, Thai, Indian and Italian. The problem with Italian is that I feel weird paying for pasta dishes which I can easily make at home. I could probably make Thai and Indian dishes as well, but not as easily as Italian. Most places use pre-made pastas, so you’re just paying for labor, but not ingredients you don’t traditionally can pick up at the grocer for cheap. What I’m always looking for is a place that not only mentions that their pasta is made in house, but prides itself in this fact.

Luckily recently I finally found this place on Montague Street in the Brooklyn Heights section of New York City. While the restaurant might have a hokey name in “Oh, my Pasta!”, the cordial service and absolutely amazing food made up for it completely.

We started our meal with their rendition of eggplant parmigiana. This isn’t the way you would expect it in a regular Italian restaurant, very heavy with lots of breading and topped with more tomato sauce than eggplant almost. No, this was a succulent portion cooked to a perfect palate that just melted in the mouth and really triggered the start of the meal.

We decided to sample two of the pasta dishes.

Tagliolini al pesto Siciliano and Troccoli alla carbonara.

The silician pesto was made with basil, pine-nuts, shelled almonds, grated sheep’s milk Rodez cheese, tomatoes, and extra-virgin olive oil. It was served on Tagilolini which is a flat noodle, much like linguine for the lay-man, but more more delicate. This pesto was just the right balance of flavors and the tagiliononi absorbed it so perfectly, it melt in the mouth.

I serve carbonara at home on a regular basis, but never with Sheep’s Milk cheese the way they do here. Troccoli is a traditional spaghetti like pasta and the carbonara sauce didn’t take as well to Troccoli as the pesto and was lacking something, but was still delicious. It is possible that because I am working on various type of forms of carbonana sauce at home my mind and taste buds are more selective than with a pesto sauce which is much more intricate to make and why I don’t do it at home often.

For desert we had an absolutely amazing chocolate tort. This thing was perfect in every way. I tend to despise raspberry sauce in chocolate but here it worked and was a perfect ending to an amazing meal.

I must also bring up the amazing service here. While our waitress was brand new, actually having just started that day, the rest of the house from manager to owner and chef all made a point to be involved. While some criticisms on sites such as Yelp and other restaurant reviews sites have mentioned that when the place gets more full their front of the house to back of the house control can be lacking, I didn’t find it to be that bad and the food was definitely worth it.

While I do not find myself in Brooklyn Heights as often as I’d like, when I have a group of acquaintances, colleagues or a female friend to impress I will definitely make a point of returning here.


Chef Steven J. Lecchi makes pasta
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She Went to Hell and took us with her

Posted on 10/02/2011 by Pop-Culture Spectrum

Hello, Chuck Palahniuk, it’s me Reid Harris Cooper. I just wanted to let you know that your newest book is compelling and successfully fills many of the holes it creates along the way, creating interesting characters and a vivid image of a designed hell I can see well animated by John Kricfalusi. On the other hand it is at times quite pretentious, overly wordy and particularly annoying. While you can easily blame this on your protagonist and the first person speech, it did not have to be this way. Certain choices were made in terms of structure, repeated style use and pushed upon ideas that at times I almost tossed the book across the room in frustration. It is almost a sign that the book got accidentally water damaged making it look mangled, but not unreadable.


DAMNED is the newest upcoming book from the acclaimed writer of Fight Club, Survivor, Choke, Lullaby, Haunted, Rant and a few more. Many are thinking of it as possibly a return to form that he seems to have possibly lost, but I see it as more experimentation from a writer who refuses to be locked down into any type of style or particular voice other than that of unreliable narrators and reveals that flips he story late into the book, sometimes too late to make a dent, other times perfectly sculpting pure genius. In many ways, DAMNED does both.

Chuck seems to have definitely done his research here and while it is admirable and adds to the scenery, at times it almost feels like he is trying to boast more than even educate through his various characters that he can talk about Hell because he went and read all the various books, scriptures, theologian essays and more. I applaud his effort, while also rolling my eyes at it. I almost feel it’d been more interesting for him to create his entirely own vision of Hell than the cobbled together version in this book. There are some really hilarious, fantastically brilliant ideas here and some of them are fully formed, while others just get touched upon making you desire more. This could be to the possibility of an upcoming sequel. If said sequel doesn’t exist though they’re just nuggets that will lay there untouched; Very cute, interesting nuggets that will only percolate in the readers mind, but never to be fully fleshed out and formed.

As an entire package the book tells a full and complete tale that is both visually entertaining and mentally stimulating, yet falters from expansive sections which could’ve easily been in fast forward and at times The major plot “twist” can be easily telegraphed from an early sequence as well that is just really longer and weirder than it needed to be. I feel like I’m spitting more venom than sprinkles here for a book I actually cared enough to finish, especially since books that start to piss me off usually get tossed on the ground and given a beat down, but the fact is that I really saw a lot of potential in this story and I feel at least a sequel could save it, but as it stands I can only recommend it to the the most stalwart fan of Chuck’s or those who really love contemporary visions of Hell via the dialogue of a young girl who finds empowerment through Death and Dismemberment.

DAMNED currently has a release date of October 18, 2011 in America and is published by Doubleday. It will be a hardcover with a retail price of $24.95, but obviously cheaper through sites like Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

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Games That Tell Tales

Posted on 09/29/2011 by Pop-Culture Spectrum

As TellTale Games truly expands their line of excellent produced games in the end of 2011 and beginning in 2012 with magic based on the Jurassic Park movie franchise, and two very popular the Comic books in Image Comics The Walking Dead created by Robert Kirkman and the Vertigo fantasy series FABLES created by Bill Willingham, I thought it best to look at Telltale’s game history as a whole as well as quickly review their three last distributions in Back to The Future-The Game, Puzzle Agent and the second chapters of Hector-Badge of Courage.

I’d previously reviewed the first chapter of Hector on PCS, but I’ve yet to throw praise their way for everything else and they’re highly deserving it. So, away we go, with the history of the company as I understand it without all that legal and technical mumbo jumbo and with applauding their efforts and criticizing a bit (because it’s video games and one still must criticize video games) along the way.

Telltale was founded by former Lucasarts team members Dan Connors and Kevin Bruner. Both have had an extensive hand both creatively, administrative and technologically in bringing to life some of LucasArts most popular franchises such as Sam & Max and Grim Fandango, along with some Star Wars titles as well. Along the way they’ve been able to bring in some really awesome people to the team including Mike Stemmle, who was co-lead on Sam & Max as well as Escape from Monkey Island, Andy Hartzell, an award winning independent comics cartoonist and most notably Dave Grossman, co-creator of Monkey Island, Pajama Sam, and Moop & Dreadly with Ron “Grumpy Gamer” Gilbert (who now works at the other base of operations for awesome games Doublefine with Tim Schaefer, who worked alongside Stemmle, Connors and Brunner back when) was brought in as head designer. Along with incredible artists, producers and more, this assembled team has allowed Telltale to be one of the only successful adventure game companies in the United States today. Most of the adventure game companies with success are based in England, the Netherlands and Germany. Thankfully though Telltale exists and helps bring franchises you’d think were primed for a game, but also difficult to envision to life.

The first series they tackled was Jeff Smith’s BONE. Visually and intellectually, as well as voice acting, this production was awesome, but it definitely suffered serious flaws in their action and mini-games sequences. Despite this, it is a great shame that they only got to do Out From Boneville and The Great Cowrace. I’d love to see them return to the series at some point and maybe try and create a side adventure instead of the adaptations done here. Maybe an untold Grandma Rose story would be best suited.

TellTale was given the CSI franchise to develop for publisher Ubisoft, but these games never really seemed to fall into line with where Telltale’s style and bread&butter landed. It wasn’t long into Telltale’s existence as a company though that the opportunity to “come out like gangbusters” presented itself. While the exact reasoning behind how Sam & Max ended up at Telltale has many stories suffice it to say they got their hands on the Freelance Police, along with their creator Steve Purcell along for the ride for brand new adventures not tied to the LucasArts design. That gave us “Save The World” which was followed by “Beyond Time & Space” and eventually “The Devil’s Playhouse”. All three games used very interesting and intriguing uses of puzzle design and twists in the adventure gameplay to deliver games that were quite awesome, even if they somehow never have yet to reach the epic-ness that was “On The Road”. This was not for lack of trying. It could be because of the SCUMM system, maybe it’s because of nostalgia on my part. I enjoyed all the Sam & Max games from Telltale but there were decisions made in gameplay style which caused problems.

These same issues would plague their very thought out and high quality “Tales of Monkey Island” series. This game did have the excellence of Ron Gilbert working alongside Grossman and Stemmle to come to fruition though. What hurt this game, much like in the Sam & Max game was that each episode was not exactly standalone. They were treated much more like chapters in a book and some episodes were weaker than others, in terms of length, puzzles and more. If played in one sitting, this could be ignored, but if played the way they were originally designed it was very noticeable. In the long run though, it truly proved that Telltale was on to the magic. (Although it should be noted Ron Gilbert did come in for one chapter of this series, helping with design and writing, helping stir the pot that Stemmle and Grossman started.)

During this time they had also worked with Aardman Animations on their “Wallace & Gromit” franchise. Now I never saw how that could be a video game, but they figured it out. Even more amazingly they found how to turn the Strong Bad flash cartoons in to fascinating and funny games. I was never a fan of Strong Bad and I am still not, but my god, they seriously figured out how to make me in the least like those Strongbad games. It’s a testament to the talent of the Telltale team.

In 2010, Telltale became more than just a developer of their own products, but the housing platform for smaller games which would come out on their own, but with Telltale backing them had much more chance at being seen by a public desiring adventure games on all levels. They called it the Pilot program and the first title was Nelson Tethers, Puzzle Agent. Designed by cartoonist Graham Annabelle, who had been working in some capacity at Telltale since 2005 as they published his webcomic DUNK, it was an an example that Telltale didn’t just make good games, but they really could find excellent ones. I actually had problems with Puzzle Agent, both the original and the sequel in the puzzles. Some of them just went beyond my style of thinking. That’s not on me though, the game is called Puzzle Agent and that meant all kinds of puzzles, logic, math, visual, and when it comes to two of those I tend to have some issues, especially super complicated mazes. The game has both super easy and then slider puzzle types and I am not good at slider puzzles. Never hand me a Rubik’s cube, my way of solving it is to crack it open and re-glue it together when solved.

Back to the Future: The Game was announced in June of 2010, alongside with the upcoming Jurassic Park, as part of a licensing deal with Universal. Fan interest was high straight from the start and only got higher when the game was announced as “the fourth chapter” in BTTF and that Christopher Lloyd would be voicing Doc Brown. From the first chapter I was immediately sold. While my computer wasn’t completely up to snuff to handle the graphics completely I could tell the writing, acting and gameplay were everything I’d been wanting from Telltale and that the franchise only helped this. I think with this series the company really found their swing. Maybe it was knowing that there would be even more discerning eyes on it to accomplish their goals. Yet, yes, the episodic formula caused this to also suffer from some episodes being weaker than others and the game can truly only be appreciated best if played in succession. It truly was one of the strongest efforts from Telltale and gives amazing hope to their Jurassic Park game, not to mention The Walking Dead and Fables.

The most recent Telltale game to “ship” were chapters 2 & 3 of the Straandlooper developed HECTOR-Badge of Carnage. These both continued the excellence of the first two chapters and truly compel you complete the entirely funny, well thought out and constructed point & click game. The way this project finished gives me not only hope to see what if anything Straandlooper produces next, but what the pilot program may offer. While it’s obvious Telltale’s efforts for the next year will be in the three previously mentioned franchises and hopefully a second Back to the Future game, I hope they understand what they can really do here for gaming as a whole. Especially being one of the only, if not the only developer who is not an independent creator to produce games like this with distribution on almost every available platform one can think of.

There was a TellTale panel scheduled for New York Comic Con 2011, but based on research I could conduct it has been postponed for rescheduling or possibly all out cancelled.  This is a shame as I was excited at the prospect of possibly meeting Stemmle, Grossman, et. al… but alas.  I shall just continue to enjoy their products.

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Overview of Brooklyn Book Festival 2011

Posted on 09/22/2011 by Pop-Culture Spectrum

The Brooklyn Book Festival which just completed its sixth year was quite intense. Full of free panels with many scheduled at the same time and all taking place while there’s an actual book festival within Columbus Park it is a lot to take in.

Unlike Conventions such as New York Comic Con or Book Expo America, the book festival is only one day. While it claims a four day existence with many events designed to be part of the Expo beforehand, the major crux, the beautiful outdoor fest directly outside Borough Hall and star studded panels in the surrounding areas are relegated to one Sunday.

Since this entire fest is free and completely about fan service with its panels and helping smaller publishers who would normally not get noticed at the book store (which there are less and less of these days) by the average consumer, it is perfectly acceptable for one day.

Although for someone as me with such a broad expanse of book love, it really isn’t. I was able to successfully make it to four panels and see maybe 75% of the Festival in the time allotted.

I did enjoy those panels though and I got some great book info and even ended up making one singular purchase of a book on sale that was brand new and I couldn’t resist.

It’s called “The Recipe Book”, the newest project from music duo, One Ring Zero and the first publication of Black Baloon Publishing. It’s got recipes, food and music inspired essays and a CD. Josh Besh, Chris Cosentino, Tom Collichio, Mario Batali and more are involved. If I can think of more to say about it I will, but that’s all I got.

Unfortunately other than my photos during the Comics Quick Draw and a few photos of the beautiful church some of the panels took place in, there wasn’t much to capture visually. While author portraits would’ve been interesting, a press pass at this event doesn’t afford one anything special or extra. One would need to miss panels for specific author signings to get that photo and with time being a major issue here I couldn’t achieve that. Yet, I must share one of those windows from St. Ann and The Holy Trinity. They have an amazing history and should be seen purely from an artist standpoint, ignoring the religious concepts.

All in all I truly look forward to near year. The festival brings in some serious talent for their panels and the community and neighborhood make it a not miss event for anyone who loves or just even like books and reading.

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BBF2011: Funny Ha-Ha-Comedy in Comics

Posted on 09/22/2011 by Pop-Culture Spectrum

This panel featured four very talented comics creator with various pedigrees and creators of very different types of comics all that would fall under humor in the format of sequential storytelling.
Keith Knight, a syndicated strip cartoonist he is famous for his The K Chronicles a (th)INK strips. Jennifer Hayden, creator of the strip Underwire which appeared on Act-I-Vate and the upcoming graphic novel The Story of My Tits. Kate Beaton, the creator of the obscenely popular strip and now collected edition “Hark, A Vagrant” and Michael Kupperman, writer/artist of Tales Designed to Thrizzle and the upcoming graphic novel “Mark Twain’s Autobiography: 1900-2010”. It was moderated by The Beat‘s Heidi McDonald.

The panel started out with each panelist talking about their past and why they use comedy in the majority of their work.

Jennifer told about a panel in Underwire which showed the aftermath of her accidentally hitting a deer. It displayed her thoughts on the deers defecation upon death. She received polar opposite reactions to this one panel, some found if it sad & poignant, others laughed out loud non-stop. She loves how one can use humor in comics to hide or explore tragedy easier and also allow one to say the things on the page one wouldn’t/couldn’t say in person.

Kate Beaton detailed how Hark, A Vagrant came out as started out being comics editor on her college paper and having to fill the page. She originally planned to become a professor, but the comics just spiraled. She loves how even though her strips use lots of comedy and jokes people still explore the real history afterward.

Michael Kupperman made the announcement of his and Kate’s soon to regular comedy show at Luca Lounge in Manhattan. This should be definitely something to check out if you can.

Keith talked about his history as a cartoonist and the development of the strip, but the best was his statement that “if it doesn’t make you laugh, at least it makes you think, and it doesn’t make you think, at least it makes you laugh, but when both…”

Heidi’s first official question was if they were the class clown/how did you find out you were funny? Which of course all the panelists found awkward but found good answers to.

Keith kind of dodged the questions, but dropped some pontification. On the other Jennifer stated she was the class clown and the family clown. As a kid she would stuff her dad’s tie in a drink or in his mouth. She grew up around very stuffy people and hated it, so she used humor in way of rebellion.

Kate also said she was the class clown out of necessity. She said she was a pudgy little kid, so the best defense was to be the funny kid. Being the one people looked to for funny gave her power and control unlike anything else she could ever feel and that if someone is meant for comedy they figure it out early on.

Michael just said “What they said”…

Heidi asked Kate specifically (but open to all) that because she handles obscure history if there was anyone/thing that can’t be funny. Kate stated people are always asking for Hitler, she doesn’t know why. She said some people from history are so tragic that you want to try and tackle the story, but it just doesn’t work out. She gave the example of Angelique, the famous Canadian slave accused of arson, who was hanged and burned for her crimes in the 1700’s. She felt that the story could not be approached from a humor standpoint and abandoned trying to make a comic strip version.

I personally would love to see Beaton try to tackle this one again, she could make fun of the fact that in 1700’s Canada was like 1600’s America and so on.

Heidi asked Jennifer abut how her family felt about using them in her strip. Jennifer stated she has to tread carefully and only recently found out her husband didn’t want to be in them and then was flabbergasted when he finally started reading and was “Wait, I’m barely in this anyways! Where am I?”

A story she decided to skip was the the experience of birth control and condoms discussion when her kids went off to college. Find it funny she has no problem telling us in a panel, but not in a strip.

Heidi then asked Keith about the experience of being a very controversial strip cartoonist who has had his strip pulled and banned in many markets.

Keith then went into a very intense and detailed story about a strip he did which made fun about current race relations. This particular strip made an uproar at a university and the university requested he come and talk about the strip. In reaction to the strip a small segment of black students were actually walking around campus with nooses around their necks. He needed to state that at this same university prior to this someone called in a prank terrorist threat on black students, so it wasn’t his strip that caused the problem, there already was one and the politics of that university were prone to that particular strip meant for the whole world. He also finds it funny how in black communities when a situation like this arises the media makes an effort to talk to the craziest person they can find and that’s how you get viral Youtube sensations.

The last question to get any real answers was on Influences.

Kate had stated a few, but she didn’t talk into the mike so it was hard to hear her, but I did catch her state Stephen Leacock, who I previously was not familiar with. He was a Canadian writer and scientist and Kate loves her home town Canada a lot obviously with wanting to write about Angelique and mentioning Leacock. Yup, she’s from Nova Scotia, dontyaknow?

Kupperman cited Monty Python, SCTV and the Smithsonian Book of Comics.

Hayden mentioned growing up on Archie and MAD, but really grew on Doonesbury and also Asterix and as she got older Charles Dickens. She also cited Maurice Sendak.

Knight cited Peanuts, Bill Watterson, Parliament Funkadelic and The Young Ones.

The Q & A and final questions provided nothing further, but it was a satisfying and enjoyable panel with colorful insights.

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BBF2011: Eoin Colfer x Walter Mosley – GUMSHOES

Posted on 09/22/2011 by Pop-Culture Spectrum

We start with a reading of work.  First Walter Mosley reads from his forthcoming January 2012 “All I Did Was Shoot My Man”, the next Leonid Mcgill book. It was a spirited reading of chapter 1 and definitely whetted the appetite.

Before reading the first chapter of PLUGGED, Eoin Colfer begins with telling about the last time he was at a NY Church. He had just finished being on a Disney cruise with his wife and son, Finn. His son watched Pinocchio non-stop, which never got annoying he said mildly sarcastically. Their on the steps of I believe he said St. Patrick’s Cathedral and he tells his son to go stand on the steps for a picture. When Finn ran off up the steps without asking for money, Eoin should of known something was up. His son, a beautiful Irish boy with bright blond hair, standing on the steps, hands in prayer with priests and parish looking on and what prayer does Finn make?

“Dear God, please make me a real boy.”

In many of the questions, Walter tended to give non-answers, or things that weren’t very quotable, while Eoin was much more open and funnier. Walter definitely had his moments though.

When asked what it is about the crime fiction genre that compels him, Eoin stated that he’s always been a fan. It wasn’t till a friend asked him for a short story for a crime-fiction anthology that the ball got rolling though. He argued that he writes about leprechauns and fairies and his friend pointed out him that you take out those and his work is basically crime fiction.

Eoin is also really excited that he can be invited to Bouchercon now, it’s a dream come true.

Walter Mosley stated that crime fiction is a very important style of writing, it allows one to look into existentialism. Question what is right and what is wrong, invites you into the view of this unlike other genres which builds readers. Gives example of a story about an undocumented laborer in California, if written well, this story will get read, but if written from the viewpoint of a Chicano detective figuring out who killed the worker’s bosses you get a better audience and way to explore the setting.

The moderator asked about story flow and Eoin stated that at least for crime fiction he tries to base the story in places he’s been in enough to get a feel for the voice and demeanor of the people, which is why PLUGGED took place in New Jersey. For an example of being pulled out of a story he chose highly criticize Tom Cruise’s accent in Far and Away in completely pulling you out of the film as you got the impression that Cruise had never been anywhere near Ireland.

Colfer plans to write a book about a bum in Barbados who lays in a hammock all the time, so he’ll have to go there for the next three years for research and live that life.

In speaking about the fact that he has written all types of fiction, Mosley was quick to point out he had also written erotica. He brought up the book Blue Light as a book that he could’ve written as a mystery, but chose to tackle speculative style because of its format and that the book was about the soul. The crux of a story helps him decide what genre he will write in. Later he also brought up his young adult book 47 in relation to Eoin’s long career in that field.

Eoin stated on writing for different audiences that leprechaun fiction and pixie fiction are different. He’s also tried writing unicorn fiction. When he’s on to something he states “Oh Christ” and then “apologizes” for blurting out that statement because the panel is taking place inside of a church to accommodate the large audience.

“You can never have too many Leprechauns” Colfer also states.

When asked if PLUGGED was always planned as an adult book, Colfer goes into comedian mode once again and says that it was the editor who called him and said that the word “motherfucker” is in the book too much to be considered young adult.

He also stated that if PLUGGED sells, it’ll be a trilogy and that working on a series is akin to the building of show like Star Trek.

I got to ask one question during the Q & A and asked about name development and choosing names you hope will stick with an audience.

In terms of Daniel in PLUGGED he was originally called Lincoln, but Eoin changed because of Jeffrey Deemers. He then said Daniel was in recognition of Colin Bateman, but realized that didn’t actually work because his main guy was Daniel as well and there was a fault, but by then it was too late and “what can you do?”

Walter stated he never really thought about, but he did notice how the names he did pick ended up actually being descriptive of the characters and their lives or actually not being indicative as “Easy” Rawlins life is anything but easy.

Eoin added one joke into this question by stating he tries to use names in children’s/YA books that are great jokes for adults, but will go over kids heads. For example in an upcoming Artemis Fowl he’ll introduce Colin Scoppy.

The final question of the panel pertained to films.

Mosley stated he felt Devil in a Blue Dress was a good adaptation, but much closer of course was the adaptation/teleplay he wrote himself  “Always Outnumbered” starring Laurence Fishburne.

Eoin stated he had one TV adaption done of his work which he enjoyed. I had to look up to discover that adaptation was a still uncollected and never aired in the US,  CBBC series based on “Half Moon Investigations”.

Eoin got to end the panel jokingly stating that hopefully Tom Cruise will end up working on the adaptation of Artemis Fowl.

The way Hollywood works, we’ll get Tom trying to do an Irish accent for the film version of PLUGGED. One can only hope the book does that well in the end.

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