I'm Back

I actually got back late Saturday, but then most of Sunday was obliterated going to the lake with Alex for a show. Not exactly how I wanted to spend the day, but it may have saved Alex from questionable decisions (according to him), so call it a win.

Anyway, I don't have anything substantive to post, so here's a picture of a couple of moose I saw during my week away.

We were actually on our way out of the park and here are all these cars pulled off along the side of the road. I half expected some idiot to get too close and piss them off. I'm sure they're fairly accustomed to people gawking at them, but some people can't leave well enough alone. That didn't happen while we were there, though.

The Weekend Has Thrown My Sleep Schedule Off Completely

Hope you all had a pleasant weekend. I spent mine visiting with Alex, as is standard for the 4th. We didn't blow anything up this year. Alex was not at his house when I came in, and his phone was dead, so I had to kill a couple hours wandering around town until he did get in touch with me. Then it was time for a surprise visit to a quarry a different friend of his owns, for swimming, and more sun than was probably advisable. He had a gig, so that's how we spent the evening and the early morning hours. There was supposed to be a eg in the middle of the dance floor, but they changed their mind about that. Which might explain why it was such a well-behaved crowd. I've never seen the bouncers have it so easy getting people to leave at the end of the night. It was nice, I got a couple of decent photos (including one where his attempt to look cool is likely undercut by my throwing a thumbs up next to him like a goober), though the lighting in the club makes it hard to find the right balance. No flash makes everything too dark, but the flash washes out all the lasers and smoke machines.

Saturday was pretty slow. Hung at one of his friend's houses and watched movies. I'm gonna save Seven Psychopaths for tomorrow, but what the heck, we can discuss Spielberg's 1941, which I'd never seen. Is there a term for movies with lots of disparate threads that eventually tie together in implausible fashion? That's kind of what 1941 is. All the characters just happen to come together in the same place at the same time, even though they were scattered all over California. Everyone's in a panic after Pearl Harbor, so there's a crazy base commander in the desert seeing Japanese forces everywhere, John Belushi is flying a P-40 chasing Zeros that don't exist. There is a Japanese sub off the coast, commanded by Toshiro Mifune, with a German officer in tow, completely lost and incapable of even outsmarting Slim Pickens. There's a family with an artillery piece on their lawn, with a daughter dating a guy who hasn't enlisted, and they both want to win a dance contest, but Treat Williams is playing a jerkass enlisted man who won't take "No" for an answer. He could have gotten run over by Dan Ackroyd's tank and I would have thought he deserved more pain. What a tool. It was an OK film, Belushi was pretty funny, but it went too long. It took them forever to finish up the submarine plotline.

Sunday was a little more running around, though not until after 3 p.m., since it took Alex that long to wake up. We went to a short-notice birthday party where the birthday boy almost didn't show up, and we never did get around to cutting the cake. We also tried to playing Cards Against Humanity version of Apples to Apples, but geez, I hate playing games with drunk people. They aren't paying attention, they keep forgetting to grab a new card after they set one down, it's a mess. Plus, the only cards that ever win are the filthy ones, and frankly, there aren't that many funny ones. Complaints about a lack of good cards were frequent. Apples to Apples is better in its basic version. But there was a lot of good music at the party, and some nice fish.

I really wanted a piece of that cake, though.

Cape-Con 2014 Recap

My only regret is not buying cupcakes.

I was only able to go on Saturday, because my work schedule overlapped the convention again. I mean, I could have taken the day off, I've missed one full day and half of another in the 4+ years I've been on this job, but I figure I should save that sort of thing for more serious stuff. I know, what's more serious than a comic convention? I have strange values, alright?

Since it isn't turkey season, I was able to get in the field early and be on my way to the convention before 10, so I could drive slightly more leisurely than I did during last year's pell mell race for fun. The weather was nice, traffic was light for the first 80% of the drive, and so I arrived only slightly irritated with humanity and considerably less drained of adrenaline than last year. No wandering around in a daze in 2014!

The convention itself was excellent. Ken announced that they'd set an attendance record for the convention before Saturday was even over. When I first got there and asked how things were going, he said it was 'packed, not at capacity, but packed.' so he was pretty amped about that. I saw him again before I left and he commented that it was so crazy it was almost unmanageable, but it was manageable, so it was just awesome. So that's good. I don't know what caused the jump in attendance. The shift to March, landing Shane Davis as a guest, shifting demographics in the area, luck. No clue, but it's nice to see. I don't know if it'll ever reach that 5,000 attendees level he said he'd love to hit years ago, but growth is good.

As for me, I spent practically the first hour just wandering, scouting the tables, trying to decide where to start. I didn't buy any back issues, though my friend from work who arrived shortly after I did grabbed a bunch of Season 9 Buffy comics. I did grab a couple of comics. Chris Ebert, who drew that very nice Firestar for me in 2012, had finished the comic he'd been working on for the last few years, so I grabbed a copy of Bullet Ridden. Brian Koschak had a comic of his, The Eavesdropper Cafe that I grabbed, as well as a larger print of that "Loneliest Astronaut" picture I bought a small print of 2 years ago. Unfortunately he hasn't found anyone to pick up Back Alley Hero yet. Considering it was about a Regular Joe type trying to be a hero, I figured there'd be some interest. That seems to be popular.

The other comic I bought was Douglas Paszkiewicz' Arsenic Lullaby - The Devil's Brigade. He made a good sales pitch for its dark humor, and I do love dark humor. Sometimes. I haven't read any of them yet. I've put most all other pastimes on hold to try and get through the books my dad loans me, except he won't stop sending more books. I keep thinking I can read fast enough to get done, but no, here come more books. And then I go and buy all three parts of D.L. Moore's Night of the Dragon at the convention, so even more books. What the hell am I doing?

. . .

So yeah, the cupcakes. There were these two nice girls - one dressed as Wonder Woman in basically her current outfit, the other Rogue in her '90s cartoon style - and they had a table piled high with baked goods they were selling. I kept telling myself I was going to buy a couple of cupcakes. Then I'd get distracted, or worried about how much money I'd already spent, or just put it off and it never happened. No cupcakes for Calvin. Ah well, a valuable lesson about not hesitating to strike when the oven is hot. Because that means the cupcakes are fresh.

On the artistic front, there was a fellow doing wood engravings among other things. He had one with the Decepticon symbol. Grabbed that for Alex, plus what I think of as the Rogue Squadron symbol. It's probably the Rebel Alliance, but I know it from Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, so I'll call it what I like. I spent the greatest amount of money at the Pixel Peddler's table, where he makes what are meant to look like 8 or 16-bit representations of, well, pretty much anything. My friend grabbed a Walter White head, plus complimentary pixelated bag of meth, and a Deadpool emblem. As for me, I grabbed a Krillin early on. When I came back later, the large Rocket Raccoon was missing, so after that, all bets were off. Anything I thought I wanted, I wasn't waiting. Which is how I wound up with Sonic the Hedgehog, Knives Chau (from Scott Pilgrim), and one of the ducks from Duck Hunt. You know, Krillin is far and away my favorite Dragonball character, and I still couldn't resist having Knives give him bunny ears. Sorry, Krillin. And yes, Sonic is most of the way out of the shot on purpose. Because he's fast and impatient, obviously. I'd say that fellow was doing good business even without me, since by the end of the day I think he had more display space than things to display.

I picked up a nice Zatanna print from Michelle Delecki, who was very friendly and energetic, which simultaneously makes me feel welcome, but also desperately wishing for Alex to be around. He's much better at being equally energetic around people he doesn't know, where as I shift to shy and reserved. This year's New Warriors sketch was Silhouette, as drawn by Nathan Rice. So I'm officially halfway through my "commission sketches of all the Nicieza/Bagley New Warriors" project! Only Night Thrasher, Rage, Marvel Boy, and Namorita still to go! Whoo! At this rate, I'll only need like 4 more years! On the positive side, that means I still have plenty of time to figure out what the next project would be.

I left before the costume contest, because a) I hadn't eaten that day, and b) I wanted to finish the drive back into the boonies before twilight, which is when all the idiot deer start running around. My friend informs me the winner was someone in a Man-Thing costume. I didn't get to see that guy before I left, but it was suggested they probably only wore it for as long as they had to. Understandable. I did see quite a few good costumes, including an entire family done up as the Fantastic Four, Nobody was dressed as the Thing, they just all had the classic blue with white gloves and boots outfits, but they were good. There was a Hawkman and Hawkgirl (Hawkwoman?) couple, more than a couple of the Doctor (including one boy wearing a fez and carrying a mop, which I assume is a story point).

I only took a few pictures, and then I almost wrecked them last night trying to get them to a reasonable size. I thought the whole image was being shrunk, but it was actually just cropping them to show only a portion equal to the dimensions I specified. Avoided wrecking any convention photos, but I did lose the three of the local friendly dog, and the two of that geodetic survey azimuth marker my dad found in the corner of a field. There was a excellent Indiana Jones, but I figured I'd share the Ash photo. Hail to the King and all that. I understand that it's polite and proper to ask to take photos, and it probably ensures the best view of the costume. I still kind of prefer taking more natural photos. My favorite convention picture might be the '07 Cape-Con one of the Stormtrooper just chilling, leaning against the railing. I think it's the disconnect between the normalcy of the action and the appearance of who is doing it.

That was my Saturday. A fine time had by all.

More Photo Time

I'm seriously lacking in inspiration today. I feel like I had a post in mind last night, but it's slipped away like quicksilver since then.

What I do have are photos, so let's look at a few of those.

First up, we have your common snapping turtle. Don't worry about the red mark. It's just fingernail polish. Cheap and easy way to identify recaptures. I have about a dozen photos of snappers from a stint over the summer trapping turtles, and that's the only one with its mouth shut. Of course, with its mouth shut, how can it bite unwary fingers off? It can't, which suits me right down to the ground.

Really the hardest part about dealing with snappers was getting them out of the hoop nets. They all like to grab hold of the net with their claws. You get one foot free, start on another, and they get that first one hooked again. The whole time you're trying to keep away from their mouth.

This other one is a juvenile hognosed snake. I showed you one the last time we did photo fun. This one's colored differently because it's in a sand prairie (such as there is around here), instead of in the woods. Different soil, different plants, different circumstances, meaning different requirements to blend in. You know how it goes. This one did the hood thing as I was trying to get it out of the trap, and it actually sort of worked. It didn't make the snake look bigger necessarily, but it made the shape of its head resemble that of a viper, a copperhead or something equivalent. Which gave us a use for the terrarium we brought. I'm not dumping a snake of indeterminate type directly into my hand, gloves or no.

Photos From The Woods

In light of the fact I can't think of anything substantive to write about, here's a couple of photos.

First up, we have an eastern hog nose snake. It's not venomous, but it does like to flare out that hood to make itself appear larger. To dissuade predators, you see. On other occasions they may opt to play dead, but this one was a little too feisty for that.

This, on the other hand, is a timber rattlesnake. They are venomous, and I walked past this one with no more than two feet separating us. It didn't seem to mind, didn't coil up or rattle, though there's a theory rattlers are gradually becoming less prone to rattling. The rattle, like the hog nose's hood, is supposed to be a way to avoid confrontation. If they can warn off an attacker, they don't have to waste venom defending themselves, energy fleeing, or risk being eaten or injured. However, some peoples' automatic response to seeing snakes is to kill them, and rattling is a good way to give away your position. I don't know if there's been any serious research on it, but the idea is humans are creating a selective advantage for rattlesnakes with smaller, weaker rattles, or who are simply not temperamentally inclined to rattle. We're encouraging them not to give us advance warning we're pissing them off.

Anyway, this one stayed stretched out the whole time it was around, so I guess I hadn't worried it too much. Once I got over being startled, it wasn't an issue. I left it alone, but kept an eye on its position. It left me alone, and kept an eye on my position. Eventually it went off to the north, and I went east. Everyone got to go on with their day.

2012 Cape Con Recap Post!

Good news, everyone! Yesterday's post went up right the first time. Of course, I didn't do anything more complicated than use italics a couple times. Today we're going to add images. Maybe even a link or two. Can good fortune continue? Let's find out!

Thursday night I had to meet Alex at a club in St. Louis. To kill time until he arrived, I hit a couple of stores in the area on back issue hunts. At one I grabbed the Mystique by Sean McKeever collection I'd seen there in November, to go with the Mystique by BKV collection I bought last month. At my next stop, I grabbed the last 3 issues of Bedard's R.E.B.E.L.S. run I needed, and the last two-thirds of Engelhart's Silver Surfer run. You know, I like Ron Lim's art, generally speaking, and it's probably his Surfer I think of when someone says "Silver Surfer", just based on the level and timing of exposure, but I was kind of sad when Marshall Rogers left the book as artist.

Friday had nothing comic related, other than various errands run in preparation for the trip (oil changes, getting money, so on).

As far as the convention itself, I didn't find too many things I was looking for, back issue wise. Most of the last third of Spider-Man 2099, a handful of post-issue #200 Uncanny X-Men, a couple of Suicide Squad comics. I did buy the Daughters of the Dragon trade Palmiotti, Gray, and Khari Evans did, and I found the Infinity Gauntlet single issues collected for 6 bucks. Had to grab that. I bought more Heroclix than I should have, and a complete set of X-Men Series 1 trading cards, but that was only $7.50. No regrets there. Jack also brought in my comics from the last two weeks, so I'll get to those later this week, such as they are. Alex limited his spending at those tables to mostly Magic cards for his friends and a couple of silk screens he intends to add some designs to. For decoration during his shows, I assume.

From the creators' alley, Alex was picking stuff up left and right. He bought 2 large prints from Robert James Luedke, including one of Bill Murray as Peter Venkman mirroring Murray's pose from the poster for Stripes!, which isn't a combination I'd have thought of, but it makes sense. We also had to stop at Brian Rhodes' table so he could pick up volume 2 of Mike and the Ninja. I was a little disappointed there was no ninja standing at his table this year, as in 2010, but them's the breaks. We learned volume 3 will be ready by next year's con, which is good, but it's the last volume, which is sad. I enjoy Mike and Stu's madcap adventures. Alex also asked Chris Ebert for a sketch of a unicorn, for some lady friend of his. I forget which, hopefully he doesn't.

We left to get lunch while we waited for that, and by the time we returned, two of my coworkers had arrived. One had already commissioned a Nightcrawler from Ebert, but mentioned she had to wait until he finished a unicorn, which caused me to bust out laughing. Both my coworkers purchased some prints from Brian Borders at 7 x 70 Studios, including Gambit. I can't help it if all my friends and coworkers are weird. Alex did get his unicorn, and my coworker got her Nightcrawler, though she said Ebert happened to see them outside, wasn't sure if the unicorn had been for them, but when they said they knew who it had been for, asked if they thought it looked OK. He was worried he hadn't drawn a lot of horses. I thought it looked fine, and it clearly looked good enough to get my coworkers thinking about asking someone to sketch a Dresden unicorn in the future. Apparently unicorns are very strange looking in the Harry Dresden books?

As for me, my Saturday Creator's Alley spending was concentrated on Nathan Bonner, since I enjoyed the first volume of his InDavo work that Alex bought back in 2010. Unfortunately, because I'm an idiot, I bought volumes 2 and 4, instead of doing the sensible thing and buying consecutive volumes. Fortunately, I think Bonner breaks down the volumes so they can mostly be self-contained. All you really need to know will be explained as you go along. I also picked up the 4 issues of the Shamus Stone comic he had. I thought it was pretty cool he was working on a future sci-fi story, and a 1940s detective noir comic concurrently. be interesting to see if there are style overlaps as they go along. Other than that, I bought Brian Koschak's Back Alley Hero. I read through it last night and really enjoyed it, though it's really more of a teaser/trailer, according to him. Worked on me. He was apologetic about it costing 5 dollars, so clearly he didn't realize how many times I've spent 3 or 4 dollars on comics that I wound up regretting purchasing. I'm not going to mind paying extra for something I like.

After we collected Alex's sketch, we hung around long enough to see the costume contest. Disappointingly few people on the adult division. There was a good Barf (Spaceballs), and a couple showed up as a Simon Pegg/Zombie Nick Frost from Shaun of the Dead, which was pretty clever. After we left, the only notable occurrences were Alex complaining about the quality of vodka the hotel used in his free screwdriver, which prompted us to trek to the gas station so he could buy something better to make his own, and my getting to watch actual television for the first time since roughly Christmas. Naturally, there was nothing on.

Sunday, Alex couldn't afford to spend much, so I did most of the buying. Three pictures from Bryan Ward, two of which were for Alex. Well I sure wasn't buying Bumblebee or Sookie for myself. Now Indiana Jones, that was for me. Alex couldn't stop staring at the "Wandering Astronaut" print, which you can see if you scroll down to the March 13, 2011 post on Koschak's blog, and it was only 5 dollars, so I bought that for him. I grabbed 4 prints from Mr. Borders, 2 for Alex (Joker and the Predator), 2 for me, 10 dollars total. I went with Spider-Man and an Injustice Society picture. The latter made Mr. Borders pretty happy, because apparently I was either the first person to choose it, or at least the first to show I knew who they were. What do you say in response to that. I went with, 'Well, that's Gentleman Ghost. Joe Kubert design.' He pointed out Solomon Grundy in the background, which is true, but who wants to notice the scraggly monster thing when there's a floating top hat and monocle in the center of the picture?

We were doing all this to pass time while Chris Ebert worked on a Firestar sketch for me. Yes, it was time to add another New Warrior to the collection, alongside Terry Huddleston's Nova from 2010, and Brandon Rout's Speedball from 2009. It only took him about an hour (he said it just came out well right from the start), and it looks great. Check that out, and for only 10 dollars people! That's good value! He also had a Deadpool picture I really wanted to buy (Wade standing on a mountain of dead ninjas), but he was out of prints for it. Dang.

After that, we were ready to go, but I got waylaid talking to Ken at the entry desk for about 10 minutes. Which was nice, I hadn't talked to him since the 2010 con. We didn't talk about anything of significance, just how he felt the con was going, what I'd been up to. I was glad I got the chance to do that before we left, and I got to see a fair number of people come in for early Sunday afternoon, which is always encouraging. The rest of the day, once we arrived at Alex', was spent throwing junk out, and packing up other stuff in preparation for his move. Not how I wanted to spend Sunday night, but to be fair, he really needed to wash dishes. There were smells emanating from that sink I'd rather not contemplate. Plus, we knocked off by midnight, so I probably got close to 6.5 hours sleep, which might be the best I managed all weekend.

Should I Make A Joke About Missing The Mark?

When I reviewed Avengers Solo #2, I mentioned there were some sequences I thought weren't laid out logically, and said I might have to try and get a shot of one of them. And that brings us to today.

Here's the page I was talking about. I know, the glare from the flash is irritating, just work with me. The thing that bothers me about this is we have this big shot of Hawkeye with the bow drawn, and he's facing left, towards the beginning of the issue. Then in the lower right corner, we have this little panel of the actual path of the arrow, which Hawkeye arced down the staircase so it would hit his target and plant a tracer. You can't really tell from the way I took the photo, but the panels in the top half of the two pages are set up so you read across the two pages. So the reader's eyes travel across the top of the page. Then it seems like the reader's eye might follow Hawkeye's arm back to the left, along the arrow, only to have to go back to the right for that last panel. Or perhaps the reader skims from Hawkeye's steely gaze straight down to that corner panel, ignoring the arm, bow, and arrow. In one case, it would seem like it's counter-intuitive layout, in the other, it's kind of wasted space.

I wonder if the large shot of Hawkeye was flipped by accident. If he was facing the other way, then the reader's eye could travel from Hawkeye, along the arrow, and that would almost naturally lead the eye to that panel in the right corner. I don't have any proof that's the case, but I've seen panels like that in other books, where things look like they were reversed*.

I do think it might have worked better if the shot of Hawkeye spanned the bottom half of only one page, and the flight path of the arrow took up the lower half of the other page. As it stands, we have this shot of Hawkeye with the bow drawn back powerfully, and the flight of the arrow is this small panel, almost weak. Like a Roadrunner cartoon, where the Coyote tries to launch himself with a bow, and it looks like it'll be some powerful shot, and it duds somehow. His face hits the bow, the bow falls over, or he just doesn't go anywhere. In the story, Hawkeye's making a pretty good shot, but I'm not sure the way things are laid out really conveys it.

* My main example was from BKV and Kyle Hotz' The Hood mini-series. Near the end a character had a briefcase of money in her left hand, a gun in the right. In the panel where she's killed, they've switched hands. There's no background to tell anything by, so I've always wondered if Hotz drew it, and it somehow was flipped in the printing or copying, or something.

Tales From The Woods #5

Working up in the hills as I do, I wasn't expecting to run across a coot. I don't mean "coot", a grizzled old man living in a shack with his shotgun and corn whiskey. That wouldn't surprise me at all. I mean coot as in American Coot. It's a bird common to wetlands, riverways, and so on. Not on ridge tops over 5 miles from any significant body of water.

Yet here it is. It's early April, and I'm not on my usual site. We're short a couple of techs, so everyone's picking up slack, and that means handling a couple sets of traps on another site. And here's this coot, sitting alongside the trail at not even 7 in the morning, matching my stare with those red eyes it has. I wondered if I'm going loopy, but there's work to do, so I went on to my traps.

On the way back, though, the coot is still there. I still had my own site to get to, but this was too strange to ignore. I knelt down for a closer look. The coot leaned back a little, but that's all. I reached out with my hand rake and poked it. I still half-expected it to vanish before my eyes, but the rake makes contact. The bird is really there. In response to the poking, the coot raises up on one leg for a moment, while keeping its other leg tucked beneath it, but it didn't flee. It kept watching me steadily the whole time.

It was kind of hypnotic, but I remembered I had work to do. Out comes the camera (which I actually remembered to bring for once) and snapped a few pictures. It's so rare for a bird to hold still long enough for me to photograph it. Usually, the go out of there way to dart behind a tree just as soon as I get them in frame. I advised the coot to get itself to someplace it belonged, and got on with my day.

That afternoon, back at the office, I saw the pair of coworkers responsible for the other sets of traps on that site. I was pretty sure it was their trail I was following, so I asked if they saw the coot. Blank stares, and I'm back to wondering if I'm loopy. The coot was right next to the trail, less than a foot away. It wasn't hiding, how did they miss it? I haul my camera back out quickly, and there's the photos, and there's the coot in the photos. I felt relieved, and you can laugh, but it's empty and lonely out in those woods, even with a silent partner tagging along sometimes. The coot had been there when I went by, but they hadn't noticed it when they passed through later in the day. I reasoned maybe it took my advice and went elsewhere, but I couldn't shake the feeling - based on how it held that leg, not to mention how it didn't take off when I crouched down two feet away - that it couldn't leave, even if it wanted to.

We were still shorthanded the next day (and for the next two weeks), so I had the opportunity to check. I found the coot. It was a little farther from the trail, back under the branches of a downed tree, still visible enough I wondered how my coworkers missed it. More relevantly, it was dead. What's strange is there's no sign anything tried to snack on it. The neck is broken, and there are any number of predators around that could have killed it that way, but it's unlikely they kill it and leave it there. They'd kill it to eat it, which would mean they'd either drag it someplace else (like a den), or rip it up and chow down right there. Which means something killed it just to kill it.

It's not the last time I met a coot in the woods, though.

2010 Cape Comic Con Photo Post

As promised, photos from this year's convention. Mostly people in their costumes, as that's pretty much all I took pictures of. First though, I want to show the Nova Terry Huddleston drew for me. You can click on the pictures, none of the images are large. It's a really nice picture, isn't it?
As usual, I'm jealous of people who can draw so well, so fast. Up next, we have Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2 with Rorschach. Which leads me to wonder what Rorschach's version of Silent Hill would be. It seems to become each person's personal hell, so he'd be reminded of times he compromised, or times he regretted not compromising? Alex said he thought Pyramid Head wore stilts of differing lengths, which gave him the odd, dragging gait Pyramid Head typically moves with.
Rorschach was there Saturday, but Sunday his inspiration showed up. I should have asked what the mask was made of, but I'm not sure I could have heard him. Then again, he had a buddy with him, perhaps designated responder/guide dog. He asked me to hold on, because Vic had a prop, a tabloid mag, which fueled his conspiracies. So he's Justice League Unlimited Question.
The fellow in the red shirt is Brian Rhodes, creator of Mike and the Ninja, and that's his ninja standing in front of the table, ready to dispense stickers, bookmarks, and fliers to all who make eye contact. Don't doubt his blinding speed and skill, as Alex would attest, he can pass things out faster than the eye can follow. OK, maybe not that fast, but he does it with style, that's for certain.Next up, the Mad Hatter and Alice. Hatter is just aware of me standing there with the camera and is trying to alert Alice so they can pose. I prefer to snap pictures when they don't know. I think because I don't intrude on them that way. They go about their business, I get my photo, nobody's bothered. I don't have anything else to say, except Alex and his sister are both big fans of the recent movie, as they have posters for it up all over their apartment. They placed the Mad Hatter in the bathroom, which is not particularly something I want looking at me when nature calls.
Thumbs up to you too, Cap! Captain America was there with Ms. Marvel (in the background), and their two kids, Nightwing and Spider-Girl. I'm not sure what the shield is made out of, but not styrofoam or anything similar. Sadly, I didn't see him ricochet it off anybody's head. Maybe if someone dressed up as an AIM scientist. . .
Rounding it out are a couple other cosplayers from Sunday, going Silver Age on us with Superboy and the Insect Queen. I'm glad I heard her explain who she was to someone else, because I was guessing Queen Bee, if I had any guess at all.

The Struggle Of Man Versus His Camera

One of the perks of my current employment is that it's set in a pretty rural setting*, so there are some nice scenic places to go. Of course, my job requires me to be out there for several hours every day during the week anyway, so I'm not always in the proper mood to appreciate it. Ticks and horseflies have that effect on me. However, Thursday was a rather easy day, so I felt like going to see something, rather than just stay at the housing I'm currently typing this from.

My supervisor had mentioned a spot along the river near one of the places I do my work, that was a place one could go swimming. I wasn't really in the mood for swimming, but I thought it might be worth going to check out, on the off chance I felt like it some time in the future. So I cruise over there, and there's no one around, which suits me fine, and i spend a few minutes just wandering along the bank. The opposite side of the river is a fairly impressive, bluff, I suppose, and I thought to myself that Alex would probably appreciate this view. Sadly, I hadn't thought to bring my camera (it was a very spur of the moment decision to go out there. So I resolved to return at the first opportunity with the camera and try to capture the view.

Well, Friday was roughly as easy as Thursday**, so I grabbed my camera and set forth. I got back to the same place, and took my snapshot, which I'll include below. It's about 650 KB, fyi.

Looking at the picture, though, it didn't really capture the grandeur I felt was there. Maybe the lens wasn't wide angle enough, in which case I was out of luck. But perhaps I could get something in the foreground, for scale. It'd have to be something Alex knew the size of though. My vehicle? That might work, but I was worried that the gravel riverbank, fairly soft in places, wouldn't mesh well with my vehicle, which lacks 4-wheel drive. I suppose a true believer in the art of photography would risk their transportation, but that's apparently not me. Then I recalled that the camera had a timer. If I could find a good place on the ground to set it, maybe I could get in the shot, and serve as the scale. Sure, that's the trick.

Just to be safe, I selected the "25" timer option, and after finding a suitable spot (one which would capture me and the majority of the scene behind me), I hit the button and ran to the spot, turning and striking a goofy pose. Well, nothing appeared to happen, so I fidgeted, switching poses, until after a minute I figured it was safe to go check. The picture showed the other bank of the river just fine, but it also showed my legs on the left side, somewhat blurry as I started running. Turns out that was "2S", as in "2 seconds", not "25". Let this be a lesson, read the instruction manual.

So I tried again, with the other timer option. But I wasn't sure how long I had so when I hit the button, I took off as fast as I could, looking back to gauge if the camera was about to take the shot. Did your parents ever warn you to watch where you were going, not where'd you been? Mine did***. Me Running Fast + Not Watching Where I'm Going + Rocky River Bank = Pratfall. Undaunted, I leapt up and resumed sprinting, and even managed to assume a pose before the camera went off, though my poor cap is clearly visible, crushed on the ground where I went splat. That one turned out pretty well, all things considered, but I did take one more, where I made it to the river's edge without tripping, just to make sure. I think they would have worked better if I could finagle a boat to get me on the opposite riverbank. I still look too large.

* This is also one of the downsides, as it limits your options for places to go to interact with people or purchase goods without having to drive very far.

** For the record, this is a fairly rare occurrence.

*** Though my dad waited until after I ran smack into a steel support girder outside an Ace Hardware to lay that bit of wisdom on me.

Presented Without Comment

OK, not entirely without comment.

From the pages of Nova #7, a nifty little shot of the Worldmind's records of past Novas, fighting to protect the uncorrupted portion of Richard Rider's mind.


Notice the little blue fellow in the center? You do? Good. Then say hello to Nova Centurion Pika Chu.

What's that? It's Pike Blu? Blu Chu? I can't understand you, you've got your translator set on "Kree", oh forget it.

I don't know what to make of it, so I'm just putting it out here for you, my beloved audience.

Nose Stuffed, Brain Drowning

I am incapable of giving you any kind of substantial post today.

Or I'm unwilling to do so. One of the two.

So I'm just going to share a photo with. It's from the 4th of July. It's probably my favorite photo that I've taken since I got my camera last Christmas.

All I really wanted was to get a shot of the smoke in front of the street light, it just so happened that the large group of wasted guys down the street shot off some fireworks while I was taking it, so hey, bonus. I just think it looks kind of nifty.

So there you go. Night everybody.

Now Let's Talk Conventions

Hi everybody, it's me, Faceless CalvinPitt! I hate to do that, but some of you may be axe murderers, and I don't want my face recognized. So, some general thoughts from the weekend.

- I'd say that Ken got a much bigger crowd this year, but by moving to a larger locale, it seemed less crowded. A lot more vendors, an entire wall for various creators, and even with gaming being deemphasized from last year, still there was more than enough room to accomodate them. Best of all, I never got that claustrophobic feeling I get when I feel like there are too many people around me.

- On Saturday, there was a small child who apparently has the same name as me, and the kid tended to get too far away from his mom, which lead to a lot of me looking up from a longbox when I heard some lady call my name sharply.

- I expect Ken to take the week off. The man was constantly on the move both days, checking with the guests, greeting the fans, making announcements. I have no idea how he does it.

- Had two Darth Vaders prowling around on Saturday, several Sith/Jedi, a Imperial officer (also known as Vader's Crushed Throat Whipping Boys), and a Chewie, plus a guy trying to pull of brooding Anakin in Episode 3. He did pretty well, certainly had the poofy hair. I enjoyed seeing a little kid walk up to one of the Vaders and proclaim him too short to actually be Vader. I was polite enough not to laugh then, but faux Vader ain't here, so I now say, with full impunity, ha ha!

- Having been someone who rarely pays attention to who was making the comics I was reading (until about two years ago), I don't know much about creators, including what they look like. That being said, I was still surprised that Denny O'Neil reminded me of former Clinton adviser James Carville. Or was it Agent Skinner from the X-Files?

- After making a comics purchase, the vendor I bought from threw in a Roy Thomas written Conan the Barbarian for free. Sadly, Mr. Thomas was on lunch break at the time, and I was called away to meet some friends before I had an excuse to go up and talk to him. Still not sure what I would have said, since I don't know how much of his work I've read. Missed opportunities.

- While perusing the longboxes, I came across something I had to have. Curses, I was two dollars short! I rushed out of the convention, desperate to get to an ATM. Naturally, I had the entire SEMO campus between me and my vehicle. Let that be a lesson kids: Parking far away because you enjoy walking is stupid. Fortunately, I was able to get to a cash machine and return before my prize was gone. What did I purchase, you ask? Oh, not much just...

-The entire run of NextWave!!! Can you feel the Earth tilt off its axis? Can you feel the power? Upside-Down Puppy feels it, see!

-Ah, Warren Ellis, I don't know what your beef is with Tom DeFalco, but I do know that in the afterlife, when you find out your maker likes Spider-Girl and Speedball, NextWave is going to be what saves you. Joe Quesada will likely not be so fortunate.

- I can't really think of anything else to say. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves, I enjoyed myself, so it all works out. So let's end with a picture of a stormtrooper just kicking it.