Category Archives: To Be Filed

I may be wrong but it seemed like at one point, the end of the line to meet Sergio and to get him to sign something was somewhere in South Carolina. It was at the very least in some other Zip Code. I don't think he got to leave his table and see some of the convention so this post is for him…

Sergio, you missed wandering the halls and seeing a high percentage of tables not manned by dealers selling books but by other artists and writers selling and signing their wares. I can't recall another convention where the "Artists Alley" part so dwarfed the "Sell Comics" part. If you were there to fill in your collection, there was plenty of the latter. But if you mainly wanted to meet creators and get them to write their names on their creations, you'd come to the right place.

I really enjoyed roaming the premises talking with folks I knew, by reputation if not by prior contact. Among them were Klaus Janson, Steve Saffel, Kevin Nowlan, Tom Grummett, Andy Hirsch, Neal Adams, Colleen Doran, Athena Finger, Keith Tucker, Jerry Ordway, Mike Royer, Billy Tucci, Charles Vess, Joe Giella, Craig Yoe, John Beatty, Steve Rowe and I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot of people…like, say, Don Rosa. That's Don and me in the photo below and I was a lot happier throughout my time at Heroes Con than I appear to be in the picture.

I guess I judge conventions largely on their mood. The mood at Heroes Con seemed very, very pleasant and friendly, making it a great place to spend two days. Ringmaster Shelton Drum and his staff do a great job of making not just folks like you and me feel welcome, Sergio. Seemed to me that everyone who walked in the door felt welcome. And like you, I really enjoyed that barbecue last night at Shelton's store.

Lastly and speaking of food: I learned that the on-the-bone chicken at Bojangles Fried Chicken is really, really good and the Chicken Tenders, coated with too much batter and spice, are not. This will be handy to know any time I am in North Carolina because the state seems to have more Bojangles than people. But it's been a great trip, making me very sorry we missed the first day of it. Maybe next time…

We haven't had a good Disney Medley on here for a while…

Andrew Sullivan discusses Donald Trump's skill at lying. I wonder what percentage of his flock really and truly thinks he is an honorable man and what percentage thinks, "Yeah, he lies. But I'll tell pollsters I trust him because he's going to give me the America I want and whoever the Democrats put up won't."

There may even be a percentage in there that really and truly admires the lying or rationalizes, "That's what you have to do today to win." Winning is all-important in America today, especially Trump's America. Of the many insults he hurls at anyone who doesn't support him, "loser" is the most frequent.

For what little anything I think may be worth, I don't think Nancy Pelosi is against impeachment. I think she has a game plan that will lead up to it at the proper moment…and Trump knows that.

It  was Day One for Sergio and me but Day Two for Heroes Con, a fun-crammed gathering here in Charlotte, N.C., the city I may have to call home for my remaining days on this planet.  That's if the airlines of America continue to conspire to keep me off their planes.  Seems like a nice place but I do have that cat to feed back in Southern California.  She might mind.

(Don't worry.  Someone is feeding her in my absence.  They just might not be willing to do it forever.)

Heroes Con is different from a lot of comic conventions in that it's about comics…and nothing else.  The featured guests are not movie stars or TV stars.  They're folks who do comic books.  That means that to be there is to be surrounded by people who love and/or create comic books, which always makes for a happy crowd…and boy, was it a big one today.

I was scheduled to host panels all day but I passed one over to someone else so I could tend to some of the things I was unable to do yesterday.  On the first one I did do, I got to interview three of the best inkers of comic books of all time.  They are, left to right in the above photo, John Beatty, Mike Royer and Klaus Janson.  The fourth guy is Your Obedient Blogger.  I'll write more about this panel when I'm not on the laptop here but it was nice to chat with three fellows who not only do what they do well but are able to explain why they do it the way they do.

The rest of the day? Signing stuff, seeing old friends and making some new ones…three other panels…and a nice man brought me a lunch of Bojangles fried chicken which you can't find in states where you can usually find me. The Bojangles website says North Carolina has 315 stores which strikes me as damned selfish. You'd think they could spare one for Los Angeles, preferably within walking distance of my house.

I'll write more tomorrow.

Eleven minutes to remind you why we miss a regular dose of Jon Stewart. Well, some of us do…

I'm so weary from the events of the day that I didn't tell you that not only did two different airlines cancel several flights and reservations we had for today and yesterday but they've also started canceling our return flights.  I hope I like it here in Charlotte, North Carolina.  I may be here the rest of my life.

I'n guessing it's a new policy of the Trump Administration: As soon as airline reservations are made in the name of Mark or Sergio, that flight must be canceled. An amazing gent named Doug Merkle was busier than an I'm-Too-Tired-To-Make-Up-A-Joke today. He filled in for me as moderator on several of the panels I couldn't host because I wasn't there while simultaneously trying to rebook our reservations as fast as various airlines could cancel them. Sometimes, they canceled those flights; sometimes, just our seats. But somehow he got ahead of them and I'm typing this from a hotel room across from the Charlotte Convention Center. We'll be there for the last two-thirds of Heroes Con. Whew! is right.

Someone last night tweeted about our situation and directed that tweet towards whoever runs the American Airlines account on Twitter. Here's what they got back…

In instances like this, I think I'd rather not get this kind of "apology."  I get bothered by efforts that fall into the category of, literally, "the least you could do."  Sometimes when I post here that someone I know has died, I get messages that say, "Please convey my condolences to the family."  I know this is cynical but I see something like that and I think, "Wow. You cared enough to spend the three seconds to type that."  Often, the folks who want me to convey those condolences of theirs do have an e-mail address for the family but, well, you know…that might take ten seconds.

And writing something specific to the moment…something that applies to the deceased…hell, that could take up to a minute.

The person who sent the American Airlines "apology" had my Twitter address in the tweet to which they were responding. Instead, they sent it to someone else to pass on to me. How minimally thoughtful of them.

I probably sound more rankled by this than I am. It's kind of standard these days. You're wronged and then someone who had nothing to do with the wronging is in charge of apologizing for it without actually caring or doing anything to prevent it from happening to someone else. Or even to you again.

I guess I'm annoyed that we're no longer surprised by this kind of thing. If that offends you, I'll have my assistant apologize without really meaning it.

…but Sergio and I have. Despite the collusion of not one but several major airlines, we are in Charlotte, North Carolina. We'll be at Heroes Con tomorrow and Sunday.

It was rough getting here but we couldn't disappoint our fans. Or Thelma Lou.

After being screwed over by American Airlines canceling our flight to Charlotte at the last minute, Sergio and I are finally on our way there.

And just to keep its reputation intact, American Airlines has just canceled our return flights. Honest.

Back in this message, I linked to a video on how orange juice is made.  Here's another look at the same vital topic…

There are a lot to choose from but I think I'll take his leap from "I never colluded" to "I'll collude in the future if I get the chance!" Fred Kaplan has the details on this one.

Thanks to some miracles of ticketing — and the conscientious, heroic Heroes Con crew — Sergio Aragonés and I will be at Heroes Con on Saturday and Sunday. Needless to say, we are not flying there on American Airlines.  For more on this gala event, see here.

For those of you who are coming to get books or subpoenas signed, I will be at my table (#1102) from 10 AM to 11 AM on Saturday and then you may be able to catch me in Room 208B between the panels I'm hosting there for the rest of the day. On Sunday, I'll try to be at the table from 11 AM to Noon and again from 4 PM to 6 PM. Sergio will be at his table (#1103) for most of those two days. And yes, this should be the real Sergio, not one of the skilled Sergio impersonators we sometimes send out for personal appearances.

But most importantly, the day after the con, I'm coming to see ya, Thelma Lou!

Looking better that Sergio and I will be at Heroes Con in Charlotte, NC on Saturday and Sunday. And yes, I will go visit Thelma Lou. I didn't even call and tell her I wasn't coming. I'm optimistic enough to finish packing.

I've been up for a while seeing if there was any way to salvage the trip to Heroes Con. There might be, though it would mean missing the first day. If this matters to you at all, check back here in a little while. I might still get to see Thelma Lou…

Hey, remember how excited my buddy Sergio Aragonés and I were to be guests this weekend at the Heroes Con in Charlotte, North Carolina? Well, guess what? We're not going to be there.

We were all packed and ready to go when a few hours ago — at 9:22 PM our time — we were notified that our flight was canceled. Here — I'll show you the text message they sent…

Half an hour later, they notified us that they'd rebooked us on a flight so early in the morning that Sergio would have to leave for the airport about now, whereas I could get two hours sleep before I had to start out.  That flight would take us not to Charlotte but to another city far from North Carolina for a long layover…but that doesn't matter because there's no way we can get to that flight on time.

So then I spent an hour on the phone with a lady at American Airlines who really couldn't have cared less if we got to our destination…and I'm not kidding. She didn't care and it really took an hour. A couple times, she said, "Let me check on other flights" and then disappeared for 8-12 minutes.  I used one of those "on hold" intervals to check other airlines for other flights and there was nothing there that would work.

The flights she offered for today were all dreadful, unacceptable options and there were no flights whatsoever on Friday. The only reason she could give for our flight being canceled was "aircraft maintenance." She didn't say or know any more than that but I'm guessing it had something to do with this…

American Airlines announced Sunday that it will extend flight cancellations through Sept. 3 for Boeing's embattled 737 Max, a new passenger jet that has been out of commission for almost three months after its flight-control software played a role in two deadly crashes. The cancellations will affect approximately 115 flights per day, the airline said.

Our flight was on an Airbus A321 but obviously, American has a shortage of planes to go with their shortage of caring people on their reservations line. Whatever the cause, Sergio and I decided it was impossible to get there and we're pretty unhappy about that. We know there were folks who decided to make the journey to Heroes Con to see us. Well, him. There were people there we wanted to see, as well. And you know who I really feel sorry for? Their programming director — a great guy named Andrew Mansell, who now has to find other moderators for the eleven panels I was going to host.

And I feel bad that I won't be making the "side trip" I had planned for Monday. I had an Avis car booked in which to drive to Mt. Airy, a lovely (I hear) town an hour or two north of Charlotte but still in North Carolina. Mt. Airy was where Andy Griffith grew up and the town of Mayberry on The Andy Griffith Show was roughly modeled on Mt. Airy. In turn, Mt. Airy has since modeled some of itself on Mayberry…and that's also where the Andy Griffith Museum is.

I was going to spend most of Monday getting a tour of the city. Barney Fife's old girlfriend Thelma Lou was going to show me around and then I was going to take her to dinner. I'm not kidding about this.

I grew up in West L.A. In the house next door to ours lived Betty Lynn, a busy actress who did many things in her career but is best known for her years on the Griffith Show playing Thelma Lou. The Lynns and the Evaniers were very close and Betty was like an aunt to me — a wonderful, loving aunt and I adore her.

I haven't seen this lady since 2006 when she moved from L.A. to Mt. Airy where she is by far the biggest celebrity in town. When I wake up in the morning, I have to call her and tell her I'm not coming. I'll promise her that I will, though…very soon.

And I want to emphasize that our non-appearance there is not the fault of the convention or its organizers, who have been nothing but peachy to us. If they'll still have us, Sergio and I will make it to a Heroes Con soon…especially if there's another airline that can get us there. I still can't get over how indifferent that lady on the phone was.