Or maybe this should be "Doctors [plural] Octopi." You figure it out. But this is about cosplayers. There were a lot of them at WonderCon and each time I left the main hall and headed for my hotel room, I tried to spend a little time watching them. Most were in an area outside the convention hall, posing for photos and videos. Some were putting on little performances. There were some concrete benches in that area and I'd park myself on one and just watch the passing show for a little while.

Science-fiction fan conventions predate comic book conventions and there were always cosplayers at the first s-f cons even if the word "cosplayer" had not yet been coined. A masquerade show with all the costumed folks parading before judges was (usually) the most-attended event and it was held (usually) on Saturday night. The costumes ranged from the elaborate to the effortless, the latter exemplified by the inevitable clown who'd enter in his street clothes and call his presentation something like "Man from Planet Zord-7 disguised as an Earthling."

Also simple was the occasional lady who'd parade around nude and call her "outfit" something like "Visions of Love." You could see the folks who spent months and fortunes crafting their costumes resenting the hell out of the attention the naked ladies got.

And I suspect that the best costumes from those days at s-f cons — and the best ones from the first few decades of Comic-Con — would be ranked as the lower end of cosplaying I viewed this past weekend at WonderCon. The A+ ones from then would notch about a C- today. Some of the work is stunning. A lot of it does not look like the work of amateurs, though I'm sure most of it is.

(And before someone asks about this: We don't have naked women "cosplaying" at comic book conventions but if we did, I doubt they'd attract all that much attention.)

A lot of the best costumes are original designs. A lot of the ones based on pre-existing characters are especially astonishing when you consider that someone is replicating a design done by a comic book or animation artist who never dreamed for a nano-second that anyone would ever actually make that costume…but someone did.

Case in point: A lot of costumes designed for comics probably seemed impossible to bring to life and none more than Doctor Octopus, the popular villain who debuted in the third issue of Amazing Spider-Man. Once upon a time if you'd told me someone would build a reasonable facsimile of that gear and wear it to a convention, I'd have bet you a vast sum you were wrong. Not only has it been done by one person but at WonderCon, I counted four Doctor Octopuses or Doctor Octopi or whatever the proper plural is.

(And again, before someone asks: The original look of the Bad Doctor was probably designed by Steve Ditko, who drew the first Spider-Man comics. I say "probably" because Jack Kirby told me that he'd designed some of the early Spider-Man villains and Mr. Ditko agreed, though neither man could tell me for sure which ones Jack did. Both men were more than imaginative enough to come up with something like that.)

Seeing four Doc Ocks made me think of the old cliché about the woman who buys an expensive designer gown for a swanky public affair, gets there and is mortified to see that someone else is wearing the same dress. Imagine spending months building a Dr. Octopus suit, crafting those impossible tentacles that they did via CGI in the movie but you had to really build them and not with the budget and tech crew of a major motion picture. Even if someone is now selling parts you can use to fabricate your costume, it's a helluva lot of work.

And then you get into the get-up, which is probably not the most comfy thing to wear but you figure it'll be worth the time, effort, money and pain because of all the attention you'll get. And then you walk out into the area where cosplayers play and pose…

…and there's another Doctor Octopus. And another. And another…

I managed to grab photos of what I think were the two best. I suspect one other fellow whose simulation wasn't as good disappeared because of how badly he was losing The Arms Race. But I definitely spotted four and since I only passed through Cosplayer Central now and then, there might have been even more. There were others (like someone dressed as another Spider-Man foe, The Scorpion) that were equally as elaborate but I only saw one of each of those.

And of course, there were simpler costumes in mass quantity: Quite a few Disney-style (or specific Disney) princesses. A whole bunch of Supermans, Supergirls, Batmen, Robins, Wonder Women…even a Groo. I was asked to pose with a group re-creating the regular characters on the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series. And speaking of "drag," as everyone is these days, there were a lot of ladies as Captain America, Spider-Man, The Flash, et al. Since comic book companies have discovered the merchandising potential of female versions of male characters, I'm not sure if a female Thor counts as cross-dressing.

It was a wonderful assemblage of creativity and artistry out there. I still have the occasional problem with cosplayers who pose and/or swing swords blindly where others are trying to walk but most of 'em are wonderful.

And there's one other thing I noticed which may be helpful if you find that comic book conventions are too crowded and you can't get through the throngs of people. If so, try dressing up as Doctor Octopus. Most people seem to get the hell out of their way. Maybe that's why there were so many of them.

Devin Stone, the "Legal Eagle" of YouTube, tells us all about The Incredible Florida Man. This one is more interesting than you might think…

The reviews are in for the just-opened Broadway revival of Sweeney Todd with Josh Groban and Annaleigh Ashford. For the most part, they're raves…so now I really have to get back there to see it.

I just awoke from an 8.5 hour sleep which is around three hours longer than my norm. That's an indicator of how exhausted I was after WonderCon but it's not the best indicator. The best indicator is that last night, when I wrote up the story of having to get by without my wallet and the necessary items within, I forgot to include the punch line. Here's the rest of the tale…

So I decide it's time to get back home and because I'm not driving these days (knee problems), I call an Uber on my cell phone. Lacking a wallet and credit cards, the cell phone saved my life. I get into the Uber, the driver heads for the 5 freeway and a few minutes into the ride, the screen on the cell phone begins to go off and on, off and on, off and on. I know I'm low on power but not that low.

Fortunately, my computer case is in the Uber with me and in it, I have one of those portable iPhone battery chargers I touted here. It brings the screen back up long enough for me to take this screen shot —

— and then the whole thing goes dead for the rest of the ride home. It was like my phone said, "Okay, you don't need me anymore on this trip!" I think I need to go have a new battery installed.

Here's the musical Grease in Japanese. I don't think it loses much in the translation…

And now I'm home, having enjoyed myself thoroughly at the convention. I'll write more about it in the coming days but now I feel I should tell you about the stupid thing I did. When I travel, I am fierce about packing everything I might need wherever I might roam. Still, even with my lists and checking and double-checking, I always manage to forget something. Sometimes, it's trivial…

But sometimes, it's pretty serious. This time, it was pretty serious. This time, it was my wallet. You know…that thing that contains money, credit cards and my picture I.D. I thought I had it but when I got to the hotel check-in, it turned out I didn't. And as the lady at the desk informed me, this hotel requires that picture I.D. to check in.

I tried pointing out that there was a picture of me in the convention program book. I was even wearing the same hat in that photo that I had on at check-in. She said no, that wouldn't do. The convention staffer who deals with the hotel ran over and assured the desk clerk that I was indeed Mark Evanier and she made me sound very important. That also would not do.

I thought for a moment I was going to have to make the 90 minute round-trip back to my home. Then the desk clerk talked to the manager and someone looked it up and saw that I'd stayed at that hotel several times before. They decided to make an exception.

Fortunately, I had my cell phone and my cell phone has Apple Pay on it so I could use it to leave the credit card deposit and later to pay for some meals. And it has Zelle and PayPal on it so some friends who were selling stuff at the con were willing to give me cash…and it wasn't a loan. They agreed that if I sent a certain amount of money to their bank accounts, they'd hand me the same amount in currency. That covered dinner at a restaurant that doesn't take Apple Pay and I also had cash for tipping purposes.

So it turned out okay but it was still a pretty stupid thing to do.

I needed a place to sit down for a while and Marv Wolfman was away from his table so I've been sitting here for a while signing his name on things. So far, I've signed it on 23 copies of Tomb of Dracula, 17 copies of Teen Titans, one Adventures of Superman, four promissory notes and a confession to kidnapping the Lindbergh Baby. When they haul him away for the last of these, his table will be mine.

Yesterday at WonderCon was way more crowded than Friday but, at least in the parts of it that I traversed, it wasn't unpleasantly crowded. There were a lot more happy people there and that made for a happier room but not one that I had trouble getting around in. I didn't see all of it and probably won't…but what I did note was much less emphasis on current comics from DC and Marvel and a lot more exhibitors exhibiting products of which someone probably said, "You know, this might sell well to the kind of people who buy comic books." There also seemed to be a lot of Mystery Boxes for sale. I may write something here in the next few days about the mystique of Mystery Boxes.

Another observation: The longer you're at a convention these days, the more everyone starts looking like a Funko Pop figurine of themselves. Everyone's head just gets wider and wider.

Lots of great cosplayers to see. If someone makes one of those videos of most of the cosplayers modeling their "cos," I'll try to link to it. I saw costumes that their makers must have been working on since the last WonderCon or maybe the one before it. (And the one before it was 2019.)

I did my customary Jack Kirby Tribute Panel to a packed room and later in the day, was back in the same room (only now even more packed) for the also-customary Cartoon Voices Panel. I was almost late for the latter due to one of those security folks who thinks his assignment is to stop you from going through the most convenient door and instead take the least convenient route. I couldn't even understand the way he wanted me to go…some path that I think would have taken me through the Haunted Mansion ride — and not even the one at Disneyland, a mile away. It was either the one at Disney World in Florida or Disneyland Tokyo. It took every verbal skill I learned watching all those Sgt. Bilko episodes to get him to let me pass.

I'm heading out now for a breakfast meeting. I'll be back later to write more about yesterday and today. That is, unless that same security guard won't let me back into this hotel without re-routing me through Knotts Berry Farm. I'd prefer Disneyland because by then, I might be in the mood for a Dole Whip.

Hey, how about Jersey Boys in Japanese?

An anonymous person — anonymous to you, not to me — wrote to ask…

I see you're a Special Guest at WonderCon this weekend. Perhaps you can enlighten those of us who will never have that honor what it's like. And is there a difference between being a Special Guest and just a Guest?

Yes, when you're a Special Guest, you get the harem of dancing girls (or boys, if that's your preference) and they scatter rose petals ahead of you wherever you walk. That is, if you deign to walk because you can also order anyone on the premises to give you a piggyback ride anywhere you need to go. Mere Guests don't get any of that and no, actually I don't think there's any difference per se but these days, some convention guests are booked via agents…and agents may ask for certain billing or perks for their clients. So do some unagented folks.

I don't have an agent for this kind of thing and I've never paid any attention to what kind of Guest I am at any convention. I just looked at my WonderCon badge and it says I'm an "invited guest." The adjective seems meaningless unless they're taking the position that someone who pays admission is an "uninvited guest."

More seriously, being any kind of featured guest at a convention is not the big deal a lot of folks might think it is. We don't pay admission. We usually don't pay for meals, travel or accommodations though in some cases, we may. Beyond that, some guests demand and get appearance fees or guarantees that they'll do X amount of business but not all conventions will pay that.

WonderCon and Comic-Con don't. There are celebrities who are paid to be there but they're not paid by the con. They're paid by some company promoting a certain TV show, movie or product. I've recently been e-mailed by a couple of folks asking me which agent books me as moderator of all those panels I host. Like I said, I don't have (or want) an agent for conventions and I've never been paid a cent for hosting panels. There are perks but not checks.

I suspect anyone who's been a Convention Guest much can tell you behind-the-scenes horror stories of not being treated well. There have been a number of small, usually-new cons that were counting on a massive turnout of badge buyers to enable then to honor all their commitments to guests. Then when the turnout is way below expected numbers, they can't pay promised fees or meal or travel reimbursements or even, in one case I know of, a guest's return air fare. I have a few of those stories myself.

If you're a guest who is there to move products or "merch," including a fee for your autograph, you may go home with tons o' cash. You may also just break even on the Ubers you had to pay for to take you to and from the airport. Depends on who you are, what you're offering but also — and this seems to be key — if you're at the right convention. The right one is the one that attracts the kind of person who'd buy what you're selling.

A comic book writer friend of mine once found himself at an autograph show that turned out to be for sports memorabilia and didn't make a dime. How did he wind up there? One of the organizers was a comics fan who wanted to meet his favorite writer.

I haven't had that kind of problem at conventions since I don't sell anything at conventions. I have though had problems with inconveniently-booked reservations (they want me to fly when it's cheapest for them), bad hotel rooms, no-shows by folks who were supposed to pick me up at the airport, nowhere I could get an edible meal, etc. It's one of the reasons I don't go to many. Another is that there's not much for me to do at many of them. I know it may look glamorous to some but whatever glamour there was wore off a long time ago.

The Two Ronnies — Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett — favor us with a visit with The Man Who Repeats Things. The Two Ronnies — Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett — favor us with a visit with The Man Who Repeats Things…

The hall today at the Anaheim Convention Center today was relatively unjammed — plenty of people but not elbow-to-elbow, clogging the aisles.  This is a statement I will almost certainly not be able to make tomorrow.  As is the custom with WonderCons, cosplayers were out in great force displaying some amazing costumes and even the folks who had come in street clothes were wearing some amazing smiles.  As I get older, one feature I appreciate more and more at these functions is just being around so many people having such a good time.

My knee problems did not allow me to make an exhaustive sweep of the room but it felt to me like everything one could possibly want in a comic-type convention was somewhere there with this possible exception: The recent passing of Joe Giella made a number of folks acutely aware that you now have to be fairly young to go to a con and meet the makers of comic books you grew up on. There simply aren't many left from a certain era and there's nothing we can do about it.

I floated about today, sitting at one friend's table for a while and then another friend's and another friend's. One gent with a pile of Groo comics he wanted to get signed looked like Inspector Javert finally tracking down Jean Valjean when he chanced upon me sitting with MAD cartoonist Tom Richmond. I apologized for not always being in one, easily findable spot but he said, after I wrote my name all over the comics, "That's okay. It was kind of fun in a way, like finding eggs on Easter." Whatever. If he says so.

I wish I had a great anecdote from today to share with you but I didn't observe any; just a lot of happy people having a happy time. That was for me the takeaway from Friday at WonderCon. I suspect there will be such people tomorrow and Sunday. They'll just be more tightly packed together. There are still badges available if you're nearby and want to be one of those people.

I never knew my grandparents on my father's side since both of them died before I was born. I did though know my grandparents on my mother's side. As I think I've mentioned on the blog, this grandmother made it to the age of 97. That's impressive and so was the fact that she was married for 49 years to her third husband. That's right: I said third husband.

Grandma and that third husband of hers lived in Hartford, Connecticut and came out to Los Angeles for two or three trips over the years. We had a two bedroom house — one bedroom for my parents, one bedroom for me and my comic books. Mine, of necessity, had to be larger. When Grandma and Grandpa visited, they'd sleep in my bed and I'd sleep on a rollaway bed in the living room. I was about a third serious when I cautioned them to keep their grandparently hands off my comic books.

I was around sixteen when Grandma and Grandpa made their last trip out before the latter passed away. Each visit, Grandpa liked to go out and work in our backyard, trimming hedges, cutting back out-of-control vegetation and picking fruit off our three fruit trees. Remind me one of these days to tell you about those three fruit frees. Grandpa was a tough old guy who liked the sheer feeling of accomplishment and perspiration. It made me feel odd that he could do a lot more yardwork than I could even when he was more than five times my age.

One day when he was out back, a small family meeting was called in the house without his knowledge. Grandma had a problem she wanted to talk over with my mother, my father and me. Put simply, she thought her loving husband had become too old to drive. He'd had a few minor accidents recently — no one hurt, nothing seriously damaged — but they concerned her, as did some close calls when she went somewhere with him.

The discussion was not about whether or not he should stop driving. It was obvious he should stop driving. The discussion topic was who was going to tell him…and how. None of us wanted to hurt this dear man and that would obviously hurt him.

Various ideas were tossed about but the talk kept coming back to one answer: I should tell him. He was real fond of me and thought I was very smart, not just for my age but for any age. I didn't particularly covet this assignment but I was outvoted three to one with me being the one. The three assured me it would be the least painful coming from me. It didn't have to be done immediately…but it had to be done.

I took him a lemonade made from the fruit of one of those trees he was trimming. Then I sat us down in lawn chairs and said, "The people here who love you, myself included, have made a decision. This is only because we love you. It is only for your own good." And then I told him. I made it clear we were not asking him to consider it and it was not open for discussion. We were saying he was going to stop. No arguments.

He stared at me like I'd just announced I was pregnant or something. And as he stared, I could see tears beginning to seep from his eyes. His lower lip trembled a bit and I thought he was about to have some sort of breakdown or tantrum…or something.

Then he wiped his nose and agreed. I leaned over and hugged him and he hugged me back. We both knew he was never going to drive again.

A couple hours later, we headed out to a restaurant for dinner — my father at the wheel, my mother in the seat to his right and my grandparents and me in the back. Only before my father got behind that wheel, Grandpa hopped into that position and announced, "I'll drive!" He got a big laugh and then he moved to the back seat. When they got back to Hartford, he put his car up for sale.

It was the first time I realized that sometimes, the solution to a problem is to be very honest and very direct. It doesn't always work but when it does, it really solves the problem.

You know what I'd like to see? I'd like to see a production of Guys & Dolls in Japanese.

Oh, look! Here's the sizzle reel for one…

Looks like Donald Trump's not getting indicted or arrested today so we'll put another hundred dollars in the jackpot and roll over the whole amount until tomorrow.

I see a lot of Republican officials arguing that the prosecution is political, that it's no big deal, that it's not brought in good faith, etc. So far, I haven't heard them say anything they probably wouldn't be saying if Trump had made good on his brag about being able to murder someone in the street and get away with it. Some of these folks used to chant "Lock him [or her] up!" about every Democratic official, even when they couldn't name any alleged crime the person had committed. There are people in this world who think that if they don't like someone, that's reason enough to throw them behind bars and throw away the key.

I saw some folks on CNN yesterday discussing whether, if/when he is arraigned, Trump will be asked to surrender his passport so he can't flee the country. I say let him keep it. If he flees the country, that might save us an awful lot of money on trials.