Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: Today's soundtrack: Franz Ferdinand "Take Me Out" ::
I was on vacation last week, and for those of you who are curious, I went to the Wizard World Philadelphia comic book convention. Is my Geek showing? More on the con in a moment, but for now:
Who the merry hell designed the roadways through New Jersey?! Whoever you are, you ought to be beaten with a sack filled with door knobs! Let me explain. There are two major routes traversing the state which are BOTH labeled "95", Not 95 and 95A, or 95S and 95W, no. This would fine. But TWO HIGHWAYS marked as 95 is not only morally and ethically wrong, but also incredibly confusing to the out of state traveler! So, here we have 95 and Bizarro 95, which both lead to different places, and naturally I wind up on the wrong 95. Son of a bitch, right? My desire to conquer the Earth has been rekindled JUST so I can relabel the New Jersey highway system. That's right, New Jersey, the impending destruction is all YOUR fault!
On the ride home, we passed through New York city, pretty much just to use the George Washington Bridge (RIP Gwen Stacey), another genius moment in road design. a SIX DOLLAR toll to travel, what? Three miles? But a three miles that took nearly two hours! Now, I come from a small town in a small state. Pretty much all of us New England staters are conservative, law-abiding motorists, with the insane exception of the people of Massachusetts. Massachusetters aside, the rest of us nearly always follow all road signs, signals and lane dividers. Who knew that being conscientious driver would get your ass handed to you in New York, even on a mere three mile stretch? Thankfully, I was NOT traveling alone, and my copilots were in fact crazy Massachusetts drivers and they were more than able to see us through the nastiness. In case you don't know, apparently in big cities like New York and Boston, all of those lines panted on the pavement of roads are SUGGESTIONS. It seems that if a space is wide enough for a vehicle to occupy it, one WILL be there whether it be a break down lane, the shoulder, or even just the spot between you and the next car in the next lane, a vehicle will miraculously squeeze itself in there. This being the case, imagine my horror as four lanes were shrinking down to only two. The thought of these people giving up their lane was preposterous and they would stop at nothing to keep it as long as they possibly could and then cut you off to squeeze in at the last second when they could no longer keep it up. Thankfully, my Massachusetts driver could pilot an SUV like a light cycle from Tron, making ninety degree lane merges and such. Thanks, Kevin, you rock.
Now on to the actual con. The con, as always, was totally awesome.
I sat in on a Q & A will film maker Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy), which was great. The fans asked him questions about everything he's ever done from his proposed Superman script to his time on Degrassi: the Next Generation. Any question brought to him was answered in full, with a lengthy and entertaining story. The whole thing ended with a screening of two full scenes from the upcoming Clerks 2 film. I won't say much about them, other than one was Randall arguing Lord of the Rings vs. Star Wars and the other featured Jay and Silent Bob leaning against a wall. One thing made me uncomfortable about the Kevin Smith experience: sitting in front of me was a man about my age with his EIGHT YEAR OLD SON! If you know ANYTHING about Smith, it's that he curses like a motherfucker. Not only is every other word "fuck", but he also uses jargon like "chugging cock", etc. It just felt kind of weird to have an elementary school kid sitting in on this, even IF he was reading comics the whole time.
Another highlight was seeing VIDEO GAMES LIVE Saturday night. This is a relatively new touring show which features a small choir and an orchestra performing music from video games, all synchronized to a huge projection screen featuring images from the video game, and a light show. Sounds weird, I know, but I can't put into words how great this show was to see. It's really something you have to view in person to fully appreciate its coolness. My main happy moments during this were the overture, and the music from The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Brothers, Kingdom Hearts, and Castlevania. Many of the composers were there, but those who weren't had recorded little hellos to the audience, which was pretty cool. They also got this Japanese guy who had recorded himself for the internet playing the Mario music on his piano while blindfolded to perform his own arranged medley of music from the Final Fantasy games on piano (he later did the Mario theme blindfolded for us. It was amazing to see him go when he did the "time is running out" and then speed up. I swear his hands were going ninety miles an hour...). All in all, a TERRIFIC show.
The Artist Alley was of course the biggest draw for me, as always. I spend most of my time at any con traversing the booths of all the artists, some big, but most small trying to get noticed. I got to say "hi" to Jennie Breeden again who does one of my fave daily online comic strips The Devil's Panties (NOT Satanic porn!). I also purchased an original Amazing Spider-man page for my collection of originals (why is it I always come up with the most expensive things to collect?). The best part is, of course, making "finds." I came across two small comics that I think could really deserve larger attention, Subculture of One and Tales of the Starlight Drive-In. Subculture is pretty much aimed at young girls, but it's pretty funny and her art is quite good. Drive-In is definitely more mature, but not too much, and has an interesting premise, along with some great writing.
Well, I'm done telling about my personal stuff now, I promise. The last thing I say before signing off today is: thank you cosplayers for wearing costumes to our conventions. If it weren't for all the guys wearing Superman, Batman and Trigun outfits, we'd see less women willing to out in public dressed as Princess Leia in a gold bikini. Also, no one would be able to get their picture taken with fat Spider-man, and who would want to put an end to that? I mean, isn't that what going to a con is all about?
William (con artist)
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