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: The Go Gos "Vacation" ::
In case there was any doubt by anyone out there as to just how geeky I am, my vacation was spent at Wizard World East, the Philadelphia comic book convention.
The trip gave me one tidbit of wisdom: If you're going to an event which is very far away... remember your ticket!! That's right, I got to Massemachooosettes and realized I had left my ticket in my kitchen!! So, I pulled over and spent 15 minutes trying to find somebody back home to break into my house and over night ship my ticket to my hotel. What good friends I have who are willing to burgle me upon request! Thanks guys.
The con was a great, fun sensory over-load as usual. Wall to wall vendors, artists, publishers, video pirating... woo-hoo! And if that isn't enough, they also had various Q&A sessions going on downstairs. There weren't so many cute girls dressed in comic book/sci-fi outfits as last year, but I guess I'll live.
And you know what rocks? FREE STUFF. That's right f-r-e-e. I got a couple free manga books from the Tokyopop stand. Modern-day Zen artist Andy Lee gave me a free ink drawing. Not to mention all of the small press guys who were handing out free sample comics and free sketches!! Small press guys are the best. Seriously. They are always willing to chat with you, talk up their projects, sign an autograph, draw you something, whatever, just with the tiny hope you may get hooked. Good luck you guys. Mean it.
Are you ready? I spent an hour in the Eliza Dushku Q&A, listening to the sultry sound of her voice. Some people asked some good questions, and she sometimes had some really good responses. Like how she cut her tongue on a fang while kissing David Boreanaz when he was is full vampire prosthetics ( she got quite a bit of teasing from the crew for the "tongue action"). Of course, some nimrod asked her for her "unmentionables" and somebody asked her if she were single (she IS). And there was that one loser who asked her "why Faith went back to that church," which she deferred as a Joss question, because you never ask an actor a question about continuity or character motive, you jerk, that's something you ask a writer, but she said it more politely. I would have stood in line to get her autograph, but it was crazy-ass long all freakin' day. But then, she is just that hot.
Here's what I made off with: one original page of a Batgirl comic by Damian Scott, one original page of The Titans signed by the inker, an original pencil and ink of Electra by Khoi, an autographed Terry Moore print to benefit the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, some original works by the cool guys at Arson Entertainment, an original Batgirl marker piece by Carr, an original ink pic of Spider-Man by Maviok, two original Andy Lee Zen pieces (one free, both autographed), 4 posters for the old Universal monster films, Gargoyles episodes season 1, Batman fan films (if you haven't seen Batman: Dead End, you really should), Star Wars fan films, Perfect Blue live action Japanese film, Crying Freeman live action film, 18 inch Nosferatu action figure, 18 inch Lon Chaney as the Phantom of the Opera action figure, and of course, tons of comics, both current and back issue. The most pricey of them all has to be the original comic book pages, naturally, and cheapest were, well, free.
So who knew driving yourself into debt for the next six months could be so much fun? I'll be too busy filing comics and watching movies to think about my finances though. Ah... bliss.
Oh and did I mention I got the Beastmaster's autograph....?
