ZapTown

Back in 1996, 3 friends and I all drove up to Chicago to attend the Chicago Comic Convention (“Chicagocon”).  Growing up, I’d attended a slew of local conventions in the Indianapolis area,  but nothing that would match the size and scope of the Chicago experience.   I seem to recall that my tastes in 1996 leaned more towards anything published by Fantagraphics and mini-comics.   Keep in mind that this was a few years before the first SPACE (Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo) would come into being, so finding a row of tables with nothing but self-published comics was pretty exciting for me.  I still covet the two issues of “Hey Shakey Jake, Are You Out of Your Fucking Crazy?” I picked up on that trip…

Anyway, shortly after 1996, Wizard Magazine took over the Chicagocon and pretty much sucked the life out of it.  The self-publishers were pushed to the back of the room and eventually left out altogether, and instead of mini-comic creating sessions with Matt Feazell, live wrestling matches were held.  But for me, the 1996 con was pretty amazing, particularly because of the dinner at the end of the trip.  Once we returned home from the trip, I quickly cranked out the following memoir:

Chicagocon 6/21-6/23/96

We left Thursday night at about 9:30 and drove straight to Chicago.  We entertained ourselves by discussing out favorite obscure comic series and found that Micah was a big Rocket Raccoon fan.  Eric announced he was going to bed as soon as we got there, but the rest of us (Brad, Micah, and I) were still pumped up from the ride and decided to go find some booze and smoke cigars.  On our way down, we were passed by some men who were sort of giggling.  We thought that it was a little odd until we saw the source of their fun…an older man walking through the lobby with nothing on but his fruit of the looms!  We rounded the corner and laughed pretty hard.  We sort of felt bad later when we thought about how he may have been locked out of his room or something, but all agreed that we would have found some other means of acquiring a key that didn’t involve walking through the hotel in our underwear.  We were disappointed to find the bar closed early, but improvised with a flask full of Southern Comfort (thanks to Brad) and some lounge chairs.  We shot the shit for an hour or so and finally went to sleep.

Four hours later we woke up to country music on the alarm and got ready for the show.  We caught about 30 minutes of a movie (we think it was one of the “Billy Jack” movies) and proclaimed it a classic.  Brad and I swore to find the movie on video for further research at another time.  The little bit we saw provided enough material to quote throughout the weekend.  Later, while in the hotel lobby, Brad initiated a joke that would haunt me throughout the weekend.  The Convention was just across the street and we got there in plenty of time to get a good spot in line.  Brad already had tickets, so he had to stand in another line, while we stood in another.  While in line we saw this greasy haired fanboy with a black Babylon 5 shirt (I turned to Eric and whispered “I can’t tell where the stars end and the dandruff begins…”).

A long time passed, but we finally got our tickets and were in.  We all had our own agendas, and split into two teams.  Eric and Micah went one direction while Brad and I went another.  The next several hours were an assault on my senses.  Booths offering every sin I could ever waste a life’s savings on.  Rows of videos, tables of Godzilla toys, Action Comics #1, movie posters, Aurora models, Corgi Batmobiles, lunchboxes, Presto Magic, Shrinky Dinks, etc.  It was amazing.  I spent money, but I don’t think there was a rhyme or reason to what I was getting, just that I was buying.

Later, after the rush had worn off, we wandered through the publishers section.  DC definitely held court with an amazing display area.  At any given time, at any one of three tables, you could find Andy Helfer, Alex Ross, Mark Waid, Jerry Ordway, and lots of other people I didn’t know.  There were DC staff members running around with head mics on and marketing people making deals.  Towering above it all was an impressive monitor display running Superman cartoon ads, Kingdom Come spots, and an occasional cartoon.  Compared to the measly Marvel table, DC were kings of the con.  Jim Shooter was signing autographs at the Broadway Comics booth, the Spawn Car was parked next to the Image booth, and half naked girls dressed as characters were promoting the latest “bad girl” comics.

I attended a mini-comic panel hosted by Matt Feazell.  It wasn’t well organized and I really didn’t learn much, but we did all get to sit around and draw mini comics.  It was a real rush for me to be able to say “I drew minis with Matt Feazell”.

We later attended a panel discussion about the Legion of Superheroes, attended by Mark Waid, Paul Levitz, and Jim Shooter.  The new guys working on the book were there too, but I don’t read the book anymore, so I didn’t recognize them.  Shooter went on a 15 minute tangent about working with Mort Weisinger at the age of 13.  He told the story of Mort asking Shooter to fly out to a meeting they were having the next week.  Although Shooter had been writing the Legion, he had never met Mort, so he had no idea how young he was.  “I just turned 14”. He said.  “Put your mother on the phone” instructed Mort.  Jim was able to go to the meeting, but his mom had to go with him.  It was a funnier story when Shooter told it.  He also talked about he would dread the weekly calls from Mort, who would scream at him for two hours, calling Shooter his “charity case” that he would have fired a long time ago if his parents didn’t need the money so badly. 

The discussion continued with questions such as “who was your favorite Legionnaire” and an invaluable look back at Curt Swan who had died the week before.  When it came to stories with heart, Swan was the master.  It really opened my eyes to the value of an artist I had really not fully appreciated.

We saw George Perez, who was drawing pictures for $10 a piece, all of which was donated to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.  It was amazing to stand there and watch him draw.  Brad had him do a Thor portrait and Eric got a Captain Marvel.  The pencil job on the Captain Marvel was incredible.  So much so that George commented “sometimes I amaze myself”.  He was right.  Steve Rude was doing sketches and had brought a sketch book along with him.  Eric, Micah, and I thumbed through this book with our jaws on the floor.  There were full color covers to Nexus books that were painted at a size slightly bigger than a postage stamp.  It was enough to make you give up all hopes of drawing well.  

I bought a stack of mini comics and spoke with some of the small press creators.  This was one of the main goals of my trip and the experience was inspirational.  These are the people who are doing comics out of sheer love for the medium.  A lot of the minis were crap, but some were really good.  When you see legions of fans toting around portfolios in hopes of being Marvel’s next art whore, it was refreshing to see someone get excited when you dropped a quarter for their 8-page mini comic.  

That evening we had dinner at Giordano’s with Hugh Haynes.  Although he’s a Hoosier just like us, it was a thrill to hang out with a legitimate comic book professional.  Incidentally, Matt Feazell was eating two booths away.  We ended up the night smoking cigars and drinking in the Holiday Inn lounge.  On the elevator ride back to our room, we saw the Babylon 5 guy, who still had dandruff on his shoulders.

Saturday morning we watched the “Chan Clan” cartoon.  It was on Univision, so the whole thing was in Spanish.

I happily spent most of the day walking around with Brad while he collected autographs.  He brought several books to have signed.  Erica had a good idea to bring around a sketch book for artists to sign and often they were compelled to do a quick sketch.  Colleen Doran, Vince Locke, Gene Ha, George Perez, Geoff Darrow, Evan Dorkin, Jim Shooter, John Byrne, Alex Ross, Mark Waid…it was all an overload.  

While getting autographs, Brad and I got lucky twice.  The first time was when we wandered up to John Byrne’s table for Brad to get an autograph.  We were third in line.  I had heard that he was an asshole but didn’t want to believe it.  It was true.  He had a sign that announced his limit number of autographs per person, his refusal to write in silver pens because they “gloob” (his word), and that he would periodically grow tired of signing autographs…at which time he would do a quick sketch to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.   We actually saw him look over a comic that a fan had brought to be autographed, declared it a reprint, and stamp his signature in the book as opposed to signing it himself.  We got lucky because when we walked past his booth 5 minutes later, the line was enormous. Our second lucky break was when we were about 6 people back in line for Alex Ross and Mark Waid.  As soon as Brad got their autographs and rounded the corner, the line had grown so large that none of us would have considered standing in it.

At one point, Brad introduced me to “Ann” who worked for DC.  They talked shop for a while and she invited us to dinner after the show.  

We went to the Hyatt sports bar to meet the DC people.  We drank beer with Dan Raspler (editor of Hitman, Lobo, Kingdom Come, and the Spectre) and Paul Kupperberg.  Ann arrived shortly with none other than Paul Levitz! Everyone hated the CBG awards, but this was to be the dinner of a lifetime.  We went to Giordano’s again and the wait was going to be about 30-45 minutes.  This was fortunate since it meant that we would be entertained by stories from both Paul Levitz and Kupperberg.  I leaned that the famed DC Implosion as due to a financial hit taken by DC due to newsstand returns and that it was Paul’s job to “make the numbers work”.  This meant cancelling a slew of titles and, according to Paul Levitz, set DC back about 4-5 years in their ability to entice good talent to work with their company.  Kupperburg told us about how Levitz was the first of their childhood friends to work for DC and that he refused to tell them which of the Seven Soldiers of Victory was going to die in that year’s JLA/JSA crossover, even though he knew.  Kupperberg went on about how speculators were killing fandom and that the good ol’ days of conventions and comics were gone.  We were later seated and as a symbol of the advantage we had gained by eating dinner with Paul Levitz, Brad and I got him to answer the question he had eluded at Friday’s panel: Who is your favorite Legionnaire?   “I don’t know, probably Element Lad or Timber Wolf” he said and then changed the subject.  We found out that Kupperberg was the one who put together the Cancelled Comics Cavalcade and that 35 copies existed.  He and Paul even had theirs at the office.  He confessed it was the one book in his collection that was really worth something and that he would likely use it to put his children through college.  He told us that Grant Morrison was interesting to work with as he had to constantly keep him focused on the work at hand.  Dan told us the best story he had heard was the Morrison wanted to do a “Rip Hunter – Time Master” story in which Rip got the gang together to join him in another adventure in time travel.  After strapping into the time machine, they would sit in their seats, and sit, and sit…until one of the crew asked what they were doing.  “Travelling into the future!” was Rip’s reply.  Paul Levitz told us about how the Dark Knight Returns was almost never finished due to Frank Miller’s efforts to push Klaus Janson off of the book.  Apparently he didn’t like the inks on that particular book.  Brad discussed having books like Kingdom Come be released on a bi-monthly basis to increase sales, but Paul Levitz didn’t seem to go for it.  Kupperberg told us about Curt Swan.  He reinforced the man’s ability to draw stories with heart and that people were his specialty.  “You really didn’t give Curt stories with lots of slam-bang action because it wasn’t his forte…and heaven forbid he had to draw a monster!”  Kupperberg talked about John Byrne.  On one hand it seemed like they were great friends, but on the other it seemed that he hated him.  We couldn’t figure which it was.  He did tell us that the reason the latest New Gods book looked so good was that Byrne was extremely intimidated with doing the project right.  That in some way he owed it to Kirby to do his Fourth World characters the right way.  There was a brief discussion as to what the Fourth World was and that it may have been in reference to God’s fourth mistake.  Time went on, stories were told, beer was consumed, everyone at well and DC picked up the tab.

Let, back at the hotel.  Brad and I told each other stories that we heard that night in an effort not to forget.  This memoir serves the same purpose.

The ride home was uneventful and long due to traffic.  Most times, this would be agonizing, but I had the memories of a Saturday night pizza dinner with the kings of DC comics to keep me happy.  It’s a buzz that I won’t be shaking off any time soon.

The End