Beep

I'm deep in a Chuck E. Cheese ballpit of a story about music and comics, please leave a message at the low moan you hear in the distance.

DUDE.

If you want to know the specific kind of ninny I am, it's the kind that happens to be wearing a Flash t-shirt when she turns up for an interview and finds no one in the room but her subject, a photographer, and Stan Lee. Excelsioops! Ha! Omg I'm tired.

Things I learned from my first few hours at NY Comic Con

1) Geoff Johns may have gotten the most audience questions and ass kissing at the DC Nation panel (deserved, he's rad), but Gail Simone got the most introductory applause, including a standing ovation by a handful of dudes. Who were mostly gay, but it's a start.

2) Geoff Johns is the hottest guy in comics. Which in theory isn't saying anything at all, but in his case it is. He obviously, like, works out and stuff. Even my fiance commented on his fineness over our post-Con cupcakes.

3) Geoff Johns doesn't really understand why everyone always calls him "Geoff Johns" to his face instead of "Geoff." But seriously, how can you not? It's like my friend Judy Wu, why on earth would you ever not say that whole name together.

4) Ok apparently I have a mini-crush on Geoff Johns.

5) Gail Simone is all the awesome I knew she was, and I'm really looking forward to interviewing her, which I am actually going to get away with doing for work.

6) There are some fanboys who think it's a real snooze that people keep bringing up how great Jaime Reyes is because he's the only really authentic, positive Latino superhero. God, how annoying and boring, they should just be happy that they get to have jobs and read comic books and stuff. It's almost as bad as those girls and gay guys who are always going on about how awesome Gail Simone is. SNORE.

7) The coworker I ran into at the convention center "never would have guessed in a million years" that I was a comic book fan. I will confess that more than 50 percent of me is taking that as a compliment.

8) Young women in comics get kind of uncomfortable when older women in comics start talking about feminism, because they've "never really had to think about it." Based on the young women's stated ages, I think there was some kind of bizarre reboot of socio-political continuity between my birth and my fourth birthday.

9) DC is going to launch a series about Supergirl in eighth grade. Despite any number of reasons for concern, I've tentatively decided that this rules.

10) There aren't many things cuter than little boys accompanied by their dads stepping up to a microphone and asking Joe Quesada if there's any chance that the Sentry could be a Skrull. Ok, if I meet a little girl who's being kept up at night by that question, that might be a little cuter.

Memememe

Madeley over at the Fractal Hall Journal tagged me for a meme, and who in the hell am I to say "Ow! You hit too hard! I did so stay frozen! You're such a cheater." Anyway, here's the question:

What creators who are usually associated with a certain company (or, indeed, medium) would you like to see writing someone else’s title? For example, would you want to see JMS on Hellboy? Which DC character should Bendis have a crack at? Should George Pelecanos write Batman? (Answer: Yes)

Ok, I've only been reading comics for a few years, so I'm not the totally most qualified to find the perfect crossover or quirky nonsensical match-up. But here's what I got:

Gail Simone writing Guy Gardener. She did such a bang-up job with Deadpool a few years ago, and Guy's such a hilarious douchebag, that... oh, hell. She already writes for DC. Ok, Gail Simone on Deadpool. Oh, right. Ok, uh... Gail Simone on X-Men! Yes! Pull them out of their navel-gazing, down-bringing, death-wielding confusotron and make them funny and noble and have Emma Frost stop mid-sentence and say "wait, what the crap am I wearing? Someone throw me a sweater."

Brian Michael Bendis on Fables. Because what's missing from that book is frequent panels of Snow White, Cinderella, the Wolf, the Frog Prince, Boy Blue, Rose Red and the miniature mice-riding agents in bobby uniforms squinting and saying "the hell??" when they don't understand something.

That's a joke. Willingham, carry on.

Greg Rucka on Nova. I love Nova. I love Greg Rucka. Nova is all cosmic and science fictiony and techy and spacey, but really well developed and character-driven. Rucka's stuff is all gritty and earthy and dark alley-y and soaked in intrigue, but really well developed and character-driven.

Ok, that's what I got. I'm the new kid who holds my tray and looks awkwardly around the cafeteria pretending I'm looking for someone, but I'll go out on a limb and tag Girl Friday K, Caleb and Sally.

See you this weekend, maybe!

Do you think batarangs are tax deductible?

Happy tax day, everyone. I'm bang-deep in work at the moment, but I will be at NYCC this weekend, so if you see a girl with a press pass and a slack-jawed, concerned expression, give a thumbs up. I won't actually be concerned, that's just the involuntary default state of my face. It has confused many a teacher and employer, and enabled repulsive candid photos.

Anyway, I unintentionally walked by Jim Hanley's Universe in Midtown yesterday, and the line was around the block to sit cross-legged at the feet of Brian Bendis and Matt Fraction. I had read about the event and considered going, but the pen I use for having my thigh autographed was out of ink. According to their posts on the Bendis board, Brian and Matt were "not invited" to the New York Comic Con, and so were just in town for last night's event. I'm guessing that "not invited" means "not given an award or had a panel named after them," since clearly, they would be welcome to attend and, I don't know, autograph thighs.

Mom, just take the stupid picture already

I realize I'm a non-fictional, grown woman who's getting married in three weeks, but that doesn't keep me from really kind of wanting to ask Jaime Reyes to prom.

He probably wouldn't tell me he'd "think about it" and then call back and say "ok, but as long as it's just as friends" and then when we did go run off to a nearby playground to screw around with some punks for an hour and a half.

Wait, what was I talking about? Oh right, Blue Beetle. Anyway, I would have crushed my head off on him, and been beside myself with giddiness and spent all day getting ready for our magical, awkward platonic evening where nothing would happen and then we wouldn't talk for a week.

Does that make me gross?

Ice cream koans

So, I don't want to get into the habit of cross-pollinating my blogs, because this one is supposed to be about comics and the other one attached to my personal/writing website is about absolutely nothing. But I guess if I have something silly to share, I shouldn't discriminate. So anyway:

Saturday morning, I’m lying in bed reading and the doorbell rings. We have a monthly exterminator that comes to our building, and we always pretend we’re not home because of Saturday morning lazies, but since Aaron was up I asked him if he’d grab the door. A minute later, I hear him talking to a couple of guys in the hallway, and I figure it’s something related to the building or some such. The conversation goes on and on and I can’t understand what they’re saying, but figure he’s handling it and it will be some annoyance that I’ll have to deal with later as condo association president. Then about 15 minutes into the conversation, there’s a moment of sound clarity and I hear Aaron emphatically say this:

“All of us are one big ocean, but each of us is a wave.”

Dude was proselytizing. To the Jehovah’s Witnesses who came to our door. For almost an hour. He tried to give them a book of zen teachings in exchange for their Watchtower, but they wouldn’t take it, naturally.

How hot is that?

Do you think Skrulls use "skrully" for every adjective like Smurfs? I hope so.

So, I would have to say that Secret Invasion #1 fritzed out my brain a little. Not "blew my mind," because that is not what it did. It's like while Bendis was stirring the pot and stirring it and stirring it, he talked on his cell phone and had a thumb war with is kid (with the non-stirring thumb) and watched "The Hills" and spit watermelon seeds at a trash can across the room and sang some Wagner and then someone came in the kitchen and looked in the pot and was like "um, what is that?" And Bendis is like "only the most delicious 17-bean chili ever, why do you ask?"

Anyway, if all those people in the ship are supposed to be people who were replaced 30 years ago, then obviously that is complete nonsense. If there's something more to it, or rather I should say less, then it could be interesting. But right now it's feeling a little Truman Show-y, and if I'm making reference to Jim Carrey movies, I must be feeling a little off. Also, I was kind of put out by Joe Q's whole thing at the end where he talks about all the years of back-issues of stuff I MUST BUY if I'm to have any REAL idea of what's going on.

Although I did like seeing Reed Richards scattered to the wind like a cobweb.

ZOMG you guys!!11!

Secret Invasion starts tomorrow! I mean it started like many many years ago, but tomorrow we get to know how many! Or maybe not! Whom Do Y... I mean Who Do You Trust??? God that grammatical error will grate on me until I die! Or maybe the real me is already dead and I'm actually a Skrull!! Only Bendis and Yu and Quesada and Brevoort and Buckley and Oswalt and marvel_b0y and Baby Cage know! I bet they're all sad that April 1 isn't a Wednesday this year, because think of all the hilarious shit they could pull with this release! Except Baby Cage, she (it's a she, right? I'm forgetting!) has better skrully baby things to do.

Anyways, if my carefully researched hunches are correct, nothing will ever be the same again. Don't say I didn't warn you.