Pipeline: Pipeline, Issue #204

Sure, I could have left Pitt a little sooner, but why ruin a good thing? Besides, Sunday was the big costume day and there are plenty of con geeks to make fun of then! There was a second Space Ghost at the convention on Sunday, but he had the smarts to wear something closer to sweatpants than spandex. Nonetheless, I hear that Evan Dorkin did a double take on Saturday when that day's SG passed by his table in artist's alley. Leave it to CBR's own Larry Young to put it most succinctly: "Spandex is not a right. It's a privilege."

Artist's Alley at Pittsburgh]

He also mentioned that he's writing (with Sarah Dyer) a two-part story for SUPERMAN ADVENTURES. They will probably be the last two issues of the series. He didn't know that ahead of time, so he didn't get the chance to do a more momentous issue. He said that if he had known in advance, he would have handled it differently to give the characters a chance to say goodbye. (That's figuratively. In BILL AND TED'S comic book, they said it literally.)

Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz

DeFalco told me that he planned to include a couple of pages about how to produce comics at the end of each issue. It's something he thinks a lot of people are interested in. The first couple of issues will include some writing tips from him, and from there he'll probably talk about the art and the inking and the lettering and coloring and all the rest. It's not necessarily going to be a breakdown of a given page from the comic, but more along the lines of general advice. Given that the book is aimed towards a readership that would be at the age when most people think about doing comics for a living, it should be a perfect addition to the book. For process junkies like myself, it always makes for nice reading.

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The Image Booth was always buzzing with interesting people. If you've never met Image Comics' marketing director Anthony Bozzi, you're missing out on an experience. The man is a fountain of energy, secondly only (possibly) to Marvel's Bill Rosemann. Man, put those two in a room and I wonder who'd tire out first… I finally caught NOBLE CAUSES' creator and writer Jay Faerber behind the table. We talked some about plans for the series and comics in general. (He got bonus points for being able to comment on a recent Pipeline column without provocation. The whole concept of "Banter Comics" seems to have struck a chord with many people.) He also gave me the OK to post two images that were created for the Pittsburgh Comicon by the series' artistic teams here. These drawings were copied onto some heavy paper stock, and were being signed by all involved for the fans.

Patrick Block

In the meantime Block was selling an Italian hardcover book of a story he drew from the late Carl Barks' layouts. It was Barks' final story. It's a beautiful book, with the Italian language version of the story on the right hand pages and the English version on the left hand side. Block imported a few copies from Italy when he heard of it, and the only place you can really find these in America is to get them from him if you spot him at a con.

Hopefully, the American license will be granted and the material – such as Block's story – can be seen in America. It's amazing to think how much new material has been produced overseas that hasn't been seen in America yet. Just because we can't get them here doesn't mean that Patrick Block (with his wife, Shelly) and William Van Horn and Don Rosa and Caeser Ferioli and David Gerstein, et. al., have stopped working. When those gates open up, we should be getting some great stuff rushing in.

Block was also the most prolific of the "Quick Sketch" artists at the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund raffles over the weekend. I'll be talking a lot more about those this Friday.

As a whole, Sunday was quiet. How quiet? The place was so empty, I thought I heard the theme song from THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY in my head when I saw a lone figure at the far end of artist's alley. Tumbleweed brushed by my feet when I walked in at 11:30. There were times when Brian Bendis didn't have anyone in front of his table. I remarked to my friend, Dani, as we passed by Bendis that he was "so last month's Wizard." That was probably the copy of Wizard that was picked up by the cleaning crew at the Harvey's after Frank Miller's speech. (Those ripped pages were the most in-demand collectible of the con.)

George Perez's booth, which almost always held a steady seven to ten people in front of it, was often down to a person or two. It's probably my biggest regret of the con that I never made it over there. We diabetics have to stick together, you know. =)

It's another odd thing that no matter how much you cram into three days, you always end up missing someone or forgetting to do something. I could name a half dozen other booths that, in retrospect, I wish I had stopped at. Such is life. I still have San Diego and Chicago in my future, so I'm pacing myself and will have to be happy with that.

On the way out, we ate at a place called Pup a GoGo in the Monroeville Mall. No, there were no strippers. It's just a vendor in a mall food court. I'm still curious as to how that place got its name. It sells hamburgers and hot dogs, mostly. Are there any locals out there that can inform a New Jersey guy like myself as to where that name derived?

And while we're at it, what's with the friggin' highways in Pennsylvania? Is there any five-mile stretch that ISN'T under construction? Any part of it where traffic doesn't stop every half hour to merge two or three lanes into one? Do you have any idea how annoying it is to drive for five miles on a single lane road with high concrete dividers on either side of you? It was right after that where the open road hit again for all of about a mile before the traffic came to such a dead stop in front of a tunnel that a lot of people turned off their engines and got out of the car to stretch while waiting.

Let's think of our friends to the North for a second, too. A special Hall of Shame nomination to the dealer with the Quebec license plates who parked his truck and trailer in the hotel parking lot across four or five spaces. Not fifty feet away was a sign asking people not to park their trailers in the hotel parking lot. I didn't have a spot in my own hotel to park in when I got back from breakfast on a busy Saturday morning and had to park at the mall and walk over. Sheesh

There have been a lot of Pipeline columns here in the past week, so I wanted to give you a rough breakdown of what's been going on, for your reading pleasure: