Tales of Syzpense #16
Big Licks and Taylor Tales, and a preview of next week's Tales of Syz #2 comic
Last week, I was making my way back from Roanoke, Virginia, where I was a guest of the Big Lick Comic-Con for the second time this year. And much like the Big Lick NOVA show in Dulles in April, everything about this one went great as well.
JD Sutphin, who puts on the con and also owns the amazing Big Lick Comics store in Roanoke, does everything top-notch. He and his staff not only take the best care of their guests but they just make sure all details, big and small, are seen to in the right way.
At the show, it was great to hang out with various parts of my childhood: other guests of the con were former Marvel writers/EICs Jim Shooter and Tom DeFalco, writer Christopher Priest (who I first got to know through his work as Marvel editor and writer when he was calling himself Jim Owsley), as well as artists Guy Dorian Sr., Arthur Suydam, Michael Watkins, and Rodney Ramos. I always love having conversations about the comics and creators that were part of my formative comic-reading years, and the convention, the dinners after, and the late evenings all provided plenty of that.
It was also nice to spend more time with another con guest and former co-worker Ming Chen (we still can’t quite reconcile the fact that it was 20 years ago when we worked together on Kevin Smith’s Web site), along with the other guests like Dan “Francis Ford Coppola” Fogler, Claire Lim, Jimmy “the Hit Man” Hart, “fellow” Power Ranger David Yost and others. Manageably sized cons like these are such a nice way to have ample time to talk to the other guests and attendees both.
And to make it just a bit better, JD not only ran the show but also got his band together to play a 2+-hour concert for guests and fans as well. (Arthur Suydam got up and played some solid guitar and did a decent Elvis on a few songs, too.) Pretty much everything he and he staff could control was handled in a top-notch way.
But there was one thing out of their control that made the finale of the show a bit harried: the unpredictable summer weather in Virginia. I’d already planned to stay over a day so I could see JD’s comic shop this past Monday – and it was well worth it – but staying that extra day meant that an approaching thunderstorm and tornado had time to get close enough to wreak havoc on travel plans.
Monday afternoon, it turned out that inclement weather or other situations saw flights to Washington D.C. (my connector), New York, and Atlanta all canceled. Which wouldn’t have been terrible if I didn’t need to get back to San Diego on Tuesday, in order to then gather my daughter and head up to Los Angeles for a Taylor Swift concert she’d been eagerly anticipating for over half a year.
Only, there were no other flights out on Monday. So I started working on return flights on Tuesday, and ran into the logjam of canceled flights then impacting the next day’s flights and there just aren’t an abundance of planes coming in and out of Roanoke. I needed to get to D.C. by late morning on Tuesday to have any chance of making my connection and getting back home in time.
And that’s when my life turned into a Seinfeld episode. If not a full-blown Planes, Trains, and Automobiles situation (minus a Steve Martin-esque meltdown, although circumstances aligned to inspire one in my head, anyway).
I booked an initial return out of Roanoke but it was quickly canceled too, so I decided the only way to ensure I hit my connection was to rent a car and drive out first thing in the morning on Tuesday. If I left early enough, I could make the 4-hour trek to D.C. just in time. I booked the car. And then got a note saying they wouldn’t have it ready to pick up til 11am on Tuesday. Four hours after I needed to depart from Roanoke.
I called them, and explained my situation. They said if I wanted to come pick up the car now, within the hour, they’d have to bill me for two days but I could at least get the car. No better options at hand, I said sure, I’ll see you in an hour. I showed up at the airport a half-hour later to get the car.
And was told no, sorry, there are no cars available today. None, nothing, not a one.
“But I just called an hour ago,” I said. “They assured me the car was here and told me to come pick it up now.”
They repeated again, there are no cars at all today. None due back, none here, nothing at all. We don’t know who you spoke to, they said, but they got it wrong. We’ve got nothing.
The whole Seinfeld “so you take the reservation, but you don’t keep the reservation” bit wanted to play in my head but it was forced aside by panic. There was suddenly a very real chance I wasn’t going to make it back home in time for the concert (itself a 3-hour drive from my place).
But wait! They said they should have a car tomorrow, so if I could come pick it up then, that should be okay. I could come pick it up any time… after 11am.
Suffice it to say, I cancelled that reservation. There was one more rental counter open, right next to me, so I gave them a shot. After all, they’d been watching my futile effort to get a car from their competitor, so they knew the situation. And they said they could help. I’d just have to pay roughly six times what the other place offered and roughly double what the planet ticket to D.C. cost, due to same-day service and one-way rental and mandatory insurance and other tacked-on fees.
When I pointed out that the other place offered me a car for a fraction of this price, they smiled and said “maybe, but we’ve got a car today and they don’t.” Check and mate.
I left early the next morning, driving what was probably the highest-priced Kia rental ever, but I made it back in time to then hustle up to LA for the concert.
The larger points here are, the Big Lick Comic-Con is a great show, and Taylor Swift really delivered over the nearly four hours she played, too.
Big Lick Comics
I first met JD and got a glimpse of his Big Lick Comics a year ago while signing at another shop in Virginia. I knew I had to see it when I was in town for the con and JD and his staff were kind enough to open it for us on Monday, despite it being their normal day off. Which meant we had uninterrupted time to just wander the store and see what looked good to us (note: a great many things). Some of which came home with me. These pictures maybe don’t do it all justice but I think you can see even from these what a place of wonder it really is.
Comic Losses
While I was away at the show, the comic industry had a couple of big losses. First, under-appreciated but top-notch inker John Floyd, passed away at 60. John was an artist in his own right but it was his finishing over the the detailed pencil work of pencilers like Barry Windsor-Smith and Deny Cowan that really caught peoples’ attention. Inking the hyper-detailed and crosshatch-heavy Barry Smith pages takes a steady and proficient hand, and John certainly showed he had that.
So John’s work stands tall but one other thing I always loved about John is the photo directly below: you may have seen it shared on social media over the years without knowing who it was, but this is 13-year-old John Floyd in the comic-filled bedroom of Bronze Age comic fans’ dreams. Tripwire Magazine had a nice piece celebrating John’s life and legacy.
We also lost Allen Spiegel, which is a difficult loss for so many people I know, as well as for me. Allen is someone I had great conversations with over the years, too. Allen was a publisher, a patron, a visionary, and a champion of graphic storytelling in ways that are largely unequaled. Whether through his own Allen Spiegel Fine Arts or in other ways, he did so much to help bring artists’ works into the world. Tripwire Mag also detailed Allen’s lasting mark in comics in this farewell piece.
When my daughter was young, Allen was kind enough to send her signed copies of some of painter Jon J. Muth’s gorgeous Zen picture books. Allen was always a booster of painted comic art and did a lot to push the work of ground-breaking artists like Muth and Kent Williams. Allen helped bring a lot of amazing, lasting books into the world, books we’ll all be enjoying for a long, long time. He’ll sure be missed by a lot of us.
Spinner Rack Theme: Big-Head Doom and the Monsters
One of the best things about being able to wander around a beautifully stocked comic shop like Big Lick Comics was just seeing what caught my eye. And one such thing was a particularly goofy issue of ‘90s Marvel Comic Sleepwalker. Goofy because, well, the cover image—a massive shot of Sleepwalker’s face – was also a perforated mask. Should anyone be inclined to tear the cover off their comic and punch out the eye holes, that is. Did anyone at all do that back when this came out? Probably not! But ‘90s cover gimmicks weren’t intended to be practical.
But picking this one up made me think of other such “giant-face” covers, and while I’ve not tracked down many, some good examples are below, and I’m sure many others abound.
This Next Week in Syzygy
In stores this week! Issue #2 of our namesake comic – Tales of Syzpense – is in stores on August 17 August 23.
In the first issue, I introduced an aging character called Dreamweaver who, despite mystical powers, gets his ass handed to him and decides that the time has come to pass on his powers to someone younger. You know, that old story. This issue, Nelson Daniel and I reveal who he passes his abilities to, and why it doesn’t turn out like that old story after all. Ashley Wood and TP Louise offer up part 2 of Les Mort 13 in the issue as well. 40 pages, no ads but instead there are some additional pin-ups from both Ash and Nelson, and it’s all yours with any one of these four covers (2 each by Ash and Nelson).
If you hav any trouble finding any cover you might want, for either issue 1 or 2, or want a signed copy or anything along those lines, drop me a line. Otherwise, hope you enjoy where it’s headed! Writing the story in 12-page chapters is certainly an interesting challenge, since it means there’s no real space for any meandering. The good thing is, that means there’s no space for any meandering.
See you next week! Keep the, uh, Dream alive or something. (I struggle with how or even if I should sign off each of these newsletters but I’m pretty sure that phrase isn’t one you’ll see again…)
An excellent choice, Big Lick Comics and Sleepwalker 17. Come back any time.