Tales of Syzpense #58
Shaun of the Dead at 20, DragonCon memories, Syz and Syz-adjacent releases; and a Spinner Rack of Comics with Comics
How’s This For a Slice of Fried Gold?
A couple of months ago, I was contacted by one of the big movie-ticket sellers. One of the places that does occasional in-theater programming that runs ahead of the movie itself.
After the simple movie trivia, the surface-level pop-culture updates from Maria Menounous, 20 minutes of trailers, the Coke commercial shot by developing filmmakers, and an extended ad for the theater in which you’re already seated, I mean.
The ticket company wanted to film a celebration of Shaun of the Dead, which was getting a re-release this fall—this month, in fact. Shaun was turning 20. And someone in marketing wanted a Shaun expert to film a little segment celebrating the film and its lasting impact.
They reached out to me because I wrote the official comic-book adaptation of the film. It was my first published comic series, and while it isn’t quite 20 yet (it launched in 2005), it was close enough to merit discussion, they thought.
I said I’d be happy to discuss this with them, and we set a longer call to talk about what they wanted to do. The plan was to send an interviewer and a cameraperson to my place and I’d sit and discuss the film and the comic. I had plenty of good things to talk about: working with Edgar Wright and his producer Nira Park (and to lesser extent, with Simon Pegg, who mostly just cheered us on); collaborating for the first time with wunderkind artist Zach Howard, who I’d met just a few months before at WizardWorld Chicago and whose work I loved at first sight; and other such tales.
Plus I had a page of Zach’s great original art to show — I own issue 1 page 1, while Edgar owns all the rest of the 4-issue series — I have copies of the book both domestic and assorted foreign editions, and planned to outfit my spinner rack with copies of all four issues as a fun background element.
The marketing folk loved the idea. We had a great call discussing all of these details. But they said they had a couple other specific thoughts of what this could be, and would send me a link to another piece they produced for another film, The Big Lebowski.
They sent me the link. It featured a big fan of that Coen Brothers film who considered himself, uh, “the REAL Dude.” The guy appeared in the video in a robe, big beard flowing, swigging a White Russian.
Uh-oh.
It seems that as much as they liked the idea of someone who had a direct association with the movie in the way that I did, want they really wanted was a Shaun superfan. In fact, that was the word they used. They said, it’s great that you did the comic, but surely you’ve collected props from the movie, you have a white short-sleeve dress shirt with red in it; something.
I wanly replied that I had a few of the vinyl records that Shaun and Ed hurled at the zombies in the garden scene.
The actual records from the film, they said hopefully?
No, no, I said, I just have my own copies of, like, Prince’s Purple Rain and Sign O’ The Times. The sigh-lence that followed was palpable. “We’ll get back to you,” they said.
And get back to me, they did. To tell me they were going in another direction. Now, I’ve not seen the re-release yet but presumably there’s a short segment with “the REAL Ed,” sitting there in his “Got Wood?” graphic tee or something. Which admittedly might be more fun to watch than listening to me talk about making the comic, and how I screwed up the pacing of the book’s final issue. See, I had such a good time with the talking-head scenes in the movie, and didn’t want to leave out any of Edgar and Simon’s great dialogue, so by the time the military arrived at the Winchester pub to help save the day, well, I had like two pages remaining in the comic. So that action sequence got maybe 2-3 panels in the comic. Which I still stand by, by the way — better to limit that sequence than lose the final bit on Shaun’s couch with zombie Ed.
Anyway, happy anniversary to you, Shaun of the Dead! Thanks for being a great experience all around.
Here There Be DragonCons
Over the years, I’ve heard more wild stories about DragonCon than could possibly be true. Only, as I finally found out at the convention this past weekend, well…
DragonCon is one of those shows that’s actually more like five shows in one. And I don’t think I experienced more than 25% of what the convention has to offer. Because it’s not a convention in the traditional sense as much as it’s a festival that extends throughout the city center. In fact, this aerial photograph shows that even more effectively than words ever could:
(Okay, that’s actually a spread from Frank Miller’s Ronin but same difference.)
So rather than try to explain all of what I saw and experienced, and list all the things I didn’t, I figured I’d just share the handful of pics I took, mostly relegated to the more sedate comic-book area, and leave the rest to the imagination. But suffice it to say, the show was a blast, the spirit of togetherness and caring and enthusiasm was palpable, and I hope everyone gets to experience something similar at some point. Thanks again to the DragonCon crew for having me out for this one.
Below:
First row: Me and my booth mates Guy Dorian Sr. and Larry Hama enjoy tacos; grabbed a pic of The Black Phone's The Grabber; and Larry Hama keeping much better company than the first photo.
Second row: Me again, Dan Fogler, and Guy Dorian Sr.; the moment when the pack of T-Rexes prayed to the dark dingoes right before slaughtering the pretender Grimace who tried to infiltrate their ranks; and me again with artist Antonio Fuso, who I’ve worked with for over a decade but never met until now.
Third row: the Teen Titans attended our Licensed Comics panel; me and Chris Britton (the voice of Mr. Sinister on X-Men ‘97 and, more importantly, the ghost of Chamberlin Locke in Netflix’s Locke & Key; and a group of us wishing a happy birthday to the great Walter Simonson.
And seriously, that pic of the T-Rex squad? Doesn’t even begin to show the number of dinos that were hanging out in the hotel lobby all weekend. (Which in turns pales compared to the 400 people dressed like Mrs. Roper from Three’s Company. Seriously—there are pictures.)
Again, the pictures are the same sort of sedate pics you might see from any convention. The rest needs to be experienced in person.
The Week in Syz and Syz-Adjacent
Spinner Rack of Comics With Comics
One of the things I like about any convention is the ability to pick through plenty of longboxes of old comics. (I know that last time around, I mentioned selling 80% of my collection; and a week later, I was picking out all kinds of random books from the Borderlands Comics dollar bin at the show. That’s the cycle of life.)
One of the random books I grabbed was a Lobo Convention Special from the mid-’90s. Did I own it before? Maybe. Lobo was one of those silly parodies of ultra-violent books that I tended to buy based on the artist who drew it more than anything else. If Simon Bisley drew Lobo, I was in; otherwise, it all depended on whether or not it was a generally slow week of new releases.
This Convention Special was drawn not by Bisley but by the also-great (and unfortunately no longer with us) Kevin O’Neill. For a buck, that fact alone made it worth it. But the comic also featured comic book images on its cover, which is a theme I’ve long loved. The most well-known cover to feature other comics on it has to be this one, which as you’ll see below, has inspired numerous homages:
But even without being a direct riff on Uncanny X-Men 138, I’ve always loved comic covers with other comics on their covers, and been stockpiling assorted comics that take that approach. Some of my favorites are here, most notably the rather ridiculous/great Batman 199 cover that leads off tow two:
In Praise of and In Remembrance of
KPBS did a nice interview with Usagi Yojimbo creator and longtime Groo the Wanderer letterer Stan Sakai, himself an Eisner Award-winner for his lettering, as part of the September 1 celebration of Comic-Book Letterer Appreciation Day:
And pardon the lack of a decent segue, not that there could be one that fits, but the industry lost Canadian cartoonist Bernie Mireault this week. To quote dear friend and comic writer Scott Tipton’s succinct note about Bernie, “Even sadder, it seems Mireault's passing was self-inflicted, which is crushing to hear.
The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline provides free and confidential emotional support to people in suicidal crisis or emotional distress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, across the United States.”
Your Shaun of the Dead event planner anecdote brings to mind a whole bunch of acronyms...WTF, SMDH, JFC, etc. The stupidity and lack of taste is strong with these people.
Love this substack