Bent Corner

We had a rocking good time at the 2007 Pittsburgh Comicon. The Expo Mart is actually a fantastic place to hold an event like a comic book convention. The Expo Mart is connected to the Radison Hotel. It literary takes only 30 seconds to walk from the lobby of the hotel to the convention floor. Unlike any other funny book convention I’ve been to, parking is free. This means I had more money to spend on the convention floor.

If you entered the convention floor from the Expo Mart side, you were forced to walk by a table staffed with rude women that asked you to support “the troops”. Evidently the only way one could do this was to give them some money. I show my support to “the troops” by being against getting into costly and never ending wars under false pretenses. I don’t do it by giving to obnoxious people that ask for money as soon as I step foot into a comic book convention. To each his own though.

There were two dealers selling bootleg DVD’s. Both were selling copies of the South Korean monster movie THE HOST. It’s not out on DVD here in the states. I was very tempted to pick one up. I’m looking forward to seeing this movie, but I guess I’m willing to wait till I can purchase an actual legal copy. I was surprised to see anyone selling bootlegs after the raids at a comic book convention in Detroit last year. Not only were the two dealers selling bootlegs, it didn’t appear they were selling anything but bootlegs.

Probably one of the most peculiar things I witnessed at the con was STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE 9 actress Chase Masterson. She didn’t look anything like what she looked on DS9. She didn’t look like any of the photos for sale at her table. It appears the years haven’t been overly kind to Chase Masterson. It also appears that she has developed quite a fondness for all-you-can-eat buffets. Not that the same could not be said for me. The difference is that I don’t dress like a hooker.

Some time early Friday afternoon, Chase Masterson stormed out of her booth barefoot while talking very loudly on her cell phone. It was obvious that she was highly agitated about something. I thought maybe the convention organizers told her to go and put on some more clothes. Maybe they told her to go put on some clothing that actually fit. I could hear her yelling on her cell phone about something being paid in full as far as she was concerned. Something like that. I didn’t see her back at her booth the rest of the day. On Saturday, she still wasn’t at her booth. All of her stuff was there. I asked Marc Singer, famous actor from major motion pictures such as THE BEASTMASTER and the hit television mini-series V what happened to her. He was sitting in the booth next to her. Mark informed me that he didn’t know what happened to her and that he hadn’t seen her all day. I wondered if she had at least returned to get her shoes. When we watched her storm out the day before, she was barefoot. As this photo shows, she didn’t come back for her shoes.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the shoes were to end up on eBay. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the eBay seller was somebody that went by the eBay username “BeastMaster7667″.

One of the highlights of the con was the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund quick sketch raffle. That’s where comic book artists sit at a huge table on stage and draw giant comic book related quick sketches. Some of them were quite funny such as anything drawn by Chris Moreno. Some were much more artistic such as anything done by Rags Morales. People purchase raffle tickets for a dollar each and when artists are done with all of their numerous sketches, raffle tickets are drawn for each sketch. It was really quite fun. We attended both Friday and Saturday’s quick sketch event. Saturday’s event alone raised over $1800 for the CBLDF.

Looking through the long boxes at one vendor’s booth, I happened to spot a huge quantity of CIVIL WAR #7 books for $1 dollar each. There had to be at least 80 copies in the bin. One dollar each? How long until they make their way to the .50 cent bins? This is something to think about when reading the various online comic book best seller lists. Just because comic book shops order a certain amount of books doesn’t mean all those books are ever read. Many of them just might be collecting dust in a dollar bin. Like CIVIL WAR #7.

This was the best comic book convention I have ever been to. I enjoyed it immensely and will make it a point to go again next year.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

An F/A-18 part of the Navy aerobatic demonstration team the Blue Angels crashed yesterday at an airshow in South Carolina. The pilot was killed. He did not eject from his aircraft. He stayed in the plane as it crashed into a nearby housing area, damaging many homes in the process. Luckily nobody on the ground was killed.

I think these military aerobatic teams are to military aviation what Siegfried and Roy are to wildlife preservation.

The Navy has the Blue Angels and the Air Force has the Thunderbirds. They have these aerobatic teams to help facilitate recruiting. The idea is the youngsters will go to an airshow and see these planes and all of a sudden want to join the Navy or the Air Force. I don’t know if that is necessarily true. If it is true, it’s got to be the number one worst reason for joining the military.

Believe me. Joining the military for the wrong reasons is something I know a lot about.

It turns out Seung-Hui Cho bought ammunition clips for one of his two handguns on eBay. Clips he undoubtedly used the day he killed 32 unarmed people at Virginia Tech. On eBay he went by the user name blazers5505. He had a feedback rating of 64.

He also used the email address of “Blazers5505@hotmail.com”.

Looking at this eBay history, be both bought and sold on eBay. He recently sold two tickets to the Peach Bowl. It looks as though he sold tickets to other Virginia Tech sporting events too. He recently sold two tickets to a Virginia Tech Hokies vs Coppin State Eagles basketball game.

He also sold a Texas Instruments TI-83 Plus scientific calculator. He claimed that it was barely used because he dropped the class he needed it for.

He also sold textbooks on Half.com which is owned by eBay. His current seller page shows that he is “on vacation”. Yes, in Hell. Past books he sold include Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film by Carol J. Clover and The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre.

Is that how he got money to buy both guns and ammo? By selling junk on eBay? He didn’t have a job. His parents don’t seem to be very well off.

I’ve wondered since the day of the massacre how he was able to buy handguns. Not because of his apparent mental problems. How did he come up with the money? Often the price of a gun alone keeps them out of the hands of people that have no business owning them. Like Seung-Hui Cho. How did he get a credit card with enough available credit to purchase expensive, top-end firearms? He had no job or any other source of income. The guns he purchased were not cheap pieces of junk.

Link

The Consumerist posted about a new Nazi SS skull t-shirt sighting at an Ohio area Wal-Mart. It’s been 22 weeks now since I first found them at my local Wal-Mart and posted something about it. Since then, Wal-Mart has issued apology after apology along with promises to remove the offending shirts as quickly as they can.

They then proceed to continue selling the shirts as though nothing ever happened.

This is just too ridiculous. Even for Wal-Mart. Either they want to sell Nazi SS skull t-shirts to kids or they don’t. They need to make up their mind. I realize that Wal-Mart likes to say one thing and do another when it comes to how they treat their employees, but this is about selling a t-shirt with an image worn by Nazi SS concentration camp guards at Auschwitz. Claiming that they offer affordable health insurance to their employees even though they don’t is not the same thing as claiming that they don’t want to sell Nazi SS merchandise even though they seemingly do.

I realize they are used to lying about stuff. They shouldn’t lie about this.

I noticed that this story made it’s way to digg again. A lot of people are commenting on this issue as though it’s something new. Some people are making the same lame retarded arguments that this is not a Nazi SS skull image even though it is an exact copy. They claim it’s just a skull. I used to get emails every day from people saying all sorts of things. Right now their are digg users arguing about Wal-Mart selling these t-shirts as though it wasn’t already argued to death last year on digg. Are these people all new digg users? Why didn’t any of these digg users making these comments last year? Not to say other digg users didn’t try to make similar flawed arguments.

In the middle of his massacre, Virginia Tech student Cho Seung-Hui was able to take time and put together a little care package for NBC News. In it he included photos and a video of himself speaking about why he did what he did and what he was about to do. As it turns out, go on to murder 30 more innocent people.

NBC turned the material over to law enforcement after making copies of everything and then plastering their logo on everything. Are they proud that Cho Seung-Hui chose NBC over the other major networks? If it was me, the last thing I would want is Cho Seung-Hui connected to my organization. I surely wouldn’t be slapping my logo on a photo brandishing the guns he used to kill 32 innocent people.

One of the people he killed was a 76 year-old Holocaust survivor who died saving his students.

Why would NBC News or any other credible news organization want to inject themselves into such a tragic event where so many innocent people were killed?

I read this over at Lying in the Gutters:

At a large convention, not too long ago, one of the show promotion staff was driving Scott Kurtz and his partner to the show from the hotel. Darick Robertson saw the opportunity and jumped into the front seat.

Scott complained to the driver, asking why he let a fan jump into his ride. Darick, an unassuming kind of chap, just said he was also taking a ride to the convention center. Scott wouldn’t let it lie, and Darick exited the vehicle.

The driver told Scott that it was Darick Robertson. There was no recognition until he mentioned “Transmetropolitan.” Scott didn’t say anything for the rest of the journey - but the driver got a couple of drinks out of it later telling the story (and probably embellishing it) to all and sundry.

I took it to mean that “large convention not too long ago” meant that it happened at Emerald City Comicon.  It’s a large convention.  It happened not too long ago.  Both Scott Kurtz and Darick Robertson were at the con.

Why would Scott Kurtz do this?  Even if he didn’t know who Darick Robertson was, why kick him out of the van?  I doubt Darick Robertson would have been engaging in obnoxious fanboy behavior.  I doubt he was asking Scott Kurtz for an autograph. He was just a guy catching a ride.

I’m guessing that Scott Kurtz hasn’t watched Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.  If so he would know that we should all strive to lower our carbon footprint. Sharing a van with another funny book artist to a funny book convention would have been a good start.

I promise that I’m not going to permanently blog about the Don Imus “nappy-headed ho” controversy, but I tend to write about things that interest me. Sometimes I write about funny books. Sometimes I write about politics. Like I said, I blog about things that I find interesting.

Right now, I’m finding the Imus story interesting.

Yesterday’s New York Daily News ran a story about one of the ministers that was calling for Imus to be fired. The man’s name is Reverend DeForest Soaries and he hails from New Jersey. He claims to be one of the first to call for Imus to be fired. I’m not sure if this entitles him to print up t-shirts and trucker hats stating this fact, but I guess only time will tell.

He tells of being asked to act as a liaison between the Rutgers basketball team and Imus by Rutgers coach Vivian Stringer, a member of his flock. Not that I really understand why a liaison was needed. Soaries tells the New York Daily News of meeting with Imus in New York to discuss meeting with the team. As it turns out, the meeting took place minutes if not seconds after Imus found out he was fired from MSNBC.

“I became more of a pastor to him than the facilitator of the meeting,” he said.

“We didn’t even talk about what I was supposed to be there for. I needed to be with him spiritually. This was a man who’d just got big, bad news and he needed me to listen to him.

“He didn’t cry, but I could see he was in pain. He tried to joke, but it was a mask for that pain. He seemed hurt by what had happened to him.

“He felt somewhat betrayed by certain people. He didn’t name anybody, but he thought certain people could have given him more time.

“He thinks he should have been given the chance to meet the team first, that if those people could see he was truly repentant, then CBS and MSNBC would see it that way, too.

“I had words of consolation for him, even though I was one of those asking for him to be fired.”

I’m glad that Reverend Soaries could console and act as a paster to Imus. The last time I checked, that is what our holy men are supposed to do. They aren’t supposed to demand that people be fired from their jobs. They are supposed to act as spiritual counselors.

They are supposed to be advocates for forgiveness. At least the Christian ones. Forgiveness is what the Christian faith is based on. It’s what Jesus preached about. It’s what he commanded us to do to each other. To forgive. Something not a lot of the reverends involved in the Imus controversy have been doing.

Forgiveness means that you don’t demand somebody to be fired.

Shouldn’t Reverend Soaries have kept silent about ministering to Imus? Doesn’t he have some sort of ethical obligation to keep quiet about consoling Imus?

I’m sure Reverend DeForest Soaries did nothing wrong by speaking to the New York Daily News about the meeting. I can tell by looking at his photo that Reverend DeForest Soaries is a very honorable man. Did you notice the way he sits with his chin resting in the palm of his hand? He looks to be very thoughtful and insightful. Plus, I see from his photo that he fancies shirts with French cuffs. Nothing speaks integrity more then fancy French shirts.

Imus on the other hand wears cowboy clothes.

Let this be a lesson. It doesn’t matter how many awards you have won. It doesn’t matter how much money you have raised for various charities. It doesn’t matter that you are in your profession’s Hall of Fame.

If you make a derogatory comment about black women, you had better do it on a hip hop album or on BET.

Even if you say it only in jest. Even if in your profession saying dumb funny things is not only acceptable, it’s expected. Even if you then go on to apologize repeatedly for what you said.

I will be the first to admit that Imus could be a jerk. He could be extremely offensive. What set him apart from so many other jerks was that he was an equal opportunity offender. It didn’t matter who you were. If you were in the public eye, he would probably get around to saying something offensive about you. He would ridicule anyone, including himself. Especially himself. It’s what he did best.

Some will argue that Don Imus is a racist. They will say that by saying “nappy-headed ho’s” on his radio program, he proved his racism. I would argue that a racist wouldn’t dare say something in public that could be interpreted as racist. They wouldn’t make a dumb joke about a woman’s college basketball team where most of the woman were black. No, a racist is more careful with what they say in public. A racist wouldn’t endorse an African-American candidate for the U.S. Senate. A racist wouldn’t then go on and aggressively defend that African-American candidate when racists attempt to smear the candidate with lies.

I’ve known real racists. Don Imus wasn’t a racist. He was just a guy on the radio that liked to make jokes.

Now that this whole ordeal is over and racism has finally been eradicated, I hope this means Jesse Jackson now has time to do what Don Imus did. Jesse Jackson said some awful things about three college athletes. Young men that played lacrosse at Duke University. The men had been accused of raping a woman. Something that proved to be not true. The woman lied.

Jesse Jackson said awful, untrue things about the Duke lacrosse players. At least he never made fun of their hair.