IT'S ON THE HORIZON!!!

Can it be? Is it really that time already? You bet yer Batman Underoos it is! We are now less than a month away from the grandaddy of them all, the showcase of the immortals... No Goofus, not "Starrcade" or "Wrestlemania"! I'm talking about COMIC CON! The greatest four days of the year (five if go to the preview night)! Yes sir, it's time to get ready for some swag hunting, autograph hounding and party crashing! And to celebrate the up coming Con, I've set the Wayback Machine to 2007 so we can take a look back at some of memories of the past. So enjoy the pics!

The pirate ship built to celebrate the release of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. My brother help set this booth up and did all the lighting for it.

Convention legend, Elvis Trooper.

Not to surprisingly, she was very popular with male attendees. She should have teamed up with Bruce Campbell to do an Evil Dead/Grindhouse mash-up. Assault Rifle leg vs. Chainsaw arm! Who wouldn't watch!

These were part of a charity auction that had different artist painting up Darth Vader helmets

Another painted Vader helmet. I got more pics of these things, but space is limited.

April and Casey. I always love it when people do Ninja Turtle cosplay.

Sgt. Slaughter. I was so hoping he'd put me in the Cobra Clutch, but the headlock was good enough. And no, he didn't call anybody a "maggot".

Robotech love!

I should've known better than to go above his helmet.

Special Effects Legend Ray Harryhausen. Before there were computers, you went to this guy if you wanted mind blowing special effects. What he accomplished in the field of stop motion animation is nothing short of amazing. Ray almost never had a good budget to work with, and yet his "creatures" still always managed to steal show. It was an honor to meet him.

Brian Henson, the son of Muppet creator Jim Henson. I have many idols, but none I hold higher than Jim Henson. He's the primary reason I wanted to tell stories and entertain people. In fact, the reason my characters all have big eyes and spindly limbs is due to the muppet influence. If I'm half as good at making people happy as Jim Henson was, then I'd be proud.

It's only a flesh wound I'm sure.

The funny and ultra talented Brian Posehn. This dude is freakin' hilarious and always down for a picture. On the far left is another legendary figure, my old friend Luis. There's a very funny story about Luis, and it's coming up, so stay tuned.

Overcrowding at Comic Con reached a fever pitch last year when an alleged seating dispute in Hall H lead to a man being stabbed in the face with a pen! This wasn't the first time that violence broke out at the Con. Back in 2007, future Controller Throwers star Riki Medina got into a dispute with Kermit the Frog over the sampling of the song Being Green. Unfortunately for Riki, Animal had Kermit's back. It wasn't pretty.

I wasn't sure who they were supposed to be, but I loved the costumes.

Another Special Effects Legend, the late Stan Winston. Sadly, this wound up being Stan's last public appearance. Meeting him was one of the most awesome experiences ever, primarily because of the wicked prank he helped us pull on our friend Luis. You see, Luis is generally a good guy, but he could drive people crazy sometimes, especially during Comic Con 2007. As me, Riki and our pal Eddy were waiting to meet Mr. Winston, we noticed Luis had cut everybody in line. To say it pissed us off would be an understatement, especially since minutes before, Luis had handed us all his dvd's to get them signed for him. To get back at Luis, I had his Terminator dvd made out to everybody but him. Then, for extra measure, we got Stan Winston to rant on camera for a few minutes about how Luis thought that Stan had nothing to do with Jurassic Park (Luis had been arguing about it with Eddy all day). It was pretty funny,and even Luis had a really good laugh about it. We only hope Stan Winston thought it was funny too.

Riki giving the Predator some sugar.

Out of all of us who met Sarge, Eddy was the only one that did the cool, G.I. Joe pose.

It has become a Con tradition for Riki to be photographed while trying to sneak into an "off limits" area. He has yet to be caught.

Hagrid, the world's most successful high dropout. Seriously, he never completed his wizards training!

Well folks, that's all for this week. I'll be back next time with some comics, including an "explosive" new "Mike and Mindy", a very informative new "Mushroom" and a splash page that will definitely give people some ideas. Plus, we'll see what other treasures from Comic Con's past we can dig up. Until next time, I'll catch y'all later!

OH THE AGONY!!!

Ya know, my job can be pretty cool sometimes. However, there is one thing that I don't like very much about my job: the uncertain schedule. I never truly know when my next call will come, so it's hard to plan ahead for things. I very rarely make plans for anything, because I know I'll most likely be breaking them. It's tough, but that's the way it goes sometimes. I speak of this because yesterday, I was all set to go see "Weird" Al Yankovic perform at the San Diego County Fair when my plans came to a screeching halt after one phone call. I was to work a double shift at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in downtown San Diego, and I wouldn't be done until 10:00pm. Total buzzkill dudes.

So yeah, I didn't get to go see "Weird" Al yesterday, and since I don't have anything cool to report, I instead present to you the video that more or less introduced me to "Weird" Al in the first place...

Ah yes, many fond memories of this video. I was about eight years old when my brother and me sat down one morning to watch what we thought was Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video. We were only kids, but we really liked Nirvana, probably because they were so different than the other performers of the day. When we heard that iconic opening riff, my brother said "Crank it!" and our eyes were glued. Within seconds, we began noticing something was off. For starters, one of the cheerleaders was a dude and Dick Van Patton was among the unruly teenagers. Soon, we realized we'd been had by the greatest and were fans from that moment on.

"Weird" Al is genius (Seriously, he graduated high school as valedictorian when he was a sophomore, and was then valedictorian at freakin' Cal Poly!). He is also a supremely talented man. In addition to writing very clever parodies, he really goes all-out for his videos, getting many of the same sets and extras that appeared in the originals, including the video above. Those are all the same teenagers and janitor that mashed it up in the Nirvana video. Needless to say, it lends a huge degree of credibility to "Weird" Al's music. I think the thing I like the most about him is that he's funny without taking any cheap shots at the people he's poking fun at. It's a testament to his talent. Nirvana themselves were huge fans of the parody, claiming that that's how they knew they'd made it. Allegedly, Kurt Cobain gave "Weird" Al permission to lampoon him on the condition that the song not be about food!

Well, that's all for now. With Comic Con rapidly approaching, all posts from next week through the end of July will be Con-related. I'll be digging through my photo albums, not to mention Youtube, searching for some great Comic Con memories to share with all you fine people. And if you're in San Diego, be sure to head on over to Lindbergh Field to see the awesome six-panel mural that my good friends Matt Lorentz, Jim Whiting and Phil Yeh (among others) helped paint. It's up now through the end of Comic Con, so don't wait! Until next time, I'll catch y'all later!

STAY OUT OF TROUBLE!!!

Ah, it's time for another goofy wrestling post. I had originally planned to post this gem last month, but some rather unforeseen circumstances caused me to do a more poignant wrestling post instead. But for now, it's time to laugh again, so I hope this gets a good laugh out of everybody.

Sting truly is one of the all-time greats of the wrestling business, even though TNA-IMPACT Wresting (or whatever the hell they're calling themselves these days) is doing all they can to tarnish his legacy (Anybody remember the "Last Rights" match?). Back in 1990, he was WCW's top babyface (hero) and was having all sorts of trouble with the infamous Four Horsemen, which in those days consisted of Ric Flair, Arn and Ole Anderson and Sid Vicious. Sting had decided that he'd had enough of the Horsemen and their constant four-on-one attacks. So Sting decided to go and get himself some backup. But not just any backup. Sting went to the future of law enforcement himself, ROBOCOP!

Yep, you read that right. You see, WCW was gearing up for their Capital Combat pay per view, while Orion Pictures was getting set to release Robocop 2 in theaters. The two got together and decided that some cross-promtion might be a good thing, especially for WCW since Sting was injured at that time, and couldn't actually compete in a match. So a confrontation was set up for Sting and those dastardly Horsemen, with Robocop coming in to make the big rescue and give the Horsemen the beating they so richly deserved. The stage was set, and then THIS happened...

You are no doubt saying to yourself, "What the hell?! That was it?!" Yep, I'm afraid so. Whether Sting's injury prevented him from getting anymore physical than that, or Robocop's costume was just too damn clunky to work for a wrestling bout, the whole confrontation was watered down to the point that nothing really happened. The fact that none of the Horsemen sold for Robocop didn't really help matters either. I mean the look at the footage. They just walked off! Nobody seemed all that intimidated or impressed by his presence, and not surprisingly, the fans felt really ripped off by the whole thing and who could blame them? For thirty bucks, you expect a little more than a three-minute appearance.

Needless to say the whole thing was a waste of time and money that benefitted nobody in the long run. Luckily for Sting, he healed up and continued his trek to wrestling superstardom. Robocop, on other hand, didn't fare so well. Robocop 2 was huge flop at that box office that killed the career of Director Irvin Kershner and almost killed the career of writer (and artist) Frank Miller. The movie also destroyed Orion Pictures, which went the way of the dinosaur not long afterward. WCW meanwhile, seemed like they learned their lesson about movie tie-ins, but in the fall of 1998, strange cackles of laughter would fill the arena, especially when Rick Steiner would come out. But that's a story for another day.

Well, that's all for this week. The San Diego County Fair (formerly the Del Mar Fair) starts today, and Weird Al Yankovic is performing there on Wednesday, so maybe my next post will be Weird Al related. I'd also like to say congratulations to my cousin Natalie, who graduated from high school yesterday. She's a good kid and a smart kid going to the University Arizona this fall. I'll miss her, but I know she'll do well. Make us proud squirt!

Until next time, I'll catch y'all later!

COMICS WEEK!!! ALRIGHT!!!

Howdy Folks!!! Keep yer hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times, 'cuz this here's the wildest ride in the wilderness!!! Oh wait, sorry about that. I was channeling the pre-ride spiel for Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyland. I've been so busy with work lately that I haven't gotten much sleep. As a result, my brain is only working at about a third of what it's truly capable of, which wasn't really all that much to begin with.

Anyway, it's comics week, so enough about my sleep deprivation. As Rocket J. Squirrel used to say, "And now, here's something we hope you'll really like!"

How do like that? I always suspected that boy was full of hot air!

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR!

Well, I'm gonna cut it short for now. It's been a long few weeks for me, and I got a busy weekend ahead of chasing my nephew and niece around. Actually, they get together with all their cousins and chase me all over the place! Either way, a lot of running around is in store for me, so keep me in your prayers! Until next time, I'll catch y'all later!