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I asked my friend Lee at Lee's Comics whether he wanted to advertise coming up in September and his answer was:

NO!

Dining with Old Friends

It's a San Francisco State reunion, along with other friends. It's me with Joe Silber, Lawrence D. Sander and Kristin Sideris, and also Joe with his wife Rachel and Joe with another friend whose name escapes me at the moment because I only met him last night. I was apartment roommates with both Joe and Lawrence back in college and Kristin and Joe also lived in the dorms with me. This was circa 1986-1990.

Bye-Bye, Sears in Mountain View, CA

Photos taken by me live at approximately 9:30am today...

Frank Hill at the San Jose Toy Show

Who is Frank Hill? Not the guy on "King of the Hill"; that was Hank Hill. Frank was one of the many different artists who worked on the long-running "Dennis the Menace" comic book over the years. He tended to do the Dennis adventures where they would go to some local theme park like Frontier Village. He also worked on the "Tom and Jerry" and "Short Ribs" comic strips and did work for "Treasure Chest" among other projects. Anyway, my friend Greg Beda brought him to the Toy Show to do drawings and signings. Here's some pics of Frank, Greg, me and Frank's wife...

Lee's Comics at the San Jose Toy Show

Here he is...Lee Hester of Lee's Comics, unveiling some of his new collection for the first time at the San Jose Toy Show last Saturday!

Katy Perry Concert

I know, I know. What the @&$% is Mark going to a Katy Perry concert for? Well, I did enjoy myself. Katy is visually pleasing as were the thousands of teenage and early 20 something girls in attendance. Katy is not the greatest singer, but she does put on a pretty good show. Not great, but very good. Christina Aguilera has much better vocal chops, but Katy's not bad. She's better than Britney Spears in the vocals department. But really, does anyone really go to these things to listen to the singing? It's really a Cirque Du Soliel type of visual presentation complete with some magic and trapeze artists.

Katy, at two albums, doesn't really have enough material yet to sustain a two-plus hour concert, but again, that's not really the point. Both men and women are there to ogle the lovely Ms. Perry. She did have some funny moments, but there was a bit of a lull in the middle and strangely, she did all of her biggest hits in the first 20 minutes, saving only her "TGIF" song for the encore. It was Friday, naturally.

Anyway, to recommend or not recommend is mainly based on your liking of visual eye candy. If you are going for some solid singing and real showmanship, Katy doesn't quite have it yet, but is close. Give her a couple more albums with good material, assuming she's not a flash-in-the-pan and has some staying power.

New Overstreet Price Guide is Out...

I posted this on "Richie Rich's Vault" and now on my blog...

I still buy "Overstreet" like a fool, but mainly because my name is listed in it year after year. I actually did send in some corrections this time out, and expect about half of them to be ignored. "Overstreet" STILL doesn't list all of the Harvey Comics produced by Jeff Montgomery, nor do they list ANY of the Harvey Comics that Marvel published.

I keep trying.

As far as values go, I do a spot check each year to see what they say "Casper" #1 (St. John), "Richie Rich" #1 (1960) and "Little Dot" #1 (1953) have risen to, just for kicks. Unfortunately, the "Guide" has not been a reliable source of information for years as far as values go. The last time I saw a comic value go down dramatically was "Howard the Duck" #1 (1976), but it has risen since, and is now higher than the original peak.

I work with Lee and Lee's Comics often and he says that except for the few key issues, most everything else is overvalued that has come out in the past 40 years, especially the lengthy runs of "X-Men" apart from #94 and "Giant Size" #1. Stuff like that hasn't sold for guide for years.

He does say that old Harveys do fly out the door at almost any price nowadays, something that never happened 20-30 years ago. He does, however, generally price them very fairly and when he does get them in, most can be had for $10 or less. More for non-Harvey World comics.

He does mail order too, if anyone cares and is a strict grader, which is why his prices are so good and he has a 100% rating on Ebay. Most comic book dealers overgrade and overcharge because they can.

Let's Hear it for Joe Shlabotnik!

Why not? Here's the best of those classic strips! This was Charlie Brown's baseball hero!

Marilyn Monroe Statue

I saw on the news today the new Marilyn Monroe statue now erected (heh-heh) in Chicago. It brings back memories for my of the "Eyesight to the Blind" segment of The Who's movie "Tommy" (1975) where Tommy (Roger Daltrey) is taken to a church by his mother (Ann-Margret) to get his deaf, dumb and blindness cured. Life imitates art again! Incidentally, that's Eric Clapton with the rest of the original Who performing the song.

Archie Art Show a Success

Here's some photos from yesterday's Family Fun Day at the Cartoon Art Museum. Archie co-CEO Nancy Silberkleit was on hand as was the brother of the late Jon D'Agostino, longtime inker at Archie. Current inker Rich Kozlowski was on hand to do sketches. Greg Beda, Alan Groening and I went up. Steve Leialoha and Trina Robbins showed up. Linda and Skeet Rose brought an Archie cake from Goldilocks. And my high school friend Andy showed up with his daughter.

Many more photos than this were taken as I and the others were minor celebrities for the day.

After a bit, Greg, Alan, Andy, her daughter and I went to eat at Mel's Diner.

At the end of the day, Nancy was dropped off and was heading back to her hotel by the airport. I asked if she wanted a ride back instead of a taxi, since we were going that direction anyway. Initially nervous because of her fearing headlines such as "Rapid Archie Fanboys Kidnap Archie CEO", she did agree to go and we dropped her off without incident at her hotel.

The Archie Art Show continues at the Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission, in San Francisco until December 4.

Surprise Guests at Lee's Comics

You never know who will show up out of the blue at Lee's Comics. Here's comic distributor Bud Plant, author Craig Yoe and author Jim Vadeboncoeur making a surprise appearance with Lee. The other photo features me in Bud's place.

Buster Keaton Film Festival Fridays at the Stanford

Every Friday this month is Buster Keaton silent movie night. Here's David Packard announcing the most recent showing. The shows all feature live organ accompaniment by Dennis James. The Stanford Theatre is located at 221 University in Palo Alto. (650) 324-3700

Comic Con Report

After a whirlwind two weeks, I'm finally getting around to writing about my experiences at the 2011 Comic Con International. I went with my friends Greg Beda and Alan Groening.

We left on Tuesday, July 19th after a delay at the rental car place, which was a drag. They told Alan to pick up his car at a different time and through some sort of miscommunication, actually rented out the car we had reserved to someone else!

After that was straightened out, we were on our way. We got down to San Diego the same day, but decided to stop short at about 30 miles north because we were tired and the fact that we didn't officially have a place to stay until Wednesday night (The Doubletree). Along the way we ate at Harris Ranch Steak House. Pricey, but good.

On Wednesday, we finished our trek. Alan drove us to the convention hall and Greg and I got our exhibitor passes. Alan and I couldn't get out pro passes until 3pm for some dumb reason.

After getting the passes, Greg and I wheeled our stuff to our table and did a basic set up. Then, we met up with Alan and the three of us went to lunch. Afterwards, Greg went to the hotel, followed shortly by Alan, who now got his passes.

I decided to stay at the Con and set up because it was Preview night and I had to get the boxes I had my friends Linda and Skeet bring down separately to save on car space. Turns out I didn't need them, but I didn't know how well my books would sell. I could have gotten by with four boxes of books, but I had eight.

Wednesday night went very well and I sold a few books. Before the show I made a quick circle and said hi to a few people I know including Jerry Beck and a few different dealers.

After a night's sleep in the Doubletree, the Con started in earnest on Thursday, which started off really slowly. I also went round to some booths such as the Archie booth, the IDW booth and the Shout Factory booth. The three booths would be visited by me numerous times over the next couple of days.

I got the Archie book that Craig Yoe wrote and Greg and I contributed to signed by virtually everyone in attendance that worked for Archie including Dan Parent, George Gladir, Victor Gorelick and Jonathan Goldwater over the next few days.

Thursdays sales picked up by the end of the day, but not until I had purchased a large amount of "Dennis the Menace" comics. My collection is virtually complete.

On Friday, it was deader than Thursday and I decided for the first time in over a decade to take in a panel. This was the "Mad Magazine" panel and I brought my 2-volume "Cracked Mazagine" book set to give to Sam Viviano who works for "Mad" as Art Director and was indispensable in getting me in contact with Jack Davis, Al Jaffee and Angelo Torres, all of whom worked for "Cracked" at some point in their careers.

The panel featured Sam as well as Sergio Aragones, Peter Kuper, John Ficarra, Dick De Bartolo and a couple of guys who work on the new "Mad" cartoon show for Cartoon Network. They showed some clips from the show, which I felt were very funny. Then Ficarra did the equivalent of a stockholders meeting and used funny slides to tell the story of what "Mad" has been doing in the past year and when the next year holds for them.

Then the panel was opened up to questions. The highlight of the panel was when Peter Kuper ("Spy vs. Spy") picked up my "Cracked" book and said, "Oops, I'm at the wrong panel. This is a "Cracked" panel." I managed to get a photo of him doing this.

Afterwards, I exchanged pleasantries with Ficarra, Kuper and DeBartolo and then split back for my table.

Friday I said was exceptionally slow so Alan, Greg and I decided to do free sketches for tips to pass the time. I did a few Underdogs and many of The Beatles which I took photos of, because I knew that I would probably never see them again.

Saturday was Archie panel day and most of the Archie people that I mentioned appeared on the panel except George Gladir who seems to be a wandering spirit on his own time-frame and schedule. Turns out George was only there on Thursday, but he did come back on Sunday as you will find out shortly.

Sales were back up on Saturday and I purchased a few pages of original art. I got an Archie page, and some full color drawings of Hot Stuff, Spooky and Richie Rich from Dan Parent. I would have bought his Casper, but I didn't like the pose, and told Dan so. I said next time I will buy the rest of his Harvey drawings if he draws Casper again in a better pose. He also had Little Dot, Little Lotta and Wendy.

Craig Yoe was at the Archie panel for the "Archie" book, and I exchanged my Beatles book for his "Archie's Madhouse" book despite the fact that I helped him out on it. I guess I can't always get freebies for my work in lieu of pay. I also wanted to get his 3-D book, but he didn't want to trade for anything else, including the "Cracked" book. Surprising, but true.

I also bought some other original art including a Charles Rodrigues "Shut-Ups" page from "Cracked", a Vic Martin double-page spread from "Wacko", a Ray Billingsley page from "Crazy", a Mr. Howell production drawing from "New Adventures of Gilligan's Island" and a Casper production drawing from "Casper and the Angels".

I also got a few Two Morrows mags and books I had missed because they had a lot of their stuff at 40% off! I even bought an extra copy of the old "Comic Book Artist" issue that I wrote the major Harvey Comics article for.

Back at the table, the guy next to us had some incredible prints of paintings he had done including one of Casper with Velma from "Scooby-Doo", a 3-D looking print of Snoopy flying the dog house and a "Famous Monsters" parody cover called "Fabulous Monsters of Discoland" with Lincolnstein.

On Sunday, George Gladir made his return and showed up unexpectedly at our table. No one else was there, even Greg, who is a huge Archie fan. George posed for a picture with my "Cracked" book (his major accomplishments in life are writing for Archie and for "Cracked") and then he split. It was like a TV show or something as Greg showed up just as George was out of sight.

He did come back about an hour or so later and I asked George if he would stay for a bit. He said he would and Greg sat with him while I ran off to get Victor Gorelick and Craig Yoe. They all ran down to our table and I took various photos of the three of them together. Then after everyone departed, I took George to see Dan Parent at his table and took their photo, leaving George at that point.

Also, somewhere along the line Matt Groening came by. Alan phoned his mom and Matt spoke with her. She didn't believe it. I'm still not quite sure if Alan and Matt are related or not, yet they do share the same last name.

And, in my rushing around, I did pass a group of people and was wondering who they were escorting. I took a look and saw William Shatner in the center of the group being hustled to a panel or something. He looked just like he did on "$#!+ My Dad Says!"

I kept going back to the Shout Factory booth because they had postcards advertising the upcoming "Casper" DVD set that I wrote the booklet for and did commentaries on. I passed them out at my table. The DVD should be out on October 11.

I made a few last sales and trades. I got a "Smurfs" book in trade which is quite nice and the guy who runs Stand-Up Records, the label that gave Lewis Black his recording career start, bought a set of "Cracked" at the last minute, requesting that I ship them to him after the show.

I know somewhere along the line I spoke with Bill Morrison and John Lustig and Joe Staton and Roy Thomas and Walt Simonson and Neal Adams and Raphael Navarro and got autographs and/or photos in most cases.

Breakdown was relatively painless but we had to make a couple of trips to the parking garage at the Hilton as I had so many book boxes. We left a bit later than Greg and Alan have in the past, but a lot earlier than I have left when I have worked with Lee of Lee's Comics.

The three of us wanted to make it to Gorman, but only made it as far as Norwalk before we crashed for the night. Monday was all driving and it took forever as we stopped at many places along the road and Interstate 5 north whittled down to one lane for a time.

We finally got to San Jose about 5 or 6pm. I debated whether I would go to work on Tuesday, but in the end decided not to, opting to get some rest and do some follow-up emails and work on some pending projects including getting ready for a second round of Shout Factory commentaries, this time on "Tennessee Tuxedo" and "Underdog" as well as preps for the Archie Art Show at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco.

Incidentally, that show runs through December 4 with a reception coming up on August 7.

Overall, the show was very good. I made some good contacts, bought some good original art and comics, saw a couple panels and sold a few books, at least enough to pay for my share of the table and hotel.

I still plan to post some more pictures on Facebook and on Photobucket. Stay tuned.

Archie Art Show on Now in San Francisco

Just a reminder that the Archie Art Show is going on now at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco through December 4th. Be sure to show up for the opening reception on August that should feature a cake with this image by Archie artist Rex Lindsey. The Cartoon Art Museum is located at 655 Mission Street.

San Diego

I got back from San Diego Comic Con or Comic Con International. I have some stories to tell, but not just yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Archie Art Show Now Open in San Francisco

My friend Greg Beda and I went to see the Archie Art Show at the Cartoon Art Museum at 655 Mission Street in San Francisco. There were a few minor errors that we hope to see corrected, but overall it is a good looking show. It's running now through December 4th. Artwork was provided by Greg and myself as well as by Bill Morrison, The Geppi Museum and Archie Publications. A reminder that there will be a free opening reception on August 7th with refreshments, but if you cannot wait, it's going on now.

The Walt Disney Family Museum Pictures

I went to the Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco recently. If you get a chance to go...go! These are photos of what's in the lobby area. You aren't allowed to take photos on the interior but the museum exhibits are VERY detailed and go through Walt's entire life and accomplishments with many original artifacts and also many state of the art touchscreens and other visual and audial presentations. The best being a scale model of Disneyland that features every ride Walt conceived even if it appeared in the park after his lifetime. This means that it is a model of a Disneyland that never existed as it has items like House of the Future side-by-side with Space Mountain. VERY RECOMMENDED!

Haven't Blogged for a Bit...

because in the days leading up to Comic Con International, I've been swamped. Not only do I have to pack and make sure that I have everything including my books prepared for San Diego, I also have been writing (at last count) 50 various interview questions, I had to record an intro for the Casper DVD with my own inferior equipment, I had to deliver books that are being driven to San Diego, I have to give something to the Cartoon Art Museum, I had to do corrections for the revised version of the Archie book, I am transcribing a phone interview I did recently, I have to do another full day of commentary recordings and I somehow manage to keep my 9-5 job, so no time for good blogging. More soon...

Led Zepagain Photos