Posts Tagged ‘Comic Con 2016’

Con Fab

Tuesday, July 26th, 2016

I’m writing this from our hotel room in the Marriott Marina after a fairly exhausting San Diego Comic-Con.

We arrived Wednesday and I attended the preview night. Once upon a time it was limited to professionals, and was a real pleasure. Now it’s kind of a frantic mess, and the best days to get around in the crowded dealer’s hall are Thursday and Sunday.

Because I’m still recovering from heart surgery and a stroke (minor), I took it easy, only going over to the dealer’s area for two hours a day Wednesday thru Friday, and skipping Saturday entirely, because it’s a zoo. Every day at least one nap went down, but on Sunday I had my stamina up and did several long sessions. I made some nice finds (I mostly collect hardcover collections of comics) but bought only one or two per day, because I can’t carry the kind of loads I once did (and fully expect I will again).

But I frankly don’t know if the San Diego Con is for me anymore. The crowds are so huge, and so much of what goes on is outside my areas of interest, I sometimes feel like that moment in a buddy movie starring aging action actors when they say, “I’m getting too old for this shit.” Also a problem is the things I wanted to see – like the Archer panel and the Evil Dead one – required endless waits in line to MAYBE get in. Worst of all, our son Nate and his missus Abby did not come along with us this year, and we missed them terribly.

Were there pleasures? Oh yes. The Scribe Awards went well, thanks to a fine panel of mostly nominees, with my pal Andy Mangels presenting the awards themselves and doing a bang-up job. We were hampered by not enough time (an hour) but everybody got to talk. And I won a Scribe for my Mike Hammer story, “Fallout.”


Left to right, M.A.C., Andy Mangels, Michael A. Black, Adam Christopher, Matt Forbeck, Glenn Hauman, Nancy Holder, R.L. King, Jonathan Maberry, Cavab Scott and Marv Wolfman


Michael A. Black, Adam Christopher, Matt Forbeck, Glenn Hauman, Nancy Holder, R.L. King, Jonathan Maberry, Cavab Scott and Marv Wolfman


Kevin Dillmore, M.A.C., Michael Black, Matt Forbeck, Jonathan Maberry, Nancy Holder, Glenn Haumann, Adam Christopher, and Cavan Scott.

We also had dinner with our friends Leonard and Alice Maltin, and their daughter Jesse and her newlywed husband, Scott. Among those I connected with at the con itself were the great Stan Sakai, M.A.C. fan Tom Kenny of Spongebob and Mr. Show fame, and Maggie Thompson, a superstar in the history of comics fandom.


Leonard Maltin and M.A.C.


M.A.C. and Stan Sakai

There was also some excellent food (though some not so excellent, like the hotel’s lousy $27! buffet) (no ordering off the menu either) and we ended Sunday by seeing the terrific new STAR TREK movie (STAR TREK BEYOND). So we kind of fought the con to a draw this time.

M.A.C.

Comic Con Sked, Quarry News, Movies & More

Tuesday, July 19th, 2016

Barb and I will be attending Comic Con in San Diego. I will be taking it easy, since I’m still in recovery, but it’s nice to be getting back to normal…not that Comic Con is in any way “normal.”

No signings are scheduled, but if you’re in the hall and spot me, and have something for me to sign, I’ll gladly do so. Usually Mysterious Galaxy’s booth has a decent supply of my most recent novels.

The only event I’m part of is the annual International Association of Media and Tie-in Writers “Scribes” awards. I will be moderating the awards panel (I have two nominations, both for Mike Hammer – the short story “Fallout” and the novel KILL ME, DARLING).

Here are the details:

Friday, July 22
[ROOM CHANGED, NOW AT:] Room: 28DE
6:00 – 7:00 PM

International Association of Media Tie-in Writers: Scribe Awards — Max Allan Collins(Mike Hammer), co-founder of the IAMTW, will host this year’s Scribe Awards for excellence in tie-in writing, including honoring this year’s Grandmaster Award “Faust” winner, Timothy Zahn (Star Wars) . Join panelists Michael A. Black (Executioner), Adam Christopher (Elementary), Matt Forbeck (HALO), Glenn Hauman (Star Trek), Nancy Holder (Crimson Peak), R.L. King (Shadowrun), Jonathan Maberry (Wolfman), Andy Mangels (X-Files), Cavan Scott (Pathfinder) and Marv Wolfman (Batman) for a freewheeling look at one of the most popular and yet under-appreciated branches of the writing trade. Room 23ABC

Since Nate won’t be along this year, and my activities will be limited, I won’t be posing daily reports from the Con. But there will be a convention wrap-up here next week.

* * *

The news that Hard Case Crime, through Titan, is doing a comics line – with me writing a Quarry mini-series for collection as a graphic novel – was all over the Net last week. No artist has been selected, and I probably won’t start writing for two or three months; the graphic novel will likely be called QUARRY’S WAR and will deal more directly with his Vietnam experiences than I’ve ever done in the novels.

I won’t provide the countless links, but this one should do.

Meanwhile, there’s a new Cinemax trailer for the QUARRY series.

* * *

Here are a few brief reviews of movies recently seen by Barb and me.

GHOSTBUSTERS – Despite the talent on display, and in part because of too much special effects work, this reboot is merely okay. At an hour and forty-five minutes, it seems much longer. Losing ten to fifteen minutes would make it funnier and also more suspenseful. The Bill Murray cameo is disappointing, and the other original cast cameos are mostly perfunctory. Why were the original cast members wasted? Why wasn’t there a passing of the torch, with the original actors/characters? The new cast is winning, though, with Kristen Wiig the standout, though Leslie Jones mostly stands around channeling Ernie Hudson.

LEGEND OF TARZAN – This is much better than it’s cracked up to be, and more faithful to Burroughs than any other Tarzan film with the possible exception of GREYSTOKE. This has more plot and action than the latter, and the two leads, Alexander Skarsgård and Margot Robbie, are charismatic and have nice chemistry. The landscapes are stunning and the CGI animals work fine, especially the apes. Christoph Waltz is starting to wear out his villain welcome, though.

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE – Kevin Hart is amusing but upstaged by the Rock – okay, Dwayne Johnson – who is extremely, unexpectedly funny in the best spy spoof since, well, SPY. I was shocked by how entertaining this was.

DE PALMA – We caught this at Iowa City’s FilmScene, the theater smart enough (or anyway nice enough) to recently book MOMMY. Brian De Palma was, for many years, my favorite director, and PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (which back in the day, Terry Beatty and I saw endlessly in theaters around the Midwest) remains in my top ten films…make that top five. But some later missteps of director’s like MISSION TO MARS and SNAKE EYES cooled my enthusiasm for everything but the earlier stuff like SISTERS and OBSESSION. The documentary is a long interview with De Palma made visually arresting by many clips from his own films and the films that influenced him. The result is at once a character study of a kid with a nurturing mother and a distant father whose idea of bonding was taking his son to bloody surgical operations, and a master class in direction in terms of a talented young indie director’s rise to Hollywood fame (and his periodic return to his trademark thrillers, to revitalize himself and his career). Virtually every film of De Palma’s is discussed, and excerpted, and the missteps are explained and put in context. His stories of dealing with Hollywood stars and studio executives are funny and revealing (of both himself and a terrible system), though I strongly disagree with his apparently low opinion of Cliff Robertson’s work in OBSESSION. If De Palma has a flaw as a director – and I’m not referring to misogyny – it’s a tendency to value hammy performances over understated ones. But performances and for that matter characterization are secondary to De Palma, whose visual sense and storytelling via camera is second to none…except maybe Hitchcock, who he unapologetically admits is his model and idol. The film concludes in a bittersweet, even moving manner, with De Palma saying that a director is finished when he can no longer walk, which is juxtaposed with the only non-interview footage of the now-overweight De Palma as he walks unsteadily down a New York street. He also, as the film wraps up, states his opinion that directors do their best work in their thirties, forties and fifties. De Palma is 75.

M.A.C.