Notes from Thursday at Comic Con

I wore my “Q” cosplay.

We drove to the former movie-theater where Gwen boards during Comic-Con. After all, these are long days away from home, and so Gwen gets a vacation, too. While we were walking her before dropping her off a fellow yelled at me, “Q!” He came up to me and asked where my head piece was. (I hadn’t put on my cowl). It was an odd moment but fun.

On the trolley to the Convention Center we met a group of folks who wore matching colorful Mars rover t-shirts. I asked about them and mentioned my robot collection: particularly Sojourner. Their shirts honored their father, who was a designer on the team that created those robots, and he’d recently passed away. He had loved Comic-Con and they were honoring him in that way.

In panels

I learned tha Mel Blanc, he of famous cartoon voices, sometimes got sole credit for voices on cartoons which he was not the only voice.

I’m looking forward to a book about Jack Kirby’s last years from TwoMorrows Publishing: Marvelmation: Jack Kirby’s Final Act in Comics & Animation.

I am curious to pick up a copy of a Marvel Treasury (oversize) comic that I don’t think I’ve ever seen: Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles, one of the last things Jack worked on at Marvel.

It’s not new to me how incredible Jack Kirby was as a creator. But I learned the depth of his unhappiness in the final years working at Marvel. Mark Evanier, whose blog I’ve been reading for decades, said what jack wanted to do was make new characters that became hits, because he wanted the income that would come from both the writing and art sides of those projects. I hate that everything ends up being “follow the money” in people’s careers, but that is how things–most things–are ultimately motivated.

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