The destruction of the 47th seal of the Roboplastic Apocalypse is a cosmic cartoon cataclysm, causing Eternia and Cybertron (and a million other pretend planets) to collide and forcing the surviving sci-fi characters to take refuge in Miami in the special super hero containment facility otherwise known as Florida Supercon 2012! Thrill in stunned boredom as you listen to me walk around the Miami Airport Convention Center talking to myself about how scared I am to meet my favorite comic book and cartoon celebrities like Denny O'Neil, Alan Oppenheimer, Howard Chaykin, and many others who hold the secrets to the greatest unknowable mysteries of the 20th century like who named Optimus Prime and why does Skeletor laugh that way. How much does Denny O'Neil remember about his work on the original Marvel Transformers comic book? How does Alan Oppenheimer feel about violence in 1980s animation? Did Gregg Berger dress up as Grimlock and do toy store appearances in 1985? Find out all this and more in this "HALF THE COSPLAYERS AT SAN DIEGO COMIC CON ARE ACTUALLY HOOKERS (AND OTHER THINGS I LEARNED FROM HOWARD CHAYKIN)" edition of the podcastalypse!
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Oh hey check out Flickr Macrocrania for more of my pictures from Supercon 2012 so you can follow along while you listen to my adventures at the convention. But first-F.I.S.H.B.O.T.!
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IT WAS EASIER TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT GROWING OLD WHEN TOYS FROM MY CHILDHOOD HAD HIGHER BUY-IT-NOWS
This episode's F.I.S.H.B.O.T. (F*** I Should Have Bid On That!) is a pair of vintage Star Wars spaceships that didn't break 60 bucks each despite being in really nice shape with their boxes and working electronics and everything that would make my life complete had I only been the guy that won them. Yeah it really pisses me off that the modern rereleases of these ships I never had as a kid don't come with the lights and sounds and little rotating gun thingys that made them so awesome when the kids were playing with them in those commercials back in 1983. What's really troubling deep down inside it somehow it seems offensive to me that old Star Wars toys are starting to go cheap. It's as if I am taking it personally, like the falling secondary market value of toys from my childhood makes my childhood less cool. And as the playthings from my childhood make the permanent transition from museum gallery gold to garage sale garbage, so too will my memories go from hundred hits blog post power pellets to so many forgotten megs taking up space on some deeply buried blogger.com floppy drive somewhere. I guess I shouldn't have trusted the secondary market value of 1983 to my pop culture financial advisor George Lucas and never deposited my childhood at HasbroBank.
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THE ARCHITECTS OF MY CHILDHOOD DIDN'T KNOW I WAS STILL LIVING IN THOSE SAND CASTLES THEY BUILT IN 1983
And so as I grow older I find myself venturing to places like Florida Supercon 2012 in search of some sort of pop culture retro validation but all I find left of my childhood is post-coital He-Man cartoon cells, thousand dollar bananas, and Skeletors made out of wiener shaped balloons. The once priceless artifacts of my youth that I really wanted have long since been bought and sold on eBay for more money than I could afford, or their auctions ended during the time I wasn't paying attention because I was at the library searching through microfilm of newspapers from 1978 looking for grocery store ads with Shogun Warrior Godzillas in them. And so I go to conventions scraping the bottom of the barrel of 80s nostalgia and hoping to connect with the men and women who helped create the epic mythologies of transforming robot Tyrannosauruses and scantily clad space aliens with big blue Lou Ferrigno bodies and bright yellow skeleton skulls for faces. But why? It's the question I see in the eyes of every Gregg Berger and Alan Oppenheimer I meet as I'm handing them the 20 bucks so they can sign my hat made out of wiener balloons that's been carefully sculpted to resemble a post-coital Skeletor. And to them it really doesn't matter why, because although my search for an immortal manifestation of the wonder and imagination sparked by my long lost childhood lust for life (and talking robot tyrannosauruses) continues, all I really just did was buy them a bacon 'n cheese double steakburger and chili cheese fries combo at Steak 'n Shake.
José Delbo brought a binder of vintage original Transformer comic art including many covers and splash pages
I swore the Denny O'Neil autograph line would not defeat me as it had in the past
Minimalism at its Gundam finest
SHOW NOTES OF THE PODCASTALYPSE
- Preparing to unleash the power
- Intro poem (Skeletronian version)
- Beginning at the end
- The weirdest person you'll see at a comic convention (is me)
- What it's like entering Supercon
- Grimlock and Skeletor sitting side by side
- Live pre-show report from my attic
- Figuring out what to get scribbles on
- Opening the last surviving packaged transformer in 1993
- Opening up the dealer room doors
- The exciting empty seats of Jose Delbo & Denny O'Neil
- Juan Fernandez Wheeljack poster
- Not being able to appreciate Neal Adams
- Order66 toys had a most impressive table
- Interview with guy running the only Transformer booth at Supercon
- Got me another Hun-Dred robots
- F.I.S.H.B.O.T.-A vintage Y-Wing went for $53.43 & a B-Wing went for $55.54
- A toy from 2004 is too recent to be childhood memories!
- The great Supercon 2012 dealer room blackout
- The great Supercon 2012 marriage proposal
- Awesome Pregunta Of Steve at the "Meet the Transformers" panel
- I'm too old to know who Michael Hogan is
- Pre-meeting Denny O'Neil anxiety
- The one question Denny O'Neil interview I've waited years to ask
- Awesome Pregunta Of Steve during the "Art of Writing Comic Books" panel
- Tales of Alan Oppenheimer signing my Warpath card
- Rundown of original art at José Delbo's table
- Awkward fan conversations with old comic artists
- Getting my Star Wars Galaxy 6 card signed by Michael Locoduck Duron
- Fantastic post coital He-Man cell
- Buying coffee for Bill Sienkiewicz
- Not a lot of robot cosplay at Supercon
- Howard Chaykin Photocalypse catastrophe
- 50 cent comic binpocalypse
- Hasbro Brony viral marketing conspiracy theory
- Brony fandom's similarity to Satanic ritual cult hysteria
- Awesome Pregunta Of Steve during the "Meet Alan Oppenheimer" panel
- Getting a picture with Slave Leia cosplayer from absolutionshow.com
- The pop culture balloon bender guy
- Coming to terms with my bad picture with Howard Chaykin
- DeLorean outside reminding me of Steelskin the DeLorean Transformer
- Following Gregg Berger around the convention floor
- Spreading the gospel of Robot-Japan
- Got me a picture with black shirt Moon Knight
- The origin story of Moon Knight's white costume design
- The Chaykinocalypse concluded
- Getting free promotional José Delbo flyers
- A lovely pic with Cobra Commander
- Closing Supercon Superthoughts at the bus stop
- Don't Rocket Punch your friends!
2 comments:
I too hate breaking out the recorder in public. The one I have usually fits concealed in a shirt pocket, if I'm wearing one like that. Also, there's been a few cases where I've gone to these signings and could have gotten a video game signed. But I always get cold feet, not wanting to "deface" by game. Loved your play by play of the convention though, because you're so good at describing all the minutia, which I just ignore!
And congrats on finally getting that questions asked to Denny O'Neill, though you sounded like a robot doing it, ironically. And I love that DeLorean fan made Transformer!
Yeah, doing solo podcasting convention coverage is really tough even when you're comfortable with recording yourself. It's a buzzkill and takes some of the enjoyment out of being there because I feel like such a weirdo, but I know nobody else there really cares or is paying attention to me so the self consciousness tends to fade after a couple minutes. I guess it's like diving into a pool. I think this one came out better than any other con recording I've done so far.
I've never been happy with any shows I record at conventions because afterwards when I listen I don't feel like my shows do a good job of making you feel like you were there. So with this one I decided to crank up the minutiae level and see if I could convey what kind of an experience I was having. Thanks for noticing that. Thanks for listening to it, too.
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