Comic-Con Recap

Comic-con was huge.

I have trouble describing it. I think the difficulty arises because at any given point there is far more going on then any one person can adequately comprehend. Here's the best vignette of ten minutes I can give:
At 11:55 am Friday Morning THomas was busy pitching his idea for a new comic book series to the CEO of Viper comics, while Sarah was waiting in line to get the exclusive Harry Potter bag from Warner Brothers, while Martin was flipping through stacks of vintage comic books, while Christobell was demoing the Microsoft game, while James Cameron was screening clips of Avatar, while the Hulk was signing autographs, while Naruto and Sasuke cosplayers were posing for a picture, while hundreds of fiercely independent artists hawked their work, while 'Jane' checked to see if any of her work had gotten bids in the art show, while I was captivated by wooden robots that tickled some long dormant corner of of my brain, while some five year old was bought an action figure whilewhilewhile... so forth and so on.

I a guess a good enough analogue would be to turn a vegas casino floor over to a bunch of street merchants and multimedia conglomerates and fill it with the geekiest, smelliest, most interesting or fun people you know. And then shake it all together like a mason jar full of bugs you're trying to encourage to battle. I am still faltering, still failing to impress on you just how BIG and LOUD and AWESOME and OVERWHELMING it all is.

My advice, to anyone who will listen actually, is to go. At least for one day, at least once. I guarantee you that no matter where your particular interests lay, you will find enough to fill your time there three times over. Unless you don't like fun or art or media of any kind. But then you have issues that I can't even begin to discuss.

So here's what I remember from my adventures at Comic-con:
I remember buying awesome gifts for some people I care about.
I remember my feet hurting something fierce.
I remember all the artists who were nice enough to give me a quick sketch.
I remember art and noise and wonder pouring over my face like molten skittles.
I remember the costumes!
I remember my art selling.
I remember, and still bask in the afterglow of a million varieties of inspiration.
I remember the serendipitous discovery.
I remember the panels we meant to attend (Networking, the Drawn Together Movie, How to Draw Monsters and the utterly disappointing Full Time Output on a Part Time Schedule)
I remember the panels we stumbled into (John K. and Animation on a Shoestring)
I remember the independent films.
I remember lunch with Isaac.
I remember being pitched by Jerry, and vowing to take him up on the offer.
I remember the bags full of schwag.
I remember each and every exclusive something or other we acquired with dreams of profit dancing in our heads.
But most of all I remember the feeling of the world transformed, of wandering about in a daze as a little section of my city was transformed into a fantastic place place where gratis stuff, free hugs and uninhibited geeks flowed like so much wine.

Seriously, just go. One time. You'll see what I am talking about.

(potential followup posts: Comiccon Schwag, making money at Comiccon, What I learned about networking at Comiccon, The Awesome Sketches I got at Comiccon)

The Amazing Ball Kicker Boy

(Permanently Moved Over Here: http://johndoodles.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-amazing-ball-kicker-boy.html)

Dr. Genocide and the Five Stages of Grief

(Story originally published by Alien Skin Magazine)

Dr. Genocide and the Five Stages of Grief

by J. M. Perkins

"Welcome to your doom, Captain Commander Man." I say, pulling my skull capped lever. The insufferable fool falls through the trap door chute into the doom maze. I turn to my wall of monitors. I watch the screens, following his progress. I even allow myself to enjoy a little maniacal laughter. But only a little. Laughing tends to get me punched in the face.

Captain Commander Man tumbles onto his feet. He dodges the spinning death blades, flips over the automated turrets and lands in my pit of trans-dimensional lava frogs. His skills are as impressive as ever. I have often mused on how great a team we could have been. No matter. It just means he has to die. It just means I have to kill him.

Not that I haven't tried mind you. There was the army of evil clones I'd derived from the knuckle skin fragment I scraped from my shattered teeth. Then there was was the fem fatale' with an organic nano x-bomb hardwired into her lips. I built rabid laser owl monkeys, battle mechs, battle droids and battle mimes. The list goes on and on. All of it just dust and wreckage now.

But I have learned from all my failures, just as I learned from the endless simulations I have run with the computer model for Captain Commander Man's psyche. Though that has recently grown metasentient and seized the backup and security systems of level twenty through twenty nine. I really have to do something about that sometime soon. . .

Wait. What? CC is down? "Rewind camera." I say. "Play" Ok, so he dispatches the frogs, ducking behind the brood queen's body to dodge an energy blast. He encounters the manhandler robots ok ok. He goes up for a finishing move against the alpha bot and his head snaps forward, blood splashes out as the bullet from one of my neural net snipers passes through him.

"Current view." CC is just lying there, still. I'm sure it's some kind trick. I'm going to have to sit and wait and watch . . ..

***

Two weeks have passed. Captain Commander Man hasn't moved. He has begun to stink, my sniffer drones inform me. This can't be right. It's wrong, somehow. Maybe it's been a double this whole time, an upjumped sidekick or something of that sort. I'm sure I will be fighting Captain Commander Man—the fool!—again.

***

'Sigh.' I flip through the channels to find some Cosby show reruns, toss my burger wrapper onto the heap that is accumulating by my feet. Suddenly, someone is using meaty fists to bang on the reinforced door of my lair, and I jump up from the couch, hoping . . . Could it be? No, it's just some stupid cape who is not CC yelling about vengeance or justice or something. Blah blah blah I've heard it before. So I release the gigabeast. I can hear the screams through the windows, but I derive no joy from them.

The henchmen are growing uppity, insolent. Can't say I can blame them. I just don't seem to have the energy to knee cap any of them with the necessary zest anymore.

I shouldn't feel this way. My research is progressing nicely, and my control over Europa is near complete. I just feel so hollow.

***

I know what has been bothering me. I never properly celebrated my victory. But didn't I remedy that yesterday? In retrospect, the party didn't go quite as well as I planned. I ended up disemboweling my second in command, screaming at my underlings who had assembled.

They all just stared at me like I was crazy. Well, they always look at me like I'm crazy, I guess they looked at me like I was... crazier? Crazy in a new way?

That was yesterday. Today I destroyed my breeding pits, nuked a city of mole men because their tribute was several minutes late. Except it wasn't really late. I just wanted to destroy something.

***

I thought I could get CC to finally come out of hiding. Or at very least get some kind of new nemesis. But it hasn't worked.

I tried to hold the world for ransom. The deadline came, they paid. I was convinced someone would be there to foil my plot to enslave the tiny, idyllic nation of Sao Poe. No luck. It got so bad I had to smash my own doomsday machine to stop it from blowing up the sun.

CC is gone. I have to accept it. There is nothing I can do about it.

***

I know what I have to do. I broke through the glass that encases the corpse of Captain Commander Man, collected all the samples I'll need. I fought through the constantly evolving technoorganic hive the evil digital copy of CC's mind built out of levels twenty through twenty nine; finally reaching the central processing core. I began the labor of pruning back the tumorous computer brain until all that's left is stock Captain Commander Man. We'll go from there.

***

"Welcome to your doom, Captain Commander Man," I say as I pull my skull topped lever. CC clone1 falls through trap door chute. I begin to titter, happy as I haven't been for months. I have more energy now, hell my complexion has improved. I figure I'd start testing the new foe on the doom maze that finally bested his progenitor. After everything I've learned, I'm frankly amazed the original CC survived as long as he did. So frail. I've enhanced this version: rearranged his superego a bit, doubled the muscle mass. All pretty standard really. I don't know if CC clone1 will be a worthy opponent. But I've got another hundred clone templates growing in scattered labs across the globe, all waiting to be modified after this outing.

It's only a matter of time before I meet a worthy opponent again, and what better way then to make one myself?

It all makes me so giddy.