Rode hard…and hung up wet…

I have toyed with the adventure that is Comicon off and on for ten years. This year was the nuttiest of them all. For one thing the con just keeps getting bigger and bigger, more and more corporate and for the second thing, I was there to represent Alien Pig Farm and RAW Entertainment as a whole.

Tom Jane, yours truly and Tim Bradstreet.
After building our booth late Wednesday the entourage headed across the street to take part in seafood and begin the long process of injecting an overflowing IV of alcohol into our bloodstreams.

Around the table we find Bradstreet with Sarah and Niles.

Ludon, of D2C Games, who RAW joined forces with for digital versions of Alien Pig Farm and Bad Planet. Legendary artist, Joe Jusko and journalist, Mark Walters.

Myself and Jane.

Thursday was non-stop working the booth. Tom planted his feet and held the booth all day long, signing comics and posters for both Mutant Chronicals and Darabont’s The Mist. Niles and Bradstreet made several appearances as their schedules allowed.
Thursday night we sat down to break bread at Frank Darabont’s annual dinner. It was a melting pot of Hollywood and Comic book people. Edgar Wright, director of Shawn of the Dead, Battlestar creator, Ronald Moore, Niles, Jane, Bradstreet, Jusko, even Quint from Ain’t It Cool was there. I recall looking around the table, feeling amazingly under qualified to be there expecting some suit to approach at any moment and ask me to leave. Alas that never happened and I ended up being part of the group who stayed miserably late allowing the restaurant employees to draw time and a half. I would have pulled the camera but it didn’t feel like a picture snapping sort of event.

After four hours of fast sleep I was showered and back at the booth.

You’d think the celebrity would have slept late but Jane was there before I was. And for good reason, Friday was a big day as we had the RAW mega signing planned.

Seated: Legends, Bill Stout and Bernie Wrightson. Standing, me and Pig Farm interior artist, Don Marquez. Standing on a chair, shouting to the crowd: Tommy Jane.

That’s Tim Bradstreet’s back. In the background left to right: Mark Schultz cover artist on both Pig Farm and Bad Planet. Niles, Marquez and myself. And you can just make out Bad Planet penciler, James Daly’s head peeking into the picture as he scribbles his Johnny Hancock onto one of many RAW posters.

The whole clan. There were several hundred digital pics snapped at this moment and, of course, my camera is the one that returned the fuzzy picture. Figures.

That night was the RAW party. Ploog, Wrightson, Jane, Jusko and Niles. It was nuts. Had to be nearly 100 people stuffed into Ludon’s hotel suite. I am assuming that there were casualties by the end of the night but I understand we have PR people who make all that stuff go away.
Dave Allcock (storyboard artist on Mutant Chronicals and Jane’s upcoming directorial debut, Dark Country), myself, Jane (kneeling), Sarah, Niles and the guys from Del Rey (who Tom and I had tracked down earlier that day. If all goes as planned Del Rey may release RAW’s trade paperbacks, Pig Farm, Bad Planet).
After our party, if memory serves, we all crashed the Lucasarts party. Easy to do when you are with a celeb. We didn’t stay long. We joined up with David Arquette and Paul Rubens and took off for the Hyatt for the end of the night (stupidly early morning party). Half of the group took a limo…the rest of us piled into bikes.

That’s Amy and Hunter. Hunter is currently cutting The Mist with Darabont. And Jane has been sitting in on most of the sessions in preparation for his Dark Country adventures.

What should have been a friendly bike ride became a scene out of the French Connection.

It was a race to the finish line…or to the death…whichever happened to come first. Sadly the whole race came to a crushing halt as the south bound Amtrak blocked our path. Of course, this was a perfect opportunity for Tom to leap from the bike, run toward the moving train and…jump aboard. As he rode off into the moonset, I sat there too stunned to remember that I actually had a camera in my hand.
The Tribe reassembled outside the back bar at the Hyatt where I ran into Messengers scribe and good friend Mark Wheaton and his whole entourage. I also saw good buddy, Carr D’Angelo.

Carr (left) and I met years ago when he was still and executive at Universal. In the last few years he and Jud (right) opened a comic book shop in Encino and they had just won the Eisner award for the greatest comic book shop in the world. Needless to say, Carr was glowing.
Later, Niles mentioned to Tom that there was a certain comic book writer at the bar. Tom wanted to meet this particular writer and rushed inside only to learn that the guy had just left. So, Tom proceeded to shout to the crowd, “Five bucks to the man who will kick (unnamed writer’s) @$$!”
Then, while chatting with Niles, suddenly he says, “Oh crap, come on!” Some stupidly drunk dude had just snatched Tom’s cigar out of his mouth and it looked like a fight was about to break out. Niles and I approached while I yelled for Bradstreet. As it turned out, the guy was drunk but not stupid. He quickly started backpedaling and although words were exchanged, no punches flew.
I put Niles and Sarah on a bike back to the Omni. Bradstreet got Tom up to his room. And although the drunk had backed down from Tom he continued to accost others. Including Jovanka, Editor in Chief of Rue Morgue. I stepped in a few more times and did my best to talk the guy down, at one point showing him pics of my daughter in an attempt to distract him. It worked and eventually he departed. Then I joined forces with Jovanka and the guys from Rue Morgue for our journey back to the Omni. It had become a surreal night and there’s strength in numbers.
Of course, this near fight meshed with Tom’s earlier shouts to kick the butt of the unnamed writer until the following day the story that Tom and this writer had gone to blows had become a thing of legend.

Less than four hours of sleep later and I was back at the booth. All week Ludon had the digital teasers for Bad Planet and Pig Farm playing to the crowd and the kids loved it, staring enthralled.

Obviously by Saturday we were all wasted. Jane, Allcock and Daly at the booth.
Later Tom and I broke away to walk Artist Alley searching for an artist to pencil the six issue series he and I are co-writing called, The Lycan. I think we found our guy but it’s too early to go making announcements.

That night we started out at the Red Pearl. Jusko, Jane, Bradstreet, Ludon, Allcock and myself.

Unfortunately for Jusko I snapped a pic of him in mid-spicy-belch.

…a pic that had Bradstreet laughing so uncontrollably hard that he wept.

My friend and neighbor, Allen Spiegel was eating at the Red Pearl that night as well. We had actually been looking for Allen earlier in the day to pick his brain about publishing within the foreign markets.

Then it was off to the roof of the Westgate to see a band play…but we got there too late. Much to Bradstreet’s dismay. He was a big fan of this band who I’d never heard of before.

No band aside, it was another successful party. Dave, myself, Tom and Jim Lee.
At one point I recall seeing Tom approach the railing. Although I cannot confirm this…there are rumors that he may have been planning to relieve himself onto the sidewalk three stories below. Of course, if that were his plan I’m certain I would have reminded him that every person at this party came packing a digital camera. And saying that would have certainly stopped such thoughts of airborne urination.
Of course, when…and if…he saw the fountain at the other end of the rooftop…well, all I can say is that words do not stop a viking.
Of course, I’m certain this is probably all rumor. I’m certain the following morning this did not become yet another thing of legend as Dave Allcock’s rendering will prove.