C2E2 2013: MEETING DOUG MAHNKE

Here’s another guy I’d met before, but the last time had really not been much.  He’s one of those guys who doesn’t like being at conventions.  Like with Straczynski, he wasn’t an asshole.  He was just distant.

This time, I saw him just hanging out with Andrew Pepoy, shooting the shit, and I didn’t want to interrupt.  I hung back and flipped through a book with some of Mahnke’s work in it.  His assistant noticed me and asked if I just had the one book to sign.  I said yes, and he took it from me and slid it in front of Mahnke just as he was finishing up his conversation with Pepoy.

I wondered, how would this guy respond to WILDSTORM PRESENTS, a book that has confused and pleasantly surprised so many people at the convention?  I’ve never seen this guy smile.  Every time I’ve seen him, he’s been rather cold and maybe a bit gruff.  Would this be the book that breaks him?

He barely looked at it.  He broke out a silver Sharpie, signed, and slid it back to his assistant, who gave it back to me.  Mahnke didn’t even look at me.  When I thanked him, he grunted, nodded, and started looking at his phone.

No!  The WILDSTORM PRESENTS Chronicles ends on this anticlimactic note?!  It can’t be!  Fuck!

Some winters just can’t thaw, I guess . . . .

Here’s the finished cover for WILDSTORM PRESENTS:

C2E2 2013: THE WILDSTORM CHRONICLES #3: MEETING PATTON OSWALT

Honestly, I didn’t expect that I would get to meet Patton Oswalt.  I wanted to, but I knew his line would be impossibly long, and there would be no chance of getting in there.  Still, on the off-chance that I did manage to succeed, I wanted to bring one thing for him to sign.  I have a bunch of movies and TV shows he’d been on, but I wanted something a bit more personal.  The only stand-up work I have of his is digital, and I wasn’t about to ask him to sign my laptop.

And then it hit me.  Holy shit, he wrote a part of the “Masks” storyline in WILDSTORM PRESENTS!  Why not bring that along?

Like I said, I knew it would be super-hard to meet him, because he was only signing for an hour.  30 minutes of that would be spent by me in the IDW panel, which I had to cover.  It went the whole time, too, so I only had a half an hour to make it down to Oswalt’s autographing table and stand in a line that would probably be too long.

Sure enough, when I got there, I had 15 minutes to go before he had to go, and the C2E2 employee told me and a few other latecomers that Oswalt strictly had to leave at the top of the hour.  Great.  I looked at that line and knew there was no way in hell I’d get up there.  But fuck it.  At that time, I didn’t have anything else going on.  Might as well take the chance.

I’m glad I did.  The line moved super fast, and the reason was because he was rushing through the signing, hoping to get everyone before the next celebrity showed up to take over.  I knew I’d only have a few words with him while he signed the one thing I’d brought along.

At the very top of the hour, I made it to his table.  I greeted him and told him it was nice to meet him.  And then I put the issue of WILDSTORM PRESENTS down on the table, and he looked very confused.  For the third time that day, someone whose work was in the book had no idea what they were looking at.

“I don’t think I’m in this one,” he said.

I told him that he did a part of “Masks” with Amanda Conner, and then he snapped into recognition.  He told me that, surprise, he hadn’t seen this one.  He signed it as quickly as he could and sent me on my way.  I had time for just one final sentence:  “You’re great on JUSTIFIED!”

He smiled graciously and thanked me as the next fan rushed to meet him.

There were two more people in the book that were at the convention.  As it turned out Brian Azzarello wasn’t doing a signing, so I wasn’t able to get him, but that left Doug Mahnke . . . .

C2E2 2013: THE WILDSTORM CHRONICLES #2: MEETING JILL THOMPSON

All right, I’d met Jill Thompson before, and I always bring some of her stranger work for her to sign.  Anyone else remember FINALS around here?  I didn’t think so.  This time, I had my copy of WILDSTORM PRESENTS, and I stood in her line and watched as a couple of reporters interviewed her.  They also seemed to be fans, because they walked away with a signed print.

I finally got up to her and dropped a few bucks in the charity jar.  However, when I presented her with the book, she shook her head.  “I’m not in this.”

Where have I heard that before?

“Oh no.  You’re in there, all right,” I said.  I was about to point out which story was hers when she started flipping through the pages.

“I don’t remember any of this stuff.  Are you sure?  That’s Deathblow.  I don’t really do that kind of work.”

I was about to tell her which page to turn to when her jaw dropped, and she looked even more surprised than Amanda Conner.  “This is that ‘Masks’ story!  I love this story!  It’s one of my favorite stories I’ve ever worked on!”

And then, she went on to tell me what went into the writing of this piece.  It’s essentially a superhero version of COPS.  In order to get in the right frame of mind, Thompson told me that she’d watched a ton of COPS episodes, and she was always surprised by the stupid criminals.  Her favorite was of a guy who tried running from the police . . . while wearing shoes that light up when you take a step.  The guy was absolutely baffled as to how the cops found him each and every time.  “I just kept thinking, look down at your feet, stupid!”

It was at this point that I started realizing that I had something special here.  No one who did the book remembers doing it, but as soon as they see their own work, they start gushing over how awesome it is.  I started wondering if I was the only one in history who owns a copy.  Clearly, the writers and artists didn’t.  Thompson told me she’d never seen it before.

Who else could I confuse and delight with this book?

C2E2 2013: THE WILDSTORM PRESENTS CHRONICLES #1: MEETING AMANDA CONNER

I’ll be honest, I’ve not come across much of Amanda Conner’s work.  The extent that I’m familiar with is her work on BEFORE WATCHMEN:  SILK SPECTRE and a small bit that she did for WILDSTORM PRESENTS.  The main reason I wanted to meet her was because I was trying to get as many BEFORE WATCHMEN people as I could.

Her line was one of the longer ones I waited in at this convention, and by the time I got to meet her, I could see why.  She’s done some pretty good work with Supergirl and a few other superhero titles.  Not my thing, but I can definitely recognize amazing artwork.

She was incredibly nice and engaging.  She was glad to see my issues of SILK SPECTRE, and as she signed these, I broke out one of my big guns:  a collection called WILDSTORM PRESENTS.  I’d initially bought it because I saw Brian Azzarello’s name on it, but when I found out who else was in it, I was impressed.  Georges Jeanty, Paul Jenkins, Ed Brubaker, Judd Winick, Doug Mahnke, Richard Corben, Jill Thompson, and shocker of all shockers, Patton fuckin’ Oswalt.

Since many of them were going to be at the convention, I thought I’d get as many signatures as I could.

When I set it down in front of Conner, she looked puzzled.  “I’m not in here.”  I reassured her she was, indeed, in there, and pointed out which story.  Then, recognition blazed on her face.  “Oh yeah, I remember this!  I’ve never seen it, though.  Very cool.”  And she signed it for me.

Much to my surprise, this scenario would recur several more times during the convention.

She marveled at it for a while, flipping through the pages, excited to see her some of her work that she hadn’t seen since she put the finishing touches on it and sending it to Wildstorm.  She asked me how long I’d had it, and I said a couple of years.  She said she was wondering if it had just been printed.

I moved on then, because she was sitting next to Jimmy Palmiotti, and I hoped to get him to sign a few things.  Then, as I waited at the back of the incredibly short line, unpacking my things for Palmiotti, I noticed something.  I’d brought TRANSMETROPOLITAN:  I HATE IT HERE because I’d been working on getting all the artists in there to sign it.  I was hoping to get Palmiotti and Tony Harris to join the ranks of Rodney Ramos, John McCrea, Warren Ellis, Eduardo Risso, Tim Bradstreet, Dave Johnson, David Mack, and Cliff Chiang in signing this thing.

In that moment I realized that AMANDA CONNER IS IN THIS BOOK, TOO.  Fuck.  I turned around and saw that Conner’s line was just as long as it had been when I’d first gotten into it.  I just resigned myself to getting back in it when I’d finished up with Palmiotti.

Suffering through that line a second time was a drag, but fuck me for being so stupid.  When I got up to her table again, she laughed, surprised to see me again.  I apologized for being a fool and presented her with her page from the book.  Chuckling, she signed it and said, “Why am I always drawing people on the toilet?”

Why, indeed?