The Bum’s Rush #46

Shut Up! You’re Late!

So, yeah, I’ve decided that my column doesn’t actually run late. Ever. If you happen to see the Bum’s Rush before Wednesday then it is, in fact, early. But on Wednesday (or possibly Thursday, as the case may be)? Perfectly on time. So there. This message was brought to you by Paul’s ability to rationalize and excuse any and all personal faults. Of which there are none.

STAPLE! (Part Uno)

This past weekend, the Stumblebum Crew attended STAPLE, the Independent Media Expo, in Austin. More specifically Dana (our lord and master, writer of The Weigh In, the man behind the man), Dave (he of Cultural Void and Sucker Punch Spotlight, town drunk) and I (me) attended STAPLE. It was a blast, probably one of the best shows I’ve been to so far.

The fun all started Thursday night. There was still a ton of stuff to do in preparation for the show and though we were planning to leave at noon on Friday I was relatively positive that I had enough time to do what I had to do and still get some sleep. Then I got to work. It had been pretty slow at my job for the past few weeks. So of course, on the one day I actually wanted it to be slow so I could do what I needed to for STAPLE, we got hit with a ginormous buttload (technical term) of work. Enough work to keep me busy at least until the next century. Well past my standard eight-hour shift. I could tell, from the moment I sat down at my computer that day, that I would not be getting any sleep whatsoever before we hit the road on Friday.

To explain this phenomenon, which seems to occur with alarming regularity, I’ve developed a theory, which I call Milligan’s Law of Proportional Workload©. Here it is expressed as a mathematical formula:

Time Remaining Before Stumblebum Event + Amount of Preparation Remaining x How Much I Have Procrastinated = X Amount (i.e. Buttload) of “Real Job” Work Dropped On My Desk At Last Possible Second

I just blew our mind didn’t I? Yes, I know… I’m a bloody genius. They'll remember me in one breath with Newton, Einstein, Surak. Not bad for a guy who basically failed almost every math class he took in high school (I blame comics personally). Uh… anyway…

Long story short, I did indeed manage to get everything done and arrived back at my apartment on Friday morning with plenty of time to… take a shower, pack and go to Austin. As I packed I began to feel the Sandman tapping me on the shoulder. He became more insistent as I showered and shaved. By the time I was walking out the door he was clearing his throat loudly and tapping his foot. I ignored him, hoping that he’d go away. I decided it would be best if Dana drove. I was in no condition, not with Mr. Sandman beating me to death trying to get my attention. We left Dallas around two in the afternoon instead of noon like we’d planned. In Stumblebum Mean Time this translates to “right on time”.

After an hour on the road the Sandman won the battle of the wills (though honestly I let him), but not for long. I get way too nervous about other people driving my car to be able to sleep comfortably for any reasonable length of time. Dana’s question from the night before, “You have insurance, right?” did little to ease my mind. Still, the drive was mostly uneventful and accident-free. Just before hitting Austin we stopped at a Dairy Queen for some food. It was the first fast-food restaurant I’d ever seen with a smoking section. I remarked that the play area looked like some sort of deathtrap and I swear I heard children screaming for help from within the labyrinthine tunnels. While we waited for our food, Dana and I somehow found a way to make most of the menu items sound perverted. It’s a game we play.

Back on the road again and almost to our destination, Dave called us. He and his wife Mel had left town after us so I assumed he was behind us and calling for directions. After a few moments of confusion I realized he was actually giving the directions. He had already arrived at the hotel. Several angry, bewildering and frustrating minutes later (during which we discovered “the edge of the world”, the place where Austin apparently just stops existing altogether) we finally found our destination. We met up with Dave and Mel and deciding on a course of action – rest. In a few hours we would have to make our way to Austin Books where the pre-show party was being held. I pretended to sleep for about half-an-hour and then we headed out.

As confused as I was by the way some of the roads in Austin are set up we were able to find our way around town with relative ease. We barely got lost at all on the way to the party. We parked around back and entered Austin Books. I was floored. It has to be one of the biggest comic book stores I have ever been in. There were so many books and toys and shirts lining the walls, all the way to the ceiling, not to mention the dozens of little islands full of hundreds of comic boxes. I didn’t even know there were that many comics in the world! For a moment I wondered if we’d actually died on the road to Austin and I had awoken in some sort of heaven for nerds. I half expected naked dancing women to shower me with flowers, kisses and brand new issues of Breach, Wildcats 3.0 and Fantastic Four by Jack Kirby, obviously the God of this strange and wondrous Utopia.

We met a few really cool people like Jason Hurley, creator of a hilarious little comic strip called The Adventures of Honest Abe and The Original G-Dub. It’s like Terrance & Phillip, but with presidents. Dave introduced us to the lovely and talented Ed Brisson and Jeff Bent of The Crown Commission, a collection of insanely talented artists whose work I first encountered on LiveJournal. Both of those guys were awesome and really funny. Somehow, meeting people like this, whose work I’ve admired and who I perceive to be somewhat famous, always leaves me feeling… outclassed somehow. But still, they were excellent and we jawed with them for most of the night. I spotted Jim Mafhood and Tony Millionaire making the rounds. At one point I gave Melissa a quick tutorial on “how comics work”, explaining things like shipping schedules and what exactly a “Bizarro” is. Hey, she asked all right! I’m not the kind of guy that goes around forcing my geek disease on other people, even in a crowded comic store full of likeminded nerds stuffed with beer and pizza. Still, if she didn’t know how big a nerd I was before I’m sure she knows it now. And is frightened.

As the need to purchase every single item that came into my line of sight increased I decided to step outside. I must be even more well known and popular than I first thought because soon the entire back parking lot was full of loitering comic book artists and writers, smoking and talking about whatever comic book artists and writers talk about. Something about comics I’ll bet. Or being drunk. Outside we ran into Kit Lively and his girlfriend, Julie. They’re both from Dallas and we’ve met on a handful of occasions. Kit is hilarious and always a blast to talk to. He loves horror movies and inevitably the conversation turned to thoughts on the new Friday the 13th movie, horror remakes and cult classics. Dana described one of the segments from the Asian horror trilogy, Three Extremes, which made my stomach turn.

After Kit and Julie left we drifted back over to my car where Dave, Mel, Ed and Jeff were hanging. My trunk had apparently turned into a sort of makeshift bar littered with empty plastic beer cups. I cleared them off while Mel and I discussed my latest plan for world domination. The plan called for me to write and draw a new webcomic (separate from Der Wundervolle Bean) but have Mel pretend to be the author of the comic, the theory being that cute girls drawing webcomics inevitably get more attention and are vastly more popular. I’ll do anything to be famous… uh, I mean, to get my creative message out to the people. Yeah, that sounds better.

Around midnight (by which time I think I was officially tired enough to be ruled legally dead) Ed and Jeff invited us to the Kerbey Lane Café for a late dinner (early breakfast?). I was at once excited for the evening to continue and devastated by the realization that sleep was still some time away. The Café itself was wonderful. It had a great atmosphere, which reminded me of an old coffee shop I used to frequent back in high school. And the food was delicious. I believe I fell asleep at the table more than once but thankfully managed to avoid planting my face into the huge stack of blueberry pancakes I ordered. It was so cool to just sit around a table with a couple of artists I really admire (and Dave) and talk about comics and life in general while eating delicious pancakes and drinking sweet, sweet coffee.

Finally we said our farewells and made our way back to the hotel. Amazingly I remained alert enough to get us back safely and was able to resist the urge to drive the car straight through the wall and into my room so I wouldn’t have to walk to the bed. I don’t remember much after parking. After being up for almost 40 hours straight I’m lucky I didn’t wake the next morning to find myself lying half in and half out of my room with a cleaning lady poking me in the butt with a broom and cursing me in Spanish. No, that didn’t happen until Sunday.

To Be Continued!

Quick Bits

Warning! Nothing you read here in Quick Bits should be considered FACT until it actually happens. Which it might not. How do you know I’m not just making all this crap up? I could, you know. You’ve been warned!

1. The X-Men 3 trailer debuted earlier this week. I don’t know why but it didn’t do anything for me… I don’t think I could be less excited to see this movie. Bring on Superman Returns, baby!!
2. The animated series may have been cancelled but there’s still more Teen Titans on the horizon. Cartoon Network has announced that they will air a Teen Titans animated movie called Teen Titans Tokyo.
3. Cory Walker was originally slated to alternate art chores with Tony Moore on Image Comics Fear Agent series, but now he’s been announced as the new regular artist on the Robert Kirkman written Marvel Team-Up. Image recently revealed that Jerome Opena (winner of the Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award, artist on Dark Horse’s Lone mini-series) would be taking Walker’s place and will begin drawing Fear Agent with issue five.
4. Speaking of art changes, new Robin artist Karl Kerschl is off the book after just one issue. Not sure why exactly. Replacing him, starting with issue #149, is artist Freddie Williams II, fresh off his stint on the Mr. Miracle mini-series (he was the third artist to take over that series).

NEXT WEEK: Part Two of my STAPLE report, in which I might talk about the actual show!

Send me hate mail at thesuperleezard@yahoo.com

Read more stupid crap I write at www.livejournal.com/users/superleezard

Check out my (semi) daily comic, Der Wundervolle Bean, at www.livejournal.com/users/der_magic_bean

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