The Bum’s Rush #56

Free Comic Book Day – Part 2

Okay… where was I? Oh, yes. Free Comic Book Day. The books were done, I’d managed to avoid a painful death and I got to sleep in. Hopefully Dana and Dave had made it to CAPE without incident. I arrived at Titan, about half an hour before they would officially open, surrounded by a throng of adoring fans. "Groupies", I think, is the technical term. Seriously, there were at least two guys already there to see me specifically! Well, actually my buddy was there to see me specifically; the other guy was a friend of his whom I’d never met before. And I think maybe my buddy was more interested in picking up the Free Scott Pilgrim book from Oni than in seeing me. Hmm.

Anyway, thronged by adoring fans (eww) I entered Titan, expecting some warm applause and maybe a cheer or two. I’m nothing if not modest, after all. Instead I was brushed out of the way by one of Titan’s employees who barely glanced in my direction with an “oh, it’s you” look in their eyes before continuing to stock the store’s front shelf with free comics. I decided to be as much of a nuisance as possible and began taking free comics off the shelf as they were being stocked. “You’re in the way,” I was told. “That’s what I was going for,” I replied, grinning like an idiot. I took many a lump… but ‘twas all in good fun.

Once I’d thoroughly annoyed the entire staff (and subsequently talked them out of forcibly ejecting from the premises) I began setting up my mighty display. Oh, it may look like a bunch of random comics and papers with pretty pictures scattered haphazardly about the table… and it is. But therein lies the genius. As soon as I figure out what the genius part is I will be sure to tell you all about it and take full credit for thinking it up years ago. I was all set for inevitable mad rush that would follow the official opening of the store, in which surely all copies of Mars 1938 would disappear in a matter of minutes, my shirt would be torn from my body by hot, young comic-reading girls (they exist I tell you!) and I would be left dazed, covered in kisses and wondering what had just happened and how I could make it happen every day.

But then… disaster! I had misspelled our email address on the postcard-sized inserts that I’d made the night before to attract people to advertise in the next Stumblebum comic. I couldn’t believe I’d made such a huge mistake. Me! Being someone who never screws up this was quite a blow to my ego. Obviously none of the 200 inserts I had made could be used. What a waste of time. I whined about the problem to anyone in earshot. Most people walked away. However, hearing my tale of woe, Greg Gatlin, boy genius, offered a solution. “Why don’t you just register for the email address that’s listed on the flyer?” he pondered. “Why don’t you go to heeey, that’s not a bad idea!” I responded. Problem solved. See? I am a genius. Greg who?

 With all my troubles taken care of the rest of the day went like clockwork. Though obviously not as crowded as CAPE, there was a steady stream of customers all day, picking up quite a bit mid-afternoon. Not too surprising really, as Titan had some great guests like my ol’ buddies Kit Lively, Michael Moore (El Gato Negro) and new friends Brian Warthen, Michael Logocki, Jon Miller and Jake Nealis & Jay Ewald of Cat Torpedo Comics. Jace Moore was also there in her incredible Green Goblin costume (based on a design by Humberto Ramos) taking pictures with the kids who came into the store.

Darren Hollander, official demonstrator for Duncan YoYo’s, showed off his amazing talent (with yo-yo’s sicko) inspiring a draw-off between Greg Gatlin and me. I drew Darren as the multiple, weaponized yo-yo spinning Yo Man while Greg drew Yo Man’s arch nemesis, a particularly foul looking character with buzz saw and spike-laden yo-yos. That was actually a lot of fun and Darren dug the hell out of both our sketches (though secretly I know he liked mine best). I wish I’d made a copy of the sketch, but alas I did not. Oh well, perhaps Duncan execs will see the sketch and demand that I draw for them an Adventures of Yo Man comic book! Hey, you know, I’d actually kind of dig that. (And by “dig” I mean “cha-ching!”)

Soon my biggest fans (i.e. my parents) showed up with my adorable nephew in tow. He was wearing his Stumblebum Studios t-shirt to show his support. When he saw the huge painting of Spiderman that hangs from the ceiling of the store he pointed and said “Spiderman, Spiderman!” Only two and already a comic geek. Yay! He wandered around the store with my folks, marveled at the sick yo-yo skills of Darren and admired Jace’s incredible Green Goblin costume, albeit from a safe distance. At one point I decided to try and pass my nephew off as the inker of Mars 1938, Dave Sherrill, hoping to draw an even larger crowd. Unfortunately most people saw through this ruse. He didn’t look anywhere near drunk enough to be Dave. My parents left smiling, satisfied that I was indeed as famous as I had led them to believe.

Shortly thereafter Darren left and I decided to entertain the troops by taking over as the official yo-yo demonstrator. Everyone was amazed as I performed death defying yo-yo tricks without ever removing the yo-yo from it’s packaging. Tricks like “Toss In Air and Catch”, “Toss In Air, Spin and Catch” and the tricky “Toss Under Leg, Into Air and Catch”. When Titan employee Rebecca tried to take the yo-yo away from me lest I do harm to guests or, more importantly, customers, I was forced to do my “Over Shoulder, Miss When Trying to Catch, Almost Remove the Nose of Titan Employee, Sure It Looked Like An Accident But I Meant To Do That” trick. It’s famous… I learned it in Nepal.

Dana arrived at Titan shortly after 4:00. A combination of bad weather and not having any more copies of Mars 1938 had prompted him to leave Zeus Comics early. That’s right! Almost all the copies of the book were gone and the general response from fans was quite positive. I myself only had 10 copies of the book left when Dana arrived. He sat himself upon the couch behind the guest table and read comics while I busily sketched for fans until the end of the day. I managed to get some copies of a few sketches I did -

Deadpool for Jon Miller	Cable for one of Jon’s buddies	The Silver Spectre for the Cat Torpedo

Click on an image to view full size in a new window

Walking out of the store with a handful of free comics and only five copies left of the first printing of
Mars 1938, I felt pretty damn good. Free Comic Book Day was a huge success. And I hadn’t been killed… this time.

Now let’s see how CAPE went, courtesy Mars 1938’s trace… I mean inker, Dave Sherrill:

Free Comic Book Day – CAPE Report by Dave Sherrill

Howdy folks,

This is ace reporter Dave Sherrill reporting from Cape… well at least reporting on Cape since it was a few days ago.

The scene was that of excitement and merriment as people walked around excited and merry. The event was held in a large circus tent in front of the comic book shop in Dallas mytholodically named Zeus. There were tons of comic book celebrities that everyone was excited about, comic book radio shows that people were interested in, and local cartoonists that people walked quickly past.

The crowd was filled with people, which I barely saw because of the handfuls of beautiful confused girls who accidentally stumbled into a comic book convention. My mind wandered back to what my grandfather told me on his deathbed "Merciful god in heaven, look at the milk bladders on that little missy". Just a side note, my grandfather hasn't died yet, but I'm sure he won't get a new bed before he passes, he's pretty cheap and it's a pretty good bed.

Back to the convention, people were very receptive to Mars 1938, mostly because it was free, but sometimes because they were drunk. Very few people threw the comic away in front of us, and even less wiped their arse with it…. †in public. The day was a rousing success, not only for the good people at Stumblebum, but for the local comic book scene in general. God bless you local cartoonists, some day you will sell those "xeroxed prints of yourself with a fox's head" poster. Some day soon.

Signing off,

-Dave Sherrill
Ace Reporter

Infinite Crisis and Civil War
Uhm… I’m way past deadline here. How about we cover this next week? Besides, you should know by now that just because I say I’m going to talk about something doesn’t mean I actually will. It’s all part of that genius thing I was talking about earlier.

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. Well, as intriguing a promotion as it was it doesn’t look like enough people pulled Dan Slott’s Thing. The series, which is actually one of my favorite books at the moment, will end with issue #8. It’s a shame too because the awesome Kieron Dwyer just came on board as the new artist. Oh well, I suppose I should be used to my favorite books being cancelled by now. Cry.

2. Oh yeah, DC’s Manhunter will be ending with issue #25. Shrug.

3. There’s been a lot of talk about the preponderance of product placement (say that five times fast) within comics over the last few years, most notably with the Nike swoosh popping up in several Marvel titles. And it looks like that was just the beginning. In July DC will be publishing Rush City, a six-issue mini-series starring a new DC hero named Rush whose car, the Pontiac Solstice GXP will appear as part of a product placement deal between DC Comics and Pontiac. When I first read about this I had to roll my eyes. A comic based around trying to sell a car? Other comics have done the same thing, to a lesser degree, and failed pretty miserably. Who wants to read what amounts to 32-page ad for Pontiac? But then I saw the art by Timothy Green II. It’s insane! Seriously, take a look here and tell me that isn’t some of the most eye-popping art you’ve ever seen. Add in writer Chuck Dixon, arguably one of the best writers of straight up action in all of comics, and I’ve got to say that this is one book I’ll be hard pressed to pass up. It actually looks like more than a simple advertisement and when you think about it is it any worse than seeing a new car (almost certainly provided but the manufacturer for the purpose of advertising said car) being driven by the main character in a movie or TV show?

4. In December Peter David and George Perez’ hard-hitting, ultra-violent, mature readers mini-series Sachs & Violens will be collected by DC Comics. The book was originally published in the 90’s by Marvel/Epic’s Heavy Hitter line and the characters, which are owned by David and Perez, didn’t appear again until recently in the final two issues (19 and 20) of David’s Fallen Angel series.

5. DC Solicitations for July 2006 are right here.

6. Marvel Solicitations for July 2006 can be found here.

7. And Image Solicitations for July 2006 are over here.

NEXT WEEK: Talk to The Bum with Neal Langham and Kevin Steele. Plus, thoughts on Infinite Crisis and Civil War… as far as you know.



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