WAITING
FOR TOMMY: I Went To Chicago, Bill Jemas Went To China
By Richard
Johnston
My life is
full of odds and sods. Especially this week. Most of them
are comic book related. In this post-Chicago Con comedown
I thought I'd share.
-------- Well,
first, a massive thank you to Nick Barrucci and the staff
of Dynamic Forces for flying me out from my sweltering London
to the sweltering-but-air-conditioned Chicago. or more accurately
Chicago's hotel/airport district for the WizardWorld Chicago.
They were very good to me, tolerant of my British ways, patient
of the people who kept coming up to the Dynamic Forces booth
looking for me, and gorgeous each and every one.
--------
Never try and get through Customs when their computers are
down. They were resorting to phoning the CIA up for every
passenger and asking if they were a terrorist or not. 10 minutes
a passenger, 4 open booths, 2000 people queuing behind. You
do the math.
--------
As I alluded to earlier, this is a convention of concrete.
WizardWorld Chicago is set amid the many hotels that orbit
the Chicago O'Hare Airport. There have been attempts to humanise
this place, a tree or so here, some flower beds there, but
the imposing blocky buildings combined with the wide soulless
roads, leave one with a sense of coldness, of artificiality,
and ultimately ennui. Not even cold hard commerce has broken
this place up with restaurants, shops, anything to distract
you from your doom.
What this means
is that because no one leaves the convention or the hotels
- linked by enclosed bridges, no one need go out into the
fresh air at all. And by some of the odours around here, no
one has.
-------- Ah, see,
easy unoriginal gag already. And it's probably unfair as well.
There are so many mean spirited gags you could make, but they
feel false among the general air of well-being and goodwill
towards your fellows.
Unless you're
Paul Jenkins.
No, no, no, mean
spirited gag again, and like I said in Lying
In The Gutters I'm looking into that particular situation.
--------- Chicago
is a big con, but not San Diego big. And because it's all
enclosed, people can't escape as easily. So everyone hangs
around the bars and restaurants. If you really don't want
to pay a certain ex-TV star for a photo of him, just surprise
him while he's entertaining his female guests in the bar afterwards.
Never know, if you're lucky, he might end up paying you for
the photo!
---------
English accents are really deadly in the wrong hands. I seemed
to manage to charm the delightful View Askew Amy without trying
- or at least that's what her co-workers believed as they
tried to give her grief.
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