Friday:

# I have video (and all the videos remain to be seen in more ways than one; the convention noise level is high) of Mark Siegel of First Second Books. I've only read two so far -- Life Sucks and Three Shadows -- but both were outstanding. And outstanding in different ways.

# Murphy Anderson looked great, and this is a show at which much deserved attention is paid to the pioneers we're lucky enough to have among us.

# John Lustig (see his Last Kiss in each issue of CBG) says he may be reporting some news soon about upcoming Last Kiss projects. Great!

# I had a long and wonderful time talking with Charles Pelto of Classic Comics Press. He's aggressively pursuing some new projects while continuing to bring up wonderful trade paperbacks of Leonard Starr's Mary Perkins On Stage and Irwin Hasen and Gus Edson's Dondi. Bonus was a wonderful lunch with Charles and Leonard Starr, in which topics included whether it was advantageous for On Stage to have displayed what may have been the best pacing in comic-strip history (my evaluation). Readers could follow the strip Monday through Friday or Monday through Saturday or Monday through Sunday or Sunday only and still have a great story with continuity hooks for the next episode.

# Michael Uslan told me to check out the Mezco Spirit figure, which I did. I tried to take a good photo of it (and may try again today), but its position in the display case showed more of the lights in the hall than the figure. A figure which was, yes, everything a Spirit fan could wish. Wonderful.

Saturday:

# The Abrams booth was full of wonders, with an outstanding backlist catalog of comics-oriented projects. Current focus, however, is on the wonderful Kirby King of Comics (with writer Mark Evanier and Golden Age icon Joe Simon signing copies at the booth) and Mike Berenstain's fascinating and wildly entertaining Child's Play (with the author-artist providing chalk-talk-like images of Stan and Jan Berenstain's early work connecting to today's classic Berenstain Bears). [I made a pitch to Editor Charles Kochman about Abrams' producing the complete It's All in the Family: a Berenstain feature that ran for years in family-oriented magazines. I'm just saying it'd be great.]

# The DC Legion panel was fun, with Keith Giffen (at Paul Levitz' promptings) expressing his dislike for Karate Kid: "Put the two words together: 'super' and 'karate'." And saying that, if ever he were to write Legion again and KK was around, he'd kill the character again. Paul's comment about the intense fan responses (positive and negative) to the Legion over the years: "It's delightful to have people give a damn. Makes it worth doing."

# I was joined in the Legion audience by longtime buddy Chris Couch and was impressed to learn that he's teaching a full course on Will Eisner at the moment. Not to mention other academic cool stuff I'll elaborate on at a later date.

# Ran into Peter, Kathleen, and Caroline David, who were on their way to see Marc Guggenheim prior to a program item on his Eli Stone TV show with an ensuing Marvel focus on Guggenheim. That's part of the fun of the convention. I didn't know the show but will now check out the DVD (which either is out now or soon to be out or something; anyway, it seems worth looking up). Kathleen had had an auto accident the day before and was still shaken though, thank goodness, apparently unharmed otherwise. Life is scary.

# Colleen Doran was at the HarperCollins booth and showed me her new project, using art techniques that resulted in stunning images. Wow.

That's not all -- but it's all for now. Huzzah!

The line waiting to get into the next big event is slowly snaking its way toward me, as I sit in the Food Court and eat a sandwich.

The con has been back-to-back meeting -- and by that I mean quick interview followed by photo op followeed by cool mini-event while I try to grab video.

Steve Saffel (whose masterwork on Spider-Man is now available) raved over the tribute Stan Lee had paid Joe Simon the day before on the comics legends panel and -- Hey, time for the next event.

So I'm tottering around in the early morning, preparing to head out for a before-breakfast swim, and National Public Radio is doing a catch-up on weekend news. Charlton Heston's death is one of the topics, and suddenly we're into a recap of his memorable science-fiction roles.

The point seemed to be that those movies tended to be dark, dystopian tales and I think that connected in the essay to his position in the National Rifle Association. But to make that connection (which was easy enough), the commentator -- as have so many others -- casually gave away the ending of 1973's Soylent Green. Geez.

There's a reason it's a classic: It's a surprise ending. (It's not a big surprise, what with its origin in Damon Knight's "To Serve Man" and, more recently, with such bigmouths as this morning's commentator. Nevertheless, its impact comes from the shock.)

Earlier in the piece, he'd tossed off the ending of Planet of the Apes: another "surprise" ending -- and, yes, of course I know there were many sequels, as well as comic-book sequels. Still, in both cases, the remarks were gratuitous: tossed in as if to demonstrate the commentator's research, rather than necessary to make the point.

Again: If people do know the ending, you don't have to tell them; if they don't know the ending, you shouldn't tell them. How hard is that?