Conventions, The Dark Knight Rises, Franks and Beans and a slew of new random notes!

Here I again, with lots of things to say just a little bit about.  How has anyone lived without these short updates for such a long period of time?  Seriously, I expected people to start killing themselves or something.  Or perhaps something much less drastic.  In either case, let's begin:

- A few hours ago, I sent in the mail an application for the Motor City Comic Con, which takes place in just a few months, from May 13th through the 15th.  I'm optimistic about my chances of attending and grabbing a booth.  I'm not sure what to expect as far as most of the other guests or turnout, but Brent Spiner from Star Trek: The Next Generation will be there, so...I might as well go, too.  I'm still waiting to hear back from the Baltimore Comic-Con people, though as I mentioned before, they've cashed my application check, so I imagine that'll happen as well.  In both cases, we will see.

- Duane Redhead, your favorite artist and mine, was nice enough to send me a Christmas card last year (you know, around Christmas-time), and he included this nice doodle that you see above of Teddy and the Yeti.  I'm thinking of putting it at the end of every T&Y letters page from here until eternity.  It just has that "thanks for reading!" vibe to it.  I like it.

- Speaking of doodles, I'm sure everyone saw the Will Eisner Google Doodle a few days ago.  I thought it was a great tribute for what would have been Eisner's 94th birthday.  Obviously, the Spirit takes the focus in the art, but there are more subtle references to A Contract With God and other Dropsie Avenue stories, which was a nice touch.

Interestingly enough, the stats for this blog show that my Contract With God hardcover review spiked after this art showed up on Google's homepage.  Thanks for the hits, Google.

- Your friend and mine, Larry, half of the machine that is Franks and Beans, went to Pittsburgh's Steel City Con this past weekend and got his picture taken with the Batmobile from the 1960s TV show (for 20 bucks).  He did not pony up the $60 to meet Adam West, also in attendance, which I understand.  Sixty dollars!  Wow.

Here's the picture:

Here's a picture Larry took, what, 20 years ago (?) with the same Batmobile:

Larry hasn't changed a bit, but it looks like the Batmobile has had some detail work done in the meantime.  The bat-symbols are all outlined in white in the more recent picture.  Which is show accurate?  I can't be bothered to do the three minutes of research.

- Keeping with the Batman theme, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is reporting that PA Governor Tom Corbett is keeping Pennsylvania's film tax credit program in his new budget.  Never before have I been excited about budget news as this means Pittsburgh will most likely keep the Dark Knight Rises movie; that is, the newest Batman sequel should film in the 'Burgh as I was hoping.  This also means that I will show Batman-like determination in trying to be an extra on this movie this summer.

And to think, to present a balanced budget, all Governor Corbett had to do was cut education spending by $500 million.  I'm sure there won't be any negative repercussions from something like that.

- Last month, Taco Bell offered several promotional comics featuring various Marvel characters; one of which featured the Fantastic Four. Since I've never gone into a Taco Bell before, and since the only time I've ever eaten anything from Taco Bell was when a friend handed me a taco (really) as I was sitting behind a booth at Myrtle Beach's XCon World, I did the American thing and went to eBay to find a copy for myself.

The story contained within is a fun, short tale by the same creative team that worked on issues of Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four (Paul Tobin and...well, that's all I care about).  At the end of the issue, though, there was a one page story by Colleen Coover (Tobin's wife, as it turns out) that featured the following image:

The Thing fights a yeti.  I thought that was pretty cool.

This wasn't the first FF comic that Taco Bell has sponsored, though.  A few years ago they put out another one with another stock cover:

- Congratulations to James from Greer, South Carolina for winning every single one of my eBay auctions over the past weekend.  He bought 74 Spider-Girl and Spider-Girl-related issues that all went out in one big box this afternoon.  Good for you!

Just so you're aware, James, I turned about a third of that money around right away and bought this gem from artist Roger Andrews, who, according to the description, did design work on Marvel's Super Hero Squad toy line packaging art:

It's a Thing sketch card!  Hooray!  I remain shocked at how cheap I am able to get sketch cards online, unless they happen to have a Marvel stamp on them from an existing card set.  Marvel Masterpiece sketch cards, for example, always sell in the $40 range regardless of quality.  And yet I can get the above card, one that features really tremendous art, for a fraction of that.  Go figure.

- Jeff McComsey and I are working on a promotional piece for the upcoming second volume of FUBAR.  Once it's done I'll post the entire image here, but for now, check out one of the panels.  I've seen the rest and they live up to this one.  It's a really fun project and it should have some legs!  Oh, and the first volume of the book is getting a second printing!  Exciting stuff.

- In the picture above, you see stacks and stacks of the second issue of the Magic Bullet, which McComsey and I have another story in.  This is not my car, but that of the publisher...in any case, it looks like the issue will be out sooner rather than later!

Click here to read the press release for Magic Bullet #2!

- Matt Kuhns of the Modern Ideas website (he who once proved that there was cool stuff to do in Cleveland) put together this great timeline cataloguing the Fantastic Four's ongoing series over their 50-year history.  I'd love to see one that included the many miniseries for a comprehensive look, but I also realize that would be a real pain in the ass to compile.  In any case, I was surprised to learn that there was at one time a Fantastic Four radio program, which I didn't know before checking this graph out.

- Lastly (finally!!), there's some new content on the Franks and Beans official website in the form of animated gifs! I remember posting an animated gif on this site before only to see it sit motionless, so you may not see the "animated" aspect of it until you visit the site, but regardless...go there.  And see them.  And save them to your computer and your phone.  There are more than I'm showing here, but...these are my favorites.