New York, New York! (Comic Con) What a wonderful town! And...Comic Con.

That silence you've been hearing permeate this blog (permeate, I tell you!  It's a metaphor!) over the past week has been the auditory representation of my exhaustion from the recent New York Comic Con.  If that last sentence didn't make much sense, it's because I'm still pretty beat up from the three terrific days I spent at a booth at the show...and what a show it was.  I met a lot of great people, sold a whole bunch of books and other items, and ended up with some cool swag.  It was an eventful time and something I'm really glad I did.

Saturday was by far the busiest day of the weekend - people were literally shoulder-to-shoulder throughout most of the convention (and by "literally", I mean they actually were, as opposed to when people actually mean "figuratively").  It was a bit frustrating to move around on this day, but there was a lot of traffic around the Wagon Wheel Comics booth if for no other reason than there was a lot of traffic everywhere.  I'm happy to say that Teddy and the Yeti  (and Fubar, and Franks and Beans...) got a lot of exposure and got into a lot of hands.  I also managed to hand out a good number of copies to professionals like Todd Nauck, Peter David, David Lloyd, Mark Waid, Joe Quesada, and other people in the industry.

Danny Cruz did a lot of sketches at the Wagon Wheel Booth and made the show even more enjoyable.  He did a few Teddy and the Yeti pieces (and drew a great addition to my Thing sketchbook) that I'll try to post scans of here in the future.  Larry dressed up as Lion-O from the Thundercats and had his picture taken a few thousand times.  People snatched up the crochet Yeti dolls as I knew they would.  I met the creators of the Venture Bros!

It was a great weekend.  It was a crazy weekend, but it was great.  Really, it was, from almost every angle.

This post is quickly spiraling out of control into an experiment in stream of consciousness writing, so I'll wrap it up with the intention of writing more soon.  I'll post pictures from the show starting tomorrow, so look for that as it arrives.  My thanks go out to everyone who stopped by the Wagon Wheel booth to flip through a book, pick up a card, or just chat.  What a fun time.

Reblogging.

I used to have a MySpace page.  I guess I technically still do, though I don't update it anymore...and haven't in a few years.  I know, it's sad.  Facebook is the place to be now, as it turns out that MySpace was NEVER cool, but I'll bet that the Grim Internet Reaper will one day come for all of today's hip social networks.

Every once in a while I venture back to the old haunting grounds just to see if it's still there (it is), and if I'm REALLY bored, I re-read some of the blogs I uploaded to that site.  Don't judge - it's not becoming of you.  Back in April of 2007 I wrote a big long passage all about Star Trek, and I thought it'd be fun (remember, it's relative) to repost part of it here for posterity, because everyone knows that this blogger site will last forever.  Star Trek has had a number of comic adaptations and original stories...but rarely do they catch my eye.

You can read more of Jeff's old crap here!

Star Trek comics are pretty common - what's uncommon is to find one that's at all good.  But in the early '90s, Peter David had a run on the comic based around the original series, published by DC.  I picked up most of that run (15 issues or so) for cheap and really enjoyed it, and I recently completed my search for that particular selection when I bought (also for cheap) the first and second annuals.

Peter David is probably one of my favorite writers, and he hasn't just worked in comics - he's also a published novelist and has worked on a few television shows as well.  His biggest strength and weakness, in my opinion, revolve around the subplots in the books he writes.  He weaves countless backstories and supporting characters into all of his books, giving a fullness to what could otherwise be a sparse cast, but at times those background stories, as they keep evolving and growing, can take away something from the primary action that we should really be focusing on.  His run on Star Trek wasn't any different - superb at times, but a little distracting in some other instances.

The first Star Trek annual, published in 1990, had the distinction of being co-written by George Takei, Star Trek's own Mr. Sulu.  The story itself is not much to talk about - it's serviceable, but not superb by any means - but seeing the fact that it centers around Sulu's infatuation with a female officer - his unrequited love and the tragedy that it spawns - makes me chuckle a little after Takei's recent "coming out" party.  I know, I know - just because the actor is gay doesn't mean the character is (we even saw Sulu's daughter in Generations!), but still.

Check out the cover: