Image Worth a Thousand Words

This image and cover makes me ridiculously happy.

mike

Kathy F***ing George!?!

So, I'm sitting on the crapper reading the latest issue of John Constantine: Hellblazer - which may be more information than you need to know but is a disturbingly apropos place to have been reading it - when I get to a part near the end where John is stumbling through some public bathroom in Hell and comes across two individuals. The first is a red-headed, grungy looking, bad-mofo kind of guy and he is sitting next to an attractive, sad looking girl with dark black hair. Upon seeing them, John mutters, "Kathy? Kathy...George?"

WTF!!!!!

At that precise moment, I barked with one of those surprised but happy one note laughs - "Hwah!" - which I'm sure must have had the poor wife thinking I'd dropped something terrible or torn something somewhere. Once my business was done and hands were washed and all that, I ran to my wife who was in our room and I held the page in front of her and said, "Look at this page until you see it. You'll know what it is." She stared at it for about a minute and a half when a smile, big and wide, crept across her freckled face.

If you don't know who Kathy George is, Peter Milligan, the current writer of Hellblazer blazed his trail in American comics by writing a weird little mature readers title called Shade the Changing Man (of which both the wife and I possess complete runs). It ended years and years ago but it was one of my favourite comic series of all time and Kathy was one of the main characters, along with Rac Shade and another female character named Lenny. To have her show up again, in any capacity and after reading her dialogue where she says, "You can't help me. Not now. Not yet..." it sounds like we will be seeing the cast of Shade yet again, which is just a real mind-blower. So completely unexpected, although not entirely unprecedented.

There's actually a John Constantine connection with these guys since the four actually met during a cossover where they are sent back in time and have to deal with some puritans and Shade is turning into a tree and Lenny and Kathy are going to be hung as witches. John takes a particular shine to Kathy, as most people who meet her do, and it was something left unresolved at the end of the storyline, if I'm not mistaken. Clearly Milligan never forgot and I have every confidence that it will have something to do with where that call-out is going to lead in future issues of Hellblazer.

The prospect of seeing these characters again has me very excited. I never thought I would see them again. If ever there was a way to hook me in to a series so thoroughly that I wouldn't dare drop it so long as a single particular writer was guiding the destiny of said book, Milligan has found it.

I will be waiting with bated breath.

Later!

mike

Sort of SDCC Related

In 2000 I made a Comikaze trip down to San Diego with my buddy Karl. It was the first time I ever attended the con, and I was going under the auspices of doing some coverage for FEARS Magazine, a web publication that I was writing for that was run by a very cool cat named Ed Flynn. Almost on a whim (I think we decided the same day we left on the trip), Karl and I rented a car, loaded up our stuff and drove 33 odd hours from Saskatoon to San Diego (with a few stops in-between for sustenance and one stop in Vegas which was more curiosity than anything else).

I have a lot of fond memories of that con. I met Chris Carter whose shows I have been loving for the last 15 years or so, and even got to ask him a question on the X-Files/Lone Gunmen panel that made all the news sites by the time I got home (I asked him about Millennium, what the future holds for the series and was he truly happy with the 'closure' they gave the character of Frank Black in the New Year X-Files episode, "Millennium"). I met Will Eisner and got to shake his hand and thank him for all of his excellent work over the years, not to mention getting my Spirit Archives Volume 1 autographed. I did some great video interviews including one with Jill Thompson that I especially enjoyed. Nobody has ever seen the video outside of me (although the text for which has been transcribed and published) which I may remedy in the future. I had a chance to talk to Jose Ladronn and Sylvain Despretz (who, when I asked him for a sketch, wanted to clarify that I actually knew who he was since he wasn't really a comic book guy), met Walt Simonson, Sergio Aragones, Bob Burden, Brian Azzarello, Stan Sakai, and Mike Mignola. It was good times.

Outside of the con, Karl and I hung around with friends Kaare Andrews (who was living in town while doing work for Wildstorm), Trevor McCarthy (who taught me how to talk like a New Yorker should I ever find myself in the City), and a retailer out of Edmonton named Kelly (whose last name I shamefully forget). Karl played pool with Howard Simpson, we crashed the Wizard party, and closed the show down with an extra day in SD, spending most of it on the beach to recharge before making the epic trek back home.

At the con I managed to snag a sketch by Duncan Fegredo which remains one of my most prized possessions. Shade the Changing Man was an important series for me during the Peter Milligan run and Fegredo did some of the most amazing painted covers for that book. I loved them all. It was one of the things I looked forward to every month. So, I stood in line and when it was my turn I asked Duncan to either draw me one of two characters: one whose identity escapes me at the moment, and the other was a Mad, Mod, Poet God. He chose the latter and I was ever so happy he did.

I always intended on framing some of the sketches I acquired at SDCC and I never got around to it until tonight when I finally set it up and hung it on the wall. Jen has been pushing to finally start putting up some art or posters or pictures or something to beautify the homestead a bit, so we put up one of my favourite Moonshadow posters and the Shade image, so far. I've attached images of them (taken with my shitty phone, I know) below so you can get an idea of what I'm talking about.



So, yeah, I just wanted to share that little tidbit. I'll be framing my Usagi Yojimbo, Scary Godmother, Sylvain Despretz rendition of Maximus from Gladiator and a Mike Mignola Hellboy sketch as soon as I get some matte boards for the frames. Until then, I'll have to enjoy ol' Shade for a while, which shouldn't be hard because the image gives me a lotta joy.

Take care!

mike