Roc-Con Guest of Honor Report
Hundreds of fans showed up for a fun day with JG Hertzler, Eileen Stevens, Steve Skeates, Stephen Lindsay, moi, and many others. I met a lot of students from RIT, MCC, UR, and various Rochester area high schools, and people showed up from NYC, Albany, Syracuse, and other far-off places.
My thanks also goes to all the wonderful people who stopped by to talk to me and/or buy my books. I was bowled over by the friendliness, overall good will, and positive vibes at Roc-Con.
Here I am with JG Hertzler, famous actor of 6 different characters on Star Trek, most notably Klingon General & Chancellor Martok. He's also has appeared on many other TV shows and movies. He's incredibly entertaining and an all-around nice guy!
And oh what a thrill it was to sit next to Steve Skeates, who wrote AQUAMAN for 3 years in the era when Jim Aparo did the art! Steve was also co-creator of The Hawk and The Dove - and lots more, and he won 4 Shazam Awards for comics writing. We talked for hours. I gave him a copy of ELDRITCH EVOLUTIONS, and he gave me some goodies, too.
Steve signed a copy of THE SCIENCE OF SUPERHEROES, which I co-authored with Bob Weinberg in 2002. Specifically, he signed the AQUAMAN chapter. Did I mention sufficiently how thrilling it was for me to meet this man?
Here we are posing with the signed copy of SUPERHEROES. I also took a photo of Steve while he was signing an original AQUAMAN comic for a couple of guys who bought copies of ELDRITCH EVOLUTIONS, too.
Steve gave me a signed copy of Alter Ego, Roy Thomas' Sub-Aqueous Comics Fanzine featuring fascinating interviews with Steve along with comics snippets. I read about half of the book late last night.
I was also the lucky recipient of a signed copy of AQUAMAN DEATH OF A PRINCE, which is a whopping big full-color book. He signed his stories, too: As the Undersea City Sleeps; The King is Dead, Long Live the King; The Menace of the Marine Marauder.
The next photo shows me with the lovely and very talented Eileen Stevens, voiceover actress in Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and many other anime shows. She did a few of her anime voiceovers for me, which was a lot of fun.
And here I am with Stephen Lindsay, who writes comic scripts and is actively involved in some projects at the SF TV channel, as well.
The Rochester Fantasy Fans had a table at Roc-Con, represented here by Wayne Brown and Frank Glover. Folks from Eeriecon were on hand, as well. Wayne mentioned that he's hoping to run another Astronomicon in 2012. This long-running Rochester con is a much-loved and long-running event in the area. A lot of the Eeriecon guys and gals will be happy to see another Astro, too.
Scott David Aniolowski and his brother, Steve Aniolowski, were on site during the morning. Although Scott has a complementary copy of ELDRITCH EVOLUTIONS, Steve bought a copy for himself. (Hey, thanks, man!) This was Steve's first convention, so I hope he had some fun.
As I was leaving the con for the day, I saw this guy, who just screams ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. He's an RIT student and told me that RIT will present a (probably at midnight) theatrical rendition of ROCKY HORROR on Halloween this year. I WILL DEFINITELY BE THERE.
Finally, I must show you a necklace I nabbed from Sweet Poisons Cupcake Designs - a black skull on a purple and black background with a black chain -- oh, yes baby!
