{"id":1161,"date":"2005-11-23T09:09:00","date_gmt":"2005-11-23T13:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=1161"},"modified":"2021-03-07T17:59:13","modified_gmt":"2021-03-07T21:59:13","slug":"meeting-a-legend-sir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=1161","title":{"rendered":"Meeting a Legend, Sir!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>Have you ever seen a better looking group of middle-aged playas<\/b>?<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Ok, ok. Maybe you have. But that’s what we looked like last Saturday<\/b> night when we stopped over at Mike Zeck<\/b>‘s on the first leg of our Tampa Con<\/b> weekend. From left to right: John “Johnny Star-Warz” Higashi<\/b>, Mike Zeck<\/b>, James “The James” Howell<\/b>, me, and John “Big” Beatty<\/b>.<\/div>\n

We stopped at Mike<\/b>‘s house to pick up copies of his latest sketchbook <\/b>to have on display at the Tampa<\/b> show. Mike<\/b> is one of the coolest, most down to earth guys you’d ever want to meet. Beatty<\/b> and I have known Mike<\/b> for nearly 30 years<\/b> [yeesh!] and Higashi<\/b> has known him for a couple. It was The James<\/b>‘ first time meeting Mike<\/b>. Normally The James<\/b> is very cool about meeting artists<\/b>… even big name artists<\/b>. In fact, The James<\/b> is friends with some of the best artists<\/b> in the business… yet something came over him when he met Mike<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Here are a couple of brief exchanges that they had:<\/p>\n

The James<\/b>: Uh, Mr. Zeck<\/b> it is a pleasure to meet you, sir. I… uh, I am a big, no huge, uh… fan of your work, Mr. Mike Zeck<\/b>, sir.<\/p>\n

MIke<\/b>: Thank you. And please, call me Mike<\/b>.<\/p>\n

The James<\/b>: Ok, I’ll do that Mr. Zeck<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Mike<\/b> smiles as The James<\/b> goes on.<\/p>\n

The James<\/b>: Uh, Mr. Mike Zeck<\/b>, sir, I’d really like to purchase a copy of your sketchbook<\/b>, sir, that is if you don’t mind and uh, if it isn’t too much trouble, sir.<\/p>\n

Mike<\/b> had just pulled out 15 copies<\/b> which John Higashi<\/b> had purchased for Tampa<\/b>. Other copies were easily within reach.<\/p>\n

Mike<\/b>: No problem at all James<\/b>. In fact, you can have one at the dealer discount.<\/p>\n

The James<\/b>: Uh, no sir, Mr. Mike Zeck<\/b>, sir. I insist that I pay full retail price, sir, uh… that is if it’s okay with you, sir.<\/p>\n

Mike<\/b> shrugged his shoulders as The James<\/b> forced a twenty into his hand.<\/p>\n

The second exchange took place as we were leaving.<\/p>\n

The James<\/b>: “Wowee. It has been such a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Mike Zeck<\/b>. I’ve admired you, I mean your work… you know, your art… for a long time. Uh, but don’t think I’m a stalker, sir. It’s just that, it’s just that, you know, sir, you’re THE MAN<\/b>.”<\/p>\n

Mike<\/b>: Thanks, James<\/b>. And please just call me Mike<\/b>.<\/p>\n

The James<\/b>: Yes sir, I will Mr. Mike<\/b>, sir.<\/p>\n

The James<\/b> then turned to leave, but quickly spun back around and said: “I really dig your shirt, sir!” and then he was out the door.<\/p>\n

It was cool to see that even a middle-aged playa <\/b>like The James<\/b> can still break into fanboy mode.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever seen a better looking group of middle-aged playas? Ok, ok. Maybe you have. But that’s what we<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[56,63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comics","category-humor","comments-off"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1161"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25434,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions\/25434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}