{"id":693,"date":"2002-06-04T20:05:00","date_gmt":"2002-06-05T00:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=693"},"modified":"2024-07-26T19:10:30","modified_gmt":"2024-07-26T23:10:30","slug":"693","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=693","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Con 2002 Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

On Saturday<\/span>, my son, Mike<\/span> (far left), AC Comics CEO, Bill Black<\/strong> (second from the left), John Beatty<\/strong> (see him?) , and I drove to Tampa<\/span> for a small comic convention. The main draw was Marty Nodell<\/strong> who created The Green Lantern<\/span> but John Dell<\/strong>, Rick Magyar<\/strong>, Derek Aucoin<\/strong> and others were also scheduled to attend.<\/span><\/p>\n

The con was on Sunday<\/span>, but we went down early to avoid a long drive on the same day. The trip was a blast. We entertained each other with stories, and literally laughed the whole way.<\/p>\n

We went out to dinner… and planned to eat at a Chinese joint<\/span> called “<\/span>The Crazy Buffet<\/strong>,” but when we found out it was $21.95 per person [what are they? crazy?], we decided to find another place for chow. We ended up at another Chinese buffet<\/span> and who do you guess was having dinner there? That’s right, <\/span>Marty Nodell,<\/a><\/strong> who would be Guest of Honor<\/span> at the convention the next day. We spent a bit of time talking with <\/span>Marty<\/strong> and his lovely wife and then had a more reasonably priced meal.<\/span><\/div>\n

The rest of the evening was spent laughing and planning things that will probably never take place [short films, comics, etc.], debating the difference between a farmer and a cowboy [Clint Eastwood<\/strong> vs Roy Rogers<\/strong> for example], watching Evander<\/strong> Hollyfield <\/strong>turn an opponent into the Elephant Man, and basically acting foolish. What a great time… it was after 1 AM<\/span> when we finally called it a night. I can’t remember laughing so much or so hard in recent years.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We were up early for the show which was well attended, but very hot. A tightly packed room without any place to sit and talk made it seem even hotter. <\/span>Marty<\/strong> was there and swamped by fans looking for original art, autographs and pictures. The other artists came in, but only one was sketching. I enjoyed talking to <\/span>John Dell<\/strong>, <\/span>Derek Aucoin<\/strong>, and <\/span>Rick Maygar<\/strong> [who may do a<\/span> Stallone<\/strong> piece!]. I also met <\/span>Randy Martin<\/strong> who had several really nice sketchbooks full of commissioned sketches of <\/span>Edward Scissorhands<\/strong>! My son found a few comics for his collection. At around 2PM<\/span> we decided to head home [after a brief stop at <\/span>Bill<\/strong>‘s to check out his autograph collection]<\/span><\/p>\n

It was a fun weekend, but anytime Mike<\/strong>, Bill<\/strong>, John<\/strong> and I get together we have a great time. Oh, and in case you’re wondering… John<\/strong> isn’t the guy in the Spider-Man<\/strong> suit… John<\/strong> took the picture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Saturday, my son, Mike (far left), AC Comics CEO, Bill Black (second from the left), John Beatty (see him?)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comics","comments-off"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693","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=693"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36293,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions\/36293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}