{"id":7571,"date":"2005-11-26T16:08:19","date_gmt":"2005-11-26T20:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=7571"},"modified":"2017-06-24T09:20:10","modified_gmt":"2017-06-24T13:20:10","slug":"tampa-con-report-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/?p=7571","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Con Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hey\u00a0Zoners<\/strong>… ok, I’m picking up the tale of our\u00a0four middle-aged playas<\/strong>\u00a0after they’ve
\narrived at the show. If you want to read more\u00a0tales of the trip<\/strong>\u00a0then click\u00a0HERE<\/strong><\/del>\u00a0and
\nJohn<\/strong>\u00a0“The Dude Abides”\u00a0Beatty<\/strong>\u00a0will fill you in.<\/p>\n

Tim Gordon’s Tampa Comic Book and Toy Convention<\/strong>\u00a0is the best one day show
\nthat you’ll find anywhere. There are\u00a0media guests<\/strong>,\u00a0comic artists<\/strong>,\u00a0costumers<\/strong>,independent filmmakers<\/strong>\u00a0[with a continuously running screening room]\u00a0<\/strong>, and
\ndozens and dozens of dealers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Yes, that’s the look of fear that crossed\u00a0Mark\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0Stephanie Heike<\/strong>‘s faces when
\nthey discovered that the\u00a0Mild Bunch<\/strong>\u00a0[John\u00a0<\/strong>“Johnny Star-Warz”<\/a>\u00a0Higashi<\/strong>,\u00a0James
\n<\/strong>“The James”<\/a>\u00a0Howell<\/strong>,\u00a0John<\/strong>\u00a0“The Dude Abides”\u00a0Beatty<\/strong>, and yours truly] had arrived.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Larry Thomas<\/strong>, better known as\u00a0“The Soup Nazi”<\/strong>\u00a0from\u00a0Seinfeld,\u00a0<\/strong>had a table. He was selling\u00a0autographed pictures<\/strong>\u00a0and soup ladles for\u00a0$20<\/strong>\u00a0a pop. I’m a huge\u00a0Seinfeld<\/strong>\u00a0fan.
\nI loved the series and thought\u00a0“The Soup Nazi”<\/strong>\u00a0episode was a riot. However,\u00a0$20
\n<\/strong>bucks for an\u00a0autographed picture<\/strong>? Five samoleons and I’m there, heck, I’d have
\neven bought a couple, but\u00a0twenty<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>of my hard-earned smack-a-toons for one?
\nNo thanks.<\/p>\n

So, I’m waiting for\u00a0Pat Broderick<\/strong>\u00a0to arrive and up walks\u00a0Beatty<\/strong>. He says that every
\ntime he tried to get a photo of\u00a0“The Soup Nazi,”<\/strong>\u00a0the\u00a0“Nazi”<\/strong>\u00a0turned or raised his hands
\nto insure that the picture wasn’t a good one. I laughed it off. Later\u00a0Beatty<\/strong>\u00a0came up to
\nsay that he’d tried for a photo several more times, but each time the\u00a0“Nazi”<\/strong>\u00a0thwarted
\nhis efforts. This, of course, makes me want to get a candid. I did, but as you can tell
\nfrom\u00a0the full shot<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0Mr. Thomas<\/strong>\u00a0did not seem to happy about it. If that’s the case, I’m
\nsorry,\u00a0Mr. Thomas<\/strong>… and I really would have bought a couple of\u00a0autographs<\/strong>\u00a0had
\nthey been cheaper!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Now the guy that I really was there to see was\u00a0Pat Broderick<\/a><\/strong>. I’ve known\u00a0Pat<\/strong>\u00a0for
\nnearly\u00a030 years<\/strong>! We first met at an\u00a0OrlandoCon<\/strong>\u00a0back in the\u00a070’s<\/strong>.\u00a0Pat<\/strong>‘s a great guy
\nand a heck of an artist. He and\u00a0Beatty<\/strong>\u00a0even teamed up on a couple of\u00a0comic series<\/strong>
\nover the years! I was curious to see if\u00a0Pat<\/strong>\u00a0would be interested in doing a piece for my\u00a0Stallone<\/strong>\u00a0gallery. Lucky for me he was! I’ll post it later this weekend with my\u00a0SZ<\/strong>\u00a0update.
\nHigashi<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Howell<\/strong>\u00a0also set up sketches with\u00a0Pat<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The next guy on our hit list was\u00a0Karl Moline<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0who was sharing a table with\u00a0Randy
\n[Edward Scissorhands Collection<\/a>] Martin<\/strong>. While\u00a0John Higashi<\/strong>\u00a0and I set up sketches
\nwith\u00a0Karl<\/strong>,\u00a0The James<\/strong>\u00a0scooted over to arrange a take-home commission with\u00a0Pablo Marcos<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Then it was over to the\u00a0film room<\/strong>\u00a0where we caught some of\u00a0Joel D. Wynkoop<\/strong>‘s film
\n“Lost Faith.” Joel\u00a0<\/strong>was at the show, and as you can see\u00a0HERE<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0has made a lot of films.
\nJoel<\/strong>\u00a0is very approachable and obviously has a love of film. It might be cool if he and
\nBill Black<\/strong>\u00a0ever hook up for a project.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Beatty<\/strong>\u00a0got that look in his eyes that said it was time for lunch.\u00a0Howell<\/strong>\u00a0said he was
\nready for a bite too. Even\u00a0Higashi<\/strong>\u00a0said he’d eat [which is a rare thing for\u00a0Johnny SW
\n<\/strong>to do at a show]. I wasn’t hungry, but said I’d join them for a\u00a0Coke<\/strong>. We ended up in the hotel’s sport’s bar. As we were yacking away waiting for the food to arrive, the\u00a0NY
\nGiants<\/strong>\u00a0were on tv playing the\u00a0Philadelphia Eagles<\/strong>.\u00a0Howell<\/strong>\u00a0suddenly blurted out, “I’ve
\ngot\u00a0five bucks<\/strong>\u00a0for anyone who’ll yell\u00a0“Go Giants!”<\/strong><\/p>\n

I immediately yelled,\u00a0“Go Giants! Go Giants!”<\/strong>\u00a0and before I could collect my\u00a0fiver<\/strong>, a
\nloud chorus of\u00a0“Go Philly!” “Giants Suck” “Go Philly”<\/strong>\u00a0erupted from behind me. I
\nturned to see probably\u00a030<\/strong>\u00a0or\u00a040\u00a0<\/strong>grown men [most of whom were wearing\u00a0Eagles<\/strong>
\njerseys] looking our way. Of course, this just made\u00a0Beatty<\/strong>\u00a0an instant\u00a0Giants<\/strong>\u00a0fan who
\nbegan to\u00a0LOUDLY<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0cheer for the\u00a0Giants<\/strong>\u00a0way and\u00a0BOO<\/strong>\u00a0the\u00a0Eagles<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Two things saved us from the situation getting ugly. 1]\u00a0Beatty<\/strong>‘s sandwich arrived and
\n2]\u00a0Mrs. Pat Broderick<\/strong>\u00a0came by the table<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to say, “Hi.”<\/p>\n

After lunch we headed back to the show.\u00a0Pat<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0Karl<\/strong>\u00a0had finished my sketches.
\nThey had [independently] decided to draw\u00a0Deke<\/strong>\u00a0from\u00a0Nighthawks<\/strong>! And both did
\nreally, really cool sketches. I’ll post them tomorrow with the\u00a0SZ<\/strong>\u00a0update.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I’d been wanting to get a sketch from\u00a0Derrick Fish<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0for a while. Luck was with me
\nbecause when I checked with\u00a0Derrick<\/strong>, he had a spot on his sketch list open.\u00a0
\nDerrick\u00a0<\/strong>completed my\u00a0sketch trifecta<\/strong>\u00a0by doing a really nice cartoon of\u00a0Rocky<\/strong>
\nknocking out\u00a0Dandy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Soon it was time to say our goodbyes and load up the\u00a0“Jack Carter”<\/strong>\u00a0car for our trip
\nhome. As we snaked our way around the con to say we were heading out, we made
\nsure to let the\u00a0Heike<\/strong>‘s know that we’d see them at the\u00a0next show in May<\/strong>!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hey\u00a0Zoners… ok, I’m picking up the tale of our\u00a0four middle-aged playas\u00a0after they’ve arrived at the show. If you want to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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":[58,17,56,63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-celebs","category-comics","category-humor"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7571","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=7571"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18235,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7571\/revisions\/18235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}