ComicSpace - Read Bulletin

Home / 21Sandshark / Bulletins / Read Bulletin

Befriend 21Sandshark

« Back

Posted by:

21Sandshark

Date:

September 18th, 2009 4:47 PM

Header:

THE SPLASH PAGE 9-17-09 PITTSBURGH COMICON

Bulletin:

Hello Mister and Misses America and all the ships at sea! This is fearless leader of the Southern Maryland Sequential DIY movement: One Daniel R. Nokes, and YES once again it is time for my quadromonthly rant column known to people of foreign lands both real and imagined as:

THE SPLASH PAGE!

This Week?

PITTSBURGH COMICON 09’-Inside and outside look from one creator’s point of view…

I was a late bloomer this year and saved my first major Comicon of the season for last week. I braved the Pennsylvania Turnpike and other roadside obstacles to be in Artist’s Alley for this years’ PITTSBURGH COMICON in beautiful downtown Monroeville! Now being a creator type that springs a table fee to sell his individual wares at said events, I do get a unique perspective as to the nature of said events, both on and off the convention floor. I thought I would share a few nuggets of experience and dare I say “wisdom” with you my loyal and rabid readers! I broke this down into my usual bullet point structure to make it easy to follow. So lets begin with…

SET UP DAY PART I: Not in village attire- I arrived in Monroeville around 3:30 or so and parked my vehicle around the side of the convention center. As I set up and afterwards grabbed dinner and various sundries from shops and markets, I noticed a reoccurring theme. Every fourth person or so was wearing some sort of Pittsburgh Steelers related apparel. Hats, shirts inappropriately warm winter wear YOU NAME IT! Now I know it’s the beginning of Football Season, and Its Pittsburgh, who has a winning team, and I’m somewhat near the city itself, BUT I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT BEFORE. I lived near DC in the 80’s when the Redskins were a major force with A-rate players and still I have not seen the like. This city was HARDCORE FANATIC about this team! I saw one person at the Art supply store sport a Dallas Cowboys Jersey and he was being followed by two guys in Steelers gear through the store. It was something out of Bodysnatchers creepy! I had this eerie feeling that they were going to chase this guy to the parking lot, corner him and let out a high pitched whine to call the other Steelers converts to circle in and prevent the “UNFAMILIAR” from escaping! And it wasn’t just the people. Every other business and building had some giant football montage adorning its visage. Again I am from DC and the most dedicated a Washington Redskins Fan gets is “THEY WINNING? NO… FUCK EM!” The prick in me wanted to test the fanaticism by exclaiming in a public area “CHUCK NOLL IS PUSSY FUCKWAD AND GOT BY ON LUCK!” Just to see the reaction! (Note to audience: I know little to nothing of football. But just enough to know that that is bad in English to Football terms.) Yes I know I would have quickly lost consciousness and wound up in a DELIVERENCE secluded woods sodimizing, torture/murder kind of death scene! But for the sake of high science and low comedy I am willing to lay down my life! Moving on to…

SET-UP DAY- PART 2: Were drawing on WHAT?!?- I was invited to the annual set up party by one Al Dorantes: Party Aficionado and instigator of sequential off-hour rowdiness! This year we met at the Holliday Inn and over a few beers I along with other creative talented types did some artwork for charity! We were given some plates and some sharpies and were told to go to town! I learned two things from this venture! Superior talent always humbles me and drawing on plates with sharpies is an acquired skill! I did okay and I found out that people bought said plates, and that made me glad! But there were folks that just BLEW ME OUT OF THE WATER! Some of these guys sloppy doodling was me at my A-Game! But it was fun and honestly I think events like this make small fries like myself feel important, and wanted at these conventions….
Free Beer is also nice!

Next we have-

MONROEVILLE: NO ZOMBIES?!?: In the last two years or so I have seen a decline in people dressing up at said Comicons. This years Pittsburgh saw a massively low drop in general. The anime crowd seemed to have the most representation, and a few people did get in costume but what most astounded me that there was not ONE SINGLE ZOMBIE IN ATTENDANCE! Baking powder? Say What-A?! I saw the Zombie museum at the mall (Didn’t go heard it was overpriced…) had a rep with a zombie replica in a wheelbarrow, but NO FRIGGIN ZOMBIES! This is the birthplace of the modern zombie phenomena and NO FRIGGIN ZOMBIES!!! Yes I know its predictable and expected but its like the Thanksgiving day parade without the Goddamn Underdog Float! Its like Roswell without a badly constructed paper mache’ flying saucer! Its like McDonalds with good service I can complain about on these rants! I just look forward to it for some ungodly unfathomable reason?!? It’s no longer a promotional gag it’s a matter of civic pride for that berg and small amount of shame should be felt for dropping that proverbial pigskin! Maybe next year…

Next!

THE SHOW FLOOR: “I’LL BE BACK!” NO YOU FUCKING WONT!!!- I’m going to let the non-creator attendee types in on a little secret! While we appreciate you guys stopping at our booths and looking around we can not STAND it when you don’t feel that you are going to buy anything that you feel the need to “Let us down gently.” By uttering the phrase “Well I’ll be back around!” This is the comic book creator artist alley equivalent of “Lets just be friends!” It is doctored up rejection and honestly it does piss us off! Its as bad as when you tell us you have no cash and things are tight but you just bought AMBUSH BUG matching bookends for $300 a pop and 10 minutes after you see us we see you clumsily truck dolly a small library of graphic novels and trade paperbacks to your shitty brown Ford Festiva! I had one guy on Sunday told me straight out that while he liked my work he probably wasn’t going to be buying anything from me! Now it was still rejection but at least I respected his honesty and thanked him as such! I’m not saying be rude pricks to us! But if your not going to be backs don’t be such a pussy about it!

Next up its!

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE HOLIDAY INN LOUNGE: PART I, THE CREEPY BATHROOM: I was invited again by Mister Al Dorantes to hang at the Bar and Lounge at The Holliday Inn. I was having a good time making new friends and sharing experiences of life and the road. At some point I excused myself to use the nearest rest room. When I got there everything SEEMED to be normal! But as I looked closer I noticed something rather peculiar about this public facility. To break it down into simplest most vulgar terms: I was taking a dump on the pot, I turned my head to the right and noticed a mirror! A BIG GODDAMN MIRROR! A big goddamn creepy mirror that I could see myself in all my anatomically correct glory! This sent my overactive imagination into paranoid crack fiend mode as to why in any sane decent interior decorators mind, would they think it was a good idea to place a mirror where one can observe one’s self performing various bodily secretions and disposal of such?! My mind wandered to dark frightening places: Blackened rooms on the other side of that mirror, where a creepy middle aged man in janitors uniform, shabbily repaired rim horn glasses, bad complexion, and even worse comb over is filming my dump as part of some homebrew internet sight that is getting 5 million sycophants greasy palmed hits a night! Needless to say I got my (pun intended) ass out of that well cleaned chamber of imagined horrors as quickly as possible! Finally we have…

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE HOLIDAY INN: PART 2, THE WEDDING PARTY: On the way back from the bathroom I saw a bride, her maids and several friends gathered around her at the entrance to the lounge. She did not look happy! She had her head tilted, her arms extended and eyes rolled as such to where I could tell without words that SHE WAS NOT HAPPY! But what she uttered next gave credence to my suspicions.
“I CANT BELIEVE HE DID THIS!” is the phrase she calmly but bitterly stated! I could only guess that this pertained to the husband who at that particular moment was nowhere to be found. I made my way past the bridal party and back to my compatriots and continued about the evening.
About 10 minutes later I found out what the bride was miffed off about. For in walks what I believe to be the groom, dressed in very nice looking Nike Jordan’s, his tux pants, a vest and NO SHIRT, arriving to the bar drunk out of his ever-loving skull! One would wonder where he gets such mannerisms from, but that was short lived when briefly behind him was the father of the groom, equally as drunk and very much sporting a look that screamed extra in a body dumping scene from The Sopranos! Needless to say boundless entertainment was derived from the train wreck that was this evenings nuptials!

That’s it! I’d like to say that all in all I had a good time, made a little cash, and made some interesting new friends. I would like to take the time to thank a few people for being cool muthafuckaz at said program!
They are
Al Dorantes-Thanks for the sketch op, the beers, good advice, the beers, a chance to hang out with you guys, and the beers!
Mikey Wood-You do indeed have the scientifically proven cutest kid on earth!
Glenn Barbis-Thanks for introducing me to sandwiches with fries included as a condiment.

Jay E. Fife-The cover to Pistoleers #2 beyond ROCKS!

Kristin and Ashley-Thanks for laughing at my jokes and making my DANDY HAT look halfway cool!

Digital Pimp-For being friendly amicable next-door neighbors…

Brett Carreras- for being a good friend and stopping by to say hi!

Jeff- Thanks for picking up the charity piece both at the show and at my booth!

Anyone else who showed appreciation for me and the 21 Sandshark!

That’s it folks! Talk to you next week with tales of my exciting adventures through this nutty coo-coo world! Kudos!

Dan Nokes
Creative Director
21st Century Sandshark Studios

« Back

Befriend 21Sandshark