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Sunday, September 27, 2015

Baltimore Comic Con 2015


A comic con from a fans point a view. 

I love comic books. My husband loves comic books. My brother loves comic books and some of our friends love comic books. The rest of our friends just roll their eyes and chuckle at us.  My husband and I decided that we were going to go down to the Baltimore Comic Con with a group of friends. Prepping the night before, we pulled out all the comics and graphic novels that we thought would be really cool to have signed.  Then we debated on what we were going to wear. My husband had two new tee shirts that were contenders.  Should we go with Free Hugs with Leatherface or Welcome to Mordor. Welcome to Mordor for the win.
Then in the morning we double checked to make sure we didn’t forget anything while listening to Wordburgler rap about comics and drink coffee. The trip down to Baltimore was not that bad. I love looking at every one that dressed up. It is fun and there are all sorts of extremes in costumes. I thought I would join in the dressing up in a small scale and had a Black Widow dress and some knee high boots on. If I were to ever to dress up as Black Widow again, I would forgo the boots and wear something more sensible.  There is a price for cute boots and I am not entirely sure it was worth it. 

We barely go through the doors and make our way into the center to try and get out of the fray and I spot Jeremy Bastian at a table and there isn’t a line yet.  He wrote and illustrated Cursed Pirate Girl, which is one of most beautiful books I own. I could sit there and look at the art for hours. It is incredibly and intensely detailed. I had hoped to have my booked signed, but he did one better and drew a picture that you wouldn’t know wasn’t there originally and signed it. Inside I was squealing while I stood there in awe. 

Not to long after we wandered over to Justin Jordan’s table. Justin is a great guy and signed everything that was shoved in front of him while we chatted about cats. I don’t know if that makes him sound like a crazy cat man or me a crazy cat lady.  Maybe a little of both. Either way it was great to see him and I regret not bringing Tom Waits a cat toy. 

It takes a special sort of person to come up with God Hates Astronauts, and Ryan Browne completely blew me away. I could not stop laughing as he and my husband traded compliments with each other as he drew hats and signed almost a dozen issues and then drew a picture inside of a graphic novel.  It shouldn’t  have surprised me that he was a cool guy with a neato personality  considering the number of mind bending things that go on in his comic, but it did. I know it was one of the highlights of the entire convention for my husband.

My brother is a big fan of Ben Templesmith. I will be honest, I haven’t read a single thing by him yet, but I do have all of my brothers Wormwood issues, so that is an easy remedy. Trying to be the good sister, I brought some issues to be signed. Ben was a striking figure dapperly dressed in black and oozes dark comedy that had me trying to unsee the loincloth man walking around the convention. The unfiltered commentary left me chuckling. It was only hours later that I wished I could  have gotten my brain moving to get something commissioned while I was there and picked up his SquidGirls. I regret that my brain was on overload. 


In between getting issues signed there were boxes to go through and vendors to visit. There is something for everyone there. I wish I had more money or at least had the ability to be more whimsical financially, because if I had that ability I would buy at least one of those mystery boxes and then perhaps a game or two at some of the tables and have some stuff commissioned. Despite my non ability to be whimsical, I think we still did pretty good on adding to our growing comic collection. I am looking forward to next trying to attend next year and am completely thankful to the artists and creators that gave us the time of day.









Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Winning at Marriage

My anniversary is coming up and I was trying to figure out what to get my husband to celebrate. Looking for inspiration,  I went to the almighty Hallmark website, to see what was the appropriate gift to mark the numerical year of my anniversary.  I was horrified.

This is what Hallmark had to say.  
Anniversary
Traditional
Modern
1st
Clocks
2nd
China
3rd
Crystal/Glass
4th
Appliances
5th
Silverware
6th
Candy/Iron
Wood
7th
Wool/Copper
Desk Sets
8th
Pottery/Bronze
Linens/Lace
9th
Willow/Pottery
Leather
10th
Diamond Jewelry
11th
Fashion Jewelry
12th
Silk/Linen
Pearls
13th
Textile Furs
14th
Gold Jewelry
15th
Watches
20th
Platinum
25th
Silver
30th
Diamond
35th
Jade
40th
Ruby
45th
Sapphire
50th
Gold
60th
Diamond
* Historically, the traditional 14th anniversary gift was ivory, but endangered elephant populations make this an unethical choice.


I feel cheated that I missed leather.  There are some interesting things that I could have done will leather. Right now I am on Fruit/Flowers or better yet Appliances.  I am not entirely sure that, Honey I love you. Please enjoy this new oven and please don't cook me in it, is the way I want to go. 

I feel like this list had a lot left to be desired. It didn't inspire me, well maybe the leather did, but other than that it didn't give me much to work with. The idea of buying fruit or flowers or appliances doesn't stir the blood. I decided that I would make my own list.  

Anniversary 
1st-Tee Shirts   
2nd- Action figures/ Toys
3rd - Comics/ Books
4th-Movies/Theater/Entertainment
5th- Games
6th- Beverages/ Alcohol
7th- Amusement Park/Fairs/ Concerts
8th- Kitchen Gadgets
9th- Food
10th- Electronics/ Computer 
11th-Themed Conventions
12th- The Great Out Doors 
13th- Winery/ Beer tours
14th- Pajamas/ Costumes
15th- Themed Hotel Room
20th- Destination Trip (hello hobbits)
25th- Jewelry
30th-Museums
35th- Leather/ Weaponry
40th-Art
45th- Mythical Creature
50th- Vow renewal - Themed
55th First edition
60th-Trophy

That's right, for my 60th anniversary, my husband and I should get a trophy for winning at marriage. 

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Willful Intent

There was only one shark in my drink. I found it quite amusing, since the drink was called Captain and his First Mate.  I thought perhaps they should layer the alcohol with the gummy sharks, but I could see how a person might pull a filling trying to eat cold gummy sharks.  It wasn’t the shark inside my cup that I needed to be worried about. I seemed to be surrounded by them, since I found myself eating dinner on the Pride of Susquehanna waiting for the will of Remington Chesterfield to be read. 


They story goes that Remington Chesterfield was one of the wealthiest Americans of 1951 and he kicked the bucket mysteriously about two weeks ago and all the friends and family were circling around in hopes of a free meal and some extra dough.  Main players in this little mystery were the not so grieving widow, Amelia, the shifty eyed Lawyer, Farnsworth Billingsly, the long lost sister, Eleanor Chesterfield, the lover Renee Floozee and the young nephew Jack Diamond.  With a cremated body and motive all over the place, it is interesting to see who gets the big pay out.
I don’t want to give away the culprit in this charming interactive dinner theater of Willful Intent by Otter Productions hosted on the Pride of Susquehanna, but I will say that I was completely and utterly wrong on whom I picked. I obviously spent too much time pondering over the shark in my drink, catching up with GAT and Nic and making new friends with the lovely couple beside me to catch those little details to solve the mystery.   I am completely okay with that. The overall enjoyment of my meal and the good company completely overshadowed the fact that both of my dinner companions deduced correctly the culprit and won the drawing for the evening’s prizes.