F’ing Updates

Halloween is right around the corner.  I’m sure there are tons of people frantically searching for that last minute Halloween costume.  Don’t look here; I’ve been planning my costume for months.  But there are some things going on that will be affecting That F’ing Monkey and I wanted to talk about them before they happen.
 

First off I’ll be spending this Saturday at the Spooky Empires convention.  This horror convention is full of all those wonderful horror actors like Bill Moseley and Doug Bradley.  I’m going because Ricou Browning and Julie Adams from Creature From the Black Lagoon are going to be there.  I’ve talked about my love for that movie numerous times so I’m really excited to see them.  I have no idea why George “the Animal” Steele is going to be there, but I’m excited to see him too!

I am going to be without internet for a large portion of next week.  This was pretty last minute so I haven’t been building a backlog of articles to run while I’m away.  So there may not be any updates the week of Halloween.  I’m going to do what I can but I can’t promise anything at this time. This is only for that week, after that we’ll be back to normal.

Games Day 2013

Dear Internet,

By the time you read this I’ll already be gone.  I’m taking Brandon with me. 

Actually the two of us are going to hang out at Games Day in Memphis.  Hopefully there will be plenty of cool things that we can report back on, but if it is anything like last year we’ll probably just wander around and get really drunk.

 

If you’re going to the convention and see us stumbling through the halls make sure to say hello.  I won’t have the Stoutheart Brewers with me.  I thought about it, but I don’t remember seeing any Blood Bowl taking place last year.

Dragon*Con: Ed Kramer Out

 In April we posted about Ed Kramer and his ties with Dragon*Con.  You can read that update HERE, but the short version is that I no longer felt I could support the convention with my own money if it would benefit someone like Ed Kramer.  I certainly wasn’t alone, a lot of voices felt the same way.   Yesterday Dragon*Con updated their Facebook with the statement below.

Thanks to all of our fans, guests, and volunteers for your support!

DRAGON CON, INC. REPLACES DRAGON CON / ACE, INC.

Dragon Con will Continue the Agreements With Hotels, Guests and Performers.

 ATLANTA – July 8, 2013 – The Board of Directors and Shareholders of Dragon Con / ACE, Inc., producer of Dragon*Con, Atlanta’s internationally known pop culture, fantasy and sci-fi convention, have agreed to merge the company into Dragon Con, Inc. (Dragon Con) in a cash-out merger.

Led by Pat Henry, David Cody and Robert Dennis, ownership of Dragon Con includes five of the six founding owners of Dragon Con / ACE (the old Dragon Con). The effective date of the merger is July 8, 2013.

Edward Kramer, who has not had any role in managing or organizing the convention since 2000, was offered cash for his shares in the old company. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

 “This decision only affects the ownership of the old Dragon Con,” said Pat Henry, President and Chief Executive Officer of Dragon Con. “Our members and others who attend Dragon*Con 2013 will experience the same fantastic convention they have come to expect from us.”

Dragon Con will continue the agreements with each of the host and overflow hotels associated with the convention as well as all of the guests and performers scheduled to appear at this year’s event, either “as is” or with amendments recognizing Dragon Con as owner.


This is great news for everyone who has been following the story.  Maybe Kramer finally caved to the other Dragon*Con owners, maybe the backlash finally started to threaten their paychecks; I don’t know why or how it finally happened and I don’t care.  

Games Day 2013 Ticket

Brandon and I are going to Games Day again this year.  You may remember last year when I posted the unboxing of my 2012 Games Day ticket.  That was odd just because of the giant box used to send a matted print.  This time around I’m posting the ticketing package because it is awesome.

This plain white envelop came in a packing sleeve.  I didn’t really know what to expect inside it.  To be honest I didn’t give it much thought.

Inside was a ticket holder and yet another envelope.  Suddenly it was turning into the postal equivalent of a nesting doll.  Open a package to open an envelope; which opens to reveal a smaller envelope.   But wait, what is that horribly blurry smudge in my picture?  Why am I so bad at photography?

Oh, it’s just a wax seal of the Dark Angels symbol.  Yeah, that’s pretty awesome.  I know I’ll eventually end up throwing it away, but I didn’t want to break the seal just yet.  Remembering at a long ago convention I actually bought a Dragon Age letter opener I ran to my desk and grabbed my Grey Warden sword. 

Finally done with envelopes we have an embossed Imperial Aquila.  Not much to say here, but again it is just a gorgeous presentation.  Saying any more would turn it into that scene in American Psycho.

Finally inside the letter is my ticket and a thank you for purchasing it.  I’ve been to conventions all across the United States and I’ve never received anything even close to this.  Bravo Games Workshop.  You’ve certainly raised the bar this time.

DragonCon

Before I get to far into my topic today I have to give you some personal history so you’ll better understand everything I’m going to be covering.  DragonCon is a giant convention that takes place in Atlanta every Labor Day.  It’s Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Comics, and everything else you can think of crammed into three hotels.  The real appeal is that everyone is staying in these (and the surrounding) hotels.  Because it’s inside the hotels, and the hotels are more or less connected, it doesn’t ever really stop.  Sure the signing areas close down and the dealer’s room is locked up; but at night it becomes a drunken parade of cosplayers.

I first went to my first DragonCon 11 years ago.  I’ve met people there who’ve become such dear friends that I consider them family.  I met my wife there and drunkenly proposed to her to get her attention.  Years later I proposed to her there again; this time it wasn’t a joke.  I haven’t been the past couple years because of other life events, but we were planning on going back in 2014. 

Over the years DragonCon has gotten more and more successful.  That makes its founders quite a bit of money.  Ed Kramer is one of those co-founders and I knew he resigned from DragonCon in 2000.  You see that was when Kramer was first accused of molesting three teenage boys.  So while he wasn’t involved with running DraconCon he was still getting paid by them.  I didn’t know that part.  His 2011 dividend from the convention was 154,000.

DragonCon has been trying to sever ties with Kramer, including trying to buy out his shares.  Kramer is unwilling to do that and has filed litigation against DragonCon to stop any attempts to remove him.  So that’s where we are now.  Those 120 dollar weekend passes and DragonCon shirts add up fast and unfortunately part of that money ends up going to a child molester.  I can’t support that.  I’m not going back to DragonCon while he is still profiting from it. Maybe this Labor Day I’ll invite all my friends to my house, dress up silly, and drink till the sun comes up; that's pretty close to what I did at the con anyway.

Games Day 2012 Report

Saturday was Games Workshop’s big convention, Games Day. I’ve been to numerous comic book and sci-fi conventions. I’ve been to conventions focusing on Star Wars, G.I. Joe, and Transformers. I’ve never been to a convention that focused on table top gaming. In fact I usually avoid the open gaming areas that other conventions set up.

We arrived about 10 minutes before the doors opened and saw a giant mass of gamers waiting for the doors to open. As I scanned the crowd I was horrified to realize that there wasn’t a line, all of these people were just standing facing the doors. I just kept imaging people stampeding the doors as soon as they opened. Instead, when the convention opened three sets of double doors opened up and everyone just walked inside. I was speechless.

Most of the people went directly to the Forgeworld line. Forgeworld is branch of Games Workshop that creates its own specialty pieces. Their models are shipped from England, so ordering from them can be pretty pricey. The line for Forgeworld was huge. The most amazing part was that it didn’t need to be. You could email Forgeworld your name and what pieces you wanted and they would have them pulled aside for you. Brandon waited maybe 15 minutes to get his order.

The Armies on Parade and Golden Demon entries were amazing. Both of painting and modeling competitions had some stunning entries. Some of the tables set up to play Warhammer and Warhammer 40K were pretty impressive too. While I didn’t play an actual game of Warhammer, Brandon and I did sit down and demo a game of Blood Bowl Team Manager. This card game by Fantasy Flight games is a blast to play, but I have to admit that my love for Blood Bowl makes me biased.

Brandon and I also spent a lot of time in the Irish pub on the other side of the parking garage. Finding food was like a death march, and we went the wrong way more than once. When we finally figured out how to get to the restaurants we realized how easy it was, but without any real directions it was more difficult than it needed to be. I suppose it just made us appreciate the cold beer. The food was great too. We actually ended up back at the bar when we had our fill of the convention.

Overall I had a lot of fun.  If the next Games Day is someplace easy for me to visit, I’ll go again.

Ultimate Weapon

So while moving last week I came across something that I had forgotten about...

That's right folks...The Death Blow. What is the Death Blow do I hear you say?

Well it is the greatest weapon ever conceived, a knife with a blow gun attached. Let me say that again, A KNIFE WITH A BLOW GUN RIGHT IN THE HANDLE!! Damn right. Let's take a closer look shall we?

Bam! In the handle!

It comes out and you have long range death! Pure convenient death.


Okay, seriously this thing was an impulse buy at a DragonCon one year. If you have ever been to a Con you know that there are numerous weapons dealers scattered about and you can buy just about anything. As our little group (of which Ken was a part of) walked by this little gem we all stopped. Then we all bought one. They apparently were selling like hot cakes (blow gun in the handle!!) so we had to have them shipped to us after the Con. We talked about the ol' Death Blow for most of the Con and it became a bit of a running joke for a while. Then like most things it faded into history, but now it is back...and better than ever! KNIFE WITH A BLOW GUN IN THE DAMN HANDLE!! Can one get better than that?


As always Let Your F'ing Voice Be Heard! In the comments, our Facebook or on the Contact Us button. Tell us how much you love the Death Blow or your own favorite Con weapon ever (it's the Death Blow I know...)

Games Day 2012 Ticket Unboxing

UPS was busy this morning. As I was leaving for work this morning I found a large box on my doorstep. Usually I seem to be at the end of their delivery day; sometimes I get packages as late as 7pm. Today’s was delivered before 9am. When I saw how big the box was sure my wife had orders another American Girl doll, it’s a big box.

As you can see in the picture, it’s a big box. When I saw Games Workshop on the box I had that thought; this can’t be my Games Day ticket, someone had to have sent me something awesome. Make no mistake, this box contains a ticket. It also helps explain why the shipping was 7 dollars.

Inside the box is…well it’s mostly empty. Lots and lots of packing filler. It is kind of a letdown to open such a large box and only see real contents in the bottom quarter of the box.

Here is the lanyard, a clear ticket holder, and the actual Games Day ticket. I have to say, sending an actual Games Workshop lanyard is nice. Most companies would just send you the ticket and let you purchase one of their lanyards when you were at the convention.

There was still more in the box though! I can tell you that the box in the picture above does not contain a “New Tank” even though it says so. This box was folded flat and tapped down. That’s a shame really, my army could really use a tank or three.

Inside that protective cardboard was actually a matted 8.5”x11” print of a Grey Knight. The print is limited to the first 500 people who ordered a Games Day ticket. I am not sure if they are still available or not. And that’s it for the unboxing.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, That F’ing Monkey will be going to Games Day North America in July. That means it’ll get our normal convention coverage. So expect more information on that as we get closer to July.

Hollywood - Fingers Firmly on the Pulse of Society

So word on the street is that most Hollywood studios are not going to have a major presence at San Diego Comic Con this year. The reasons cited for this is poor ticket sales after tremendous showings at the con. I am shocked! You mean that showing previews and clips of nerd friendly movies to the exact target audience does not translate to the mainstream movie going public? The hell you say!


Just in case your sarcasm detector is on the fritz that was it.

How could anyone think that by touting your wares to a room full of the target demographic could be less than stellar? And then to be confused as to why everyone on earth did not go and see Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World twenty times each? A flick that was based on a relatively small comic book and had a pronounced video game aesthetic. Huh, I wonder how that did not grab the attention of the movie going public. Now don't get me wrong I loved the Scott Pilgrim movie and I have never read the book. However I was aware of the books existence and the basic plot due to being immersed in nerd culture. I am also a massive fan of Edgar Wright. Therefor - vis a vie - I am the target audience. I believe that Hollywood might be doing the right thing in this case by not pinning hopes for a blockbuster niche flick on a room full of devoted nerds.

Now this might not be a good thing for the convention organisers, I think it will be a massive boon to comic book fans. I, for one, had always wanted to hit San Diego at least once before I died. That started to change when it became ruled by Hollywood. When that happened it lost some of the appeal to me. I just wanted to make it to the largest COMIC con, not a giant marketing campaign. Now that the pendulum seems to be starting to swing back to comics, my interest is piqued again. Hollywood will have to realize that in this age of new media there are plenty of ways to engage the nerd contingent and still get feedback from the normal public. Of course just the fact that it has taken this long to figure out that Comic Con might not be the best barometer for ticket sales might just mean that in the next ten years they will see that dial-up is not the only way to get on the interwebs. The only hope is that the trend continues and we can hear less and less about how the Twilight fans have ruined the con. Because honestly Twilight fans ruin everything.

How about you, gentle reader? Do you feel that this is going to be a blow to nerdcentric media or a boost to comic book fans? Do you think that Twilight fans ruin all things good? Let your F'ing voice be heard in the comments or on our facebook page.

Flash Friday: Scott Kolins at Heroes

Last weekend I got a chance to talk to Scott Kolins at Heroes Con. I wanted to run this before his first issue of Citizen Cold came out Wednesday, but I knew this was something I had to save for Flash Friday. If you are one of the readers who stop by on Fridays, we’ve been running interviews from Heroes all this week, so check out all the fun you’ve missed.

K: Well the big thing to talk about is Citizen Cold. That’s a three issue mini-series?

SK: Three issues that are self-contained but are part of the whole Flashpoint hoopla this summer.

K: I know it has already been hinted in the books that are out that Cold may not be the hero that everyone thinks he is. Can you hint a little more about what to expect?

SK: You’ll find out in the first issue (out this week!!) that even Iron Heights that was the prison for the Flash villains before had an area called the Pipeline. It was a special place for all Flash’s super villains. Now it’s the special place for all of Citizen Cold’s villains and they call it the Freezer. And you’ll see a bunch of the Rogues are in there and you’ll see they’ve all suffered for the fact that Citizen Cold is now the hero.


He’s not a nice guy who puts them in prison. They’re all hurt pretty bad for tangling with him and being villains in his city. One of the fun bits is that you’ll actually see that the Rogues form because of Citizen Cold. That’s part of the plot of the story is that they really aren’t happy with him at all.

K: Since this is an alternate reality story or a kind of reboot did you think about tweaking Captain Cold’s costume or did you know you wanted to keep it the same?

SK: No, that was definitely part of the process. Should I tweak stuff, how much should I tweak stuff? I did do some changes to Trickster; his pants and even his color scheme. I added some red to it, where before it was mostly yellow and blue. I got to do something that Geoff Johns laughed about; I gave Weather Wizard that goatee. It’s a reference to when we had originally changed his costume in the Flash books years ago and made his pattern green with yellow stripes on it. At that time when I did sketches for him to show DC what we wanted to do I had given him facial hair; at that point it was a handle bar mustache. Geoff was like, “This looks great…lose the handlebar mustache.” So this time when he saw the goatee he was like, “All right, fine. You finally get to put it on him.” I also think he looks more like a wizard this way. Stuff like this is mostly just fun for me, but they can either use it later if they think it’s cool or we can just use it for this one time thing.

K: You mentioned the Trickster, is it going to be Jesse or Axel?

SK: No, it’s still Axel the kid. I know everyone likes James Jesse and I do too. That was one of the fun, personal things I got to add to the Flash universe. When we were working on the Rogues, James Jesse was already set up as an FBI agent. So he was definitely in the good guy camp, so we couldn’t use him as a Rogue. So I suggested what if we made Trickster like an evil Robin. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a kid with all those tricks, toys, and everything? Geoff thought it was an awesome idea, so we went with it from there. So when ever we can use him, I push him because he was my idea.

K: The surprise to me when the new Trickster came out was you had a full grown Flash socking a teenager and no one objected, “Hey you’re hitting a kid!” Obviously he was a villain, but you never saw a reaction to that.

SK: That is an issue that we’ve kind of side-stepped. It is something I wanted to get into with Citizen Cold, but I don’t think I’m going to get into that one since I have so much going on with Cold himself. In my mind even though he looks young, but he might be on the cusp of 18. At least 16, so in some areas he’d be tried as an adult.

K: You probably can’t say what it is, but do you have your next book lined up?

SK: Yeah, I do have my next assignmnt lined up. It’s nothing I can talk about at this time. But I will be doing more writing and drawing. They’re very happy with that, Geoff was extremely happy with how Citizen Cold has come about and fit into the whole Flashpoint package. DC has been too. They’re like, you’ve really come a long with Grundy and everything else you’ve been doing and they are really cool with it.

K: Any new Rogues popping up in Citizen Cold or just the established ones?

SK: Mostly just the established. There are some changes for them. Not even just Weather Wizard’s goatee. I don’t want to spoil the real cool one. But one of the favorites of the bunch that I changed, it’s just the context of the story they are stuck in. There are hints on the cover as to how it is different for one of the Rogues. It’s big time different, but no new Rogues.


A big thank you to Scott for taking the time to talk with me. Scott is one of those people I’ve talked to for years over the internet, but this was the first time I had met him in person. He is every bit as nice as others have told me. If you haven’t already done it, go check out Citizen Cold.

Heroes Con 2011: Interviews Part 2

We interrupt our normal Hangover Thursday type post for the second part of Heroes Con interviews; I hope that no one minds too much. Today we’re talking to Steve Niles and Chris Moreno.

Steve Niles

K: Obviously on That F’ing Monkey we talked a lot about Detective Tales. What else is coming out that we can tell people about?

SN: Well there will be more Detective Tales; I’m going to do the next one with Bernie Wrightson. It’s just the matter of me getting time to write some prose. I’ve got a novel to wrap for Simon and Schuster. They gave me another couple of months because the like it. I think. I hope. So I’m going to finish that up.

And after that Bernie and I are working on a sequel to Frankenstein. Which is just, forget it. I grew up with Bernie’s Frankenstein and now to be working on it…

K: Who is going to publish that?

SN: IDW. It’s actually going to be split between IDW and Bloody Pulp.

K: Really? That’s really cool.

SN: IDW, they are so great. Obviously I can’t say enough good things about them. Since day one they’ve been just great with me. They know I’m trying to get this creator owned thing off the ground so they’re giving me a leg up.

K: So are the majority of your works going to be coming out under that banner?

SN: We’ll see. I like to keep it spread it around. Do what ever I can.

K: Like the one October where almost every comic company had a Steve Niles book coming out for Halloween.

SN: That was hilarious. I know. And everyone one of the called me with, “Hey I got an idea, we’re going to put it out for Halloween.” October is always really busy for me and then November I got nothing.

K: Now I you worked on video game writing.

SN: Fear 3

K: Is that something you’d like to do more of?

SN: I’d love it. I really enjoyed it. That’ll be out June 21st so they are really starting to push it now. If it does well then yeah, I’m always looking around. Those are actually hard jobs to find.

K: Are they talking to you about comic tie-ins for it?

SN: Yeah. I did like an 8 pager for Wildstorm. I think it’s an Amazon exclusive. You know, every site, every store has an exclusive.

K: Are you playing any games?

SN: Well I was playing L.A. Noire and then my Xbox took a nose dive. I’ve had it. I’m not dropping another 400 dollars. This is like the second one I’ve owned. I have no game systems right now.

K: And I know you aren’t drinking anymore. Normally I ask what your drink of choice is.

SN: I haven’t drank for years. 30 year old Macallan was probably the last time I drank. I split a bottle with Bernie. I thought I killed him. I got a call the next day, “Is Bernie okay?” We’re fine. That was probably the last time I drank.

Chris Moreno

K: People that want to find your artwork, where can they see what you have coming out?

CM: Well the website is chrismoreno.org. I have a Deviant Art account at chrismoreno.deviantart.com those are the main places for where the artwork can be found. Coming up I have Zombie Dickheads which will be coming our around October.

I’ve got the 80/20 Principle that will be out in February. That’s an adaptation of Richard Koch’s self help book. It’s one of those help you get your life straight books. But it’s also good for people who run businesses; sort of a way to maintain efficiency in your life.

K: So is this a full on motivational comic or illustrations in the book?

CM: It’s a full on comic. It’s a company called Smarter Comics. They’ve been doing adaptations of some of the top selling books of this type. It’s very cool. When I was drawing it, it made me think a lot about Understanding Comics and also Will Eisner’s PS magazine that he ran for the military. Just sort of good information and using comics as the delivery system for it, so it’s pretty cool.

K: You mentioned Zombie Dickheads. Zombie books are hot right now, what makes it different?

CM: First I’ll tell you what it doesn’t have. There’s no army men. There’s no scientists. There’s no Milla
Jovovich. That might hurt my sell. I don’t feel this huge need to explain where the zombies come from. We all know where they come from. Or at least we have a sense. What it does have is a lot of humor. A lot of guts, like blood and stuff like that. It also has characters you can root for. Four zombies that don’t eat people. That’s the other thing it doesn’t have, it doesn’t have zombies eating people. Why would you want this book? It’s hilarious, that’s why.

It’s basically about four zombies who don’t eat people that are just trying to find a place to crash out and relax for five seconds without running into stupid zombies that eat people and act like assholes. And their dickheads so that can’t even get along with each other.

K: Any chance of more Sidekick ever?

CM: Possibly. I talk with Paul a lot and one of the things that always coming up is Sidekick and what is going on with it. It is something we both want and we know a lot of people want it. It’s just sort or a matter of the timing being right. It’s just about making it happen.

K: Do you game?

CM: Well my Xbox just red ringed recently. I was in the middle of the zombie thing from Red Dead. Pretty awesome, pretty great. There are games I’m excited for. I want Arkham City so bad. L.A. Noire looks pretty bad ass. I want see how smart I am essentially. I want to see if I got what it takes. I like to think I’m a pretty observant guys, but can I solve murders? Who knows? Also because it is a faithful reproduction of L.A. and I live in L.A. now, I want to see what my apartment looked like in 1947. I want to see if it is just orchards. Is it just like orange groves or something?

K:What is your drink of choice when you go into the bar?

CM: Jack and Coke, pretty standard. We go to a lot of bars at shows. Some of them are really cool and some of them are of the nouveau fru-fru kinda cruddy douche bars. And those bars don’t have everything, so if you order a side car, which is a drink that most people haven’t made since the 30s, you might be shit out of luck. When the 20 something gel head looks at you and says, “A what?” But everyone has a version of the Jack and Coke.

That’s it for today! There will be a Flash Friday tomorrow; we’ll be running the last interview I have from Heroes, one with Scott Kolins.

Heroes Con 2011: Interviews Part 1

Today is the second part of our Heroes Con recaps. Yesterday was Nat Jones talking about ‘68. Today are interviews with Jeremy Haun, Jeff Johnson, and Declan Shalvey. The interviews will continue tomorrow and then Flash Friday will be an interview with Scott Kolins.

Jeremy Haun

K: What current projects are you working on?

JH: I am currently working on the Top Cow event Artifacts. I’m doing issues 9 through 12 of that. Nine is in the can and should be out next month; with the other three issues following closely behind. After that I’m going to be taking over the Darkness and I’m going to be on there for the duration of my time at Top Cow, a couple years maybe.

K: I know you have written before, like the excellent Narcoleptic Sunday, are you planning on writing more?

JH: Actually I am. I’m in the process doing the final draft on an upcoming Pilot Season book for Top Cow. It’s going to be coming out in the fall. We’re going to be doing a big preview of it in San Diego.

K: Moving on to games, are you a gamer of any type?

JH: I play a lot of video games. I play a lot of games with my kid. We’re playing Lego Indiana Jones 2. I play through them and then we play through them together. I am getting back into Red Dead Redemption. I had played like 12 hours of that and then had to stop and that I needed to work. I quite literally think it was a Saturday night or Sunday afternoon where I had played for six hours. I can’t do that and have a career. I love games like that, that you can immerse yourself in; but when I’m working and I’m on a tight deadline I play games that I can play in 30 minute increments.

When I work I use the Pomodoro Technique. Basically you work in 25 minute increments; you do a task and at the end of the 25 minute period you stop, reset, and do another task. It’s a way to maximize your time and output across a number of things.

K: What is your drink of choice?

JH: If they can make them I like mojitos a lot. I make pretty amazing mojitos myself, so it is pretty hard to beat what I do. But I like wine, I like rum drinks.

Jeff Johnson

K: What current projects are you working on?

JJ: Sadly I don’t too much comic book stuff, I mostly do animation, but Dave (Johnson) , Dan (Panosian) , and I are coming out with a book called Skullkey. It’s basically a Twilight Zone comic book, each writer/artist is going to do their own take on the McGuffin of the Skullkey. So that’s going to be an anthology book that will be coming out next year.

K: Is there anything in animation that you can talk about right now?

JJ: Right now I’m working on Transformers Prime. I can’t tell you anything that happens in it, but I can tell you that it is a really cool show. I just finished a season on Young Justice and that is a really cool show too. I mean the characters are beautifully designed, the stories are really interesting, and the take on the characters is really cool. Having said that, as much as I like Young Justice when I got to Transformers the first week I was there they had me watch the first season. I got to watch the episodes that were finished and then I got to watch the animatics. It was the most awesome cartoon I’ve seen in a long time. It takes all the Transformers stuff and completely takes it to the next 6 or 7 levels. Some of the stuff we’re doing is outrageous.

K: I know a lot of fans are very dedicated to the G1 era of the Transformers, are you getting a lot of good feedback?

JJ: Apparently every that sees it loves it. I know a lot of people were reticent and a little bit wary when it comes to the CG side. But the CG is so well done and the studio that does it in Japan really just works their asses off. It’s gorgeous.

K: Do you play games? Are you a gamer?

JJ: I’m embarrassed to say that the last game I played was probably Adventures of Zelda on the 64. I take that back, the last game I played was Resident Evil 1. I think that was the last one I had time for. I love them; the art being done in games is remarkable but I don’t have the time, I barely sleep.

K: An easy question for someone involved in Drink and Draw. What’s the first thing you order going into a bar?

JJ: The first thing I order is a Guinness

Declan Shalvey

K: What current projects are you working on?

DS: Basically it’s all Thunderbolts at the moment for Marvel. I have about four issues coming out of a four issues run. That will all be coming out this summer; it’s a Fear Itself tie-in. I also have a story in trade paperback coming out called Fear Itself: The Worthy. Which is all short stores about The Worthy. It doesn’t seem like much, but that’s a lot of work coming out this summer. The last year an awful lot of 28 Days Later trades came out, so I have a lot of stuff out there on the stands.

K: Do you game at all?

DS: I don’t. I had to give it up. I used to arse around on Spiderman 2 and Grand Theft Auto and that. I liked messing around on games but I was getting nothing done. To be serious about comics I had to give up video games. I haven’t regretted it but every once in a while people are like, “have you played this game,” and I have to tell them no. That’s kind of my answer these days.

K: What is your favorite drink?

DS: My favorite drink is pretty much my only drink, which is cider. Cider is pretty much my drink of choice. Unfortunately here it is kinda hard to get in some places. In New York it’s not too bad; there are various Irish Pubs where you can get it. But if you go to hotels and stuff like that it is more of a rarity. I switched to a Jameson and Ginger. My Mum took me to a pub when I was 16 and had me try every drink at the bar. Cider was the one I liked and that’s the one I drank ever since. Thanks Mum.



Thanks again to all the artists who took the time to do a short interview. Make sure you come back tomorrow to check out the next batch.

Heroes Convention 2011: Nat Jones and '68

The Heroes Convention in Charlotte has ended yesterday I made the sad plane ride back home.  The convention was fantastic as always.  I managed to pick up some great sketches, hard to find toys, and some incredible interviews for the site.  Wednesday and Thursday I’m going to have all of the shorter interviews.  For Flash Friday I’ll be posting an interview with Scott Kolins.  Today though, is all about Nat Jones and his comic ’68.  Nat has previously worked on Death Dealer and the wrestling/70s Horror masterpiece, The Nail; so you know the book is going to look fantastic.  

K: What are you telling people who are unfamiliar with ’68?

NJ: The basic premise of ’68 is that it’s the year 1968 right in the middle of the Vietnam War. Hell on earth, and the dead start rising.  The original Night of the Living Dead came out in 1968 as political commentary on the Vietnam War and we took a look at that.  That movie is really the basis for the cannibalistic zombie that people look to as the zombie that is the phenomenal that’s happening today in entertainment.  We took that idea and said, “What was happening when the original Night of the Living Dead came out?” and the biggest thing happening was Vietnam.  No one has really taken those two things and put them together.  That’s probably the most common comment we get is, “I can’t believe no one has thought of that.” 

We’ve taken those two things and thrown them together in a really well researched Vietnam.  We really try to keep the authenticity and really explore what that era really was.  Between the iconic imagery, the war itself, and the different personalities that were there.  We look at everything from Richard Nixon, Jane Fonda, to the soldiers themselves out in the battlefield.  We’re really exploring a lot of new territory with zombies.  There are a lot of zombie books out there on the market right now; we really think we have something completely new and completely different.  It’s a new approach to the entire genre and all the reviews have been saying the same thing. Give it a try and I’m pretty sure you’re going to love it.

K: ’68 is from Image; is it an on going or a min-series?

NJ: The original story started in 2006, we did a one-shot comic.  Then all of the creators went their separate ways.  I went to Frazetta comics to work on Death Dealer.  Time eventually came where we were like, “Okay it’s time to get back and get back to that story.”  All of our schedules came together.  Right now we are in the middle of a four issue mini-series.  After that will be three or four one-shots and then back into another mini-series.  So it will be on-going in arcs.  

K: What can people expect out of the series?

NJ: They can expect a wide spread look at the entire world of the Vietnam era.  We start off the story in Vietnam, in campaign.  Then we swing the camera around to Cambodia and then we go all the way to Berkley, California to see the protests that are happening.  So we see the era explored and you’re going to see the world of that time deals with the fact that time pretty much stops when you’re dealing with the undead.

So a big thank you to Nat for taking the time to talk ’68 with me.  Besides just being an all around fantastic person to talk to, Nat has some seriously cool things in store for ’68, so check it out the next time you hit your local shop.  Come back tomorrow as 3 other creators answer or normal Comics, Games, and Booze questions.

Flash Friday: Flashpoint Shirts

I guess I’m still in Megacon recap mode. I was a little disappointed when I visited the Stylin Online T-shirt castle at the convention because I already had all of the Flash shirts that I wanted. In an earlier Flash Friday we had already discussed how I don’t like shirts with the actual character on them.  Two days after the convention I stumbled across a series of shirts that are supposed to be out sometime this month. I realize that today is April Fool’s day, but this is 100% legitimate. In fact if you don’t believe me you can check out their website here. So what is the big news on these shirts? We now have Flashpoint shirts.

This one is a definite buy for me. If it looks familiar it’s because DC has used that version of the Flash logo in a lot of their teasers. After seeing the actual Flash logo on shirts for so long, this picture looks more like a photoshop mockup of the shirt rather then a picture of the real thing. I may be wrong though, the printing on the shirt may be just that shiny and lightning filled. It’ll be interesting to see if the stylized lighting bolt will just be used in promotional stuff of if someone will actually wear it.

There is a possible Flashpoint spoiler in the paragraph under the next shirt. I have no idea if it is true or not, it is just something I saw on the Graphitti Designs website. If you want to be careful and skip it, just head down to the Batman/Wonder Woman picture.

So here is the Flashpoint Reverse Flash T-shirt. Wow, that’s a mouthful. The black shirt and red lightning bolt make it look more like a Black Flash shirt then a Reverse Flash one, but I still really like it. Like the Flash one, this one is a buy for me. So what was the big spoiler news? The website actually lists the shirt as, “FLASH POINT: REVERSE FLASH SYMBOL T-Shirt (CLONE).” Clone? Is that a mistake? Is it a hint of something else happening? It seems odd that is in the title, because none of the other Zoom related stuff has ever been listed that way. It may turn out to be nothing, but I found it pretty interesting.

Welcome back to all you spoiler skippers.  Look, Batman and Wonder Woman get Flashpoint shirts! I’m so happy. Do you know how hard it is to find a Batman shirt? I mean you just never, ever see that.  I just wish they made more Batman merchandise…. Yeah, it’s a pass on these for me. They are cool looking designs though, so they should please Bat fans and Wonder Woman fans alike.

Hey, that’s not a shirt at all! Yup, I snuck in a picture of my signed copy of Rebirth. I haven’t seen Geoff at a convention in years so I jumped at the opportunity to get my Flash hard covers signed. A line with a hour and a half wait is a serious change from him just hanging out in that tiny comic room that Dragoncon used to have. As you can see Ethan also signed it for me and put in a cool head shot. I always enjoy talking with Ethan and I’m bummed out that he doesn’t live around here anymore.

That’s it for the April Fool’s edition of Flash Friday. I was going to be talking Kid Flash, but I had to get the new shirt news out there. So it’ll be next week, unless I stumble across something else that just can’t wait.

Hangover Thursday: F'ing Mini-Bottles

It’s time again for another Hangover Thursday, how’s your head? As promised this edition is going to be Megacon related but not in the way you’d probably expect. While this is a story about booze, it isn’t anything about wild Megacon after-parties. I’m not quite sure I want to share some of the ridiculously stupid things I’ve done at those parties. Today we’re going to be talking about my newest attempt to get the F’ing Monkey name out there, mini-bottles.

I got the idea months ago. It was one of those nights where I call Brandon out of the blue with no regard to his personal schedule. Usually when I’m struck with an idea like this I don’t bother with pleasantries or anything, so the conversation goes went something like this:

Brandon answers phone, “Hello?”

“So, I’m thinking we buy a bunch of mini-bottles of liquor, stick our website url on them, and hand them out to creators at conventions.”

Yeah, that was it. No “hi, how are ya?”; nothing but a face full or random Ken delusions. I’m such an ass sometimes. But beyond that, we both agreed it was a good idea. So I spent about a week researching websites that printed labels, that in and of itself was a lot to take in. Finally I found a site that had the size I wanted and was reasonably priced. So I ordered 80 of them. Actually I ordered 20 of 4 different types. So now I have plenty of stickers for F’ing Rum, F’ing Tequila, F’ing Vodka, and F’ing Whiskey.

The next stop was to the liquor store. Having not done this before, I knew I wasn’t going to need 80 bottles. Honestly, I while I was pretty sure people would want the bottles, I wasn’t 100%. It was quite possible that it’d come off creepy and I’d get a lot of people turning me down. So how many bottles I bought was going to be a gamble. I decided 40 would be a good number. I was the only person in the liquor store when I walked up to the counter and said, “Yeah, this is going to sound really strange. I need 40 mini-bottles.”

The clerk took it like a champ though. I was only able to get 8 of the Tequila; we wiped out their entire stock on that one. Then we moved on to the rum, whiskey, and vodka. The back shelves where all the little bottles are held had these big gapping holes in them as each choice I made pretty much depleted all of what ever brand I picked. We laughed at what his manager was going to think when he came in the next morning. Just for me, I grabbed 3 mini-bottles of Baileys. I figured fixing up the gas station coffee I was grabbing on my way out to the convention center would make the morning better. CYA Note: I added the Baileys once I got to the convention, note before.

So it is the Thursday night before the convention, I’m in my kitchen, and I’m staring at 38 bottles. I didn’t pick the highest grade alcohol because I was on somewhat of a budget. Even shopping the deals I had dropped about 64 bucks. The doubt set in again. Did I just spend all that money on stickers and booze for nothing? This was either going to go over really well or I’d have to throw a party and have all my friends help me get rid of the bottles.

So how did it turn out? Fantastic. I gave the bottles to the writers/artists as I was interviewing them, an incentive to answer my silly questions. Some people happily took them and showed them off to other creators. Obviously I didn’t offer them to the people who don’t drink. Some people politely declined, I was not offended. One person told me they didn’t want alcohol on their breath while interacting with fans and I totally understand that. I ended up handing out somewhere between 10-12 bottles. Which means I’ll have plenty when I start the next round of interviews at Heroes.

Megacon 2011 Part 2

Today is part two of the Megacon interviews. As seen in part one, we did things a little differently then most comic sites. I’ll quote from yesterday:

The interviews that are about to follow consist of three questions. They relate directly to the holy trinity of That F’ing Monkey; Comics, Games, Booze. The questions were the same for everyone. Comics: “What do you have coming out?” Games: “Are you a gamer, if so what are you currently playing?” Booze: “You walk into a bar, what do you order?” Also, none of the responses are direct quotes. I’m definitely learning here, next time I’ll bring some kind of recorder so I can give you verbatims.

Ron Marz
1. Comics: Artifacts, Witchblade, Magdalena
2. Games: Video games no, but softball and tennis
3. Booze: Guinness, Mojitos



Dan and EVS


Dan Didio

1. Comics: Flashpoint! I know this was my point to demand Wally West news, but I behaved.

2. Games: Not even a little, no time for it.

3. Booze: Depends on the time of day; bloody Marys in the morning, beer in the afternoon, and vodka martinis at night. It’s like the Sphinx riddle made awesome!

Craig Rousseau's sign says he'll be back in 5 minutes.

Frank Cho
1. Comics: Brutal, 50 Girls 50, an unannounced script from Marvel, and restarting Liberty Meadows! Yup, Frank has the rights back so break out the midget circus bears!
2. Games: Not a video game player, although he had recently played scrabble. We probably should have introduced him to Words with Friends.
3. Booze: None. In what is one of the most interesting stories I heard all weekend I learned that Frank is allergic to alcohol. Apparently he knew alcohol had a strong affect on him, but after having like three drinks one night he realized how bad it really was. So it is Sprite from now on.

Phil Noto

Phil Noto
1. Comics: Wolverine Jubilee is just wrapping up. There is another Marvel project that hasn’t been announced yet.

2. Games: Even with 2 Xboxes and a PS3 Phil doesn’t have the time to game. He also has a copy of Bioshock signed by the Development team.

3. Booze: Vodka Tonic


Can't have a Megacon picture without George Perez!


Geoff Johns
1. Comics: Did you know Geoff can’t comment on DC stuff without their approval anymore? So that might have been my first faux pas as an interviewer. We’ll just say Flashpoint.
2. Games: Halo Reach.
3. Booze: Despite rumors about some kind of drunken shuffleboard game Saturday night, Geoff went with the very safe answer of water.

And that is it for the interviews. These weren’t the only people I talked to, but I wanted to save some of it for other conventions. I can’t say anything about the Gail Simone and Ethan Van Sciver mini, but you better believe we’ll talk about it once we are able to. I wanted to again thank people like Ethan Van Sciver, Jimmy Palmiotti, Phil Noto, Joel Carroll, Tim Townsend, and Mike Maihack; you all made the con incredibly enjoyable. Come back tomorrow for Hangover Thursday to see something even more booze and Megacon related.



Megacon 2011 Part 1

The dust has settled; the booze has been drunk. All that is left are sore feet and debit card receipts. That’s right Megacon 2011 is over. There is always a short depression after a convention. All the adrenaline and excitement have worn off and your friends that are scattered across the country have gone back to their homes. The next three days are all going to be Megacon related. Expect interviews today and tomorrow; Thursday will be something else entirely.

Before we get started I suppose I should give some explanation of what you’re about to read. If you’re looking for news on the Aquaman announcement or the Rob Granito smackdowns, look elsewhere. The interviews that are about to follow consist of three questions. They relate directly to the holy trinity of That F’ing Monkey; Comics, Games, Booze.

Why would I ask comic creators about video games and drinking? Quite frankly I found it fascinating. So after spending the day being asked why in issue 214 of Captain Floppy Pants, the Ass-Chap Marauder had red suspenders instead of orange; I came up and asked something even more inane. I think I got some really good reactions and a big thank you goes out to everyone I got to talk to.

The questions were the same for everyone. Comics: “What do you have coming out?” Games: “Are you a gamer, if so what are you currently playing?” Booze: “You walk into a bar, what do you order?” Also, none of the responses are direct quotes. I’m definitely learning here, next time I’ll bring some kind of recorder so I can give you verbatims. Hopefully this is interesting to someone other then me, let me know if you liked them.

Tim Townsend

Tim Townsend
1. Comics: Current X-Men story arc (issues 7-10), 2 issues of Avengers.
2. Games: None currently. Tim was a huge World of Warcraft player until his account was hacked twice. After receiving little support from Blizzard he quit.
3. Booze: Wine or after talking to the bartender seeing if they have anything they recommend.

Jimmy Palmiotti

Jimmy Palmiotti
1. Comics: Tattered Man, Jonah Hex, Trailblazer in June. (A side note on this one, we’ve already give Jonah a ton of love here, but Trailblazer is a time travel western. Yeah, we’ll be talking about that when it comes out.)
2. Games: A WWII first person shooter, possibly one of the Call of Duty games.
3. Booze: Always checks what is on tap. A fan of light pilsners.

Dave Johnson and Dan Panosian

Rev Dave Johnson
1. Comics: Covers for Spaceman, BPRD, Abe Sapian mini, and a Lobster Johnson mini. And the coolest bit; his art will be used in a Venture Brothers episode that is set up like an episode of Behind the Music. I got a peak at some of it; and it is just as awesome as it sounds.
2. Games: Likes to wait until games are super cheap. He just finished the first Bioshock two months ago.
3. Booze: A big fan of Hefeweizens (Blue Moon, Shocktop, etc) and Pickle Back a shot consisting of pickle juice and whiskey.

Seriously Impressive Time Machine

Dan Panosian
1. Comics: An upcoming issue of Jonah Hex, DC’s Doc Savage
2. Games: An old school Tekken fan, but wants to play DC Universe Online
3. Booze: Jack Daniels

Is it the Stig or his American Cousin?

Frank Tieri
1. Comics: Writer for Marvel vs Capcom 3, Wolverine and Hercules mini, a story in the Captain America 70th anniversary, and the Fear Itself Thunderbolts issue.
2. Games: Is currently writing and working on two different games he can’t talk about. Needless to say he’s jumped right into the games industry.
3. Booze: Beer and Jagermeister are standbys. Used to be a big fan of 7&7s and once in a while likes a flavored vodka drink.


That’s it for part one of the Megacon review. Come back tomorrow for the second half of the interviews and Thursday for a Megacon themed Hangover Thursday. Just so you know I wasn’t alone in this madness, my wife was a big help keeping this all straight.  So I'm going to use this space to thank her.