A few additions to Jeffrey’s comic convention coverage:

A shy, middle-aged woman walked up to me with her partner as I was standing in a long line waiting for an autograph. “Excuse me, can I ask a question?” she said in a near-whisper.

Sure, I said.

She looked around for a moment before she spoke again. “Who is Wil Wheaton?”

Well, I said, he’s an actor who played a very annoying character on a Star Trek show, but later got into blogging. Turns out he’s an amazing writer and a very nice guy.

“Oh,” she said. “Thanks very much.”

I didn’t add: also, his patience is legendary. I’m sure today wasn’t the first time somebody else has walked up, looked over the line, and yelled loudly WESLEY CRUSHER? WHAT THE HELL IS WITH WESLEY CRUSHER? THAT GUY QUIT STAR TREK EARLY, THE WIMP!

—

“The thing about comics these days,” somebody said, “is that the comics industry used to assume that they’d get complete turnover in a few years. The teenagers would grow up, they’d stop buying comics, new kids would start. You could run the same storylines every five years or so and it wouldn’t matter. Now you have people like me who have been following comics for twenty or thirty years, and they remember Amazing Spider-Man #121 or whatever. I think the industry is still trying to catch up.”

—

More and more web comics people are showing up at the comic conventions. The Penny Arcade guys are local, of course, but there were many others: Scott Kurtz (PVP), Jeph Jacques (Questionable Content), David Malki (Wondermark), Sam Logan (Sam and Fuzzy), and many more.

(Jeph, by the way, is one of the sweetest guys in the world. Say hi. Just don’t ask him about his bird tattoos.)

—

The cos-players — people in full costume — weren’t as plentiful or imaginative as they are for Sakuracon or Norwescon, but they were around. Several stormtroopers, a few Princess Leia-wannabes. One really good Mara Jade. One really bad Hitler-mustached Imperial admiral.

For the most part, though, it was a relief: unlike some other cons I’ve been to, nobody looked at you funny if you wore a normal shirt and jeans.

—

J. Michael Straczynski is giving a talk tomorrow. You might want to go see it if you can. Geeks know him as the creator/writer of the TV series Babylon 5 and a writer of comic books for Marvel, but the rest of you are about to hear a lot about this guy: he wrote a movie called Changeling. Clint Eastwood directed it; it’s up for the Palm d’Or at Cannes this year, coming soon to a theater near you. Since then he’s sold movies with directors like Ron Howard, Wolfgang Petersen, the Wachowski Brothers, and quite a few more.

How they talked him into coming to this convention, I have no idea. For fans and people interested in writing, it’s an opportunity not to be missed.

What follows after the jump may include some inside baseball, and if you’re not into comic books you might not catch all of it. What is important though is that today was the first day of this year’s Emerald City Comic Convention. Comic creators, fans and press gathered in the Washington State Convention & Trade Center to celebrate this thing we call comics books.

The first thing that a non-comics person would notice when stepping onto the convention floor is the complete range of totally inappropriate style choices for facial hair. We are not as a people a fashionable lot, and while I think most everyone can agree that a t-shirt and jeans is a fine casual clothing option when you start replacing that with a pair of too small shorts and shirt that barely covers the belly button then there are issues, at least when that’s on a guy.

This is not for the faint of heart, I’m glad that I left my fiancee at home, she can deal with me enjoying comics as a hobby, but I don’t know if she could deal with the full force of comic fandom. Can you?

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I mean the term “geeks” lovingly of course, especially since I’m one of them. That’s right I’m heading down south from my home in (currently) sunny Vancouver [mbv] to attend the Emerald City Comic Convention [eccc] this weekend at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center.  For the next few days I’ll be a guest blogger on the site, and one of the several of Metblog types at the convention.

If you’ve not yet considered going to the convention this weekend I’d certainly have another think on that one. It promises to be a really cool show, with lots of top name comic book creators there such as Ed Brubaker (he killed Captain America), Dan Didio, Gail Simone and Scott Kurtz.

If you don’t like reading, or looking at colour picture pages, then there’s television stars there to including Julie Benz (Buffy/Angel), Wil Wheaton [wwdn] (from Stand By Me & Star Trek: The Next Generation) and whatever science fiction actors could be coaxed down from Vancouver for the weekend.

All in all it should be a great time. This is the third year in a row I’ll have come down for the show, so that’s just not idle speculation.

Who says you have to wait for the weekend to go out?

 Tonight make your way down to the Rendezvous Jewel Box Theater for Strikethrough by the fine folks from the Seattle School , this month featuring C. Davida Ingram performing “What a Body Can Do”.  Doors at 8 pm.

Tuesday is opening night of My Fair Lady at the Paramount.   If you’ve somehow gone your whole life without seeing this play (or the excellent Audrey Hepburn-starring, Marnie Nixon-singing film version), this clever musical adaptation of a George Bernard Shaw play updating the Pygmalion legend by having an arrogant professor of linguistics, Henry Higgins, boast to his pal Colonel Pickering that he can train any woman to speak so well that she can easily pass as nobility.  Challenge arrives in the form of Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle and her ne’er do well father.  This revival of the play celebrates its 50th anniversary and is well worth seeing to hear the many classic songs the musical has contributed to the showtune lexicon alone.

Tuesday night from 7 - 8:30 pm at the Central branch of the Seattle Public Library, novelist Alice Hoffman reads from her new work The Third Angel.  On Wednesday night at the North East branch, Theodore Duncan, representing the Seattle Opera Guild, presents a preview of I Puritani by Vincenzo Bellini.

WHAT: Reading from and slide show on “This Is Who I Am: Our Beauty in All Shapes and Sizes” (Artisan, 116 pages, $25.95)

WHEN/WHERE: 8 p.m. Tuesday, The Elliott Bay Book Co., 101 S. Main St.; 206-624-6600, elliottbaybook.com

Rosanne Olson’s first book reaches out to women of all ages and body shapes. Her book consists of photographs of nude women and their thoughts on their body. Many women want to change, while others have accepted their bodies as they are. Full article about the book can be found here.

It’s Tuesday and it’s too early in the week to start drinking so why not head out and listen to someone read from and discuss a book? Ok, that’s a lame excuse not to drink but it’s a big enough night in the book tour world that we could feasibly call this Tome Tuesday (or Tomesday, if you will). Of note tonight:

• Ha Jin, National Book Award and PEN/Faulkner award winning author of “Waiting” and “War Trash”, will read from and discuss his new book “A Free Life” about one family’s struggle for the American dream.

  7:00 at the Central Library (free) [central library]

• Lou Dobbs is described by the Seattle Times as an “economist, television host and former Seattle TV anchor”. Huh. Not the way I’d describe him but that’s neither here nor there. He’ll discuss his new book “Independence Day: Awakening the American Spirit” and will probably not be very shy about explaining his populist stances on almost every issue of the day.

  7:30 at Town Hall Seattle ($5 at the door) [town hall seattle]

• J. Peterman himself, John O’Hurley, will be at the University Bookstore in Mill Creek to read from his just released book “Before Your Dog Can Eat Your Homework, First You Have to Do It: Life Lessons from a Wise Old Dog to a Young Boy.”

  7:00 at Mill Creek University Bookstore (signing ticket required) [university bookstore]

Anyone familiar with FOUND Magazine?

I stumbled across the FOUND coffee table book when ordering Post Secret from Amazon.com (They’re so sneaky! Their suggestive “Those who bought this also bought this” technique always gets me!). Anyway, FOUND was nothing short of amusing–chalked full of found love letters, to-do lists, random notes and messages–some completely bizarre and many freakin hilarious, which force you to ask the question, “What is this person’s deal?”

The guy who started FOUND Magazine one day discovered a random note, meant for someone else, on his car. It read:

Mario,

I f**ing hate you. You said you had to work then whys your car HERE at HER place?? You’re a f***ing LIAR. I hate you. I f***ing hate you.

Amber

P.S. Page me later

After this, he began a project, collecting found items and eventually putting them all into a magazine in June 2001. The most recent–FOUND Magazine #5 The Crime Issue–will be released for September 2007 and features FOUND items such as “a former FBI agent’s life story, prison guard poetry, found notes about arson, pot and self-amputation, academic crime, crimes of the heart, found eyeballs, found crack, and the story of a guy who found a million dollars in the road.”

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The inimitable (and wordy) Samuel R. Delany [wiki] reads tonight at 7:30 at the Science Fiction Museum’s JBL Theater (free, general admission seating). Delany is probably best known for Dhalgren [powells] which is considered if not the best, maybe the most literary, science fiction/fantasy book ever written. Tonight he’ll read from his new book, Dark Reflections, with a signing afterward.

Delany is a literary giant so even if you’re not familiar with his work, there’s some value to be gained in listening to a brilliant writer, literary critic, and professor read and talk for an hour or so. Besides, the M’s are [already] losing, it’s better than watching TV, and who can resist a beard like that?

Love books? Love to share your love? Head on down to the Southwest Branch of the Seattle Public Library (that’s the one at 9010 35th Ave. S.W.) tonight for the Summer Reading Read-Aloud. From 6:30 pm to 7:30 pm (doors open half an hour earlier), library patron can read aloud a portion of their favorite book to share with others. Each reader gets up to five minutes to read; the event and parking for it are both free.

The strange amalgam of cover band, literary tribute and live-action audiobook that is Harry and the Potters came to the Seattle Public Library tonight for a performance of their Hogwarts-themed music. The crowd was a mix of all ages, with a heavy bias towards the high school set. Apparently those who grew up reading the books when younger are taking the obsession with them later in life, complete with shouted sing-alongs and many opportunities to jump up and down. All I can say is that the floor of the SPL was vibrating like a toy broomstick this evening.