Tall Tales & Falsehoods

With classes winding down I have few free moments to catch up on some reading. Two things that I have finished recently are Filthy Rich by Brian Azzarello / art by Victor Santos and Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber.

Filthy Rich is a graphic mystery novel that is a part of the Vertigo Crime series. It is a pulp style story about an old washed out football player who tries to make his living as a used car salesman. When this doesn’t pan out he turns to hired muscle for his bosses daughter. The story’s pace is nice. It moves the story along with revealing detail and good artwork. This is the first book that I have read in the series and am looking forward to checking out a few more.

The second book that I have checked out was Death Troopers. Death Troopers is one of the many novels that expands the Star Wars universe. This is the first SW book that I have read that isn’t directly based in the mythology set-up by the movies. (However they do sneak in Han Solo and Chewy into the mix even though it could have held it on its own.) Unlike all of the other books that I have read this is a horror specific novel. Just like with any good good horror title it takes a good while for the story to take shape but when it does it delivers. Imagine a stranded Imperial vessel with no signs of life, Emperor’s testing of a secret biological weapon and a prison transport ship. While the zombie theme maybe played out on Earth, it does take on a new meaning in the Star Wars universe. I enjoyed switching between reading the book and listening to the audio book. (The Star Wars audio books are most excellent with the use of sound effects and the original Star Wars score.)

I am glad to have gotten back to reading. Next up on the list is Michael Crichton’s Pirate Latitudes!

Last night my wife and I had the opportunity to visit the new Freestyle Park in Myrtle Beach, SC. Thanks to my association with the American Advertising Federation of Coastal Carolina, we got to visit for our end of the year bash for free!

I will go ahead and put this out there: Freestyle Park is a top notch park all the way around. They seem to only have one downside – not enough visitors. This becomes apparent just driving into the parking lot and follows you throughout your visit of the park. The park looks like it can hold A LOT of people. In doing so, when it is not busy – you can tell. However this has a major upside to it, you don’t have to wait in line for anything!

In the past few years my family and I have had the opportunity to visit a number of theme parks and think this ranks right up there with them. It is really easy for me to compare the park to that of Dollywood due the fact that we just visited that park not a month ago. Like Dolloywood you can tell that the new owners of the Freestyle Park are in it for the long hall. The small crowds don’t scare them. It seems they have figured out how to scale down without taking away form the overall feel for the park. When the crowds start to come in I can see how they would ramp up with smaller shows, places to explore and new things to eat.

Just like Dollywood there is a good mix between shows and rides. While Dollywood focuses on the mountain lifestyle, the Freestyle Park is centered around different forms of popular music. The synergy of theme and music is there but I think it may have some more appeal if they could add some worldly type music fractions. Song and dance from other cultures may open the fan base up just a bit and give an opportunity to learn while you were at the park. However the Freestyle Park seems to have the pop culture on lock.

The roller coasters were tons of fun and I would rank them above many others that I have ridden. The new “Time Machine” coaster was amazing and Heidi and I had a blast. They seem to be spaced out just enough to get your legs under you before wanting to ride the next one.  Adding small things such as the famous Abbey Road picture spot and moonshine still gives the family fun opportunities to explore and relax.

Unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to check out the show side of the park. I have heard good stuff about them and would love to try and make it back just to see the Ice Cold Country and the Flip 5 Live show. Time was just to short in our little visit.

Call me impressed. The park seems to have a lot going for it. They seem to have embraced the locals (something the former owners didn’t do), understand how to scale the park accoring to attendence and may even know a few thing about how to read market forecasts. Yes sir, they seem to be in it for the long hall and not just a quick buck. I really think the bucks will come if they can just shave off the horrible reputation that the previous owners have bestowed on it. I encourge all locals and vistiors alike to go out and visit. Don’t be scared by the immence parking lot with few cars. Embrace it and have fun.

This was the first large comic book convention that I have been to. I have been to a few smaller ones, but none on this scale.

On Saturday my Wife, Memphis and myself attended Heroes Con in Charlotte, NC. Prior to that day I was excited about the convention. I had rough plans of meeting up with a few people, checking out the vendors and looking forward to the indie tables. While I followed online conversations between Dave Slusher and Derek Coward about their planning and list gathering and nervousness I joked about “Plan, what plan? I am going to have fun.”  I didn’t realize what type of production went into attending a comic book convention.

The day of the convention Heidi, Memphis and myself got to the convention hall around 11:30. We paid our fee and quickly went down to get a lay of the land. Soon after we entered it became apparent that there was huge crowds. I hate crowds. It was also very had to push a stroller trough the aisles and amongst the lines of fans waiting to get autographs. We got a good scope of everything and I stated to wondering around picking through this and that, while the whole time looking for friends along the way. Memphis started to get cranky and I could tell it was lunch time.

My wonderful wife said that she could feed Memphis and that I could stay and look around. This was super cool because to be honest I was a little frustrated with trying to look at things while at the same time making sure Memphis wasn’t eating a $400 comic. So a little time had passed and I knew that I had to get back up to the wife and kid for a bite to eat. Still haven’t seen any of my friends, I picked up the phone and gave Dave a call. He was down for some food, so off we went.

Over lunch I confessed to Dave and Heidi that I thought that I was not the convention type. I am not a star struck fan, I don’t care that much about autographs, I hate large crowds and at best I am a passive reader of books. I was glad to be there, but I wasn’t having that much fun. However there was still some stuff that I wanted to do and check out so after lunch we headed back to the convention for another quick round.

Still huge crowds, long lines and a bunch of people that I don’t know about – plus Memphis was ready for a nap. Once again my great wife to the rescue said that she would take Memphis up for a nap and let me look around. I finally got to make my way around to the indie tables, where I met a few cool people and picked up a ton of books. I figured that I can find most everything else at my local comic book store (who also had a booth there) so why not spend my limited cash funds on some indie comics. It was cool to talk with people, find out where they were from and there creative process. I think I invited everyone that I talked to, to next year’s CREATE South .

By this time it was getting late and I still haven’t met up with Derek or Kreg Steppe . Heidi came back down with Memphis and we went through the vendors long boxes far a few comics that I had on my wish list. However do to the fact that Comicbookdb.com was down for two days prior to the convention and the WiFi in the hall was spotty at best I was limited in my memory of what I wanted to try and find. I didn’t know which vendor was which, who had the better deals and what to really focus on while looking through all of the long boxes. I picked up a few titles and told Heidi I was ready to call it a day.

On the drive home I realized a few things that I leaned from the convention:

1. I had fun. (I know you can’t tell it from my ranting above but I did.)
2. My wife is the greatest.
3. Get phone numbers of the friends you want to met up with.
4. Look over the convention booklet. I would have liked to attended the panels, but I didn’t know when or where – plus Memphis would not have been a huge fan of them either.
5. HAVE A PLAN! – It is a big place so have a plan of what you must see and do. Then if you get that done in enough time do other things.
6. Narrow your wish list and bring a hard copy. I spent a lot of time jumping around from box to box without knowing exactly what I wanted and how much I was willing to spend.
7. Just cause they are indie doesn’t mean that they are good (or bad). I would say that about 90% of the indie comics that I picked up where just plan bad. Supporting people trying to do there thing is cool but  take a closer look before you buy.
8. Try and go for a few days, there was a lot to see and do.
9. Plan on hanging out as much as you can afterwords.
10. Baby’s are super hard at conventions. But I love her dearly.

I had a great time at the convention, but I was also new to the game. I may have been a little too hasty saying that “I wasn’t the convention type.” I think with my new knowledge that next year I can have an even better time.

Recently I discovered Comixology. It has been a great tool for monitoring what comics that are published from a week to week, what comics that I in my pull list and what comics that I need to pick up from the store. They have even put out a nifty little iPhone application so I can have all of my information with me wherever I go. Their database of comic book covers and information about the comic books looks as if it is coming directly from the comic book publishers themselves. This ensures that the information is correct and that the cover art is accurate.  The one thing they don’t seem to have is a database for your existing comic collection.

For cataloging all of my comic books I use a nifty little website called ComicBook DB. It seems to be self built with a large community or users that help populate the database with comic book covers and information. They seem to have a huge back stock and a direct link with finding missing issues with others within the Comic Book DB.  It has a community like feel that helps itself. However some information is lacking and some is not accurate. It would be a much better service if they could get a pipe of all of the comics directly from the publishers. However they might take away from the community feel that has made it popular. The Comic Book DB also has a very simple iPhone application that taps into you missing issues and your want list.

All this helps aid me in my new hobby of reading comic books. Both site when used together have aided me in discovering new titles and rediscovering old ones.

Until next Wednesday…

Upon first inspection of Into The Wild, I was enthralled by Chris McCandless – His ideals, his gumption, his reckless abandon for exploration. I can see a lot of myself within Chris; we share some of the same opinions, the thought of adventure is overwhelming and general disregard to what other think resonates in us both. I would dare say that even a few years earlier in my life Chris and I shared even more in common. The world was more black and white back then. Individuals fit into one category or another. Right and wrong was easily defined. As I got older those black and white ideals were filled with grey. Shadows lurked in the darkness and rays of light show through the cracks. I dare to say that Chris McCandless would not have made some of the decisions that were made if he had a few more years under his belt.

Or is that what his path was really about? Holding on to the black and white world, not to be influenced by the surrounding grey matter? Living in “Alexander Supertramp’s” reality.

I was taken “Into the WIld” with Chris McCandless’ tale. Like most adventures the first leg of the journey was filled with admiration, excitement, longing and bewilderment of the courage Chris exhibited to go at it the way he did. As the path grew longer and longer and the scenery started to blend together, I found myself questioning my original fascination with Chris’ tale. Growing worrisome of all of the mishaps along the way I found myself growing a strong dislike for the ignorance that McCandless exhibited. His ignorance turned into my distaste for his ideals and the path he chose to take.

Now as I walked out of the woods and have stepped away from the tale, I see Chris in a whole new light. McCandless arrived at where two roads diverged in a wood, and he, chose neither the one with wanted ware or the one less traveled. He made his own path. And to him, that has made all the difference.