Sunday, July 19, 2009

Trivia #37

I've been such a slacker this month that I've missed the window for a trivia quiz which would give everyone enough time to answer, as it's already halfway through the month and San Diego is next week. So instead, here are some San Diego-related trivia stories just for the hell of it.

1. The Omnicom you're reading now is the second one online. The first was a mailing list back in the olden days, started by Vernon Harmon. That was the dawn of the web, the mid-90s. The welcome page is still up, as well as the main navigation page, but none of the links work any more. I spoke to Vernon not too long ago and he said that the archives are lost, and even the Internet Archive doesn't have a cached version. I met Vernon at the 1995 San Diego Comic Con where he had dressed up as Wildfire.

2. The 1995 San Diego con was my first year going (here's my trip report). I got online in 1994 during Zero Hour, and by the next year I had met enough people on Compuserve and the Legion mailing list that we all decided to meet up for dinner one night. I think, but am not sure, that was the first of the "Legion Dinner" meetings that took place at San Diego and Chicago into the early 2000s. One night it was a bunch of fans with Phil and Jeff Moy, Cori Carani, and KC Carlson. Another night I was with a group of internet-based fans who met with the Interlac APA group (which included Tom & Mary Bierbaum), and everyone decided that was the first significant meeting of online and offline Legion fandom.

3. Many of the Legion fans went to both Chicago (pre-Wizard) and San Diego, and the Legion Dinner tradition was carried on there as well. I was not there, but the 1997 dinner was extra-special due to some guests. Mike Chary has the whole story.

4. At the 1995 San Diego and Chicago cons, "Legionnaires" artists Jeff Moy and Cory Carani were taking pictures of some of the fans. We didn't know until Legionnaires #43 came out (cover-dated 11/96) that a number of fans from the conventions were drawn into a crowd scene during the Legion tryouts. My collection isn't organized enough for me to find my copy, and I can't find the page online, but if anyone has theirs handy to scan, I can put the page (or panel) here.

5. At that 1995 San Diego con, I picked up a copy of Adventure 247 on the last day. It was way over my budget - it was $150, marked down because the dealer had just purchased a collection before the con and didn't want to take the time to price everything. Turned out that when I got home, I noticed that the centerfold was missing, and when I brought it to the dealer the next year, he gave me a discount that I could apply to other books I got from him (so I bought Adventure 267 and Action 267, the 2nd and 3rd appearances of the Legion). That was Mike Carbonaro out of New York. Years later I picked up a coverless copy of #247 that was also missing the outer wrap for cheap on eBay, so I cannibalized the centerfold from that one.

6. One year in San Diego I ran into Kevin Gould, who has been active in Legion fandom since the 1970s. He happened to be carrying a piece of artwork from Superman #247, which featured the Guardians of the Universe. (I didn't know it at the time, but it was Elliot S! Maggin's first story.) In an amazing coincidence, I recognized that page from one of the first conventions I had gone to, in New Jersey in the late 1970s. There was a table with artwork just piled on it, and I saw one page I liked but it was too expensive (probably like $20). At that con, I happened to buy the issue that page came from, which is why I remembered the page. Kevin told me that he bought that page at a convention in Houston (my hometown). He still has it, and Maggin has also inquired about it.

7. Most people who have a copy of All New Collector's Edition C-55 with the wedding of Lightning Lad and Saturn Girl know how hard it has been to find a copy in decent condition. Hence, the (polite) nickname for it - "That Damned Tabloid", or TDT for short. For a while in the 1990s, it seemed like every Legion fan I saw had a copy of it, and they call brought them in to be autographed by Mike Grell and Paul Levitz. It was almost a rite of passage to be able to see the two men and get them to sign the cover.

8. Last year, I stopped at the DC booth to chat with Paul Levitz for a minute. I told him how I had wanted to be an astronaut, and if I ever do get to fly I'd take my Legion flight ring with me. If you remember, the box for the ring says "Warning: does not enable the wearer to fly". I wanted to have my picture taken in space wearing my flight ring, flying, to prove him wrong. He thought that was a pretty neat story.

So in lieu of guessing trivia questions this month, how about some convention-related Legion stories of your own?

13 comments:

brainypirate said...

Thanks for sharing some of the links to older articles, blogs, etc.!

Somehow, from clicking various links from this post, I ran across Scott Koblish's blog, and he makes an interesting comment in his July 5th entry ( http://koblish.blogspot.com/2009/07/whew-future-is-inked.html#links ) about the double-page spread of 101 characters:

That double-page spread alone will take him [the colorist] the better part of 3 days. All different characters than the 70+ heroes and 30+ villains that have appeared in the book so far.

Is he saying it's 101 characters NOT seen so far in the series???

Unknown said...

Wish I could make it to SDCCI, but I'll be representing Legion fandom at Chicago Con. I'll be dressed as the Emerald Empress and will have a Lightning Saga Cosmic Boy in tow!

kenaustin said...

Here is a scan of what I assume is the correct scene. If not, let me know.

http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x4/kenaustin2/Legionnaires43crowdscene.jpg

Michael said...

Linda: you better post a photo that I can link to!

Ken: No, that's not the one. There's a one-panel scene with about 6-8 civilians in it, including someone who looks reasonably close to my Simpsonized caricature.

Dvandom said...

Does anyone have copies of the old Omnicom? A friend of mine did a Black Dawn fanfic and lost his own copy, has been looking for it ever since.

kenaustin said...

re:crowd scene

It's got to be one of the next two pages then. I couldn't find anymore civilian crowd pics in the book, aside from the cover. Let's try them both. :)

http://i182.photobucket.com/albums/x4/kenaustin2/Legionnaires43pgs4-5.jpg

Michael said...

Nope, not there either. I'll have to download the issue tonight.

The panel I'm looking for somewhat resembles panel 2 on the right-hand side, I think it's vertical and has several people (as I mentioned, one of them has a moustache).

I'm pretty sure that the girl at the bottom of panel 2 on page 5 is supposed to be Johanna Draper (currently at Comics Worth Reading) and the guy with the beard in panel 4 is her future husband KC Carlson.

kenaustin said...

Could it be the cover? There is a guy with a mustache and glasses. Did you wear a turban 13 years ago? :)

Michael said...

OK, Ken, I totally misremembered the issue. I found a reference in an old email, it's actually issue 38 page 13. I'm trying to download it via two different torrents but both are stuck.

Anonymous said...

Dave, any idea which ish of the old Omnicom that fanfic was in? I recently found a part of my old printouts, which spans from 15-47.

Like Linda, I am going to be hitting Wizard World Chicago this weekend, and the plan is to bring out my B5 post-boot costume I debuted there 11 years ago. Assuming I can get the belt pieces I need touched up. And a proper wig this time.

Michael said...

Is there anything in those old Omnicoms that's worth scanning and posting somewhere, if only for historic purposes?

Anonymous said...

I had that thought. I tried to scan a couple, and the OCR program I have does a decent job. Loses some of the sig formatting and bulletin points. Or I could just scan them in as pdf images.

Would you be willing to host them here?

The earlier ones would require a little care, since the ink has partially bonded the pages together, and to the cover of the binders I stored them in. The later issues, stored in boxes without binders, are just fine. Go figure.

I don't have the time to do the 'whole partial' run I have right now, but maybe in a month or two I could take a weekend (or maybe as a winter project...)

BTW, I was the B5 fan who joined the LSG for one outing in '99 (Jack Kessler).

Michael said...

Scanning them as jpgs would be fine, I'd just stick them on my Photobucket page. I don't think they'll see enough traffic to trigger my overload flag there.

We're going back again to LSG in a couple weeks if you want to celebrate the 10th anniversary of your 1st trip!