Some years back, I had the crazy idea to do a trio of short films that stood on their own but could then be packaged together as a feature length anthology. Hence three Villains shorts were produced, and then they appropriately enough became an anthology titled 'The Villains Anthology'. They were fun shoots, lots of my friends worked on the things, and I was very pleased with the final product. They were screened here in Ottawa and at a number of fests around North America (...off the top of my head I remember that they were shown in New York, Toronto, Utah, Vancouver and elsewhere). They were featured on a couple of online film places, and got me listed on IMDb for the first time. Alas, as happens with most indie films, the effort did not grant us riches, fame and fortune.

I've always had in the back of my head that I want to take another shot at the concept though. I really love the characters and the world. So currently, with the help of some alike mind friends, we are whipping up some scripts and storyboards and stuff and slapping together a pitch for an animated 'Villains'. I'd like to do a comic too. Especially with all the nifty Internet options available for publishing nowadays.

Those pictures up above are concept designs for a couple of the central characters from the Villains Universe. As illustrated by James Lagowski. More to come.

Peter Laird does a segment on the TMNT website every once and a while called Blast from the Past. Wherein he posts random things from the Mirage / Ninja Turtles archives. In that tradition, here's a lil' blast from the Batturtle vault. A page of conceptual art done up while trying to figure out the logo design for Batturtle Productions. The Batty in the lower centre of the page won. Which if I remember correctly was actually the artists least favorite drawing. I like that Batty the best though 'cause I could picture him as an action figure.

Worked on of all things, believe it or not, a pirate movie a couple of days ago. Served as A.D. (that's assistant director for those of you who have better things to do with your time than to familiarize yourselves with film crew terms). Sometimes one can have the strangest things to talk about whilst travelling in film-making circles. The movie is titled 'Pirates of Snake Island' and will continue to shoot on and off for the next few weeks. I'm crewing again for the project on Saturday...with the stipulation that we'll be done shooting before game two of the Senators / Sabres series.

Today is Free Comic Book Day eve. Which means that tomorrow is my favorite holiday of the year. Well, maybe it hasn't been recognized as an official holiday just quite yet. It's not on calender's and you can't buy over-priced greeting cards to swap with your friends and loved ones. What you can do though is go to your local comic book store and get yourself some free comic books. Free! No tricks. No catch. No foolin'. They have all kinds of different genres up for grabs. There's western, horror, sci-fi, comedic, kids-stuff... there's mainstream and independent. You can try something new, or pick up something familiar like Spidey, Simpsons, Family Guy, Archie or Mickey Mouse. Anyhow, go check out their website. And tomorrow go out and visit a comic store and get yourself some comics.

Sam Raimi is a frackin' genius. Bruce Campbell is hilarious. Sandman and Venom are cool. Betty Brant is hot. I have seen 'Spider-man 3'. I loved 'Spider-man 3'. I will go see it again very soon.

In possibly one of the greatest 'new comic book day' Wednesday's ever in the history of new comic book days, no less than three books written by Joss Whedon came out: Runaways #26, Astonishing X-Men #21 and Buffy: Season 8 #3. And to make things even more exciting, within Buffy #3, I got a letter published. Not quite as cool as say writing an issue of Buffy...but I'll take my geek points where I can get them. My name and Joss' name are in the same comic, so we're like peers or friends or something right? C'mon...allow me my delusions.

Lent a hand and got behind the camera last Friday night for a quick lil' music video shoot for the Bella Bombs. Directed by Brett Kelly, and shot on location at the Birdman Sound record store. Brett's put up his first run at editing the project together onto the video section of his MySpace page.

This upcoming Saturday (April 14th) at 11:30PM, the Mayfair theatre (here in Ottawa) will host a screening of Brett Kelly's new directorial effort, 'Kingdom of the Vampire'. KotH marks the millionth or so project that I've worked on with Brett in various capacity. Alright, not quite a million. But I think that we may be up to around twenty or so long or short movies ranging from a special thanks I got on one film he directed, throw in some sound stuff, gripping, and A.D.-ing, all the way up to me directing him in a feature.

Anyhow, if you're free late Saturday night, grab some friends, make your way to the Mayfair and check out the big world premiere. An (approximately) midnight madness horror show at a good ole' fashioned single big-screen theatre. No better way to see a scary vampire movie.

Got a call yesterday from area code 510. 'Where's 510?' I thought to myself as I picked up. Evidently it's in California. There's a new channel starting up called The Volt down in San Francisco and they needed my updated contact info to send me over a broadcast contract. So sooner or later some of the Batturtle shorts will be on TV down in the States. They said they'd keep me posted as to when stuff starts to actually hit the airwaves so I'd be able to spread the word. Their website is still in the midst of construction, but you can check it out here.

Over the weekend I helped out on the last couple days of shooting for 'Dead of Winter'. Which was well timed...because I think that the weekend may have been the last couple days of the season seeing how the weather is going and that the snow may soon disappear. 'DoW' is the latest project from director Jodi Pittman, who also contributed the short 'Daycamp Massacre' to the Killer63 fest late last year. Right above here is a shot of Jodi going all Rodriguez and pulling double duty as director / camera operator, as I stand by on boom patrol. There was thought that the movie would be a medium length short (45 minutes or so) and put onto a DVD with another horror film of similar running time. Now it may end up being a full length feature all on its own though. For further info on the project, feel free to link over to the Dudez Productions site.

A few more tantalising and exciting teaser shots from the action packed trailer for the non-movie phenomenon: 'Girls! Guns! Go!'.

Due to popular demand, here's a lil' look at 'Girls! Guns! Go!'. I'm thinking of putting the trailer up on the internet on one of them YouTube things. Just going to wait to find out the outcome of the festival contest first. Making fake trailers is fun (or as it was pointed out to me...it's a real trailer, just a fake non-existent movie). Way easier to make a minute or two come out the way you envisioned it in comparison to trying to do the same thing with a feature length project.

The SXSW film fest (which is hosting the Grindhouse contest) goes down from March 9th - 17th in Austin, Texas. Robert Rodriguez picks the winners, which are set to be screened on March 11th.

There's a movie coming out in a couple months called 'Grindhouse'. Actually, it's two complete feature-length movies ('Planet Terror' and 'Death Proof') under the banner of 'Grindhouse', being presented as a double-bill for one regular ticket price admission. One movie from my hero and yours, Robert Rodriguez, and one from Quentin Tarantino.

Also tagged onto the double-bill will be some trailers for some non-existent movies within the same genre. SXSW (a film and music festival from Austin, Texas) is showcasing 'Grindhouse' as part of their schedule. They're also holding a competition for filmmakers to submit their own fake movie trailers within the same 'Grindhouse' movie mind-set.

It all came about very last minute, and I almost gave up on the thought of participating due to being very busy as of late. Luckily things fell into place in the 11th hour, and the project managed to come together. So the weekend before last, Jera Kenez (who also shot stuff like 'Thursday' with me and 'Kingdom of the Vampire' with Brett Kelly) and I shot a bunch of random scenes for a trailer for a fake movie by the name of 'Girls! Guns! Go!'. A fun day of ladies in burlesque attire, one in a bathtub, one in bed, a knife, a sword, and lots of gun related action scenes. The best part is that it didn't have to really make sense, just look cool.

Then, this last weekend, my frequent collaborator Bonnie and I puzzle pieced images together to the music of the Bella Bombs and everything turned out just swell. I got the package sent off to SXSW yesterday. Even if no festival related award or praise comes out of it, this has proved a very fun lil' film-making experiment.

I'm not sure if Brett is trying to show off his manly physique in that first picture, or if he's about to punch himself in the head. Either option is equally strange.

Worked on the final bit of shooting for 'Prey for the Beast' last weekend. Some additional photography of two brand new added scenes. The first couple of pictures are from the scene shot in Jodi Pittman's apartment. Where-in his character prepares to leave on his vacation that ends up going horribly wrong (all death and killer monster attacks). D.o.P. Jera Kenez can be seen in the top photo playing with the nifty stedi-cam steering wheel thing (or 'DS9: the camera' as I dubbed it). I'm showing off my mad boom skillz in both of the interior pictures.

The third picture is an ominous shot of the ferocious man eating cows circling us as we shot a camping scene out in the middle of nowhere. They were ready to pounce as soon as one of us let our guard down.

Yesterday evening was a great night on all fronts. First we (and by "we" I mean the Ottawa Senators) beat the evil Toronto Maple Leafs 3 - 2, then I found a Pez dispenser (still in the package), and then the Killer63 premiere went incredibly well.

I took it upon myself be the ticket seller in the box office, and it was a roller-coaster heart-stopping ride of constantly almost running out of change. The Mayfair folks were quite impressed with the large crowd who came out not only to see a bunch of indie shorts, but who did so very late at night on a Saturday during the Holidays. I hope that this might mean that the theatre is open to the idea of more late night and indie screenings there.

I'm not sure what's immediately next for us in the K63. I've already gotten requests for DVD's and for another screening. So keep and eye out and check the K63 blog every so often and we'll do our best to keep you all posted of related news and upcoming events. We'll definitely be back next year for another round, only maybe a bit earlier, like around October 31st or so. Great job to all the filmmakers, and a big thank you go out to everyone who came to check out the movies. Especially the ones who coughed up six bucks to get in, not like those free-loading filmmakers. Happy New Year everyone.

The big Killer63 premiere finally happens tomorrow night. Eight brand new short horror movies for one low six dollar price.

Was interviewed today for a segment on Friday Special Blend on CKCU. It'll show up sometime during the shows broadcast tomorrow, which is in between 7AM-9:30AM. If you're not in Ottawa, you can even listen to it from the stations website.

Yesterday I also did an interview for CTV news. That ones going to show up on the 6PM and 11PM shows on Thursday, and I believe the noon one on Friday. Both interview segments were done in regards to this Saturday's Killer63 premiere (Saturday the 30th at 11:30PM...come one come all).

My friend Hellboy and I just wanted to check in and wish everyone a Merry Christmas. Or a happy fill in the blank towards whatever you do or do not choose to celebrate on or around this about time during the calender year. Hope everyone gets to gorge themselves on endless amounts of good food, that lots of swell presents are opened, and that most importantly of all, I receive the Shaun of the Dead and / or Bubba Ho-Tep action figures from Santa.

Alas no...there isn't really a movie called 'Evil Dead: Dead in the Water' screening at the Mayfair Theatre here in Ottawa. Why not? Well...because unfortunately that's an imaginary movie title that we made up and slapped on the marquee of the theatre while shooting a project called 'Mythic Hero' some years back. We actually got the hopes up of a few passers by who thought that there actually was a real 'Evil Dead IV' screening there that night. Good times.

What IS set to soon premiere at the Mayfair though is the inaugural batch of Killer63 short horror movies. You can find the listing on the new schedule that runs from (December 10th - January 13th). We're on Saturday December 30th at 11:30PM. Tell your friends.

Some folks know about this development already, but I didn't want to 100% spread the word until everything was official and organized. After much paperwork (oh how I do hate the boring, necessary evil of paperwork) and e-mailing back and forth, things are finally in line to have some Batturtle stuff shown on CHUM's Drive-In Classics channel. The bad vampire / good vampire set-up to the feature length movie version starring the characters, 'Gwen' and 'Mercy', along with the horrifically bad night at the office story 'Thursday' will all start to be shown on the channel sometime in the near future.

There's a link on their website that says: 'Seen it on DIC? Ask us to play it again!'. So if anyone does subscribe to the channel, and does happen to catch one of the shorts while watching, please do feel free to drop them a quick e-mail (only if you have nice things to say...bad things to say, please disregard).

This exciting behind the scene picture was taken on location during production of my latest short a couple weekends ago. As I go over the scene with actress Tara MacKenzie, actor Mark Courneyea mugs it up for the camera (which evidently is a sickness on his part, as he does so in every single bit of still photography that he's ever been caught in ever).

The short ('Checklist') will be premiered along with a batch of other horror shorts on Saturday December 30th at the Mayfair Theatre in Ottawa. On one hand, the screening is happening during the busy holiday season, so that might keep things too hectic for a lot of folks to tear themselves away from winter-y plans to check out the movies. At the same time though, it's on a Saturday night, post Christmas and pre New Years Eve. Plus, I just really wanted to make a lil' dream come true and have a screening at the Mayfair.

So it's actually not all that exciting of a shot, and much delayed in being posted. But I wanted to put an update on here and this is the only new-ish picture that I have handy. My blogging time has been all taken up over on the Killer63 blog, which has had many more updates and exciting pictures of late.

Did the first day of shooting for my contribution to the K63 this past weekend. Our second bit of shooting is this afternoon. Shouldn't take too long, just a couple hours of shooting in a coffee shop to intro the characters and lead in to all the fun horror stuff from the second half of the script that we've already shot. There were some pictures taken on Saturday, but I'm kind of hesitant to put any up just yet. Being that it's a short horror movie with a twist in it, I don't want to go and give anything away and play the spoiler.

The first issue of the Bonesetter comic book is now available to order. Written by Brett Kelly with art by Chris Herndon (Living with Zombies). The cover is by Nick Bradshaw of 'Army of Darkness' and 'Danger Girl' fame (well...comic book geek fame anyhow) with colouring from my friend Bao Phan (who cursed Nick's attention to detail with those dozens and dozens of bones). If you want more info on the comic, check out Brett's site, which you can link over to from here. Or you can order the comic directly through Comixpress. I've written a pair of stories set to appear in upcoming issues.

Some logo roughs for Comic Book Connection
from Barry Bradfield at Basement 24

Arthur Masters over at The Ottawa Local Podcast did a bit of a behind the scenes segment covering our audition process for the Comic Book Connection project. Then there's a bit of a comic book related interview with myself tagged onto there too.

You can check it out, along with the rest of the program right here.

A lil' behind the scene glimpse from Brett Kelly's latest directorial effort 'Prey for the Beast'. The shoot happened for the most part somewhere in the west end forests on the outskirts of Ottawa. On the left hand side of the picture you've got producer / actor Jodi Pittman looking on, Ralph Gethings on camera, and Howard Sonnenberg doing sound. You can just catch a glimpse of me (or at least my Sens cap) hiding in the background behind everyone (think I was on camera assist / clapper board duties that day). On the right you have actor / director Brett and the rest of his cast. The movie is set for release in early 2007.

Wheels continue to be in motion along the path towards geeky world domination. Tomorrow: a round of auditions for the host position for the Comic Book Connection.

Friend and Batturtle actress movie alum Mary Mac has gotten herself in the running to be the new Kokanee Glacier Girl. She's good people, so you should take a second from your hectic web-surfing day and go vote for her, 'cause I say so.

http://www.citytv.com/glaciergirl/

Here's a couple of logo designs for the new top secret project. Unless you can read...then it's not so much of a secret I guess. They're created by Barry Bradfield from Basement 24, check out his website over in the links section. His Minimate toy designs are awesome.

Another delayed update. This one on last weekend's Comic Book Expo in Toronto. Above you'll see a Commander Rick sketch by Ty Templeton. If you're not in the know, Commander Rick hosted a comic book / science fiction themed show called 'Prisoners of Gravity' that was on from '89-'94 on TVO (the public TV channel in Ontario on the off chance that anyone from far away is reading this). It was the best show. They interviewed everyone: Niel Gaiman, Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Sam Raimi, Jack Kirby (!) and many many more. Anyhow, Ty did the art for the opening of the show, so it was very kind of him to add a very nice sketch to my collection.
As fate would have it, I ended up being alongside a few other folks keeping Mark Askwith (PoG producer, interviewer and mastermind) away from his being set-up surprise birthday party. Which I got to tag along to. Met bunches of other cool people, including none other than (Commander) Rick Green himself.

So that night was the highlight hands down. Managed to add a few other sketches to the book. The couple below are from Yanick Paquette (who's currently in the midst of doing some Civil War stuff at Marvel) and Andrew Barr (check out his site at: www.somethingagogo.com ).
Got a lovely bizarre sketch of some kindah' unicorn monster from an artist who you should check out at www.yargot.com. And got in my annual visit with and comic book purchase from Tyrone McCarthy. Check out his comic book titled website at www.CorduroyHigh.com and buy many of his comics.

Went to see an evil movie about an alien invasion with the rather appropriate title of 'Evil Aliens'. Bought some Hellboy toys. Hung out at Brett Kelly's booth for a bit as he peddled his wares. They sold out of 'My Dead Girlfriend' DVD's. Always nice. By Sunday I was completely worn out. Didn't pace myself well enough. Need to remember to get in more sit down geeking (panels and movies) at the next con. I did bump into the actual Carrie Fisher, but alas, no geek-girl metal bikini Leia pictures this time.

The Bulleteer sketch by Yanick Paquette

Undead Space Monkey sketch by Andrew Barr

Off bright and early to the big bad city of Toronto for the Comic Book Expo tomorrow. Not there screening any of my stuff, purely visiting for geek fan reasons alone.

Though I did work part-time on the crew for 'My Dead Girlfriend', which will be screening Sunday-September-3rd at noon as part of the Rue Morgue Festival of Fear portion of the con.

I'll return next week with sketches to share and photo's of at least one Metal Bikini Leia.

Happy Snakes On A Plane Day!!! Hope everyone has a good time skipping work, ditching out on family obligations, and dropping every single much lesser important of a thing you might have to do this day while all of us (by us I mean North America) are going to view what I'm sure will be the greatest film of the year if not all time, Snakes on a Plane. It's a great time to be alive.

Sun 23rd -

A Usagi Yojimbo sketch from Stan Sakai. The nicest guy in comics.

Last day of the con. So sad. Went back and got that Spike toy that they were giving away as a prize at the blood drive. See, I went and gave 'em my blood a couple of days ago 'cause I thought it was a humorous promotion (a vampire in trade for blood), and 'cause it would be an awesome birthday gift for a friend of mine who's b-day party happened while I was off in California. They ran out of Spike's, but I got some secret info on the QT that if I went back today there might be more. So I returned and used what little charm and charisma I could muster and tricked them into giving me one.

Didn't get an award from the film fest. Wasn't really expecting one, that 'an honour just to be accepted' cliche really is true after all. How about that? Who knew?

Bought some kewl stuff. Got a really nice 'Yeah Yeah Yeahs' concert poster and a Skull the Troll stuffed animal. Managed to ge a batch of last day sketches (Gene Ha, Zander Cannon, Josh Howard, Shannon Wheeler...). Strolled by one booth and there stood Jim Steranko. No one was bothering him, so I went up and we chatted about his current projects. Great guy, and he looks like he should be a character in a James Bond movie or be doing an interview from the Playboy mansion or something.

At the end of the day, the sarcastic voice-of god female announcer that had been updating and chastising all weekend announced that the 2006 Con is now closed. This gets a giant cheer and a big round of applause. Think everyone's just happy that they survived. I'll miss the con so. Barring imprisonment or death, I'll be back next year.

Sat 22nd -

Geek girl dressed like Phoenix. Just walking around. What's better than that?

Met a couple of very kewl NYC artists, check out their sites ( GBTRAN.com and joannarchy.com ...though the latter is 'coming soon' at the time of this writing). Went to the Robert Rodriguez / Grind House panel. Supposedly geeks were lined up since the early AM hours outside in the scorching heat all day to secure a seat. I strolled in a few minutes before show-time and got myself a 2nd row centre chair. His special surprise guest was Quentin Tarintio, along with a whole bunch of babes who are starring in the movies. They're an odd pair. Robert showed some stuff from his 1/2 of the double bill. A zombie movie in which Rose McGowan has a gun for a leg. What more could you want our of a motion picture? Later in the day was blessed to be in attendance of the Brisco County Jr panel, featuring the man himself, Bruce Campbell. This guy knows how to work an audience. I'm pretty sure that if Jesus had had a panel going at the same time, that Jesus would've gotten a pretty good turn out, but Bruce's would have a slightly longer line. He announced that they were going to be doing an autograph signing downstairs. I bolted from the room. Sprinting Ferris Bueller style the mile or so between the panel hall to the Warner Bros booth at the main convention centre. Managed to secure myself a place 2nd last in line before it was cut-off. More impressive was that I didn't cause a scene upon meeting Bruce. Shook hands, brief conversation, gave him a DVD, got a couple autographs, didn't pass out form geek-citement.

Got a lot of kewl sketches. A Tick from Ben Edlund, Flaming Carrot from Bob Burden, and one from Ahmet Zappa (yup...Frank's kid). Scored a Green Lantern ring from the DC area. Went to see the Firefly / Serenity doc 'Done the Impossible'. Hung out with Vancouver folks afterwards at the unofficial con after party thing. Including former 'Prisoners of Gravity' master-mind Mark Askwith. He works at Space (the TV channel...not in space) and was integral in getting my stuff onto Drive-In Classics.

Fri 21st -

Monique (wife of Tom) accompanied me to a Hellboy cartoon panel. We got free T-shirts. I love the free swag. Got to meet Guillermo Del Toro and Doug Jones thanks to the Pan's Labyrynth autograph session. Guillermo asked for a copy of my short films (which he got). Gave one to Doug too. Good folks, can't wait for P.L. and Hellboy II. The cool thing about San Diego, is that there's celebrity folks walking around for no other reason than geek-ness. I bumped into and had a nice lil' conversation with David Arquette. Ran into Craig, an Ottawa comic book artist friend. Strange running into someone from home amongst a crowd of some 100,000 people. He had just seen Joss Whedon walking about. I was not so lucky as to see Joss. Had great luck in the in the meeting artists and getting sketches game. The highlights were ones from Phil Hester, Erik Larsen, and David Llyod. My personal favorite is a very quick Leia sketch that I managed to get from Adam Hughes. He did it in about 5 seconds with a Sharpie. Awesome. I'm the envey of all my geeky friends.

My screening for '07-07-13' was that night. Their projector was having issues, luckily I had a back-up disc on hand (the poor bastards in front of me didn't think to bring one). It went really well. Folks in the audience seemed to genuinely applaud at the end, I answered a bunch of questions afterwards. Even better was the actress who was there to speak about the film that was on after mine...well, how can I put this diplomatically? She was a bit of a train wreck. People started sneaking out. We did the same after a while. She was just very passionate about the film and no-one else really was. Uncomfortable and hilarious all rolled into one.

At the hotel bar that night had a long conversation with Erik Larsen. Which was pretty cool, I've been reading Savage Dragon since day one. Later found myself talking with Jim Lee. Said I was looking forward to WildCats (just 'cause it's written by Grant Morrison...but I left out that). He said that he should really start working on that...I think it's gonna' be late. Met Dean Halund. He was in X-Files (one of those Lone Gunmen guys) while I was living in Vanouver years back. He also did Improv stuff with my non-blood relation big sister. Spinning from that ended up meeting and re-meeting a bunch of other Vancouver folks who knew her. Like Simpsons comic writer Ian Boothby & his lovely wife Pia. Good folks. Funny how Canadians manage to find each other during their world travels.

Thurs 20th -

Here's a sketch from Tom's artist alley neighbour and all around nice guy Drew Johnson.

Went to an incredible panel featuring my favorite writer on the planet, Grant Morrison. He was with Deepak Chopra (yes...that Deepak Chopra) discussing comic books and mythology and stuff. Whenever Grant wants to start up a crazy alien based Scientology type religion you can count me in. I'll be first in line. Then I rushed off to the Guillermo Del Toro / Doug Jones panel for 'Pan's Labyrynth'. They were a hilarious Odd Couple. A big fat friendly foul mouthed Spanish comic geek and his lil' thin polite blonde character actor mime side-kick. Somehow at one point found myself chatting with, and then over the weekend befriending, one of Rob Liefeld's entourage. I've never been a fan of Rob's art, but the nice guy reputation of he and his his posse is spot on. Got sketches from Cully Hamner and Kyle Baker amongst others.

Chatted with Amanda Conner at the after party type mingling that goes on every night once the con shuts down for the day. Had met her a couple months previous at another comic con in Pittsburgh. There's a reason that she and her partner Jimmy Palmiotti have become the possible king and queen fan favorites amongst the comic geek community. Besides for talent, they're both just plain nice. And I think that every guy who meets Amanda develops a geek crush pretty much instantaneously.

Look! A token babe dressed as slave girl Leia shot. Good times. Good times. It's much over-due (considering that I've been back on Canadian soilsince very late at night on July 24th), but here's my San Diego Comic Con update. I'll just break things up day by day so things aren't too mashed up in a mess of random yelling 'This is the coolest thing ever!' over and over again.

Wed 19th -

This is supposedly the preview night that only 4 day pass holders and pro's (that's me!) get into. Evidently there's a lot of 4 day pass holders and pro's. Upon walking into the main area of the Comic Con, one's mind is blown. I think I may have actually had a small stroke and / or heart attack. That might have just been the sun-stroke though. It's hard to explain how big of a gathering it is, except to say that it's geek for as far as the eye could see. Met Mike Mignola (but no sketch dammit). Did get sketches from genius animator BillPlympton, Scott Kurtz (PVP), the Penny Arcade guys, and the highlight of the night for me, Scott Shaw. Gushed to him that Captain Carrot was my favorite comic when I was a wee lad and he was nice enough to gimmie a sketch.

That evening I accompanied my comic artist friend (and roommate for the week) Tom Fowler to the nearby hotel where all the pro's hang out. We were staying in a condo a mere few blocks from the con, very convenient. Met Judd Wynick and managed to remain pleasant and refrain from saying 'Man...that bringing back Jason Todd story-line sure was stupid'. Then, strangely enough, met my high school gym teacher's son. What's the chances of that? And, met a fine Austrailian fellow named Shane who's writing some Zombie stuff for IDW.

Well, it's nearly 6AM on Sunday morning. 24 hours from now I'll be heading off to the airport for my trek down to San Diego. I've just finished gathering together a handful of things that I'm bringing along in hopes to get autographed. Tomorrow I gotta' get some DVD cases, bind some scripts, do laundry and other such last minute pre-trip excitement. I'm not sure if I'll have easily accessible internet access down there. If I don't manage a post from U.S. soil, there will be one soon after my return. That is unless I meet, fall for and elope with a nice Tomb Raider booth babe, then you'll never hear from me again.