[Groop]GROOFEST 2001

[Lawrence Steller]

GROOFEST 2001

Since my return from California, I've had nothing but
late work nights, as a job like mine doesn't just let
you take a two week vacation without expecting major
PAYBACK! Much catching up to do, no sleep, so no time
to netsurf!

Anyway, I haven't checked my mail all week, thus I
haven't had a chance to jot down my GROOFEST memoirs,
so here goes. Settle in, Groop, this is gonna be a
LONG post!

First of all, the unnamed Grooper in Greg's GROOFEST
2000 picture, standing between Ruben & Greg was Jeff
Kozicki. I know I'm mangling your name, Jeff, but it's
off the top of my head! Sorry! We had a great session
playing the GROO CARD GAME, something I didn't have a
chance to do this year. The name of our buddy on the
far left escapes me, SORRY AGAIN!!!

Now, to business!! 

1) A SURPRISE GUEST:

The MARK & SERGIO SHOW started off with a rather BIG
surprise - SERGIO ARRIVED ON TIME!!! The man not only
knows how to make an entrance, he also knows how to
make a JOURNEY! 

I stopped by SERGIO's table on my way to the panel
because in my limited experience I know he tends to be
late to these things and wanted to make sure he didn't
forget. Of course Gary was there, as was Eric Chun. As
we left, SCOTT SHAW'S two boys of about 12 & 10, Kirby
and, ummm, not-Kirby (sorry!) decided to come as well.
So off we go, single file, weaving through the
convention center, with me bringing up the rear as
much to keep the SHAW BOYS from getting lost as
anything else.  As we proceeded, Sergio kept stopping
to say hi to people, and very soon I noticed Kevin
Hall had joined the entourage. I think it was Kevin
who made the joke about us being Sergio's bodyguards,
the orange amigos! 

As we slalomed through the crowd, single file behind
Sergio, I couldn't help making quacking noises; that's
just the kind of guy I am! Well, as we reached a
central pillar Sergio decided to playfully circle it a
few times to see how we would react. Hey, we're The
Groop! Of course we circled the pillar too, to the
amusement of many an onlooker! After a few superfluous
twists and turns for comic effect, we finally made it
to the panel (on time!!!), which was already pretty
full, and Sergio jogged up to the podium to great
applause!

Mark introduced Gordon Kent by saying: "Can any of you
guess the identity of our surprise guest? He's one of
the few to work on Groo, come on Gary, YOU'VE gotta
know this..." (or words to that effect)

Now Gary knew who it was, I have no doubt, but he got
tongue-tied. You ever get flustered and forget a close
friend's name during introductions? No? Well it
happens to me way too often, and my guess is it
happened to Gary too. He put his head down and bashed
through his mental Groo collection until he finally,
painfully came up with "GORDON KENT!!!" 

Can we say enough good things about Sergio, Mark, Stan
& Tom? I think not. These guys are just SOOO friendly,
so accessible, and just plain cool! Well, we've been
singing their praises on this list for long enough, so
let me add one more: GORDON KENT! Another nice,
friendly guy who chatted amiably with Gary & I after
the panel. 

During the panel, Gordon fessed up that the choice of
ORANGE for Groo's jerkin was his to make, as Sergio
didn't really offer any opinions about how to color
This Thing Called Groo. So based on the type of
backgrounds which seemed natural for the story's
setting, he pretty much defaulted to orange almost by
accident, in order to make Groo stand out from the
background properly and without overdoing the color
palette. 

2) THAIIS!!! A LARRY GROOISM:

When I first arrived at the con Thursday morning,
Sergio hadn't yet arrived, so I kept checking back at
his table until around noon or so, when I saw that The
Doctor Was In. OF COURSE Gary was there already, how
could he not be, he's Gary! So I was hanging around
chatting with Gary, waiting for the crowd around
Sergio to thin a bit so I could say hello, when I
couldn't help but notice the EXTREMELY cute girl
standing behind the table with Sergio. She didn't have
a name tag, but she obviously knew Sergio and was
helping him with the booth. 

I gave her a shy hello (did I mention she's
beautiful?) and chatted with Gary a bit, when I
realized she really, really looked familiar. Striking,
gorgeous, but also familiar. I turned to Gary and
said, quite innocently: 

"You know Gary, she could almost be the model for
THAIIS." 

Gary's jaw dropped and hung there a bit, swinging idly
from side to side, then said:

"Are you kidding? You're not serious are you? You
idiot, that's Sergio's daughter, Christen, and of
COURSE she was the model for THAIIS!!! Tell me you
really didn't know that!!!!!!!!"

Okay, he may not have called me an idiot, but probably
should have. Anyway, I should have replied with a
"What do you mean I'm slow of mind" but was too slow
of mind to think of it. 

Instead, I said: "But, but, she's waaaay too young to
have been the model for Thaiis, isn't she?" 

Well, in talking to Christen, it turns out she was all
of fourteen when Thaiis was created a bit over over
ten years ago, so I guess that settles that. Christen
was as kind and sweet (and beautiful) as you would
expect of an Aragones!!! By the way, she said Thaiis
is pronounced (if I remember right) as "Tie EESS." I
always said "THIGH iss" Shows you what I know!

3) GROO GOES NORTH, PART 1:

I made a pretty major purchase, something that I
couldn't really afford but also couldn't afford NOT to
do: I bought 2 original Groo pages from Sergio.
They're from Image #8, pages 7&8, and if you check
them out you'll see why I couldn't resist owning this
piece of history. (HINT: PIPIL KHAN!!!)

Anyway, Gary and I had about an hour to kill before
The Gene Colan Surprise panel (KEVIN HAS TO TELL THAT
COMPLETE TALE!!!), so I decided to return my Groo
originals to my hotel room and go with Gary to check
into his (he came straight to the con without checking
into his hotel first; hey, there's a reason we call
him Dessesbo!).  

So we hit my hotel, dropped off the pages, then
started to walk to Gary's hotel: the COMFORT INN. It
was a decent walk, and I was pretty sure I knew the
way, and we had plenty of time...

As we wandered in the general direction I thought the
hotel was in, I made a joke about this turning into a
GROO GOES NORTH bit; and that we were probably heading
in entirely the wrong direction. And you know what?
Pretty soon we found the Comfort Inn. Amazing, huh? 

But not quite as amazing as the look on Gary's face
when he checked his reservation and realized that he
was staying at the Best Western...ACROSS TOWN!!! We
were a half hour late to Gene Colan's panel. Did we
err???

4) GROO GOES NORTH, PART 2:
At the end of the day Thursday, my friends from New
York were not up to dinner out, so Scott Hudlow & I
decided to go out for a bite. Now Scott was parked in
the Convention Center, pretty convenient to the
Gaslamp District, but Scott mentioned that there's
this great brewery that would make a fun evening, and
I eagerly agreed. So we piled into his pickup and
headed (as it turned out) NORTH.

Which made me decided to tell Scott the whole story of
"GROO GOES NORTH", which was not yet labeled "PART 1"
for obvious reasons, and he agreed that I had to post
this story to the Groop. 

Well, I guess I kind of distracted Scott, because we
KEPT going north past the exit for the brewery! No
problem, we just turned around to go back - and missed
the exit again! So we turned around again and headed
north again and this time managed to find the right
road, - there's the brewery RIGHT THERE on the left - 
but we couldn't turn left THERE so we had to go
straight and turned right down a street that then
curved east again - OY! 

So Scott did a U-turn in a parking lot and headed back
towards the brewery. We even made the turn we wanted
and followed signs for parking but ended up in a
deserted unpaved lot filled (or should I say unfilled)
with potholes. So we off-roaded it till we came to a
side street next to the brewery, parked on the street
next to the brewery, walked up to the brewery, and
noticed how deserted and closed-looking the brewery
seemed. DID WE ERR?

So we drove BACK to the Gaslamp District and drove
around and around trying to find a parking space,
finally parking EXACTLY where we had left from an hour
earlier - The Convention Center!!!

Scott agreed that this, too, had to be posted to the
Groop!  

5) THE REVERSE AUTOGRAPH:

Sorry I'm jumping around bit! After the Groo Panel,
people lined up for autographs from Mark, Stan, Tom &
Gordon (Sergio had to dash, he was late for a signing
at Dark Horse...), so I lined up too, even though I
hadn't brought anything to be signed. What I DID bring
was a very odd gift for Mark, what I call the
reverse-autograph. In GROO MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD #3,
I had a letter printed in which I stated that I didn't
know what to write since I hadn't read this issue yet,
and instead left blank lines where I would fill in my
comments later. Mark's response that issue was to
leave more blanks and instruct me to feel free to fill
in his sarcastic comments, too. SO I DID!!! I gave
Mark a copy of the issue with my comments written in
and even my faked Mark comments written in (that I had
to label L.S. for M.E.) I think he liked the weird
idea of getting an issue signed by a fan, but he could
have just been being nice...

6) I ERR AGAIN! GROO AT THE MASQUERADE:

This isn't really funny, but at least it's short! I
bought a digital camera JUST so I could take pictures
of the con, but ESPECIALLY for the MASQUERADE party,
which always has great costumes. While no flash
photography was allowed in the hall (which seats
around 4500 and was turning people away), I knew that
they had an area offstage where you could take
pictures, so I figured I would watch the show from
there. What I DIDN'T know is that, special (free)
passes were needed to get into this area, and that
they were all gone DAYS ago. DID I ERR? Yup. 

I tried taking pictures of the viewscreen without a
flash. They couldn't have come out WORSE if I had kept
the lens cap on! Oh well, maybe next year.

7) OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS:

RICK BECKLEY! We met only briefly, and I figured I'd
see you at the Groo Panel, but we never quite hooked
up. I wanted to get OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS #2 from you
because I SO enjoyed #1, but never made it to the
CBLDF booth. As it turns out, you didn't have the
issues anyway, but at least I picked it up at my comic
shop. GOOD STUFF again! What a hoot! Anyone who wants
an issue and can't find it, email me and I'll get them
from my shop (MIDTOWN COMICS, a great store, PLUG,
PLUG)

That's all for now. I'll post more anecdotes as I
think of them, or if you're really lucky  I WON'T!
Also, eventually I'll figure out how to download my
con pix out of my camera, I'm sure it's easy but
didn't have time to try tonight cause I was doing THIS
and now it's 12:30 and time for BED!!! BYE!!!!!!!!

=====
Larry Steller AKA The Sheik Of Entropy

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