[Groop]Mid-Ohio Con Report

[Jason Roberts]

I witnessed Sergio give Mark money on Saturay at the
con... So Mark did finally get paid. And Segio signed
my PC comics #1, 2 and 3 and then sold me a copy of #4
and #6 and signed them too and the magnet set is
great. 
--- Pengyfelix@aol.com wrote:
> Report from the con front (well, back home about 3
> hours from the Mid-Ohio 
> Con):
> 
> Mid-Ohio Con was quite fun, though smaller than we
> expected "Ohio's best 
> comic and sci-fi convention" to be.  The con took
> over the entire 
> ballroom/conference center portion of the Hilton,
> and they still had to put 
> the media guests, artists/creators, and several
> dealers in the "foyer" (read: 
> hallway).  Sergio and Mark were situated about as
> far back from the entrance 
> as humanly possible without actually putting them in
> the parking lot.  
> 
> We saw Sergio again and if he didn't remember us, he
> made it seem like he 
> did.  He is still one of the friendliest people
> ever.  We brought the first 
> comic Janet read, Groo #84, for him and Mark to
> sign, and it turns out that 
> is his favorite Groo, so Elie picked a good issue. 
> He talked with us at 
> great lengths about that issue and how it came
> about.  We also brought the 
> issue with the penguins, because Janet also collects
> penguins.  As Sergio 
> signed it, he told us all about the Antarctic cruise
> he took and saw all the 
> penguin species except one.  Is there anything
> Sergio hasn't done?  Then, to 
> top it all off, as he was signing Mark's new book
> for us, he turned the 
> publisher's logo into a penguin and drew an entire
> rookery of penguins on the 
> title page.  That was the highlight of the entire
> convention for her.
> 
> We also got the chance to meet Mark for the first
> time.  As far as we could 
> see, not wanting to act like stalkers (though we
> spent enough time at their 
> table they might think we are anyway), it's true
> what people say about Mark 
> always doing fifteen things at once.  Nonetheless,
> he still found time to 
> autograph our comics between doing other things, and
> taking time to chitchat. 
>  We can probably all agree that it's great when our
> favorite creators take 
> time to actually talk with us for a while, even if
> they probably have heard 
> whatever we have to say about a thousand times by
> now and have dinner 
> reservations to get to.
> 
> As a bonus, we also met Mark's friend Carolyn, who
> gives Sergio a run for his 
> kopins as one of the friendliest people ever, even
> though she did hatch a 
> devious plan when we told her that cheese dip was on
> the hotel's room service 
> menu and we were staying at the same hotel.  We
> would have carried it out if 
> the cheese dip weren't something like twelve bucks
> when you added in gratuity 
> and delivery charge.  Maybe next time.  Still,
> Carolyn is nice, spent a lot 
> of time talking with us, and even remembered us the
> next day when we saw her 
> at the Mark and Sergio panel.  Hope we get a chance
> to see her again sometime 
> after having read Pogo.  Even if we didn't know she
> was an artist and hence 
> could not have been fans, she was a great person to
> talk to.
> 
> We attended more panels than we usually do at a con.
>  They were all very 
> enlightening even though at each one, one or two
> people seemed to hijack the 
> Q&A part with questions along the lines of "In issue
> 10, page 16, panel 3, 
> ..." and not let up for the entire time.  Mark is a
> great panel facilitator 
> who made sure everyone got a chance to ask their
> questions at the two panels 
> he did with Al Feldstein and Alan Burnett.  
> 
> The powers that be decided to combine the
> Sergio/Mark panel with the Jeff 
> Smith panel scheduled at the same time.  Good in
> that we didn't have to 
> decide between the two, but bad in that it seemed
> that most of the people 
> asking questions were there to talk about Bone, so
> we didn't get the hour of 
> pure Mark&Sergio that we were hoping for.  
> 
> Elie participated in the Mid-Ohio Con Squares game
> (much like Hollywood 
> squares except with celebrity comics creators).  He
> won a can of Turtle Wax 
> after a hard-fought round.  Mark was even a guest
> square, by virtue of 
> standing in the back of the room.  He was given the
> question "who was the 
> first actor to play Batman on the silver screen?"
> and--get this--the 
> contestant actually DISAGREED with Mark's answer! 
> Who in their right mind 
> disagrees with Mark on matters of comics or
> Hollywood?
> 
> Gary:  Mark and Sergio both say "Hi" back and Sergio
> wanted me to tell you 
> that you are very much in his thoughts and he hasn't
> forgotten (We're not 
> entirely certain what he said he would remember, but
> whatever it is, he 
> hasn't forgotten it).  Had we had $350, we would
> have bought you one of the 
> pieces of original art Sergio was selling.
> 
> --Elie and Janet
> 


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