[Groop] NY Big Apple Con and Broadway Report

George Karalias george at karalias.com
Fri Apr 8 11:43:49 PDT 2005


Hello everyone,
Well, it's a week late, but here is my Con report.
For pictures go to: http://www.karalias.com/NYCon2005/NYComic2005.htm

SEEING SERGIO.
Last Friday, we started off by arriving at the Hotel Pennsylvania to be 
greeted by one the worst rooms my family and I have ever been in. I've 
stayed there on business and the rooms have been great, but obviously 
they had run out of the good ones! We were able to move over to the 
Marriott Marquis in Times Square, which was absolutely beautiful.

I popped into the Con at about 7pm on Friday night to see if Sergio was 
there. He was and was about to be interviewed on camera. He took a 
couple of minutes to say hi and meet Caroline, my 10 yr old daughter. I 
then asked Sergio if he had plans for dinner. He said he did not! We 
agreed to meet up at "Bubba Gump's" in Times Square. It was an 
absolutely wonderful time. Lindsey, my 7 yr old daughter, found a new 
best friend in Sergio. He joked and doodled on scraps of paper with her. 
We exchanged some great stories, and of course, talked about Gary for a 
bit. (All good, Gary... not to worry!) As my wife Susan said, he is one 
of the easiest people to talk to!

On Saturday, we all went to the Con and met several other artists and 
ended up talking to Neal Adams and his wife for a while. (Susan and I 
had met them a few years ago at a video game conference) However, this 
is the funny part: Neal started talking to the kids and telling us about 
the animation side of his world (his production company recently 
completed the "Nasanex" commercial with the animated bees) and how we 
liked the con so far. Then, he told the kids: "...you know, there's an 
artist here who is a great kid-friendly cartoonist. You should check out 
his stuff. His name is Sergio Aragones..." Lindsey's eyes went wide at 
that point and she announced that we had gone to dinner with him the 
night before!

After looking around the show for a little bit, we went over to Sergio's 
table and bought some books for the girls (and myself... he had the new 
"definitions" book there). I ended up staying at the table for a bit 
before Sergio's interview. All of us met up again at the interview and 
enjoyed Sergio's stories. After that we said our good-byes to Sergio and 
headed out into to windy, rainy streets of NYC. (We weren't leaving NY 
till Sunday, but we had other things we were going to be doing the rest 
of the time...)

GROO GETS A JOB ON BROADWAY.
That evening we went to dinner at Chevy's and then went to see the show, 
"Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". Groo was there... I kid you not! Let me 
explain. First, let me tell you that the show was excellent. We all 
loved it. Beautiful scenery, excellent performances by all the cast, and 
technically a marvel! For a couple of the scenes, the car actually 
leaves the stage and flies and turns around over the audience. 
Incidentally, the show was in its 7th night... so they were still 
working out the kinks. That said, here are the "Groo" incidents.... 
Groo's first job backstage was "audio technician." About 15 minutes into 
the show, the entire sound system rumbled, crackled, hissed, hissed 
again, and then completely went out. No microphones were working from 
anyone on stage or the orchestra! It had turned into a Sergio-pantomime! 
The actors finished up the scene as best they could and the house lights 
came up and they spent the next 15+ minutes fixing the problem... and 
moving Groo to another job. They figured if they gave him something to 
do at the end of the show, he wouldn't have time to wreck anything else 
during the show. Brilliant. However, the job he was given was to fire 
off the confetti cannons at the end of the performance. Well, I can only 
guess, but I think Groo decided to check the suspension holding the 
cannons. During intermission, one of the cannons came loose from the 
ceiling/rafters and crashed down to the floor, triggering the very loud, 
very startling confetti explosion. The seat it hit was demolished. The 
person sitting there was either in the bathroom or getting candy... 
thank God! The gentleman sitting next to it was white as a sheet. I was 
thankful that our seats were in the first row under the mezzanine balcony.

On Sunday morning, I finally got to meet my "old friend" Larry Steller. 
We had a great time chatting and having coffee at the Howard Johnson's 
next to the Marriott Marquis. Larry's a great guy and told me about his 
future career plans that sound really exciting (I'll let him fill you 
in) Since Boston and NY are so close, I'm sure we'll be meeting up again 
soon.

Needless to say, this is a show and a weekend that my whole family will 
never forget!

-George

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