[Groop] NY Big Apple Con and Broadway Report

[Chris Schechner]

George,

Thanks for the report. What a delight to hear how much fun your kids had
with Sergio and vice versa! Not that it comes as any surprise, it¹s just fun
to hear.

Chris (Glorko)

on 4/8/05 1:43 PM, George Karalias at george at karalias.com wrote:

> 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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