[Groop] Dessesbo's Con Report

[Chris Schechner]

Not lame. Very informative. Almost like it was written by a sane person.
Thanks Gary.

(Did Mrs. G write it?)

Chris

on 8/3/09 6:47 PM, Gary Grossmann at garyg5678 at live.com wrote:

> Hi Folks!  
>  
> This will be a pretty lame Con report, especially after the always marvelous
> con report by The Kunster.  Some stuff I¹m putting in is info for folks who
> might come sometime who have never been there before.
>  
> I¹m going to start with a little pre-Con report.  The Long Suffering Mrs. G.
> and I decided to make a full vacation out of our trek to the Con this year.
> We rented car and drove from Olympia, WA to Klamath Falls, OR on Saturday and
> then relaxed on Sunday.  It¹s a beautiful area and if we had been staying more
> than a day and half we would have gone to Crater Lake (which we have seen
> before and is amazing.)  Then on Monday we drove to Solvang, CA, which is this
> touristy town that has kind of set itself up as a little piece of Holland.
> (It was founded by a group of Dutch folks 100 years ago.)  It¹s also the
> location of one of the California Missions.  The drive was a little longer
> than we planned because we were detoured around a forest fire in Northern
> California.  But we rested another day (and ate a lot of Dutch food!) and then
> drove to San Diego on Wednesday in time for Preview Night.  All in all, a very
> fun way to get to the Con.  (We didn¹t drive back. We dropped off the rental
> car and flew home.  In a plane.)
>  
> This year we stayed at a place in Mission Valley, which is quite a ways north
> of the convention center, but near a trolley stop.  Trying to find parking
> downtown is a prescription for a popped blood vessel or three, so we either
> walked or drove to the trolley to get into town.  They had an Event Special
> trolley running, but it still took half an hour or so to get in.  It was
> pretty convenient, lots of Con goers were out there, but it made it hard for
> us to get to the convention center in time to help Sergio set up his table, so
> next year we will stay some place downtown.
>  
> A week after getting back from the Con everything is running together, so I¹ll
> just tell you about stuff as I remember it, not in any particular order.  It
> was great seeing other Groopies!  The Kunster, Eric, Forrest, Roberto, Kaytee,
> Dougie, Adriel (aka Groosagi), George of course, and Magnus all the way from
> Sweden!  Magnus¹s wife, who does not have a particular interest in comics, was
> with him, so I christened her The Long Suffering Mrs. L.  She is very sweet
> and also very understanding, just like someone else I know.
>  
> As usual I spent most of my time behind Sergio¹s table.  I never get tired of
> watching him draw and interact with folks and I really enjoy talking to all
> the different people while they stand in line and wait their turn to meet
> Sergio, and telling those who don¹t know all about his work.  (Some folks only
> know him from MAD and some don¹t even know that(!)) I also keep an eye on
> Sergio¹s stuff, especially the two portfolios of original art he has on the
> table.  (Can¹t you see the headline? ³Crazed Groo Fan Tackles Would Be Thief!²
> Subtitle: ³Thief in jail, fan held for observation² ).  But I digress.
>  
> It¹s also always great to see Scott Shaw!, whose table is always next to
> Sergio¹s, and Stan Sakai, whose table is always about 3 miles from Sergio¹s.
> Tom Luth, who is always very nice to talk to, stopped by Sergio¹s table for a
> bit as did Mark on occasion.  But this year seemed to be Gary Meets Many Cool
> Artists year.  I talked to Jerry Robinson about the origin of the Joker, Floyd
> Norman, an official Disney Legend, about the making of The Jungle Book and
> working for Disney, ³Jeffy² Keane from family Circus, who is my age and has
> taken over the strip from his dad, Bil Keane.  I also spoke with Tom Richmond,
> who in my opinion is his generation¹s Mort Drucker and a really cool guy.  And
> there were others whose names escape me at the moment but who had worked on
> things like designing some of the Muppets with Jin Henson.   I was really
> blown away.  
>  
> Meeting folks like this is one of the bennies of being an FOS (Friend of
> Sergio) and also a FOG (Friend of George) because George was and has been
> running around getting all sorts of artists to participate in his company¹s
> promotion (which I will let him explain.) for which Scott Shaw! does most of
> the cartooning.  Actually, the initials FOG are very appropriate because from
> the middle of Thursday on I felt like I was in a fog to one degree or another.
>  
> The Groo Panel was great.  Lots of good info and not a lot of stories I had
> already heard.  We will theoretically have a Groo every month for 20 months
> starting October.  4  Hogs of Hoarder, 4 Groo v. Conan, and 12 Friends and
> Foes.  Sergio also said that the reason the Groo Treasury is stalled, as well
> as the startup of the Groo Alphabet trades and Mighty Magnor is because he
> hasn¹t had a chance to dig out the negatives from their various storage
> locations.  (George and I are fighting over which one of us tries to volunteer
> to help him.  Sergio is probably hoping we both lose!)   Also, Bart Simpson
> #50 will be ALL SERGIO.  And after that there will be a monthly Sergio
> contribution called ³Maggie¹s Crib.²
>  
> The fate of the Groo Movie is in the hands of Sergio¹s now most despised
> profession:  Lawyers!!!  Apparently after finally finding a studio that would
> give them complete creative control and a verbal agreement, that same studio¹s
> lawyers wrote up a classic Hollywood definition of ³profits² which translates
> in zero kopins for Sergio and Mark.  (E.g. The Star Trek franchise has never
> turned a profit.)  But at least it¹s not completely hopeless.  Hopefully.
> Maybe.  I guess. (wimper wimper sniff sniff)
>  
> Quick Draw was also great and Mark called upon our own Dougie McCoy to be a
> participating cartoonist!!  You can see a part of it on Mark¹s website.
> However, there were two parts of Quick Draw that I really like that were not
> done this year.  There was not a
> how-many-different-things-can-Sergio-incorporate-into-one-drawing segment and
> there was not a Sergio-draws-3-4-different-gags-from-one-word segment (e.g.
> Mark says ³Fire² 4 times and you get a fireman gag, a caveman discovering fire
> gag, and two firing squad gags.)   Hopefully, there will be time to do one or
> both of those next year.
>  
> There is not much more I can think to say. (³Thank goodness!²)   I¹m sure I¹m
> forgetting something or someone.  I¹m a little bummed that I look so serious
> in my little background cameo in Sergio¹s interview.  ³Serious² is definitely
> not the word to describe me when I am at the Con.  But I didn¹t even realize a
> camera was on.  I moved out of camera range on a number of other interviews.
> The only time I can recall being on camera on purpose is years ago when Eric
> wanted me to explain why Larry & I missed the Groo Panel that year.  (It was
> my fault, of course, and had to do with a search for obscure Groo
> appearances.)  
>  
> OK, that¹s it.  I told you it would be lame.  But at least it wasn¹t three or
> four parts long like in the past.  Everyone needs to come next year!!  The
> revival of Groo will be in full swing!  So start saving your kopins now for
> GROO FEST 2010!!!!!!
>  
> Take care all,
>  
> Gary G.  
>  
> PS  The Lithos will go out by Saturday.  The UPS store didn¹t have enough
> tubes and everyone else charged too much.  

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