So, today was the first day of the comic book show where I was going to finally get the chance to meet Batman and Robin - Adam West and Burt Ward. Unfortunately, they cancelled their appearance. But I'd already signed up to work as a volunteer, so I didn't bail and fulfilled my duty. But the day was not a total loss - not by a long shot.

I got my picture taken in the Batmobile. (This is just a picture of the picture.)



I picked up a couple Hot Wheels Batmobiles. Totally struck out on action figures today - reallly didn't find much in that line that I liked.

I got to meet Ken Kelly, who did the artwork for the covers for Kiss's "Destroyer" (both versions) and "Love Gun", and Ace Frehley's "Space Invader" (and to translate all that for IP, Rainbow's "Rising"). Very nice guy - had a nice little chat about the new Ace cover, and I told him even though a lot of people point to "Destroyer" as the classic cover, for me, "Love Gun" is the one. I got an 8x10 print of that signed, although it was hard to resist a much bigger version on watercolor paper.

Linda Blair was also there, but I didn't get a picture - she does look good, though. They also had wrestlers Honky Tonk Man and Greg "The Hammer" Valentine (who looks just like he did 30 years ago). I didn't see anyone at their tables.

But the big attraction was this guy:



Yep - got to meet the Fonz. What an incredibly nice guy. His line was the longest, but being Friday, it was not horrible. I got in line to meet him, and after 25 minutes or so, I was about 7 people back from the table. He stopped signing at that point, and walked the entire length of the line, shaking all of our hands, saying hi, and thanking us for waiting in line. Then he went back to the table and resumed signing. I have NEVER, ever seen someone do that at a signing. And he was not rushing people through - he was taking time to talk to everyone, especially the kids. There was a young kid with his parents in front of me, and Henry talked to him about his kids books and what they were about, and about working hard in school and how it was important to do as well as he could. (I told that story to Ken Kelly because he asked how my experience with Henry was, and he said he'd never heard of anyone walking the line like that, and that it was cool to hear that somebody of that stature was such a cool guy.)

And Henry knows cool...



I may go back tom'w - I got a 3-day pass for volunteering, and Henry Winkler and Tom Savini are doing Q&A sessions back-to-back. Plus, they're doing professional pics w/the celebs, so that's a possibility w/Linda Blair and/or Henry Winkler.

There was some music-related stuff - a fair amount of old magazines, and several people selling albums. I saw a Zappa promo (three tracks from "Shut Up N Play Your Guitar") that I thought about grabbing, and an import Zappa disc that looked like a compilation but seemed overpriced at $40. A few Kiss-related items - action figures, Johnny LIghtning cars, and a European car labeled "Years Of Decibels". Oh, and a set of South Park figures of the boys when they were the boy band Fingerbang (I may grab that).

I'm disappointed about the West/Ward thing, but if I hadn't volunteered because of them, I probably wouldn't have gone to this show, and would have missed this chance.

Alan is great!

Alan is great stuff!

Wow...thanks for sharing Alan. That was really great!

That is so cool! And the Fonze is right!

Young me would have killed to meet the Fonz. I even had an official leather jacket! Great pics.

Very coolamundo, Alan!

Great story!

P.S. Love your t-shirt.

Ken Kelly!

Yes, Alan as soon as I started reading that, I was thinking, "Alan better mention Rainbow Rising", and you did not disappoint.

Henry Winkler? What a great thing to read-he looks great and he is brilliant on Arrested Development.

Cool stuff.

Great story, Alan! I've heard many stories about how nice of a guy that Henry Winkler is and yours adds to that!

Did something I don't think I've ever done - went back to the comic book show. Hell, I had a three-day pass, figured I might as well use it. I really only went for two Q&A sessions - Henry WInkler and Tom Savini - but I did roam around again. Picked up three "less than official" items - a TARDIS light switch cover for my son, a Weeping Angel light switch cover for my room, and a boot copy of "Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park" - fairly poor quality, probably off a third or fourth generation VHS. And it has the Euro version on it as well. But, I figured that's what I was getting, and for $5, I'm not complaining (but my wife is).

So, Q&As - caught the last 5-7 minutes of Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca). No offense intended, but he looks half-Wookie. Or at least he did today.

Was able to move up to the third row for Henry Winkler (in my Children's Hospital t-shirt - why wasn't I wearing this yesterday??????). His session started about 10 minutes late because he was still signing for people in his line, but he hit the stage like a ball of fire. One of the show staff announced before the session that someone local had made a Zombie Fonzie as a gift for Henry for being in Pittsburgh. He put it on the table and said, "We'll see if he comments about it." When he came in, Henry looked at the figure, then looked up and said, "Is this some kind of message? What the hell is this?" He seemed really impressed by it. He was very funny and very poignant - he talked about how much trouble he had in school as a child, and that his parents (German immigrants) called him by a German nickname that translated as "dumb dog". He talked about having to take geometry four times in high school, and that it kept him from graduating with his class, so he got his diploma in the mail in 1963, then said, "Here we are in December, 2014 - over fifty years later - and not once has anyone said 'hypotenuse' to me. What the hell were they thinking?" Lots of cool stories, good questions and funny answers. At one point, someone asked his favorite actress, and he hemmed and hawed and finally said, "Ron Howard." A lot of laughter, and he said, "Did you say 'actor' or 'actress'? Well, he did wear a dress in that one episode, so it counts."

But the highlight of the session - a true jaw-dropping moment for me - was when someone asked him what it was like to play Fonzie. He said it was great because he was so opposite of Fonzie in real life, then said, "But I changed my body posture a bit" and shifted his weight a little, then "and I lowered my voice a bit" and did that, then said, "and I talked like this..." and said to a girl in the front row, "You look good in those boots" and suddenly, Henry Winkler was gone - it was pure Arthur Fonzarelli. It's one thing to hear someone talk about doing that stuff, but to see someone actually do it right in front of you and change so thoroughly was just awesome. And again, I can't say enough what a great guy he was, especially with the kids - he was great with everyone, but when a kid asked a question, he changed and it was like there was no one in the room but the two of them. He made everyone who asked a question give their name, and he remembered the people who'd been to his table the day before.

The next session was Tom Savini - he's just an actor these days, and he runs a school for makeup and special effects, but he became known earlier in his career as a special effects guy. He did a lot of George Romero's movies, he's done several with Quentin Tarantino, and he did the effects for the original Friday The 13th, which is where I first heard of him. He said he was responsible for the endings of the first and fourth Friday movies because they didn't have the endings written. He said he'd seen Carrie with its false ending (sorry, spoiler), so he suggested that. He said that's led to arguments with Betsy Palmer, who played Jason's mother and was the killer in that movie. He said Jason didn't really exist because that was a fantasy sequence, but Palmer insists that because they never found his body, Jason was still alive. Savini said, "Really? A 10-year-old kid wandering around eating crawfish and not being noticed for 35 years?" He had great stories about working with Tarantino, and especially about everyone on From Dusk Till Dawn, including three days of sitting at a table watching Selma Hayak dancing on the table. He was in Romero'sDawn Of The Dead, which was filmed at the mall less than a quarter of a mile away from where this show was (also the mall used for Kevin Smith's Zack And Miri Make A Porno, chosen for the Romero connection). He said one of his first stunts was to jump from the second floor to the first and fall into a pile of cardboard boxes and mattresses (in the movie, he lands in a fountain). He said he missed the boxes and landed on the mall floor and couldn't walk normally for two weeks. He said the next time he did the stunt, he asked for "a lot more boxes". I went to his table for a picture afterwards (found a cool one of him doing makeup on the original Jason) and told him that the ending to that film almost hurt my back - I hadn't seen Carrie at that point, so when Alice was on the lake, I leaned forward and was putting on my jacket and damn near broke the seat when I slammed into it when Jason popped out.

Got a cool pic with him, too.



And I got to be a good guy - after I parked, as I was walking into the show, a woman stopped me and said I was parked next to her and asked if I could help jump start her van. Well, I know about as much about cars as Smiff knows about being Billy Barty-sized, but that's one thing I can do - we have emergency jump starters in all our cars. Took a couple tries, but got it started for her, so I figured that was good karma for the rest of my day.

Oh yeah - I knew you (and Chris) would appreciate it for the Kiss connection, but when I saw "Rainbow Rising", I immediately said, "Pete should see this." He had a pencil drawing of that cover for $400 - I think he had color 8x10s of it, but I'm not positive about that.

We did have a nice chat about the Ace cover - he said it was all part of the overall design to kind of reach back to the old days. That's why it's a silhouette. They wanted to keep Ace somewhat mysterious - is he in costume or not?

Nice anecdote. The closest I've seen to that was at the 2011 New York Comic Con. Michael Uslan, producer of the first Batman movie, was doing a panel on his new book "The Boy Who Loved Batman." Unfortunately, due to poor promotion on the part of the NYCC it was sparsely attended, but there was a small line of people waiting outside the room for the panel to begin, and when Mr. Uslan arrived he took the time to individually greet everyone and thank them for showing up.