Mountain of Judgment

The trip from Vermont to San Diego wasn't all comics and nerdgasms. We also got in a surfing lesson for Theo, courtesy of Dave:



And a trip to the San Diego Zoo:

I attended Comic-Con this year (my third in six years), only this time I took my 8-year-old, Theo along for the geekery. He was a fantastic traveling companion, and it was fascinating to experience the show from his perspective. He was patient beyond reason as the old man flipped through endless boxes of comics--almost as patient as I was following his hunt for Pokemon cards. Unsurprisingly, Theo was good for about 20 minutes of Roy Thomas reminiscences about late 60s Marvel, a good sign of his general mental health. He impressed a number of aging back issue dealers with his appreciation for his favorite artist, Jack Kirby. (To date, the kid has read every Marvel superhero book in order from FF #1 through July of 1965. Along with his enthusiasm for classic Little Lulu, Krazy Kat, Segar's Popeye, the works of Jeff Smith and above all Jack Cole's Plastic Man, he has better taste than most adult comics fans. In other words, he has my taste, which is one of the benefits of having kids.)

Following Theo around, we went to sections of the con I've never been to, namely the toy booths in the most crowded center section of the floor, with frequent trips to the Lego and Pokemon booths. In other news Dave and I picked up the last two copies of I Shall Destroy All The Civilized Planets! at the Fantagraphics booth during Paul Karasik's signing session, I bought a big stack of old DC 80-Page Giants and 100-page Super Spectaculars, our friend Dana found a number of the Super Pets comics she was looking for, and Dave achieved his goal for the show of hobnobbing with A-listers.

Sometimes, even Prince has to talk to complete fucking idiots in the course of doing his job. Just like the rest of us!

Sway: Let's talk about the album, Musicology. All right, that term, I play dominoes, and when you study dominology, that means you're a master at dominoes, so Musicology, is that what that means? That you're a master at music?

At which point the interview ended as Prince choked the MTV News correspondent to death with his microphone cord.