Jack, by Jack:
Kamandi, possibly my favorite series by Kirby:
In part one I covered the fateful creation of El Gorgo! back in March 2007. Mike McGee and I came up with the character and basic premise: El Gorgo is a super-intelligent luchador gorilla adventurer starring in a Silver-Age-style comic book. In the first story he would start off fighting the Deep Ones as they resurrected the sea-god Dagon, then he would be transported to Titan far in the future to battle humanoid cyborg dinosaurs. And it would all be resolved in 22 pages for a black & white anthology book. Sounds easy, right? We sure thought so at the time. But it wasn't quite to be.
Mike started working on the script, and I think we both quickly realized that the story was just too big to fit into 22 pages. So it became part one of a larger story. We both decided that since we owned the characters and could do anything we wanted, we would also publish the story online, since color is pretty much free on the internet, and El Gorgo really wanted to be in color.
Mike also added in the supporting cast for El Gorgo!:
Nika: Kidnapped by the Deep Ones to be sacrificed to Dagon and originally conceived as a typical damsel-in-distress, Nika's role in the first story will be significant.
Eddie Devil: Like El Gorgo, Eddie is a freelance agent for LUCHA LIBERTY. He's a blue-colar luchador and total gearhead. His name is inspired by the legendary guitarist Eddie Angel of Los Straitjackets.
Lucy: A full-time agent for LUCHA LIBERTY, Lucy is a technical genius and assists Eddie Devil in finding El Gorgo.
Senor Grande: The mysterious blind luchador leader of LUCHA LIBERTY, his history dates back to World War II and the heroes of a bygone era. Though blind, Senior Grande is one of the greatest fighters alive today.
Gorgo-A-Go-Go: El Gorgo's surf-rock band, currently very miffed at El Gorgo for potentially ruining their biggest show to date.
El Gorgo meets... THE YETI!!!!
-- (plus we get a brief glimpse of some heroes from World War II)
The Island of Doctor Cat-Head
-- At last! We've dropped some hints about this guy in the first story. Now, meet El Gorgo's greatest arch-nemesis, Doctor Cat-Head. He may seem a bit silly, but trust us, he's not somebody you want to mess with! This cat's got some mean claws!
Vikings!
-- That's really all I can say about it. It will be awesome though.
The Secret Origin of El Gorgo!
-- El Gorgo is stricken with amnesia and lost to his friends. Learn about El Gorgo's history and the dark secret that haunts him TO THIS VERY DAY!!!! This is a big one, as it will establish a lot of the tone for the series going forward.
Early Deep Ones concept drawing:
Early Dagon concept drawing:
Early Eddie Devil concept drawing:
Another Early Eddie Devil concept drawing:
Hello, everyone. John here. I "help" Bully out with his blog, but there's some things can't be said in the voice of a little stuffed bull.
A couple weeks ago at San Diego Comic-Con incidents of sexual harassment were confided to me and I overheard others. I wanted to write about it but was uncertain whether Bully's blog was the proper place. After much thought and discussions with friends and colleagues I've decided to post it here:
Overheard at San Diego Comic-Con while I was having lunch on the balcony of the Convention Center on Sunday July 27: a bunch of guys looking at the digital photos on the camera of another, while he narrated: "These were the Ghostbusters girls. That one, I grabbed her ass, 'cause I wanted to see what her reaction was." This was only one example of several instances of harassment, stalking or assault that I saw at San Diego this time.
1. One of my friends was working at a con booth selling books. She was stalked by a man who came to her booth several times, pestering her to get together for a date that night. One of her co-workers chased him off the final time.
2. On Friday, just before the show closed, this same woman was closing up her tables when a group of four men came to her booth, started taking photographs of her, telling her she was the "prettiest girl at the con." They they entered the booth, started hugging and kissing her and taking photographs of themselves doing so. She was confused and scared, but they left quickly after doing that.
3. Another friend of mine, a woman running her own booth: on Friday a man came to her booth and openly criticized her drawing ability and sense of design. Reports from others in the same section of the floor confirmed he'd targeted several women with the same sort of abuse and criticism.
Quite simply, this behavior has got to stop at Comic-Con. It should never be a sort of place where anyone, man or woman, feels unsafe or attacked either verbally or physically in any shape or form. There are those, sadly, who get off on this sort of behavior and assault, whether it's to professional booth models, cosplayers or costumed women, or women who are just there to work. This is not acceptable behavior under any circumstance, no matter what you look like or how you're dressed, whether you are in a Princess Leia slave girl outfit or business casual for running your booth.
On Saturday, the day after the second event I described above, I pulled out my convention book to investigate what you can do and who you can speak to after such an occurrence. On page two of the book there is a large grey box outlining "Convention Policies," which contain rules against smoking, live animals, wheeled handcarts, recording at video presentations, drawing or aiming your replica weapon, and giving your badge to others. There is nothing about attendee-to-attendee personal behavior.
Page three of the book contains a "Where Is It?" guide to specific Comic-Con events and services. There's no general information room or desk listed, nor is there a contact location for security, so I go to the Guest Relations Desk. I speak to a volunteer manning the desk; she's sympathetic to the situation but who doesn't have a clear answer to my question: "What's Comic-Con's policy and method of dealing with complaints about harassment?" She directs me to the nearest security guard, who is also sympathetic listening to my reports, but short of the women wanting to report the incidents with the names of their harassers, there's little that can be done.
"I understand that," I tell them both, "but what I'm asking is more hypothetical and informational: if there is a set Comic-Con policy on harassment and physical and verbal abuse on Con attendees and exhibitors, and if so, what's the specific procedure by which someone should report it, and specifically where should they go?" But this wasn't a question either could answer.
So, according to published con policy, there is no tolerance for smoking, drawn weapons, personal pages or selling bootleg videos on the floor, and these rules are written down in black and white in the con booklet. There is not a word in the written rules about harassment or the like. I would like to see something like "Comic-Con has zero tolerance for harassment or violence against any of our attendees or exhibitors. Please report instances to a security guard or the Con Office in room XXX."
The first step to preventing such harassment is giving its victims the knowledge that they can safely and swiftly report such instances to someone in authority. Having no published guideline, and indeed being unable to give a clear answer to questions about it, gives harassment and violence one more rep-tape loophole to hide behind.
I enjoyed Comic-Con. I'm looking forward to coming back next year. So, in fact, are the two women whose experiences I've retold above. Aside from those instances, they had a good time at the show. But those instances of harassment shouldn't have happened at all, and that they did under no clear-cut instructions about what to do sadly invites the continuation of such behavior, or even worse.
I don't understand why there's no such written policy about what is not tolerated and what to do when this happens. Is there anyone at Comic-Con able to explain this? Does a similar written policy exist in the booklets for other conventions (SF, comics or otherwise) that could be used as a model? Can it be adapted or adapted, and enforced, for Comic-Con? As the leading event of the comics and pop culture world, Comic-Con should work to make everyone who attends feel comfortable and safe.
I used to have a blog over at http://rednever.com that I haven't touched in ages, and I'm not quite sure what I want to do with it. But for now I'm working on El Gorgo! The World's Most Awesome Comics Magazine and it's time for something different. Let's see where this freakish experiment goes.
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