Keepsake

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Comic-Con Hint: Use Your Camera to Take Notes

Jim Sokolowski

Dave Olbrich

Yesterday, I whined about not having time to post, if I also took time to be active in convention activities, and it continues to be true. In the moments I'm taking before leaving for the show, I downloaded a bunch more photos and realized that I can use pictures to remind myself of conversations that I'll be able to refer to later. Because I know full well that I will quickly otherwise be lost in a haze of dimly remembered events. And it's not because of what I've drunk; it's because there is just too much to remember. Case in point came this morning as I transferred photos from my camera to my laptop for a backup (a good idea, by the way; you can at least salvage a chunk of what you've done, if your camera is stolen or dies). I'd forgotten till I looked at the photos that I'd had a laugh-filled pre-show exchange with Dave Olbrich and Jim Sokolowski in which we chatted happily about the long-ago days when Dave (with Malibu) and Ski (with Marvel) lived through the acquisition of Malibu, the marketing of the time, and so on and definitely so forth. And, in the midst of all that, we were delighted to see Jim Lee with his family cheeerily preparing to enter the floor. (Mind you, this morning I'm frustrated to realize I don't know the names of Jim's other family members, but I love the photo and hope someone out there can fill in the details. In any case, I'm just saying: Nice!)

Ski's now Archie Comic Publications' Senior Vice President of Sales and Business Development - and it is terrific seeing him again and - And if I don't post this right now, I'll miss the first panel I need to attend.



Jim Lee and Family

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2012 Comic-Con Preview Night

I grabbed the chance to give Jill Thompson
a copy of our Parent's Guide to the
Best Kids' Comics. Her work is, of course,
recommended therein.

As ever, there are choices for bloggers, Tweeters, and the like at Comic-Con International: San Diego: doing or posting. Tweeting is simple, but even that means Taking a Moment. So you're in a world surrounded by activities and fascinating people and news - but TIME OUT! I've been taking notes about a vast variety of news, not to mention catching up with people I haven't seen for at least a year. And, to top it off, the jammed Preview Night is the least crowded the floor will be. So it meant lugging my two totes around, greeting with hugs, taking a few photos and moving along. (Moving along is a good idea; security is rightly keeping people from blocking halls and aisles. Rightly, because really. But it can be hard to grab a moment when at times you must, like a shark, keep moving to survive. Oh, come on. It's not that bad. Because really. But it's not the time for an in-depth interview.) The exhibitor booths are different. Given folks' need to do business so one shouldn't hog time, you can still talk to people. Which will be a goal for today. After I give blood. Which I need to head out to do now. Yikes!

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Don and Maggie Thompson At Last! Half a Century Ago

Maggie Thompson, Don Thompson

Woo hoo! Don and I had been engaged for two years, and every weekend he would take the bus to Oberlin, where he would stay in a rooming house while I lived in Dascomb Dormitory (freshman year), with my grandmother (the intervening summer), and in Fairchild Dormitory (sophomore year). My college tuition was supplied by Allegheny College, where Dad taught and which participated in a faculty-member-offspring student exchange program with other colleges. So Don and I had gone through months of tension regarding whether the tuition would continue, if we married. I bet you can figure out that it did - and so it was that we found ourselves at 3 p.m. at Christ Church, Episcopal, in Meadville, Pennsylvania, on June 23, 1962.
There was a reception in the Church Parish House following the ceremony - with sandwiches made by Mom, featuring her home-baked bread (Blue Ribbon-winning quality, per the Crawford County Fair). Mind you, she'd added food coloring to each batch, so the sandwiches were pink, yellow, green, and blue. (At least one guest - hi, Nancy! - took one look and opted to come back after she'd eaten at a nearby restaurant.) There was a follow-up celebration at the house - and then someone (Dad?) drove us north to Erie, where we caught the train to Cleveland - where we were to spend the rest of my summer vacation before we moved to Oberlin.

Susan Thompson, Charles Thornton,
Maggie, Don, James Broschart, Mary Curtis

Weather during and just after the ceremony was lovely - as you see here. But, it's fun to note, there was a light rain during the drive to the train station - and that gave us a rainbow, as we set out on our wedded adventure.
(Oh, and a postscript: That wedding gown had been worn once before: when Mom and Dad married September 17, 1941, in Hudson, Ohio. Mom had sewn it for herself.)

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Don Thompson Met Maggie Curtis 55 Years Ago Today

Ed, Mary, Betsy, and Maggie Curtis, Don Thompson

This is a year of anniversaries for me - and one of them is today. At about this time 55 years ago, Mom was offering to give Don a ride as far back as our house on his way back to Titusville - an invitation he gladly accepted. Yesterday, Gary Colabuono asked on Facebook for what amounted The Tale of Don and Maggie Thompson - or at least the first chapter. So ... Mom (science-fiction writer Betsy Curtis - no, you've never heard of her) drove to Kinsman, Ohio, thinking that an announced picnic of science-fiction fans and pros was being held at the home of Ed Hamilton and Leigh Brackett. That turned out not to be the case. One of their relatives lived across the road, Mom made inquiries, and it was revealed that the picnic was at the home of Basil and Virginia Wells. What to do? Mom commented later that, if Dad had been along, we'd have probably given up - but it was just Mom, my two younger sisters, and me. So off we went to the Wells home. Other picnic attendees included P. Schuyler Miller and Andre Norton - and a fan named Don Thompson, who'd hitchhiked there, invited as a member of the National Fantasy Fan Federation.
Don, it turned out, was not only a fan of Mom's but also shared many other pop culture interests (before that term was even used). He and I talked pretty much nonstop on topics ranging from SF to fantasy to movies to radio shows to pulp magazines to detective fiction to comics to Mad magazine - and so on. He'd just finished his sophomore year in Journ School at Penn State, where he worked on the radio station and belonged to the SF club. And, yes, he was 21 and I was 14. (When this information was included in Dark Horse's Between the Panels, I was told, lawyers going through the preliminary draft circled it as a possible legal concern for publication. Hee!)
As noted, we drove him as far as our house - whence he continued his hitchhiking travel to his home. Next communication from him: a copy of Humbug #1 folded to fit into a #10 envelope with a note asking whether I'd seen it - which I hadn't. Over the next while, we wrote now and then, and he visited a few afternoons during vacation breaks. Again, nonstop conversation about SF, fantasy, movies, radio ... Yep, more pop culture chat. I graduated from high school, we started dating in 1960, and he graduated from Journ School. Mom even included him in the 1960 WorldCon "Best Group"-winning costume group shown here. (It's "The Five Fannish Senses": Dad as Sense of Science, Mary as Sense of Humor, Mom as Extra Sense, me as Sense of Wonder, and Don - Well, Don was 35 to 50 Cents, the price of science-fiction magazines.)
So I started college at Oberlin in the autumn of 1960, and Don went to work for the Cleveland Press, taking the bus each weekend and staying at an Oberlin bed-and-breakfast (well, I don't think he got breakfast there, but you get the idea) each Saturday night. Till we got married June 23, 1962.
Hey, that means I get another anniversary this month! Hot diggity!

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