New York Comic Con is back for the weekend – it started Thursday and runs through Sunday. As usual, it takes up a weekend in October at the Jacob Javits Center. It is sold out, there are people scalping tickets near the convention center.
Guests this year include Alfonso Herrera from The Exorcist, Amber Nash from Archer; Alex Roe from Siren; Andrew Lincoln from The Walking Dead; John Krasinski from The Office; and Doctor Who himself, Peter Capaldi.
That is just a tiny fraction of the guests this year who will be signing autographs and taking part in meet and greets and panel discussions.
Comic Guests which number in the dozens, include Alex Maleev of Daredevil; Chad Hardin of Harley Quinn; Chris Claremont from X-Men and David Finch from Batman. Many can be found in Artist Alley.
Here are a couple of videos of the Bat-signal being lit up last night in Los Angles in honor of Adam West. The first is from the Associated Press, the second is the news report from KCAL Channel 9 in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles is lighting the Bat-Signal tonight (June 15) in honor or Adam West’s passing. Mayor Eric Garcetti will light the signal at a special ceremony at 7:30 pacific time.
The signal will be shown from City Hall. The signal will be projected on LA City Hall.
Batman has always been a part of my life it seems. In the 1980s, while lying on the beach I used to think of Batman. What happened was that a friend of mine had fantasies of buying the shuttered St. Moritz Hotel in South Beach, which is part of the Lowes Hotel at 16th and Collins Avenue. Back in the 1980s, 16th Street was open, it was a street now it’s part of the Loews property. I would park there and lay out on the beach at the water’s edge, but with the St. Moritz hotel in the distance.
As I would lay on the beach, I would imagine that my friend Franco needed me to run the front desk or something, and he would send up a Bat-signal type thing from the roof to alert me. The way he would alert me was a little more rudimentary. There was tinfoil on the two very top windows and when he needed me, he would open and shut the windows and flash the tinfoil into the sunlight, which would send a sort of Bat-signal up and then I would know I was needed to get inside to work.
I saw this floating around online somewhere. It’s Dodger the Dalek. This video is from 1964, in Coventry, England. The Dalek sells magazines. A college student designed it.
Doctor Who started in 1963, so this was created in its second year.
Berkeley Breathed of Bloom County, posted this letter today on his Facebook page. I’m assuming it’s real. Isn’t parody part of the First Amendment?
This is a dream for a cartoonist, or anyone in fact. Lots of publicity.
Update. It seems that according to Snopes, the letter was not real. It was just a joke played by Berkeley Breathed. I got the info from a reader (see comments section), who got it from Snopes. 😦
I started a little t-shirt shop to help me raise some money to support this blog. I hope you’ll check it out. There are a few other items like mugs, too.
It’s $2.00 for a slice of pizza and 50 cents for the Tribune. This is something someone says in a documentary on the death of the Tampa Tribune. I read about this in The Tampa Bay Times, which bought and killed the Tampa Tribune. It’s quite sad what is happening to daily newspapers.
Tampa Bay used to have the Tampa Tribune and Tampa Times. Across the bay was the St. Petersburg Times and one other I am not remembering now. The St. Petersburg Times became the Tampa Bay Times in 2012, they won the right in a lawsuit. This is sort of a dubious thing as it sort of was the writing on the wall for the end of the Tampa Tribune and reminiscent of the Tampa Times. But again, daily newspapers are going the way of the dinosaurs and that’s sad.
Ironically, The Tampa Bay Times is featuring the documentary about their own killing off of the Tampa Tribune in a story in their own publication along with a movie trailer
I still read the daily newspaper – holding in my hands the old fashioned way. I read the Miami Herald daily and sometimes the Sun-Sentinel which is the Ft. Lauderdale newspaper.
When I was a kid, I could read seven dailies in two counties – The Miami Herald, The Miami News, The Ft. Lauderdale News, the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, the South Dade News-Leader and the Hollywood Sun-Tattler. Loved the name of that one – the Sun-Tattler. That building is now a Holiday Inn, I believe. I also want to mention the Key West Citizen, which is still published daily. Love them.
My parents subscribed to the Herald and the South Dade-News Leader and I would occasionally buy the others. In New York, I used to read the four dailies – the Times, Daily News, Post and Newsday. I sometimes still do. When I was a kid, I delivered the now defunct Long Island Press.
It’s shocking how small the Miami Herald is these days in size. In height and width, but also in content. When we were kids and we took road trips around the country, small towns in Tennessee and Georgia had tiny newspapers – at least they had newspapers. Now the Miami Herald is very small. But it still is delivered seven days a week and I read it, holding it in my hands, like the old days.
I do read many publications online that I normally would not if there wasn’t an online way to do it. I don’t read the whole newspaper, but I follow so many news organizations online that I read stories here in there from various newspapers around the country. So that is a great thing. But there is something about holding the actual newspaper in your hands, smelling the paper and ink, having it on your doorstep each morning. There’s something special in that.
There is a new app called Text to Ticket which pays you to snitch on people who are texting while driving.
So far it only works in California. The tattle tale gets $5 for reporting the offending driver.
Question: How much do you get for video taping the person who is video taping and tattle taling while driving?
Now here is an interesting new app called Wag. It’s dog walking on demand, sort of like Uber for dogs. It’s only in a few major cities like New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle and LA.
A 30 minute walk is $20, a longer walk is $30 and you can add another dog to the walk for $5.
Speaking of Andy Warhol (see the post below), I saw in the New York Daily News that the estate of Andy Warhol is suing a photographer before the photographer sues the Warhold estate.
Seems that in 1981, Warhol allegedly swipped an image of Prince and made it into a Warhol painting. Didn’t he do that often? I know he mostly took polaroids of people and then had them blown up and silk screened the image into usually four images, all the same but with different color schemes.
I read in the Andy Warhol Diaries that celebs would want their “portraits” done and Andy would try to sell them in foursomes, rather than twosomes, which many celebs wanted. If I remember right, they were $25,000 for each image, so of course, he would want to sell them as a foursome. All silk screened work – nice work if you can get it!
I had the honor of interviewing fashion icon Betsey Johnson. Betsey made a stop at Macys at Boca Town Center in Boca Raton, Florida, to promote the premiere of TLC’s Say Yes to the Prom hosted by Betsey and Monte Durham premiering on April 1. It’s a 90 minutes special, which is a TLC tradition where the network partners with Macy’s to help make prom dreams come true.
Betsey Johnson, courtesy Twitter
TOM: I just saw a tv show recently about you and your daughter, I can’t remember what it was, I think it was CBS Sunday morning. I’m a man who knows nothing about fashion, and I know you, what’s it like being an American icon?
BETSEY: Great, I guess! I don’t really consider myself that, but I can tell you that to become appreciated for what you do you need to work hard and create a following. The word icon just comes over time, the happiness comes from your fans. I love my fans, they keep me going!
TOM: They said your fashion shows are like a three ring circus but there has to be some part you don’t like. What’s your least favorite part of your own fashion shows?
BETSEY: I have no least favorite part. I used to be afraid of critics in the audience but now I feel they love and support me. The whole process of a fashion show is pure fun to me!
TOM: I know you do a lot of the hand-drawn art yourself at the shows and there are DJ’s. Do you choose the music yourself?
BETSEY: Not backstage, I’m too busy running around getting everything ready to make the playlist. Up front, I work with a very skilled musical talent to create the music for the runway. Backstage it is just fun and free to start the party!
TOM: Your signature move is a cartwheel. When was the last time you did a cartwheel?
BETSEY: Not that long ago, but these days I lean more towards the splits which are easy peasy. Cartwheels make me a little afraid because I never know what I’m cartwheeling on and what will happen on that surface.I do love doing them so I will every now and then.
TOM: What was Andy Warhol like?
BETSEY: Quiet. A man of few words. Sweet, gentle and private.
TOM: What’s the secret to your success?
BETSEY: Lots of hard work, but most of all luck! And being nice to everyone you meet.
TOM: Favorite decade? Why?
BETSEY: By far the 60s! And for so many reasons, The Beatles, The Stones, Dylan, the moon, pantyhose and all the geniuses that were around during that time.
TOM: At what point did you realize you were famous?
BETSEY: Today, actually! At the airport I’ve never had so many fans come up to meet me. I’ve never taken so many selfies! I’m always surprised when I remember I’m a little bit famous.
TOM: What song would be the theme of your life. I think I can guess.
BETSEY: “I did it my way.”
TOM: In my mind, it was “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!”
TOM: Please tell me about Say Yes to the Prom, is that similar to the tv show Say Yes to the Dress?
BETSEY: Similar, but so much better since it is so wonderfully charitable! It has been such an honor to work with all the kiddos picking out outfits (especially the ones that are super pink, puffy and sparkly) for their big day. It makes me happy making so many kids happy.
There is a new app called 
Speaking of Andy Warhol (see the post below), I saw in the 
tomversation.com 