Convention Gear

I’m currently getting the gear together for Wondercon this weekend (the updated Orlando’s Joint Comic Convention 2009 Tour list is here). Any Bay Area geeks doing Wondercon this year, stop by the Madjoint Productions table AA135 in Artists Alley!

Crazy Watchmen Swag

I’m all about cool swag (BTW, I’ll be posting pics of some of the Orlando’s Joint merch I’ll be hawking at Wondercon next week…), but you’d think the marketing minds behind the upcoming Watchmen movie would be a little hip about a property that comic fans are so fanatic about. So far the movie’s viral videos and trailers have been true enough to keep fanboys drooling, but this stuff may tarnish their cool factor.

Some of the weirdness I found on Total Film:

The Rorschach beanie, for comic geeks who wanna hold up a liquor store:

For kids who like eating lunch with big blue naked guys, the Dr Manhattan lunchbox:

And… fridge magnets? Are you serious??

Dear Kwesi: What’s Black History Month?

In honor of Black History Month, I’ve posted Kwesi Jabootee’s cultural advise column Harambe, My Brother! from the Los Angeles Centennial:

Got a cultural question? Ask Kwesi!!

Dear Kwesi,

Every year when I watch the NBA All-Star game some dude, usually that Bob Costas guy, says “Happy Black History Month!” What the hell is that?

Baller Wishing He Was A Little Bit Taller
_____________

Harambe, B.W.H.W.A.L.B.T.!

What an excellent question, my brother! And is it any coincidence that Black History Month occurs during the All-Star weekend of the most African-American-dominated sport in the history of African-American-dominated sports? All I can say is… POSSIBLY NOT!

Each year many other peoples of all colors and creeds have asked important questions related to yours, including: “Who invented Black History Month?”, “Why do we need Black History Month?”, and “Why are people still paying real money to see Tyler Perry dress as a woman?”.

Now, on to the answer! Back in 1885, Samuel Greer, manure farmer and inventor of Buckripper Tonic Wine (outlawed from 1887 to this day) initiated Appreciate a Colored Person Hour. He chose the hour to fall on a day in February because that was the month he successfully escaped death when a fainting cow tipped over on him.

Shortly after announcing Appreciate a Colored Person Hour, Greer’s farm and distillery were firebombed and he was never heard from again. But the spirit of Greer’s Appreciation Hour grew, and 124 years later we have an entire 28 DAYS devoted to reminding ourselves that African Americans indeed have a history!

HARAMBE!!

Ecomomic Crisis Hits Geekdom

I got a call a couple weeks ago from the folks at the Wizard World Los Angeles Comic Convention: “We are postponing the Wizard World Los Angeles show due to the difficult economic conditions.” I sure picked a great time to release a DVD, huh? At least they only postponed WWLA — they altogether cancelled Wizard World Texas this year.

I had reserved a table to hawk Orlando’s Joint DVDs and tees. While not as big as the behemoth San Diego Comic-Con, I was looking forward to WWLA because it was right in my back yard and wouldn’t have to worry about travel expenses.

Still planning to hit as more west coast comic cons unless they start dropping, too. The list so far:

**UPDATE! I plan to head over to the Windy City for Wizard World Chicago, unless that gets canned, too**

• Wondercon in San Francisco (Feb 27 – Mar 1)
• San Jose Super Con (May 16 – 17)
• San Diego Comic-con (July 23 – 26)
• Wizard World Chicago (Aug 6 – 9)

Old Sketches: The Crew

This is one of the first notebook doodles I did of the Orlando’s Joint crew, most likely during a boring meeting. The little guy with the camera is the first version of Ponzi — I was thinking he’d be a wanna-be filmmaker (still may happen in future episodes…).

Roch Schulfer: WTF Are You Talking About?

Okay, I’m not big on boycotts (if they’re not effective, they too often only draw attention to an issue that may not deserve to be noticed) so I’m not going to urge anyone to boycott the Wooster Group’s production of Emperor Jones like some folks are. In the ongoing Chicago production of the play (about an African American convict who becomes the ruler of a West Indian Island) a white actress in full-on blackface plays the title character.

Wha?, I wondered. Here’s the kind of academic doublespeak that makes my skin crawl from the Chicago Sun-Times article:

“At the Goodman, executive producer Roche Schulfer noted: “This Wooster Group production has been performed for 15 years at theaters around the world. And the overwhelming response to it is that it is not racist, but that it undermines racist and sexist stereotypes through the use of masks and Japanese theater techniques.”

Well damn… Japanese theatre techniques actually undermine racist and sexist stereotypes! Who knew? I have no doubt that everybody leaves the theatre feeling that racism and sexism have been undermined after watching a woman dressed like this:

Who's your mammy? Kate Valk as Emperor Jones.

I haven’t seen this production but I’ve read Eugene O’Neill’s play, and it brings enough to the table as it was written. Messing with the intention of the play the way they have only shows how out of touch and regressive theatre can be. Who really thinks that dredging up something as old and tired as blackface is an innovative way to address race issues? If the producers of this show were really interested in undermining racism and sexism, why didn’t they have a white woman play a black man without make-up? Now that would undermine all types of shit…

Or, is Schulfer just talking out his academic ass while he puts on a show he knows will get him a lot of free publicity and sell tickets? Hell, I write a cartoon about a pothead, so I have no problem with controversy — if there’s a point.

I don’t think anyone should boycott the production. I do think it’s sad that people are spending their money on bad theatre when so much good theatre is out there hurting for support. I will encourage everyone to send Schulfer a note telling him he’s full of shit and the Goodman Theatre should find a better way to try and sell tickets.

To A Fine ‘09

Late in the game, I know… but Happy New Year anyway! I’ve been giving my eyes a break from the computer screen as much as possible, but still gearing up for what I hope is gonna be an even better year for Orlando’s Joint and some other projects of mine. I’ll be setting up shop at some upcoming comic conventions to hustle DVDs and t-shirts, putting more time into getting my plays on stage this year, and gearing up for a new slew of OJ episodes. Stay tuned!

A-Changin’

I’m flipping channels and land on CNN: a black guy is getting interviewed with the kicker How to Diversify. Damn, why do they still gotta drag a brotha out whenever they need to remind people about the importance of multi-cultural… oh wait. The dude is Ryan Mack, CEO of Optimum Capital Management. Oh, he’s schooling the CNN anchor on how to diversify his investment portfolio in these troubled economic times. Huh. These are some kinda times.

What I’m Watching: Idle Warship

The Origin of Ponzi

With all the talk about Bernard Madoff perpetrating one of the biggest “Ponzi schemes” ever, it seems like a good time to go into how Orlando’s homie Ponzi Diller was named.

The first time I heard the term “Ponzi scheme” I thought Ponzi would be a great character name, especially for someone with some shadiness going on. According to Wikipedia:

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that involves paying abnormally high returns to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from the profit from any real business. It is named after Charles Ponzi. His original scheme was in theory based on arbitraging international reply coupons for postage stamps…

So the backstory I came up with: Ponzi’s mother made a truckload of money in the 70’s off a scheme similar to Charles’, except using bootleg Ohio Players 8-track tapes instead of postage stamps. She was so happy with her success she named her first-born after the Italian entrepreneurial “innovator”.

I ran a contest for an Orlando’s Joint t-shirt a few years back where I asked people to figure out who Ponzi was named after, and most of answers I got were from the Wiki definition.  I bet most folks would not need to google it if I ran that question these days.