animation, comics, exhibits, events, etc!

Every Wednesday, Jared Gniewek discusses what feeds his fires as an author of comics, screenplays and radio dramas.

Friends…are you suffering from Manga Guilt?

Okay, you’re at the dinner party and the conversation of course turns to comics and graphic novels. I mean Bang Zoom Pow comic talks are for dinner parties nowadays not for stupid babies! Your friends in publishing start going on and on about manga and you nod politely while replaying through your brain the five issues of Lone Wolf and Cub you read way back in 1988.

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Die by the Pen will be taking a two week hiatus, while Jared Gniewek explores the English countryside in pursuit of the historical Watership Down. This week, Kevin Gillespie fills in with his thoughts about his first trip to a comic convention and his own place in fandom.

by Kevin Gillespie

Chewbacca sits at the end of the row – a wide brimmed leather hat obscures his wild eyes – as he signs an autograph for a cotton-mouthed, tongue-tied fan. From beyond the gang of breathless fanatics, an impostor Chewbacca roars announcing his arrival. He stomps his way through the line bellowing through an electronic voice changer, waving his arms over his head. The real Chewie looks up from his hastily scrawled autograph and smiles, belting out a weak but gleeful roar of his own. The fan looks on, his sweaty twenty-five dollars clutched tight in his fist, his mouth soundlessly mouthing words like the face of a dying fish.

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