A writer for over twenty years, Tony spent over ten years working internationally for a variety of television, radio and magazines as a feature and script writer, winning several awards doing so.
In 2003 he returned to comic writing, and since then has written for Marvel Comics, Walker Books, AAM/Markosia Entertainment, Panini Comics and Titan Publishing, for properties such as X-Men, Amazing Fantasy, Doctor Who, Starship Troopers, Wallace & Gromit and Shrek. With 'Two Drunk Guys In A Bar' partner Dan Boultwood he has created The Gloom for APC and in 2006 he adapted G.P. Taylor's The Tizzle Sisters and Eric and the bestselling children's book Shadowmancer. His creator owned book, Midnight Kiss, was nominated for an Eagle award in 2006.
His upcoming work includes Hope Falls for AAM/Markosia (again with Dan Boultwood), Dodge & Twist for AiT/PlanetLar, Warrior Nun Areala: Excommunicated for Antarctic Press, Robin Hood: Outlaw's Pride and the comic adaption of Anthony Horowitz's Raven's Gate series, both by Walker Books. He's also the writer of the new IDW series Doctor Who: The Forgotten with Pia Guerra on art.
Whoo-wee-ooo...
By Tony Lee
First off, the column isn't late because of the pressures of the New York Comic Con, kiddies, it's because the internet capabilities of the Milford Plaza are, well, a little shit, and I've finally gotten online at 5 p.m. on Monday afternoon.
Yes, I could have typed this up on my iPhone. I could have used an internet cafe. The words? I could have dictated them on a phone. The people at Comics Bulletin who love me so much? They would have done this for me. But the reason for the delay was the pictures. I couldn't upload pictures or links or bloody well anything. But now I can, and the world is rosy once more.
Right then. Let's get the elephant out of the room. I am indeed writing a Doctor Who ongoing, and no, "the Time Machination" is not part of it. I'll get to that in a minute though. First off, I want to talk about snow.
I always have fun with planes and conventions. I've had them fail to fly, make emergency landings, disappear totally – and I'm always stupidly paranoid when getting on a flight. I check and double check even before I leave my house and drive down to London. But this year, I didn't. The main reason for this was because I wasn't going straight to the airport. This year I was driving to West London on the Monday to speak at a school, then leave the following morning. That was the plan, anyway. What I didn't count on was the worst blizzard in eighteen years to hit London the same day I was driving to it. The school was closed and my talk was cancelled – I learned this when I was at the two hour stage of the three hour rush hour drive – but that wasn't my main concern. My main concern was that Heathrow Airport was closed as well. And so I spent Monday at my father's house with both of us literally watching the news 24 channel constantly, willing the snow by the power of our British minds to melt into puddles. And of course this meant that I went to bed on Monday night not knowing if I was even going to be in the air the following day.
So of course Tuesday? It starts okay. I get to the station to board the Heathrow Express and expecting delays, get there early. So does the train, and I arrive an hour earlier than expected. But Heathrow was painless and I set off on time. Over the flight I watched TV on my DVR thing including the second seasons of both Mad Men and The Tudors, and arrived at Newark about 1.20 p.m.. In the middle of a snowstorm. Pretty much identical to the one the previous day.
Now, I'd done what the U.S immigration website had said, and I'd had a conversation with the stewardess that went like this when she passed me my custom forms and green Visa card on the plane.
'I did the online card' I explained and showed my printout. She nodded.
'You don't need this then.' She replied, taking my green card away. I settled back, filled out the custom card and eventually we landed.
We queued up to go through immigration; I finally got to the man to be told that actually, I DID need the green card. And so I had to go and find one, fill it out and re-queue up. I filled out the wrong one – and had to go find another. I began to wonder if I was being screwed around with at this point and looked for hidden cameras. Luckily a nice man in a red jacket (He was one of the ‘helpers', he wasn't some random stranger) spotted my plight and put me through to an empty booth. The guard there explained that yes, the Visa waivers were valid, but NYC didn't have the computers up and running yet. Apparently the target date is February 12th.
Now out in the US, I put my AT&T card in my iPhone 3G (which I had soft unlocked the previous week) and huzzah! The unlock worked, I could even get my emails, but the data charge was stupidly expensive. But I decided that I could survive a day and then I'd pop into the Times Square AT&T later and find out if there was an add-on I could buy for data while I'm over here. Spoke briefly to Tracy and then hunted for the bus. Which was hiding.
Caught the bus to the Port Authority (a block from the hotel) and was at reception by 3.30 p.m. And then had an argument with the receptionist who had me down as a single room. Those of you who know my history with the Milford Plaza know that as a goodwill gesture they guaranteed me a one bedroom suite. MINIMUM. And so the Manager came out, apologised and sorted me a room. I went to it, and discovered that it STILL wasn't a suite - it was an overlarge 'corner' room. And so I called the manager again. Complaining might be the sign of a dick – but he's the dick in the two bed suite.
Eventually I was given a larger suite – I videoed it, put it on Youtube - and it's large. L-A-R-G-E. It's so large it has two bathrooms. I was happy. And so I settled in, showered and dressed and made my way to Harlem, 118th Street to be exact, to meet with Jimmy and Joe and record the Comic News Insider Podcast. And this by the way was in a blizzard where the snow ran horizontal…
Great evening; apparently I was the longest show they've had at just shy of two hours, a fun audience and I made several new friends which is always nice. It can be downloaded - where apparently my opinion of 'Twilight' has caused much mirth. Careful though, it's almost two hours long. Still, they even helped me to the subway and pointed out which train to catch which was double nice. But still the data fees were crippling – I'd put a hundred bucks on my phone, and now I was down to sixty, without doing anything. Something needed to be done. But not that night.
Wednesday started with a lot of mobile phone hassles. It seemed that the AT&T sim I had doesn't have a data plan, and sure as hell doesn't understand the iPhone - every time I used an app? I'm charged. I change a calendar date? That's a buck. Check the weather? That's 10 bucks. Suffice to say I was having to turn the iPhone onto 'flight mode' every time I used an app, and had spent 60 bucks in a day on, well, nothing whatsoever. I was seriously unimpressed, and the AT&T person I spoke to was very sympathetic although utterly useless. I'm on a pay as you go plan. And data isn't on that plan. So there's nothing I can do but literally only use the iPhone when desperate. I wasn't happy about this, but she seemed positive. And so I went to my meetings, annoyed at this.
Meetings-wise Wednesday was a great day. And unfortunately I can't really talk about a lot of it, but I managed to see editors and friends at both DC and Marvel over the day, saw some amazing sneak previews of various upcoming comics and Tom Brennan kindly gave me printouts of the pencils of my upcoming Amazing Spiderman / Screwball story, which I really wasn't expecting.
The weird thing about this year's editorial visit was that I realized at one point that I wasn't really pitching. It was more a case of popping by and chatting to people, talking about the upcoming convention, receiving engagement congratulations and discussing gossip topics for the coming week, and it was actually rather relaxing, no matter how many meetings I had. (I think it was about seven, in the end.)
After that I phoned Tracy and then popped into Midtown Comics for some comics goodness, went back to the hotel and relaxed until 6.30 p.m., when I popped to a restaurant called Marseille to see Comic News Insider's Jimmy Aquino, Fishtown and I Rule The Night (and my co conspirator on my Souvenir story) creator Kevin Colden and others.
The problem was, that there was something else happening - a party at Rocketship for the latest Scott Pilgrim and fellow Brit (and future Mr Heidi MacDonald) Ben McCool informed us that everyone was going there, so we trained it to Brooklyn to discover utter confusion - Diamond had screwed up numbers and there were over a hundred people for about 40 Scott Pilgrim books that Bryan was signing - and Sean Dulaney, Jim Alexander, Declan Shalvey and his sister, a drive-by Dean Haspiel, a Heidi Mac and Ben appeared. We had a quick drink in a Brooklyn jazz bar and then made it back to Midtown where Sean, Ben and I met back with Jimmy in his bar, discovering that we'd missed people that we thought would be in Brooklyn, dammit.
A couple of beers later and I needed to sleep. I was a broken toy and I managed to collapse into bed about 1 a.m. Apparently Ben and Jimmy went off, bumped into John Cassaday, and were still going around 5 a.m.
Now, here's the point I do the disclaimer. I will be mentioning a lot of names here. I might forget to mention yours. I might mix you up with someone else. It's not personal; I'm just crap like that. Seriously, don't think I'm doing this for shits and giggles, okay? Good.
Thursday started with breakfast where I watched Tyra Banks on the TV talk to men who were 'Gay for Pay'. I shit you not. Madness. And from there I went to the suite where after an hour or so Josh Fialkov came by, as we were going for lunch. By this point it was about 12.30 p.m., so Fialkov and I got our skates on and went to Rosie O'Grady's with Marc Bernardin and Neil Kleid, who then wasn't able to attend after all and was replaced by a sock puppet. And an agent. We had a great lunch and then I went back to the suite to meet my con roomie Chris Kirby, the creator of the critically acclaimed Devils Due book The Lost Squad. You don't know it? Get out. Click away from this page. Anyway, Chris was finally arriving.
After spending some time with Chris, popping to a shop and then to Midtown comics, he went off to meet with some others while I got dressed and went to my own dinner date, a meal with Dacre (pronounced DAY-cre) Stoker and Ian Holt on 53rd Street. Dacre is the Great Grand Nephew of Bram Stoker and with Ian is currently writing Dracula: The Un-Dead, the first official, Stoker-family- approved sequel toDracula, based on Bram's own notes. And I was meeting them partly because they were totally cool and amazing guys, but also because I was speaking to them about my upcoming book Harker, and a possibility of them doing one of the book's introductions. With Ken Atchity, their manager, and Alex Gallant, their researcher, we had a top time at a Mexican tapas restaurant and I even managed to convince them to write notes to Tracy. It's not often that you can meet people who just get on so well, and I hope to God they weren't just humouring me. We had a blast, and It'll also be a lot of fun when they come over to England too.
From the restaurant I made my way down to 15th Street for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund party where I finally caught up with celebrity chums Rantz Hoseley and Ben Templesmith as well as people like Joshua Fialkov again, Kody Chamberlain, Neil Kleid and a whole host of others. But from there I was starting to flag, knew that the following day was going to be a nightmare, and so went to bed. The phone meanwhile was still hemorrhaging money like a gut-shot pony. Apparently we missed another late night in the Landsdowne Road, the bar the Brits had pretty much claimed as their own.
And then we hit Friday. Kody, Chris and I walked from the Milford to the convention centre where we had been getting texts from people telling us how bad it was. We expected a mile long queue for professionals and it pretty much was. At the back though, one of the stewards said ‘there's a shorter queue upstairs but it takes longer per person. ' People groaned, but I thought ‘sod it, let's look.' As it was, creators with barcodes got priority and I started queuing, got sorted out and was out in just under ten minutes. There were people in the first queue who hadn't even moved in that time. Yay me.
First off I had a signing at the Doctor Who Store booth, but they only had The Forgotten #4, #5 and #6 left – apparently the first three are sold out, but I seemed to do okay. Apart from the fact that the first person I signed for was a guy called Rob, from Kent in England. I come all the way to the U.S.? And I sign for a countryman.
I also got to meet Colin Baker again, my fellow signer and he really is one of the nicest men you can meet. And then I went to the IDW panel, where the Doctor Who ongoing was announced.
Yes, it is an ongoing. It's starting in July, Vertigo and Dark Horse legend Al Davison is pencilling/inking the first two-parter that's set in 1920s Hollywood and called "Silver Scream". And added to that I was able to announce the artist on "The Time Machination", who of course is Jack Staff creator Paul Grist. Here's the cover.
I also got to see Ben Templesmith's copy of "The Whispering Gallery", the Doctor Who he drew for Leah Moore and John Reppion. Very pretty!
From there it was another podcast, I saw the Captain Action guys, Joe and Ed who not only told me that my first Lady Action backup story (Lady Action was created by the three of us and Joe Gentile after we saw how popular Niki Notarile's ‘Lady Action' booth babe was at April 2008's NYCC) is in Captain Action #3, but they also showed me a prototype Lady Action doll...
Dacre, Ian and Alex came by again and I introduced them to Colin Baker (who played Van Helsing a couple of years ago) and they had a spot of mutual appreciation.
and I went with Kieron Gillen, Neil and Chris to the Landsdowne where we grabbed food. About 10 p.m., we went back to the hotel only to hear that Marc Bernardin was at the Landsdowne looking for us. By now we also had a Mike, a Sean and a Kody and so we walked back to the Landsdowne – after Marc got to the Hotel. And from there we walked back once more to the Irish Rogue where I caught up with Nikki Cook, Templesmith and the gang.
Saturday was a busy one but one that started well as, while putting money on my pay as you go, a lovely AT&T woman explained that yes, the data charge was monthly, but if there was no money on the phone? It was just taken off. Which meant I was able to get data on my iPhone. Which meant I could Twitter again. Choirs of Angels sang – or perhaps it was just John from markosia who had done his back in. I signed, met Doctor Who artist Kelly Yates as well as a variety of other people. A sushi bar with a variety of people, the IFanboy party where I saw a fleeting Christian Beranek and Scooby Doo writer Jack Briglio as well as fellow Brit Al Ewing, the Chesterfest Marvel party where I saw everyone in the world all in one room, including the most stylish man in comics, James Sime. I also had a call to do an interview that could only be done there and then, it seemed – I stood out on the street and did the phone interview (it's late Monday however and it's still not up), saw Rantz Hosely again and a quick hi to Eric Stephenson - and then back to the Landsdowne with TJ May joining us (with the line of the night – TJ: I need to kill the guy who writes Scooby Doo so I can take over, what do you do? Jack: I write Scooby Doo. TJ: ... ) where I ended up with Al Ewing and Frazer Irving talking art to Andie Tong. But the night wasn't over, for then we went to another Irish bar where I finally got to see my EiC Chris Ryall, Andy Schmidt and Nick Barrucci. Kody and I started to talk about doing some kind of stylish sixties spy heist thing. By the end of the night it was pretty much solid. (And Michael Wilson, he of Burn Notice fame is now on board, too...)
And then we hit Sunday where my feet were killing me, the pro lounge was closed and I started to want a shotgun. I did however score an advance reader's proof of Del Toro's out-in-June Vampire novel The Stain for Tracy, so I am the cool one here, kiddies. However, Rob Levin seemed too sprightly for a Sunday and must die. Likewise Dave Hine.
I escaped as fast as I could from the con, my feel were dying, my head was splitting and I was kept up from crashing by an engineer in my room sorting out the internet, the internet that was finally sorted over twelve hours later.
Eventually I lay down for a quick twenty minute nap at 9 p.m. I woke up this morning at 7 a.m.
Today? Well, that involved writing, meetings, hunting some copies of my comic and making my way to the Doctor Who New York group meeting, where I met up with Paul Cornell. But all this is for next week. Now it's time to shut up and sleep.
Discuss this column at the Only A Forum forum.
© 2008, Tony Lee