I’ve been so busy working on Wire this week I had no time left over to blog, so I thought I’d come up for air to post this quickie. (Well, maybe I had some time, but after a long day’s work, I often had no brain left over!)

Al Williamson, one of the great EC Comics artists, whose drawing style is extremely romantic and lyrical, turned 79 today, which means it’s once more time for me to dig into the portfolio I carried at comic-book conventions when I was an annoying kid with a sketchpad.

If you’re not familiar with Williamson’s work, these classic EC Comics tales will easily convince you of his greatness.

I wrangled the drawing below out of Williamson at the EC Fan Addict Convention in 1972. (Click if you’d like to see the lizard a little larger.)

Happy Birthday, Al!

Irene and I moved from Maryland to West Virginia in June 2004, though because the state required a notarized copy of my birth certificate, I wasn’t able to get a WV drivers license until July. It was to expire on my birthday at the end of this month, but since I’ll be in London at the World Horror Con then—actually, I’ll be in the air on my actual birthday of March 31, so I can celebrate on two continents—I figured I’d better get the renewal out of the way. So I headed in last week to make sure my eyes still worked and to sign up for another five years of West Virginia.

For those of you who’ve been wondering what West Virginia does to a man, check it out below. (And just in case you can’t tell, that’s July ’04 to the left, March ’10 to the right.)

I guess owning a shotgun and a chainsaw changes you more than I thought.

Sy Barry, who drew the comic strip The Phantom for 33 years, from 1962 to 1994, turned 82 today. That wasn’t the only classic comic strip he was involved with—he also worked on Tarzan and Flash Gordon.

I only ever met him once that I can recall. (Though I guess I shouldn’t say it quite that way, as it makes it sound as if he’s no longer with us—but he’s still quite alive!) It was on September 26, 1971 in Central Park.

The Newspaper Comics Council of New York and the New York Daily News co-sponsored a 75th anniversary celebration for the comic strip. (I assume they were counting from the year Richard F. Outcault’s Yellow Kid first appeared in the New York Journal American.) It took place at the Bandshell, and many other cartoonists were there in addition to Barry, including Mort Walker, Tex Blaisdell, Irwin Hasen, and Bill Kresse.

I (you know me) tried to finagle as many sketches as I could. Here’s Barry’s, which you can click to view at a larger size.

The event was covered in the Daily News, which devoted its center spread to it the following day. No picture of Barry there, I’m afraid, though I can be spotted in the crowd. I’ll naturally (what did you expect?) inflict that photo on you someday.

But meanwhile—happy 82nd birthday, Sy Barry!

That’s me below at a party being hosted by Marvel Comics, circa 1975.

Why was Marvel Comics hosting this party? I have no idea. Nor does my wife, who was also working at Marvel then. Though when this picture was taken, she was not yet my wife.

To get to this party, I took an elevator to the top floor of a tall building. There was an amazing view. Could the party have taken place at the Rainbow Room? Yes, it could. But I can’t be sure.

Why were we there? I told you, I can’t remember.

Could it have been a Christmas party? Hmmm … I don’t think so. But, again, I can’t be sure.

Why was a life-sized Doctor Strange cutout there? I can’t remember that either.

Why am I sticking my head through the hole where Doctor Strange’s face should be? Because that’s what you do when you see a superhero without a face.

Why was there someone on hand snapping our pictures? I may never know.

Of course, if anyone reading this happens to have been there back in the old days of the Marvel Bullpen and has any memories of this event … maybe I have a chance of knowing after all.

Anyone?

(And BTW—the reason this photo came to mind today? Because Stan Lee wants an Oscar.)

As you may have already heard, the hirsute Jay Lake today became the … well … the not so hirsute Jay Lake.

And looking at Jay’s newly shaven dome brought to mind another rather determined individual with whom he shares the same initials and even an almost identical last name.

Suddenly, a very confusing TV series is starting to make a heck of a lot more sense.

After all—have you ever seen Jay Lake and John Locke together?

I have faith that you’ll be able to guess the year this photo of me was taken without the need for any hints.

You won’t require any knowledge of French to guess, just the ability to recognize one classic logo and a handful of iconic characters.

And if you can’t figure it out, well … then I’m not sure what you’re doing here.

If you’d like to view a larger version, you can find one over at flickr.

I read the Roger Ebert interview in the new Esquire and was moved. I watched Oprah today and was moved even more. Seeing him speechless, but with eyes still bright, was heartbreaking and uplifting at the same time. When asked how he was doing, he said he was terrific, and I believed him. Life, for him, even with all he’s been through, is still worth living.

I’ve always felt a connection with Ebert. The rest of the world may only know him as a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, the movie reviewer with the biggest thumb in the business, but you and I know that deep inside, he’s one of us—a hardcore science-fiction fan.

He founded the science-fiction club in his high school. He read Astounding. He published a mimeographed fanzine. And he loved fandom. So when I interviewed him for Sci-Fi Entertainment back in 1997, I wasn’t speaking to some bigshot, but to just another fan, Rog Ebert.

Since Ebert’s condition has become more public the past few weeks, and everybody’s been showing their love for him, I thought I’d do the same. Here’s that interview from the July 1997 issue of Sci-Fi Entertainment. We only got to meet in the flesh once, two years later, at a NY screening for The Phantom Menace. I sat in the row behind him, and as I watched it, I couldn’t help but occasionally watch him watching it.

He loved it. More than me, because I certainly wouldn’t have given it 3 1/2 stars the way he did. But that was the science-fiction fanboy in him talking. It was there then. I’m sure it’s there still.

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If you’re bothering to read this now, you likely already know—I have a very active dream life. The more involved ones get reported on LiveJournal, while the ones that can be summed up briefly are being sent out into the world via Twitter. But since those near-daily tweets seem far too ephemeral, I’ve been collecting them in one place.

So here are the messages my subconscious sent to me last month. Were you with me when I slept?

I dreamt I was trying to steal a secret family recipe from one of the Babylon 5 aliens so I could cook the dish to impress his daughter. 7:51 AM Feb 28th

I dreamt I was wandering NY with Jeff Garlin looking for his favorite nut shop, and as we did so I found a pen I had lost many years before. 8:27 AM Feb 27th

I dreamt I was wandering the WTC (the WTC of now, not of then) shirtless, barefoot, in search of both shoes and shirt, never finding either. 7:50 AM Feb 27th

I dreamt I was hanging with Dad in a comics shop as a woman rode by on a bike with a chrome animal skull for handlebars. So I snapped a pic. 7:48 AM Feb 27th

I dreamt I could hear Paul Di Filippo cry out for help after he got stuck spelunking in a cave under his RI home, so I went in to save him. 7:40 AM Feb 27th

I dreamt I tried to show Martin Morse Wooster a young photo of him I’d found, but as with all dream tech, I couldn’t get my laptop to work. 8:40 AM Feb 25th

I dreamt I worked in a science-fiction bookshop that published its own magazine. Also working the store that day: Jenn Reese and Mark Kelly. 7:52 AM Feb 23rd

I dreamt I sat in a alley petting a dog who only moved in slow motion. And when I tried to abandon it, Stephen Colbert wouldn’t let me go. 7:47 AM Feb 23rd

I dreamt Cory Doctorow told me someone sent me a coded message via an ad in the NYT, but when I tried to decipher the gibberish, I woke. 7:32 AM Feb 22nd

I dreamt about Cory Doctorow and Neil Gaiman, but don’t know why. Only their names are decipherable from my middle-of-the-night scribbling. 7:28 AM Feb 21st (more…)

I just learned that pioneering space artist Robert McCall passed away Friday at the age of 90. I never got the chance to meet him, at least not in the flesh, but as for his spirit … I met and was touched by that a long, long time ago.

In addition to inspiring me with his visions for as long as I can remember, he also played a very important specific role in my life, by allowing Sovereign Media to use his images in the first issue of Science Fiction Age. We printed an art gallery in each issue of the magazine, but McCall was the first.

Here, from the pages of that November 1992 issue, is a gallery of McCall’s artwork, accompanied by strong words of praise from Ray Bradbury. Give it a read and gaze in awe at the pictures so that even if you’ve never heard of the man, you’ll know why you should, too, be celebrating his life and mourning his death.

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All I was looking for was a clip of Larry “Bud” Melman greeting passengers at the Port Authority bus terminal with hot towels, but you know the way things work once you get to YouTube. I of course had to click on one of the recommended videos—Johnny Carson’s final TV appearance.

And because that second clip turned out to have been posted by Alan Light—no, not the Spin magazine editor-in-chief Alan Light, but rather the Alan Light who founded The Buyer’s Guide to Comics Fandom—I ran across the fascinating (for those of us who bleed four-color ink) video below.

It turns out that on June 18, 1977, World Color Press held a celebration it called “Magazineland USA.” World Color Press, located in Sparta, Illinois, printed all of the comic books at the time, and when the company threw open its doors for a tour, Light was there with his 8MM sound camera.

When I press my nose close to the screen, I swear I can smell the ink.

Phil Seuling, who ran New York’s early comic conventions, can be seen at the 1:00-mark complaining about how non-fans were mistreating the books he’d brought for sale.

Wish I could have been there!