Wednesday, May 18, 2011

MOCCACHINO

Last night’s Masterclass at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art was an absolute pleasure:  My old and dear friend Danny Fingeroth—MoCCA’S Sr. VP of Education (Danny also co-curated the current Will Eisner exhibit, which you should go see right now)—poked and prodded me with fascinating questions and we spent two immensely enjoyable hours discussing the craft, and art, of writing for comics, television, film and novels.  I’m profoundly grateful to everyone who attended the class (especially those two guys who came all the way from Toronto):  As I’ve said before, spending a good part of my life alone in a room playing with my imaginary friends is an amazing way to make a living, but it’s nice to get out in the world occasionally and meet those living, breathing humans who read, and appreciate, my work.

I was surprised, and delighted, to find writer and producer John Semper in the crowd.  I worked for John years ago when he was producing the 90’s Spider-Man animated series at Fox.  (Among his many other credits, John wrote the English language script for Hayao Miyazaki’s classic animated film Kiki's Delivery Service—a movie my daughter and I watched over and over when she was younger.)  These days John is directing a live-action film based on his web series Creeporia:  here's hoping it’s a huge success for him.

Before the class, I had a mini Marvel Comics reunion with Danny (who was the Spider-Man Group Editor for many years), former Editor-in-Chief—and all around swell guy—Tom DeFalco, Alien Legion mastermind Carl Potts and writer/editor Glenn Greenberg.  It was wonderful catching up over dinner with this group of old friends I have so much respect and affection for.

Deep thanks to Danny—and the entire MoCCA staff—for making the evening so memorable. 

And now the bear returns to his cave to dream and write and dream some more.

10 comments:

  1. That's a cool crowd, JMD!

    And I didn't know you'd worked on the 90s Spider-Man series.

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  2. Just contributed to one episode, David. And, yes, it was a cool crowd.

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  3. Glad you had a great time, J.M.--as I knew you would. : ) But, I'm sure your audience had an even better time. Just saying! : )

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  4. We had a great group, A. Jaye: sincere, open-hearted, enthusiastic. A genuine pleasure to spend the time with them.

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  5. Speaking of Tom, I'm hopeful the upcoming DeFalco/Frenz/Buscema SUPERMAN BEYOND one-shot turns into an ongoing!

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  6. I hope so, too, David: those guys are an amazing team.

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  7. Sorry I missed that...next time you are down there can you give a few days notice? I would have loved to have attended! Thanks!

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  8. Sorry you couldn't make it, Andrew. I hyped the Masterclass here at the blog several times...and MoCCA hyped it on Twitter and elsewhere. With luck, there'll be another one!

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  9. Thnka, I guess I missed the first few postings about it...I took a class a few years ago with Danny F. and would like to say hi sometime soon...

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  10. Don't know if you're a Twitterer -- I just started a couple of days ago, so it's all new to me -- but you can find Danny there and say hi.

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