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Welcome to my PITTSBURGH COMICON — Part 1 — Getting There Is Half The Fun



Spin the “Road Trippin'” song from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and let’s get rolling.

FRIDAY: Journey To Pittsburgh
I got home from work at approximately 00:30 (that’s thirty past midnight for you civilian types) and still had to pack. So I rush in, flip on the tube, start looking for my jeans and…hey, TiVo recorded some new episodes of Mythbusters! God that Kari Byron is a gorgeous woman, and she embraces her inner geek. Redheads get me every time. Three hours later I realize I still hadn’t packed. Ooops. Jeans, sweatshirt in case it’s cold, various comic-related T-shirts, socks, boxers, personal hygiene products, yeah, that’ll do it. I’m still not very tired. I’ll squeeze in last week’s ECW show before I crash. I hit the sheets at almost 06:00.

And at about 07:30, The Dark Overlord calls. “Yo. The car’s here, you ready?” “Uhm…I guess, yeah.” Dammit, who decided to put Pittsburgh so far away from St. Louis that I gotta get up at the crack of dawn to get there by mid-evening? Why couldn’t Pittsburgh be, I dunno, where Kansas City is? Other than the Chiefs and Barbeque, what the Hell has Kansas City going for it? I say Missouri trades Kansas City to Pennsylvania for Pittsburgh. That way Missouri gets a better hockey team and Pennsylvania gets a better baseball…oh wait, nevermind.



Daron and I stop by Walgreens to pick up some last minute supplies: a sketchbook for me, a notepad for my journalistic musings (I don’t blog unless I’ve had some bad shrimp) and some mini-donuts for Daron’s breakfast. We hit the bridge out of Missouri going over to Illinois at just about 09:00, after a scenic detour around downtown St. Louis because Daron can’t read road signs. Is it too late to fly? Where’s William Shatner when I need him?

One hour of sleep is not going to be enough. My Dad used to take me on a car ride around the block when I was a kid if I wouldn’t go to sleep on my own. Apparently, the longest I ever lasted was three times around the neighborhood. So not more than twenty minutes into Illinois I drop the seat back and try to relax.



An hour or so later I wake up for a moment and poke my head up past the dash to see where we’re at. And that’s when I see it: THE GIANT STEEL CROSS! Holy Sacrilegious, Batman! Jesus oughta be glad he didn’t have drag THAT monstrosity around! It is the gaudiest thing I’ve ever seen! It’s almost 200 feet tall and located on I-70 in Effingham, IL. I’m not a religious man by any means, but I can’t see how anyone would find this testament to overkill remotely inspirational. Hilarious, yes, but uplifting? Well, it’s tall enough to put an elevator in, so maybe if they do that…

We laughed about that until we came to a rest stop and Daron needed another caffeinated
beverage to make it to Indiana. So we stretch out the legs and I thought I’d hit the can — better safe than sorry, right? Thing is, I wore jogging pants for the drive out so I’d be comfy. Jogging pants with no fly. Figuring I’d have to “drop trou” I went towards the stalls. And that’s where I witnessed the second bizarre thing inside an hour. The doors to the bathroom stalls were like the doors on shower stalls in locker rooms. They were maybe three feet in height. Now I’m not terribly modest, but this is a rest stop in the middle of nowhere and the cross that God could climb down on was many miles back, so I didn’t have a real good feeling about this. Carefully, so as to avoid post-traumatic stress for my little soldier, I slung out just over the waste band and took care of business. Repackaging the package, I turn around to find the male contingency of a high school marching band standing behind me. The surrealism of the moment is impossible to put into words so I silently thanked every God and Goddess of Wisdom for stopping me from dropping the drawers any further and hightailed it back to the car.



I dozed intermittently through Indiana, waking up at odd places like the “Crossroads of Opportunity” sign painted on a water tower in Indiana, far away from any place that looked like it might offer an opportunity to do anything other than farm or hitchhike…though I suppose that dilemma could qualify was a “crossroads” so I guess it’s apropos. We stopped at a Wendy’s Restaurant, which probably doesn’t sound like a big deal to most folks. But all of the franchises in the St. Louis market were owned by the same guy who didn’t handle his books correctly and ended up bankrupt. The Wendy’s parent company shut him down and there are no Wendy’s anywhere close right now. Damn shame too because the Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger and a 5 pc Chicken Nuggets make a tasty lunch.

Somewhere not too far from the edge of Indianapolis is one of those weird outlet stores that makes you wonder why anyone would drive two hours out of there way to get a bargain when the price of gas will offset the savings. This store sells candles. I only mention it because the building features a giant two or three story candle as part of the structure. Giant crosses, giant candles, Americana at it’s best! Paul Bunyan would have loved this trip.

We obviously passed a ton of cars on either side of the interstate, but three makes in particular caught our eyes. Mini Coopers, because they’re so cute, the new Ford Mustangs because a lot of them seemed to be going to same direction we were, and the sexy new Dodge Chargers, because it seemed like every twentieth car going west on I-70 was a Dodge Charger. I love my Mini because I’ve yet to pass another quite like mine, but the Charger is a bad ass piece of machinery. But what I couldn’t understand was the Harley Davidson dealers. We passed at least three between St. Louis and Pittsburgh, and all of them were in the middle of vast expanses of farmland. I don’t know how things are done in Ohio, but I have never seen a combine pulled by a Harley. Does Harley Davidson make farm equipment?


I’m not sure what that “run of the house” phrase means to Pittsburgh residents, but in the rest of the English speaking universe if I have the “run of the house” I can causally walk into the kitchen and whip up a batch of my patented Spatula Killer Chili (TM) and some milkshakes, and do it all in Elongated Man Boxers with a domino mask and a bath towel around my neck if I want to. But it DOESN’T mean first come, first served.


The last bit of automotive observation I want to make pertains to something I hear is not all that uncommon, but I found it absolutely astounding. St. Louis is the Gateway To The West, and Missouri is the last place you’ll find even a slight hill until you reach the Rocky Mountains. We drove through some beautiful rolling country in eastern Ohio, West Virginia and into Pennsylvania. There’s a rather steep hill that leads into the Fort Pitt Tunnel, which I’ll get to in a moment. This hill wasn’t the worst Ive ever been on — my family once took a vacation in the Smokey Mountains and as I recall there were some really steep spots along the way. But this hill featured something I have never seen before. THE TRUCKER WALL OF DEATH! I was in awe — if my jaw wasn’t dislocated it would have hung open down to my knees. There’s a sign about 150 feet before the wall that says something along the lines of, “Runaway Truck Lane.” The idea is if you’re driving a semi and your brakes go out you should try to steer the truck into this lane. At the base of the hill is the wall, a monstrosity of gravel, steel girders and plastic barrels filled with water that offer little comfort for the runaway truck driver. There’s no way — NO WAY — that anyone walks away from that. There should be skulls hanging off of it while vultures circle above. It’s a contraption only Vlad Tepes or maybe Frank Frazetta could conceive of. I’m sorry, but if I’m driving a truck and I lose control in a place like that, I’m bailing out. I’ll take my chances with the rushing concrete and oncoming traffic before I meet my grisly demise in the unforgiving tangle of steel and stone that is the THE TRUCKER WALL OF DEATH! I couldn’t get a picture of the wall — way to dangerous to stop there.



We solemnly pass the memorial to truckers who neglected their brake system maintenance and enter The Fort Pitt Tunnel. The Tunnel is simply that, a roadway going right through a mountain, or at least a very large hill. I thought it was a pretty neat feat of engineering, but then there’s only one tunnel in St. Louis that probably isn’t even one-fifth of a mile long. We were in the tunnel for what seemed like more than a quarter mile, at least. As we emerged, the last thing I expected to see was a metropolis! But there we were, smack dab in downtown Pittsburgh. PNC Park, Heinz Field, lovely architecture by some of the greats, all built along those gorgeous rivers and scenic hills — I have to admit, my vision of Pittsburgh was nothing like this. I think I was expecting something more industrial, like Detroit. Pittsburgh might not have our Gateway Arch, but once you drive past the monument St. Louis has virtually no skyline. So Pittsburgh, surprisingly enough, offers an impressive and attractive cityscape. Coming out of the farmland and right into the city via that Kirby-like “boom tube” tunnel brought a smile to my face.

We drove about ten minutes or so to our hotel, the Radisson where the Pittsburgh Comicon was being held and where we had booked a double room for our party. The emphasis here is on the word “had.” And this is probably the only low-light of our trip. When we arrived we went up to our room to find a single bed. It would sleep two, but we had four: Chris and Patti from New Jersey — Chris used to write for our site and still may from time to time — plus Daron and me. So Patti called down to the desk and asked what was going on. She was told that the hotel was “run of the house” for the weekend and the only way they’d move us is if someone in a two-bed unit cancels. Now I’m not sure what that “run of the house” phrase means to Pittsburgh residents, but in the rest of the English speaking universe if I have the “run of the house” I can causally walk into the kitchen and whip up a batch of my patented Spatula Killer Chili (TM) and some milkshakes. I can put the TV in the bar on Smackdown if I want (assuming Pittsburgh has a CW affiliate), and do it all in Elongated Man Boxers with a domino mask and a bath towel around my neck if I want to. But it DOESN’T mean first come, first served. We had our reservations quite sufficiently in advance. We’re given the excuse of, “We recently changed our computer systems and parts of some reservations were lost.” Look, Radisson Management People, I am not an idiot. When I’m not busting on Fabian Nicieza, Brian Bendis, Mark Millar and Bruce Jones (well, I WILL be getting to Bruce Jones very soon, feel free to send your two cents in on his work in advance) I work in the information technology field. I’ve done data migration. You CAN’T lose PART of a file like a reservation, and even if, in some strange Blue Screen of Doom Bizarro Universe you could, wouldn’t you notify affected parties? Especially before they drive 9 hours across the country on little sleep? We asked for two roll-away beds and we left for dinner.


After dinner we shopped at Barnes and Noble and saw an unfortunately proportioned guy there that looked a bit like Frankenstein who could have given Peter Mayhew a run for his money. When I dubbed him “Frankenstein” to Chris we both thought it was funny. But after a bit we weren’t sure if he hadn’t maybe heard the comment. Because he was standing in the magazine area as we left the store and it appeared that he rushed to put a magazine back and follow after us. We didn’t wait around for this man-beast to catch up, we booked it across the lot. Luckily Frankenstein Monsters tend to be slow of foot. I wonder if he was maybe a loss prevention agent for the store? I know when I used to work in loss prevention I wished I had a huge deterrent like somebody who looked like they could pull the arms off a Wookie. When we got back to our room Patti called the desk again because we only had ONE roll-away bed. “Sorry, two is a fire hazard.” No, JEFF “THE KNIGHTMARE” RITTER is a damn hazard. We can’t get the reserved room with two beds and we can’t get a second roll-away cot? IT’S CLOBBERIN’ TIME! Oddly enough, our Jersey contingency kept cooler heads and asked for a bunch more pillows and blankets to be set up. And here I thought everyone in Jersey was a “Sopranos” extra. Chris and Patti didn’t even have heavy Jersey accents, which I admit was mildly disappointing. I was hoping I’d go back to work having picked up a thick Jersey accent and a couple of new East Coast swear words. Oh well, maybe next year. So Day 1 ended with Chris and Patti in the bed, Daron on the cot that felt terribly uncomfortable for the brief moment I laid across it, and yours truly on a makeshift pallet of pillows and blankets on the floor. I slept like Odin after a bender, but other than some short naps on the way through Indiana I was running on one hour of sleep and probably could have slept for ten hours on a bed of nails.

Day Two of the PITTSBURGH COMICON coming very soon! And that part will actually include some Comicon material! Be sure to check back often and see some of the cool people we met and the amazing art they created!

Welcome to the PITTSBURGH COMICON!