Well, I moved out here to Hollywood, CA from Michigan with the rest of the Caliblog team in 2004 to do a gamut of things...I suppose I should get working on that...
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Tuesday, July 25, 2006
I can't believe I forgot to mention that I got to talk to Ben Edlund, creator of the Tick (comic and cartoon character and a favorite of mine). Oh, and I also auditioned for the voice of Prince Namor the Submariner for the upcoming Marvel: Ultimate Alliance video game. They made me wear the pointy ears to stay in character. That was a little weird. I just remembered that I left that stuff out of my last post, so I guess consider this a post-script to that.
Monday, July 24, 2006
So, I just got back from the 2006 San Diego Comicon, the mack daddy of the convention circuit and it was overwhelming. So much I could babble on about for paragraph after paragraph, but I'll just stick to two major things. On the second day of our two day visit my camera strap somehow came undone and I lost my very nice digital camera and three memory cards worth of pictures. Hundreds of shots from the con, but also pictures of our first two trips to Big Bear, Disneyland, Las Vegas and so many other awesome memories gone in an instant. Needless to say I was devastated. We spent the last four hours of the convention going over every inch of floor multiple times and constantly checking in with lost and found, but apparently someone was happy with their find and wasn't giving it back. What a horrible day. The trip was ruined. I was emotionally drained and going home down and out. Lily convinced me that we should stretch the visit out through Sunday and try to salvage the trip and I reluctantly agreed. We were able to get fairly cheap tickets at the door for Sunday and after a quick, unfruitful visit to the lost and found made our way back to the convention area. I noticed there was a Cartoon Voice Panel going on in one of the rooms, so we attended that. The panel was made up of Bob Bergen, Billy West, Kimberly Brooks, April Stewart, and Wally Wingert. It was so much fun. All the guys were hilarious and they did a mock radio show that was an absolute blast. I was really just there to see Billy West, though. He is my idol in the voice-over industry and someone I never thought I would get to meet. To familiarize you with some of his work, you may have heard him as the voices of Fry, Professor Farnsworth, Dr. Zoidberg and Zapp Branigan on the underrated Futurama, the Red M&M from the M&M commercials, the Honeynut Cheerios Bee, Invader Zim, NIckelodeon's Doug, and of course immortalized for the voice of Stimpson J. Cat and eventually Ren Hoek on the Ren and Stimpy show. If that wasn't enough reason for me to look up to him, which I have for years, he's also a brown-haired lefty from Michigan who just happens to be named Billy. Sounds like someone else I know... Sitting in the audience I noticed his name placard sitting there in front of him and I decided this is a once in a lifetime experience, I'm going to make the most of it. So, not a second after the panel was done I rushed to the stage and pushed my way through the rapidly forming autograph crowd and snagged me that name placard. Unfortunately, the panel didn't have time to meet with the rushing audience because the room was needed for the next panel so they made there way out the door fairly quickly. It turned out, as luck would have it, that Mr. West had decided to have a small booth opened on the floor to promote some upcoming projects. The moment I found that out I was there, baby. There was no crowd around, so I actually got to talk to him for a few minutes. He was really cool. Just a nice, funny, funny guy. I told him how much I looked up to him and how I dreamed of doing voices for cartoons myself and he gave me some suggestions. He did some impressions and commented about going back in the studio in Burbank next week to start recording tracks for the return of Futurama. And then I pulled out the placard and asked if he could sign it. He saw it and laughed and said, "That's great! I probably would have done the same thing if I'd have thought about it." Then he sign it, "To Billy! You're going places! -Billy West" How inspirational is that, man? Needless to say that whole experience made all the stress from the rest of weekend just melt away. Well worth sleeping in the car Saturday night. It's a little ironic, though. We're both born in Michigan and live in the same city in California now, but I had to drive hours away to San Diego before I happen to meet him. Life's crazy, huh?
