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JEB writes...

Gathering 2005 Journal - Day 3
July 31, 2005

I woke up in time for the Eye of Odin signing, but fell back asleep. Woke up again about two hours later and got myself a Starbucks chicken caesar salad (I figured after two days of scones and Burger King, I owed my stomach something a little healthier). Took the salad with me to the con area, where I registered for Gathering 2006 (I will get to Los Angeles), sat down and ate it, then wandered... before sitting next to the con registration table. Talked with Greg B. for a while about politics and other matters, before leaving to find the Webcomics panel. I couldn't find it- it'd moved to make way for banquet preparations- but fortunately Garrett was going there, so I followed him.

The Webcomics panel featured Shan (of Flying Glory and the Hounds of Glory), Silver (of Ravenwood) and Eden (of Naomi Lewis: Demon Hunter). They had a lot to say, albeit in a sort of disorganized fashion (which, I thought, worked well for the panel). First the gave an overview of webcomics in general. One particular point they made early is that webcomics require a lot of self-discipline (you have to be your own biggest fan, they noted) and that they don't tend to make a lot of money- although certain comics have tried ways to change that (paid access, etc.). In webcomics, it's also true that popularity does not mean your work will be seen as quality.

When making a webcomic, they advised that you make sure your art style matches your story style, and that you need to figure out what your target audience will be. You also need to really, really want to tell your story- you can't just make the webcomic to get attention. You should be absolutely immersed in your universe- if you can sprinkle your stories with the minutest of details, they really give your world a sense of depth. You should have an idea where your story's going, but don't give away all your secrets- and keep in mind that stories sometimes take on a life of their own. They recommended you make a journal, and just write down every idea for a scene, an action sequence, or dialogue that comes to mind. And if you even suspect your story might resemble something pre-existing, check it out to make sure- that way you can tweak your idea to avoid accidental copying.

There are several ways to host webcomics- services like Keenspace (which they advised should be avoided), on blogs, making your own site or using a friend's. You should have a good idea about your skill level, which will tell you how large your individual installments oughtta be and how often you should update- in general, though, more frequent updates should be smaller and less frequent updates larger. It's also good to have someone as an editor or sounding board, to give you different opinions on your work.

The webcomic panel ended, and so I satisfied my newfound love for cinnamon scones by buying yet another, before going to the Radio Play- Doc Shakespeare. Looks like it would have been a neat series, with all sorts of subtle and not-so-subtle Shakespearean and literary references, plus a touch of magic. Too bad it didn't get picked up. The actors all did a great job- very entertaining!

While most of the crowd scattered, Garrett, his friend Ed and I waited for the banquet to open up. A half hour of waiting ensued, during which I looked at parts of Garrett's cool RPG wiki, before they let us in.

I sat at a table with two groups- Echo and her parents or grandparents, and Tumiaus and her father. Tumiaus and Echo's relatives seemed slightly off in the setting, but we made nice small talk. As a nice touch, there was a tiny gargoyle candle at each of our places at the table. Our table might have jumped the gun a bit in getting food (I guess they were particularly hungry), but no one seemed to mind. The banquet was good- I had a scoop of caesar salad, a scoop of rice, some sort of beef and a dinner roll. (In retrospect, I suspect I should have gotten myself more. But oh well.) We found out, too late, that we had a gold star on one of our gargoylettes, indicating that we should have gotten a guest. Tumiaus' dad got a blue star, so Tumiaus got to keep the larger gargoyle statuette in the middle of the table.

Eventually, Echo and her family left so she could get dressed for the Masquerade. Tumiaus and her Dad stayed a while longer, before leaving as well (they had a plane to catch that evening). Strangely, there never was a Q & A- maybe because the guests sat among the attendees? Our table had some extra gargoylettes, so I handed them out to people as the lot of us left. As I headed out, I ran into Greg B., and we talked about the upcoming comic and pondered the implication of a third season as Greg Weisman intended. We were joined by Gside, then Darklord, before we all headed back to our rooms. I read the first two stories in Eye of Odin, then returned to see the Masquerade.

While waiting for the Masquerade, I wound up shorting myself on dessert again- I got one slice of cake, while it seemed everyone else got multiple. I guess I need to be greedier. A bit late, the parade of costumes began. Some of the more memorable ones included Shara as Future Tense Brooklyn; the Weisman kids as Ali (Erin) and Goliath (Benny); Eden as Banshee; Onyx (whose wings were at the cleaners, according to his sign), Revel as Jackal, Noel Leas as the Werefox, and Echo as Azure (with intricate wings!).

The winners were:

1st Prize Canon, Junior: Benny Weisman as Goliath
1st Prize Noncanon, Junior: Erin as Ali
1st Prize Cosplay, Junior: Fusion Demon as Fusion

1st Prize Canon: Eden as Banshee
2nd Prize Canon: Revel as Jackal
1st Prize Noncanon: Onyx as Onyx
2nd Prize Noncanon: Echo as Azure
1st Prize Cosplay: Noel as the Werefox
Honorable Mention Cosplay: Jade Griffin as Elisa as Belle (from "Eye of the Beholder") (for her "I'm outta here" after seeing the Werefox)

Cutest Couple: Tony Zucconi and Thom Adcox
Thom Adcox Memorial Award: Andrea Zucconi (so she won't hurt Thom!)
Gorelisa Award: Shara as Future Tense Brooklyn

Best in Show: Shara as Future Tense Brooklyn

After that, Brother Abe presented the awards for the Clan Olympics, and the results of the Poker Tourney were announced (Chris Rogers won $600 for the American Red Cross, with lesser amounts to the others' charities). They also gave a well-deserved special award to Carol Wagner for her years of work getting guests for the Gatherings. In the art show awards, Jade Griffin won the most in a variety of categories, with Kythera a close second. (Or at least it seemed that way.) The best in show was Sara Berkeley's extensive Gargoyles Zodiac; Kythera won the "Most Insane Detail" Award. Thom Adcox won a pair of shorts with "Lex Machine" on them- but they couldn't persuade him to put them on. The awards ended with the editor's choice in Eye of Odin- Allaine's "The Most Dangerous Game."

With the Masquerade finished and the awards given, some left for parts unknown. Others congregated in groups, including one table with Greg Weisman, Dave and (later) Thom. I stood on the sidelines, and had a lengthy chat with fellow old-school fan Blaqthourne (and Crimson Fury) about the earlier days of the fandom (as well as the fact that Mae Lee, who organized the first Gathering, almost came to G2K5), computers, old video games, and movie and TV soundtracks, among other topics. After that lengthy chat, I headed back to my room, read more Eye of Odin before going to sleep.

Greg responds...

Farewell, my enemies!

Response recorded on December 05, 2006

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JEB writes...

Gathering 2005 Journal - Day 2 (Part 3)
July 30, 2005 (continued)

After the comic book panel was finished, I got myself another Burger King dinner and gambled a little (and lost all of the little- seven dollars) before going to the con suite to hang out for a while. I chatted a bit with Kaelynn, but mostly watched the largest part of "My Brother's Keeper" followed by "Reawakening." After that, I headed back to the con area, and watched the Charity Poker Tourney. A few players were already out by the time I arrived. Marty lost shortly after I got there, and Thom did very well for a bit (despite his supposed inexperience) until he too went out. Adam followed a bit after, leaving the game between Eric "Gorebash" Tribou, Chris Rogers and Greg Weisman. Eric was the first to fall before Chris Rogers' formidable poker face, then finally Greg lost to him as well. Chris Rogers' charity won!

Greg led a bunch of us to the Ice Creamery in the casino, where we got, well, ice cream. (Chocolate chip, if you're wondering.) After that, Greg was out of ideas (food was his usual last resort), so we wandered into the arcade next door. Thom played the shooting game Namco Quick & Crash, and Greg played a rigorous game of Ms. Pac-Man. Thom took the lead after that, leading us (in theory) to the pool. Instead, we went into the Courtyards, past the pool, into the hotel lobby, and up the elevator, where everyone but Norcumi, Quindar and I (we'd all just sort of gone with the flow) left to get ready for the pool. The three of us joined up with Emambu, then went up to the con suite.

I stayed there for quite a while, as the crowd in there dwindled down to just Emambu and me. We chatted about The Gargoyles Saga (he was looking forward to Pendragon Season 4), journalism (he was taking some courses- I graduated last year with a journalism degree) and related topics. We had a few visitors in the meantime- A Fan (who left us pizza) and Brother Abe among them- but no one stayed for long. Marty arrived after a while, and engaged us in an interesting discussion on the marketing angle of the Gargoyles comic, plus some of how it came about.

When Marty first contacted Disney about the license, his contact didn't quite say no, but instead bluntly pointed out the difficulties involved. He would need, she said, a business plan (which he had) and a fairly large sum of money up front (which he didn't have) to acquire the license. It was the contact that talked to Greg Guler about the idea at a San Diego Comic-Con, and later referred Marty to SLG.

More people started flowing in at that point- first Mandolin, then Siryn and her friends, who'd just came back from hauling her to a bachelorette party. Most of them left after a bit, while a few more came in after Hudson's Rant (including Hudson himself). Kaelynn and Siryn played Super Smash Bros. Melee for a while, during which Dave Schwartz made a brief cameo, then left. After Siryn left, they put on Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. By this point, I was getting pretty tired, so after listening in on a theological discussion for a while, I headed to my room and my bed.

Greg responds...

You'll have to do better than that!

(Just to be clear, I READ (and enjoy reading) all the conjournals, which -- as I've said before -- I asked to have posted here for the sake of the powers that be. The abbreviated responses are to save time, i.e. to help me get to the questions and catch up.)

Response recorded on December 05, 2006

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JEB writes...

Gathering 2005 Journal - Day 2 (Part 2)
July 30, 2005 (continued)

After the Series Development and Production panel, I headed back to my room and lounged around for an hour or so, then headed to the Modern Martial Arts panel. An entertaining panel, featuring Flanker, Paul, Shara and Julie demonstrating various techniques. Flanker explained that there are two basic types of martial arts- striking, which focus on attack, and redirective, which focus on using the opponent's movements and momentum against them. He also noted that (in his opinion- and mine) that martial arts includes more than just the Asian fighting styles- it also includes western styles such as fencing.

After that brief introduction, Flanker and Paul sparred for us, Flanker using a freestyle sort of kung fu, and Paul using tae kwon do. Each got their share of strikes in, and fun doing it.

Flanker believed the best option for learning a martial art was to join a club or team, because they wanted you to get good and win them trophies. The other ends of the spectrum- quick and cheap, or expensive and high-end- were flawed, in his opinion. To him, it seemed, the main reason to learn martial arts was for self-defense- everything else was an extra at best or superfluous at worst. (Paul seemed to disagree, favoring practice movements like kata.) That said, Flanker didn't dismiss the value of other reasons- he just didn't feel that way himself.

We also received a demonstration of tae kwon do from Shara, and Flanker listed some interesting facts about fighting systems ranging from the Russian Special Forces' systema to the fast, brutal Israeli Special Forces' krav maga to the more traditional karate. He made an interesting statement- "professionals are predictable- amateurs are dangerous." (Referring to the fact that a professional in combat is patterned, while an amateur doesn't know when to pull back or control themselves.) Julie, a federal agent with the OSI, said her training focused on surviving a confrontation using escalation of force- you work your way up from minimal force to damaging to, if necessary, lethal. She also had an interesting piece of advice: the best deterrent against criminals could be an unloaded 12-gauge shotgun, as the intimidation factor was sufficient to scare off most bad guys.

After the panel ended, the con was interrupted briefly by a fire alarm (which turned out to have been pulled by some kid). We gathered up for the Gargoyles Comic and Creature Comics.com panel following that. While we waited, I chatted with Shan (who, unknown to me, was webcomic creator Shannon Muir) about iBooks (which, she informed me, was intended to bring comic-book properties to a wider, book-reading audience) and the state of the current comic industry in relation to different genres and manga.

The panel featured Greg Weisman, Slave Labor Graphic chief Dan Vado and Marty Lund. The facts given on the Gargoyles comic are as follows:

- It will be the third season as Greg Weisman would have done it, starting after "Hunter's Moon" Part III.
- The comic will be released bi-monthly, and each issue will be 32 pages in length. They hope the first issue will be released sometime during the first half of 2006. The license from Disney will last for three years, after which it's up for renewal.
- They didn't provide any teasers on artists. The only actual art that's been finished for Gargoyles- which was a late-comer to Slave Labor Graphics' Disney line- was the picture of Goliath and Elisa from the San Diego Comic-Con drawn by Greg Guler. Although SLG is accepting submissions, Dan Vado wasn't sure if they'll be open to hiring outside artists. Fan art might be featured on the letters page.
- The individual issues of the comic will be available through Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble's Web site. (That goes for the other SLG Disney comics as well.) Disney will publish the collected editions of the comic.
- Greg isn't 100% sure that everything he revealed over the last several years will be part of the comic, but the bigger revelations will likely be kept- mainly so as not to cheat the fans.
- Greg admitted he's a little worried about the comic- after so long a wait (almost ten years), he hopes the final product doesn't disappoint! He also still has some surprises in store.
- The comic will be set in late 1996, but Greg doesn't plan to make this explicit in the comic itself (he doesn't want to discourage new readers).
- There will be an advertising budget. They hope to make sure there are plenty of ways for people to find out about the comic.
- They're not sure if they'll have access to material from the previous Marvel comic. Even if they did, Greg would need to look the material over to decide if he wants to include it- he recalled being less than thrilled by some elements. (I imagine the character of Venus was one of those elements.)
- The title will focus on the Gargoyles thread primarily, although it will touch on elements of the spin-offs (including Timedancer). The spin-offs may become comics of their own if Gargoyles is a good enough seller to justify it.
- Vinnie will be in the comic! (Quoth Greg: "It'd be like leaving me out!")
- Greg Weisman will be the only writer.

As for SLG's Disney line and Creature Comics.com:

- The very deal itself is a bit odd- Dan Vado said there's nothing in SLG's 20-year history to suggest they'd be a good venue for Disney comics (they're best known for stuff like Milk and Cheese or Johnny the Homicidal Maniac). However, Disney chose SLG because they thought they'd be able to snag the teen demographic. Although a final contract has yet to be signed, SLG signed a letter of intent prior to the San Diego Comic-Con (and Disney promptly promoted the SLG-Disney material at their booth). This basically means it's a done deal.
- Disney will have approval on all content in the line, but Disney is also aware that the comics are aimed at an older crowd than most of their stuff.
- The entire line will be full-color, except for Haunted Mansion.
- Haunted Mansion, due out in October, is based on the ride (not the movie), and the art will be done by Roman Dirge (artist for SLG title Lenore. It will tell the tales of the 999 ghosts that unlive within the mansion.
- Wonderland is basically Alice in Wonderland without Alice, taking place after the Disney movie. Dan Vado described it as akin to one piece of sample art- the Cheshire Cat looking all strung out. The art is by Sunny Lu (and I have no idea if that's spelled right), whose style looks rather similar to Tony DiTerlizzi of Spiderwick Chronicles and Planescape fame; according to Dan, the writer was so into Wonderland that his dad dug a hole in the backyard when he was a kid so he could wait for the White Rabbit!
- Tron, due out in January or February 2006, is one of the more demanded titles- apparently Tron has quite a fandom, which has basically been telling Dan that he'd better not screw it up. It's set six months after the film, but quickly goes to times before and during the film. SLG was the second company to get the license- the previous company's license fell through. (They planned a more superheroic direction for the title.) The writer for Tron has apparently been waiting 20 years to work on it. Two scripts have been written thus far.
- When asked about making a Team Atlantis comic, they didn't have plans to do one, but "The Last" (the aforementioned episode that's a pseudo-crossover with Gargoyles) might be done in comic form.
- SLG might be involved in the 2006 Gathering- possibly sending staff or such there.
- Creature Comics.com will work on other original properties, in addition to Gargoyles. Greg has one specific one in mind (which he didn't identify), but there are time issues involved in making it.

Dan Vado was contacted by Marty Lund- who'd been referred to SLG by their mutual contact at Disney- via e-mail. After learning about Gargoyles, he discovered that his kids and three employees were all big fans of the show- then he watched some episodes for himself on DVD. Dan wasn't surprised to discover there was a fandom- after all, even he, Dan Vado, had his single fan who visits him at cons! Dan chooses comics on whether they'll be good, not if they make money. (This is in part because he tried to do some titles for profit motives, and they failed.)

Towards the end of the panel, the topic veered to the comic-book industry. In Dan's opinion, the "meltdown" in the industry began in the late 1980s, and intensified as they focused more and more on the collectors' market. Only in the last few years has the shrinkage of the direct comic market began to reverse. Dan assessed that comics were starting to reach more into the mainstream thanks to manga and graphic novels- SLG comics are even sold in Hot Topic stores (which, I assume, means we'll see the Disney ones there too).

Greg responds...

You'll have to do better than that!

Response recorded on December 04, 2006

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JEB writes...

Gathering 2005 Journal - Day 2 (Part 1)
July 30, 2005

Got up, got another cinnamon scone, then headed for the art show again. While there, I bumped into Mandolin once more, before heading for the Series Development and Production Panel, featuring Greg Weisman and Dave Schwartz. A very interesting and informative panel!

As Greg and Dave put it, there are several stages through which one must go when creating an animated series:

1) Development. This involves getting together your core ideas- whether original or based on an existing property (in which case you often have to suffer interference from the property's owners)- and coming up with your characters and their basic designs, and at least a half-dozen basic story ideas. Put together, all these basic elements form a series bible.

2) Sale. Using the series bible as a base, you refine the elements, make them a little flashier and so forth, then create a pitch for the show to give to prospective producers. This is the hardest part of development, particularly since most of the work on the pitch has to be done "on spec" (that is, gained through favors or the promise of work if the pitch sells the show). Pitches used to involve a series of cards with production art, combined with a verbal presentation for the execs. Now, execs are far more demanding, and prefer to see DVD samples, short Flash films, focus tests and even entire pilot episodes! This is, basically, because execs are afraid of making a mistake- they don't trust their own judgment, and need to be sure that at least they can't be blamed for a show's failure. (The corollary is that if a show isn't a big hit from the get-go, the execs usually distance themselves from it. Greg added that some animation execs don't even like animation- they'd rather be in live-action (begging the question- why be an animation exec in the first place if you don't like it?).)

(Tidbits about Gargoyles : Artist Paul Felix designed several of the cards in the pitch from the DVD- specifically the Manhattan vista, the Scarab robot, and the (in)famous card with the kid holding the balloon and Goliath's shadow. Dave Schwartz quipped that making a pitch to the Disney execs was akin to going before the "High Tribunal of Krypton"- where failure got you exiled to the Phantom Zone. Changes to the final pitch for Gargoyles included reducing the cards from 42 to 28 and a few minor tweaks such as a little more humor and a little more of the Elisa-Goliath relationship. Dave said that others came to them to figure out their secret- which was simply having shorter pitches, with all their pitch cards oriented the same direction and using the same baseline color!)

3) Pre-production. Once (if) the show is sold, you start creating the background materials needed to make the show. This includes a "999 packet," which includes the artwork that'll be used in most episodes (i.e. the clock tower, Castle Wyvern and so forth), and (if not written prior) the series bible. The pilot episode is usually written now, and the regular voices are also chosen at this point; guest voices from later on are usually cast rather than audtioned. At this stage, it's also crucial to have an in-depth understanding of your characters, how they think, act, walk and talk, what distinctive physical and personality quirks they have.

The voice tracks are recorded first, then the storyboards are made based on them. In the storyboarding stage, it's best to assign different sections of the story to the artists best qualified to work on them- tragic parts for artists good at portraying emotion, action scenes for artists good at action, etc. (Once this stage is underway, the idea is to have the later episodes in the works as each episode is actually produced.)

(Tidbits about Gargoyles : It took three years to sell, and by the time the final designs were made at Disney Japan, the character concepts were already strongly fleshed out.)

4) Production. With all the preparation work done- voices, storyboards, and character designs- the episode is animated at the studio (often overseas).

5) Post-production. The animation comes back for review. At this point, time is scant, since an airdate has usually been selected, and missing an airdate can carry financial penalties. If an error is found in the animation, the pre-production staff needs to make sure it was the studio's mistake, rather than their own- if it can be interpreted as their mistake, they often have to live with the flawed footage. In such a case, not all is lost- clever editing of the footage can remove the worst errors. In the end, however, the finished episodes should be exactly 22 minutes in length. Then, the music is mixed in- often, the first few episodes are fully scored, with the soundtrack from those episodes edited into a music library used for later episodes. Finally, the episodes are screened by execs- at which point, you'd better hope they don't have any issues, because it's too late to fix anything major. (And don't expect compliments.)

(Tidbits about Gargoyles : "Pendragon" had about 3-4 seconds of footage cut, and replaced at the beginning with a pan shot of London from "M.I.A." The "Previously on Gargoyles sequences- often about 30 seconds in length- were created in part to allow up to 30 seconds of footage to be cut from the episode. A common animation annoyance prior to Gargoyles was that character wouldn't walk and talk at the same time- if they talked, they stopped moving. It took a while to deprogram the animators of that habit. Mark Perlman was the one who cleverly edited Carl Johnson's music for "Awakening" throughout the remainder of the series (although some new music was added later, I'm pretty sure).)

Following the overview, Greg and Dave fielded questions about the animation industry:

- Apparently Disney has closed nearly all of their overseas studios for a variety of reasons- Japan due to expense, London due to lacking quality. Disney Paris was assigned to feature animation, then closed; Disney Australia was assigned to the direct-to-video productions, and is apparently due to close down soon as well. (Boy, Disney is stupid.)
- Making a new animation studio would be difficult- not onlyu very expensive, but also requiring them to find a means of distribution.
- Studios now, more than ever before, are in the business of making maximum profit rather than making animated series. This is why so much animation now is imported from Japan and dubbed- it's much cheaper. (Been my theory for years- looks like I was right.) This also leads to the "bastardization" (as Dave put it) of existing properties- thus Cinderella II and so forth. (Dave wasn't sure how much longer that could continue.) Making pilots to show to studios is comparatively easy anymore, but selling them is much harder. The animation industry is better now than it was a few years ago, when studios were cutting back in a major kind of way, but still not as good as it was back in the mid-1990s.
- DVD technology had led to high interest in direct-to-video productions, which can also serve as pilots for series. Most 2-D animation is likely to be direct-to-video; unless a marquee character such as Batman is involved, or toys likely to be sold, studios are generally disinterested.
- Greg opined that internet piracy certainly doesn't help the animation industry.
- Dave opined that studios are less interested in 2-D animation overall- CGI is the "flavor of the month."
- Flash animation is popular for pitches, and is used on a few series, but no Flash-made series has become popular enough to gain attention for the medium.
- Serious American-made animation aimed at adults has generally failed (even Batman: The Animated Series failed in prime-time, disappointing Greg and others in the industry)- hence the disinterest by studios in making it. (Comedies like Family Guy or The Simpsons, they believed, were a different matter- a lot of humor comes from the voices themselves, and the animation is basically a gimmick.) Precisely why it failed is debatable.

Greg responds...

I've been looking for you!

Response recorded on December 04, 2006

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JEB writes...

Gathering 2005 Journal - Day 1
July 29, 2005

I woke up around 8 or 9 a.m. (Vegas time), but was too drained by either the annoyances of yesterday or jetlag to will myself out of bed until about 10. At around 3 a.m., the power had gone out- I wonder if anyone's schedule was thrown off? Fortunately, it was very easy for me to request a move to a non-smoking room- they told me to come back around 1 p.m. when my new room would be ready. In the meantime, I had a cinnamon scone from Starbucks for brunch. (I don't normally favor scones, but this was particularly tasty!)

My first goal was to find the registration table, which I did after some difficulty. Soon, in rapid succession, I met with three of my best fandom friends- Garrett "Dracandros" Baumgartner, A Fan and Greg Bishansky. I also encountered Kaelynn and Hudson. Garrett invited me to hit the Star Trek Experience with a group of his friends- while they gathered up to go, I sat in on the Con Virgin panel. They did a great overview, as well as explaining some unique circumstances of this Gathering- for example, wearing masks on the casino floor was forbidden, so they would have to request a security escort to take costumed people to the Masquerade! However, I had to leave the panel early to meet up with Garrett and company. While we waited for one last guy to join us, I paid Garrett my long-overdue share of the costs of my Web site (which includes JEB's Gargoyles Page and the Multiversal Omnipedia-Atlas).

The Star Trek Experience (my second visit- I'd last been there during my 2004 Vegas vacation) was fun- I think I liked Klingon Encounter better than Borg Invasion, and the museum was just as awesome as last time! (To an ex-Trek geek like me, anyway.) Garrett and his friends were fun to hang with, and we had a nice discussion about some of the more annoying aspects of Trek and its rival Star Wars outside of Quark's Bar. At the shop, I also snagged some pins (Voyager-era combadge, movie badge, and movie captain's insignia), as well as a VHS tape of "The Doomsday Machine"- one of my dad's favorite episodes.

After returning to Palace Station, we split up. I returned to my nice, clean-smelling non-smoking room, then got myself a nice, huge, disgustingly unhealthy Burger King dinner. Then, I headed up to the Dealer's Room. As in pretty much every Gathering of the last few years, the sale of actual, official Gargoyles merchandise has basically stopped- unsurprising, since the newest items (aside from the DVD) are eight years old at this point! Maybe with the new comic out, we'll see some new stuff, but I dunno. However, there were still some neat dealers, and I picked up the Eye of Odin fanfic anthology (fanthology?). I also walked over to admire the fine art in the nearby gallery, including great production art and storyboards from the series- the episodes "Eye of the Beholder," "Vows," "The Edge" and "Avalon" were all represented. All the fan art was great, including Lynati's terrific gargoyle wing anatomy drawings and Kythera's varied and detailed art (some of which was from the Monster Encyclopedia 1, a RPG monster book I'll have to seek out now!). Greg Weisman's kids were also good- certainly much better than I was at their age (or now, for that matter). I also chatted with Mandolin and Greg B., until the Opening Ceremonies were announced.

Following the summons, I was greeted by the people running the Gargoyles Fan Web Comic (I believe Lexy and one other), who ran a dice game that presented me with my only gaming success all weekend- I scored candy and two cool T-shirts promoting the comic. They also plugged their contest (write a brief story based around an image of Bronx), but although I thought about trying, I judged that I wouldn't be able to write anything catchy enough.

As we waited for the opening ceremonies, I was greeted by Jade Griffin (who initially thought I was Robert, due to my bushy dark hair and black T-shirt), and I looked over some of A Fan's original fiction on his palm-pilot-type thing. (I've got to get me one of those- they look so neat.)

Chris Rogers opened the con with some basic administrative stuff, then a great big thanks to Marty "Kaioto" Lund, who was designated the Fan Guest of Honor due to his efforts to get the Gargoyles comic made. Marty believed the fandom deserved credit for his accomplishment, and seemed a bit embarassed when we gave him a well-deserved standing ovation. We also got a brief pitch from the Gathering 2006 staff- I look forward to L.A.!

After Chris was finished, it was time for Greg Weisman! First, he played audio greetings from the unable-to-attend Kath Soucie and Keith David ("I've been denied everything... even my convention!"), as well as video greetings from Greg Weisman, Frank Paur, Michael Reaves, Jeff Bennett, Bill Fagerbakke, Thom Adcox (who acknowledged his present self being at the con), Brigitte Bako, and most surprisingly of all, Ed Asner! A real treat!

Regarding the Season 1 DVD, Greg informed us that the sales were good, but not great (although Disney wouldn't give him hard numbers), so it's important to spread the word about Season 2 Volume 1. As the reader has probably heard, the first Season 2 set will feature all of Season 2 up through "Kingdom" in a three-disc set, and will probably be released in December. Greg wasn't allowed to say much about special features, unfortunately.

Next, the traditional video session- with a twist. Instead of the pitch to syndicated stations made by Greg (included on the Season 1 DVD), we saw an earlier version of the same, narrated by veteran voice actor Jim Cummings, with earlier, more toony versions of the clan. A neat touch was how Cummings used a rough Scottish voice for the Dark Ages stuff, and switched to a contemporary American one for the present day.

Then, back to tradition, with the media promo ("It's better than Barney!") and sci-fi con promo ("the next generation of Disney animation"), then the reconstructed pitches for The New Olympians and Gargoyles: The Dark Ages. The Bad Guys leica reel was as entertaining as ever- I hope the comic will pick up that thread. Then, an unexpected bonus- Seth "IRC Goliath" Jackson introduced another "leica reel," made by Vashkoda, featuring the audio of "The Last" (the unfinished Gargoyles-related episode of Team Atlantis) meshed with the first act's storyboard, a bit of new art, Gargoyles music and sound clips- a most impressive result. Kudos to Vashkoda! (I wish Team Atlantis had been produced- Gargoyles aside, it looked right up my alley.)

With that ended, the crowd drifted apart. I chatted with Greg B. and Kaelynn again, then headed to my room for a bit. I headed back in time to catch the end of the MSTing of "Enter Macbeth." Afterwards, I accompanied A Fan to his room, where we watched Star Trek IV with the Okudas' text commentary. After that session of amiable watching and talking, I headed back to my room for sleep.

Greg responds...

Trophies!

Response recorded on December 04, 2006

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JEB writes...

A warning: My journal is LONG this year.

Gathering 2005 Journal - Day -1
July 28, 2005

Going directly there from work, I managed to get through the security gate at BWI in record time. In fact, everything was bizarrely easy- the e-tickets went through fast, the people in line were nice and easygoing. (Note to self- flights on weekdays are a good idea.) Just sat down and read my Doctor Who anthology (Short Trips- ironic title, as it turned out) while I waited.

Then the flight itself- Baltimore to Pittsburgh. I don't think there are many things I find more exciting than takeoff. The rush of speed, the sharp climb as the landscape below shrinks, then floating above the clouds, looking down at the world through a drifting sea of mist and a landscape of white. (I was fortunate that there wasn't anyone sitting next to me- otherwise, I would have had a lovely view of the cabin.)

After arriving in Pittsburgh, I got myself dinner from a McDonald's that evidently didn't see much business around 7 p.m. A few passengers around me at the time looked like they might also be going to the Gathering, but I stopped short of humming the Gargoyles theme to see if anyone would perk up. (I didn't recall any of those faces being at the con, so it's just as well.) It's about this point that I began to realize I was technologically behind the curve- everyone had neat cell phones or laptops- I had a years-old cell phone model that couldn't do much more than play Tetris. (This point became more apparent as the long weekend went on.)

Unfortunately, when I arrived in Las Vegas about five or six hours later, things went sour. The flight from Pittsburgh to Vegas itself was fine, if very long- finished Short Trips and moved onto the sequel, More Short Trips. Las Vegas itself was a striking sight as we approached, a cluster of stars in a vast ocean of shadow. (Kind of interesting that "Sin City" should shine so bright from a distance.) But after that... I waited for an hour in the wrong baggage claim, and when I finally did figure this out, I wasn't able to find the last hotel shuttle of the evening before it left. So, I had to wait in line for a taxi. A very, very, long line- there were literally a hundred or more people there.

When I finally got to Palace Station (tipping the cabbie far too much, my dad said when I mentioned it later), I went to the employee's floor in the main building instead of my floor in the Courtyards. I eventually found my way to my room (after passing by the Con Suite on the third floor, but I was in no mood for socializing), which- counter to the request I'd made- was a smoking roon. However, by that point I was too tired to care, so I just went to bed.

Greg responds...

I've been looking for you!

Response recorded on December 01, 2006

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John 'Flanker' Clemens writes...

The short of it: The cons keep getting better. This was my 3rd.

Pre con:
I have to say, I'm a god at planning trips. I got three one way flights from Buffalo to Vegas, Vegas to Vancouver, Vancouver to Toronto. All I have to do is get to Sarah 'The Great's place in Buffalo and we fly in together. I also volunteered to host another panel on combat, this time discussing hand to hand. I got cheap flights, but paying for hotel and registration could be an issue. Looking the Gathering forums, I found a crazy offer. Some lady would pay my hotel and registration if I helped her run a booth promoting her website. Too good to be true, but I asked anyway. She wanted me to phone her. Hey, for a few bucks, why the hell not? Apparently she's serious. OK, whatever gets me to the gathering. She also mentioned she studied Tae Kwon Do and could bring some stuff to my panel, sweet!

THURSDAY
I have never never ever had a problem crossing the US border. Apparently there must be a biker gang or terrorist cell called 'Gargoyles' because I was interrogated by US Customs for over an hour. I was really nervous. Eventually they let me go and Sarah's mom was mad that I was late for dinner. Sarah and I made it to the airport to find that our flights were delayed which could mess up our connecting flight. But, there were no major problems, other than the fact that we were supposed to rooming with Denis but had no way of getting ahold of him in Vegas. I ended up calling his cell from the hotel room phone. Ouch.

FRIDAY
I was going to hit a rental range to fire some machine guns, but no one showed up. There was tepid interest in doing that or some airsoft later. No biggie. Registration was scary since Shara was supposed to take care of it, but they couldnt find my con badge and I couldnt find Shara. They found me one, but Shara didnt show up for awhile, I was a little tense. I finally met her and we set up her table. She had me running a dice game that basically amounted to me giving away free gargoyles t shirts and posters. It was fun, and an easy way to earn a hotel room and registration. I dont recall anything exciting happening friday night. I was just exhausted and went to bed.

SATURDAY
My panel was to happen at 3pm, but I still got up early and helped out with Shara's table of free giveaway madness. It was cool and I kept meeting really people like Paul and Julie. Shara let me go check out the voice acting seminar, since I constantly miss it at prior cons. It was really interesting and Greg and Thom are really good and getting alot of information across in limited time. I had to grab my martial arts stuff and start strapping it on while they wrapped up their panel. Paul came in and had mentioned earlier that he had studied alot of Tae Kwon Do and Hwrang Do and was also a veteran of Iraq. I brought two sets of sparring gear so I loaned him one and figured I'd start my panel with a bang. Martial Arts is a pretty big topic to cover in an hour so I didnt bother preparing notes to read or anything dry like that (like my panel was last year). I asked to guys to open the doors and Paul and I fought while the seats filled. It was a really good match. He got a good kick on my face, and I knocked his glasses off his face. We put on a good show and I bowed and began talking about martial arts between heavy breaths and glasses of water. After I explained a little and talked about how to pick a school and things like that, Shara displayed her Tae Kwon Do uniform and performed a Kata. Next I invited Julie, a 12 year veteran of law enforcement to speak about street combat. She's a real life Elisa Maza and she totally made the panel something special, even to the more experienced guys like Paul and I. We wrapped up and I think the panel went really good, and much better than I thought it would. And I ended it just in time because the fire alarm went off. I tried to get some info about the comic coming out but I missed the main part of that presentation. I slept friday night so I decided to go out saturday. I turned down Maui's invitation to the Rainforest Cafe, a decision I would regret the rest of the con. A bunch of us broke off to see the strip and go see 'Charlie and Chocolate' Factory. Poor Noel was driving around in someone else's HUGE van at night in an unfamiliar city full of hostile drivers. Things were rough and I ended up breaking down and eating totally overpriced tiny pizza. We DID eventually get to the theater missing the first couple minutes of the movie, but it was still a good time.

SUNDAY
Sunday I got up and had to kill some time. I had plans with some guys on the Somethingawful.com forums to meet up and go shooting in Boulder City. But I always wanted to audition. I knew I wouldnt be back in time for the Radio Play, but maybe that just made the audition less stressful. I read for Broadway, I think I did ok, since Greg seemed surprised when I said I couldnt be in the play. I apologized and left. My buddy picked up and we went to Boulder City. I wont bore everyone with details but it was much cheaper than renting and I had good time, and hurt my hand firing guns that are too damn big. I got back to the hotel around 5pm, and found out that I couldnt get a haircut for the banquet because the shop was closed. Darn it. I shaved off my goatee and started putting together my dress uniform. I decided to wear it because I didnt bring a costume this year and there's nothing wrong with a little attention whoring at the Gathering. Plus I look like solid gold in that thing. I was late and Sarah came to my room, she went out and got osme make up and wore a nice gown and looked totally fabulous. We got there late but it was cool since nothing had really started yet. The banquet was really awesome this year. There was a weird period between the banquet and the masquerade where I couldnt find anyone. Dark Lord talked to me for a few minutes before I had to remind him that I was Flanker and that I had shaved. Dark Lord is a special individual and I wont forget him anytime soon. Desert was served during the Masquerade which was cool since I wasnt in the masquerade and got some chocolate cake. Shara totally smoked everyone in her brooklyn costume as I knew she would when I first saw it. I cant believe it was her first con. The rest of sunday I just hung out with everyone and bought Thom a beer and generally had an aweosme time. Eventually the party broke up when Greg fell asleep in his chair.

MONDAY & TUESDAY
This part of the Con was crap. You start saying goodbye to everyone and it sucks. Sarah and I formed a band of die hard cling-ons(After we got free show and dinner for listening to a time share pitch). We started stalking Chris Rogers and ended up following him into some pretty awesome buffets. Chris is the Man. Almost a dozen of us hit the Adventure Dome on tuesday and roped in a family so we could get the group discount. We all a good time even though I was feeling a little sick. We met up with Chris again who got us through a massive line up for the Buffet at the Bellagio, because Chris is the Man. I had a killer time with Sarah the Great, Liz, CKayote, Hudson, Dancer, Chris, Aaron and if I got your name wrong or forgot you just smack me in LA.

Greg responds...

Farewell, my enemies!

Response recorded on December 01, 2006

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Doug writes...

Hey Greg It's Doug

Just wanted to get my gathering journal in, sadly it is a short one as I was in vegas for more reasons than just the gathering, in fact as I mentioned in your mug a guest I literally threw some cloths in a bag, left hunters moon going on the VCR, and got on a plane. I had never really been out of south texas much so it was cool to be in a different place.

I waited for two hours to register then rushed right up to the suite to talk to the mighty Greg Wiseman. I was pleased to find that the atmosphere was quite nice and I was not nervouse, even though this was my first gathering. I feel that many of the questions I had on my mind kinda drive things for a while and I was happy that they got answered one way or another. By the way did you ever check out hunters moon, I could swear he almost touches her hair on the train. I was pleased to hear about the comic and your work on the Batman.

I stuck around in the Suite to talk to Thom, man that guy is awsome one of the coolest guys I have ever spoken with in my life. He was very open and honest about working in the profession of voice acting and I learned a great many things from him, And he is just hillarious and was very helpfull in answering any questions about the industry, lex or the show. I would also like to thank both you guys for your sigs. I have to be the only person to ask Greg Wiseman "Can i be a son-of-a-bitch and ask for your autograph." HAHA and Thom signed his Lexington as well.

I then went over to the Demona debate and thought it to be a little "Over Analyzing", and many of my opinions seemed to be overlooked or ignored and I dunno... I just kinda wasn't into it after that but I did stroll over to the dealers room and found a talented artist who runs creatures of the night and bought several pieces of her work just as she was closing up shop, she was happy to sell me them at a nice rate and I was down to 5 bucks after my anthology purchase, long story short after a few hours of the gathering, and the blue man group I was good. Hope to see everyone next year in LA

Greg responds...

Trophies!

Response recorded on December 01, 2006

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Greg Bishansky writes...

Journal Thingy... Part 3
First off, let me say that if I forgot anyone, or am putting things in the wrong order, I'm sorry. The past weekend is quickly becoming BlurrCon. Which is why I want to finish this sooner rather than later.

First off, on Thursday, I saw Andrea Zucconi, and a big shout out to her about that. I never really knew her at the previous cons, I knew of her, but she friended me on LJ shortly after G2004, and I friended her back, got to know her over LJ, so it was cool seeing her this year.

Also saw Siryn, who's getting married in a few weeks I think. Another call out to her, though now I think I need to at least send a gift ;)

Saturday, July 30th

I slept in today. Was not quite enough to get me off my jet lag, but it helped. Got up, showered and dressed and once more, I went in search of breakfast. I forget what I ate, but I did end up at the Series Development panel, but it's all a great big blurr. I recall enjoying it though.

I think I spent most of the day hanging out in the art room though, just chilling with people. I bought pre-registration for Gathering 2006... the full package. Hung out with everyone, it was all cool.

Eventually, we went to the Slave Labor panel, and got to hear more about the comic. Dan Vado seems like a cool guy, and the panel gave me hope, the comic looks to be in good hands indeed. Especially since he's going to leave Greg alone to write what ever he wants.

After this I went with Revel and Spacebabie to dinner, as well as another girl, and I forget her name, and I feel really bad about it. Food was okay, we talked politics and horrible job stories.

After that, it was time for the Celebrity Poker Tournament. I was at first calling it for Thom, he's an actor, he should be able to bluff, but he was out early. In the end, Chris won the game... game, poker is a sport... Greg came in second, followed by Gore. It was a fun watch.

Revel and I headed back into the casino, he won money this time, but I lost a bit. Was still ahead from where I started though.

After that, it was time for Hudson's Rant, always fun. Pick a random topic out of a hat. I'd reproduce some of it here, but this is the PG version of the journal.

Later on, the art chicks finally returned from throwing Siryn her bachelorette party. I pointed at her veil and made a joke about her and Adam eloping. But I followed them back up, and (contrary to popular jokes at the moment, I was not stalking them ;)) so I could give Jen an animation cel I purchased for her of Goliath and Demona from "Awakening: Part Four". I wanted to get it out of the way, because, given how hectic these cons are, I wasn't sure if I'd get a chance again. I'm happy to say she loved it.

Night ended in the con suite, chips, pizza, Super Smash Bros. Hung out for a while, before returning to my room to collapse.

Greg responds...

You'll have to do better than that!

Response recorded on December 01, 2006

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Greg Bishansky writes...

Journal Thingy... Part 2
Friday July, 19th

Woke up, showered and dressed and went downstairs in search of food, ran into Aaron in the casino and decided to help him out, ended up watching the con suite for about fifteen minutes, since it was unlocked with no one in there, and was soon relieved and went back down to the con, and assisted a little (very little) with art room set up, hung out, then spent about 90 minutes at the registration table with Chris, Seth and a few people, had some Burger King for lunch that Revel and Spacie got me.

It was about this time that Revel gave me the art piece I commissioned from him, which would go on to be a big hit at the con and won second place in the art show. For those who weren't there, here it is.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v661/gregx/KillDavid.jpg

Ended up missing the Demona Debate, which I was interested in, but aw well, been involved in so many of those, I wasn't bothered about it. Spent a good chunk of the day in the Art Room, chilling with Aaron, Revel and anyone else that happened along.

Finally it was time for Opening Ceremonies. Chris welcomed us all to Vegas, Greg got up and showed his usual videos, and some new ones. He made his speech about what a big year it's been, what with the DVD coming out, and new DVDs and comics on the way. Finally, Opening Ceremonies concluded with Seth showing the new fan made leica reel of "The Last". Basically, for those who don't know, in the cancelled "Team Atlantis" series, Greg wrote an episode set in 1920, guest starring Demona who was being hunted by Fiona Canmore. The episode was scripted, voice recorded (Marina Sirtis reprised her role), and only partially story boarded before they cancelled the series. Those were auctioned off at Gathering 2003, and Vashkoda did a wonderdul job adapting the storyboards into an animatic, lining it up with the voice tape, adding music and sound effects and color... it was very nice. Now to see if we can possibly get it finished. Vash, if you read this, you did a great job.

So, after Opening Ceremonies, Revel and Spacie and I head into the casino. I was of course adamant against gambling, but then I got board and put down $100 at the Blackjack table. I did not know what I was doing, so we stay in for a couple of hours, I get the hang of it and I walk out with $138. That was fun.

Next up was Greg and Thom's Blue Mug-A-Guest. Fun as always, and this year it was actually blue. "Are Gargoyles pink inside?", Greg also talked some more about the comic, it was good times.

Finally, it's about 1 am and we decide to call it a night, and head down to the cafe for food, Greg shares some anecdotes about the business, Aaron and Emambu are talking about soda. I have a cheeseburger. Good times.

Then we call it a night for real.

To be continued.

Greg responds...

Good times, indeed.

Response recorded on December 01, 2006

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Greg Bishansky writes...

Gathering 2005 Part One

July 27th

I couldn't sleep, there was just no possible way I would ever fall asleep. The shuttle was supposed to pick me up at 7 AM, and here I am, not being able to sleep. So, at 5:30 am and wide awake, I do what any one would do. I go to the diner to have breakfast. Thank gods for 24 hour diners. I order the Eggs Benedict and coffee and orange juice. Eggs good, coffee tasted like chalk though. So, I come back, right in the nick of time to catch my shuttle.

So, we take a drive, pick up two more people, one of whom is flying on the same exact flight that I am. Cute girl who I spend the remainder of the trip over to Vegas flirting with. Same shuttle, same place, hell our tickets had us sitting next to each other on the plane. I never caught her name, which kinda bums me out now, but not too much.

So, we soon arrive at John F. Kennedy airport. I hate JFK and greatly prefer LaGuardia. JFK is a very hard airport to find your way around without asking directions, and the place is HUGE! JFK is it's own enclosed city, it has it's own monorail and everything.

And now it's time for my rant on Airport Security... first of all, keep in mind, I'm not wearing my trench, I'm wearing a black suit jacket (not the same one I wore later at the banquet), and Security is all over me, everything except t-shirt and pants has to come off. THey pull me to the side to further frisk me, and my Zippo Lighter is pulled out of my checked luggage and confiscated... I was pissed. But, I get everything back, and I make it to the plane. Yeah, yeah, this is my first time on an airplane post 9/11.

The flight is long and uneventful. The in-flight movie is Sahara, but I'm not interested. I try to sleep a few times, I skip the meal, but I have this curse of not being able to sleep on airplanes. The last half hour of the flight is really nice, as we fly over the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam... hmm, somehow, you'd think the Hoover Dam would have a no-fly zone. Aw well.

We land in Las Vegas, and well, Sin City wastes no time, there are slot machines in the airport, as soon as you step off the plane. I go and grab my checked luggage, and head to grab a shuttle. Unfortunatly, we end up with a lousy shuttle. AC is broken, driver doesn't know where anything is. Eventually I spot the Palace Station from the window, and point it out, and so I get dropped off, and check in.

First of all, I drop off my stuff, and go get food. I treat myself to a cheese burger and fries from the Cafe (I forget it's name). I wonder back to my room, and try to watch some TV, nothing's on, and the hotel doesn't have Comedy Central, so I can't catch the Daily Show later in the evening. So, I order myself some hotel porn... the porn wasn't very good.

I check my e-mail, and find out that Dreamie and Winterwolf are in the hotel, so I call them, get their voice mail, and leave a message. It's late, so I roll over and go to sleep. I get a call back, and it's them, naturally I invite up to my room to hang out, I haven't seen them in two years. So, we chill and get caught up. I show them some crap on the internet... most prominently the American translation of the Chinese dub for "Revenge of the Sith"... which led to this year's in joke:

Do not want!... which was the Chinese translation of Darth Vader's now, infamous Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, first day, despite some problems ended on a high note... a high note that continue on for the entire duration of my stay.

July 28th

Got up, showered and dressed and went downstairs for breakfast, wondered over to the Buffet and I spotted Chris Rogers, Hudson, Seth, Kathy, Zaius and Dancer, and they invited me over to sit. So, we ate, and again got caught up, battle plans were discussed for the con, and so on, we finished and left.

Soon enough, Aaron, Revel, Spacie and Lynati showed up, and we helped them unpack their van (they drove to Vegas, all the way from Houston, TX), and since Aaron and Lynati were on con staff (AGAIN! They're masochists ;)), they had a lot to bring. So, we do that, and a group of us head out to Target, and the Home Depot to get crap that's needed for the con. I wasn't on con staff, but I did so much volunteer work, at times it did feel like being on staff again. Not that I minded, I'm always glad to help out a Gathering where I can.

So, we take two cars, Aaron and I ride in the rented van and follow Chris, unfortunatly, he knows his way around and we don't, so we lose him for a bit, lefts and rights are confused, but eventually we all end up at Target and get this stuff done.

We bring it all back, and drop the panels off at what will be the art room. Then we chill for a while, and I'm blanking a bit, but eventually we go to see the Tournament of Kings at the Excalibur, which is like "Medival Times", but a little better. Food was okay, and we get to sit in the evil section and root for Lord Mordred and his Dragon Knight. It was hokey, a little lame, but hey, still fun. BTW, some people rode in a bus, and a bunch of us crammed into Aaron's rental van, I got stuck in the trunk... and unfortunatly no pictures were taken. But, I got a seat in the back on the way back, still fun.

We came back to the hotel, where more people arrived in the lobby, including Jen, Cindy and Kythera. Great to see those three again. Jen greeted me with a hug, as did Cindy. We hung out in the lobby for a while, before the art chicks called it a night, and the rest of us went back up the Con Suite... at long last, Greg Weisman and Thom Adcox arrived from a ten and a half hour flight from Los Angeles (yes, ten and a half hours to get from LA to Vegas... you heard that right), we all hang out and chat for a while, Greg tells us about why he didn't like Batman Begins, and yeah, his critisisms are valid, and he's entitled to his opinion, but I still think the movie kicked ass.

Eventually we all call it a night, and hit the sack.

To be continued...

Greg responds...

I just think you're starved for a decent Batman movie. ;)

As I told you, it's the high quality of Batman Begins that raises expectations that ultimately I think the movie fails to meet. So...

But I really liked Kelsey Grammer as the Beast. Seriously.

Response recorded on December 01, 2006

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kathy writes...

Con Journal - G2005 The Compressed Edition

I'm back. Home again just long enough to switch suitcases, do some laundry and water the plants. My Gathering went something like this...

Wednesday (If it's 4:00 a.m. it must be ORBITZ)
Thanks for the wake up call, Customer Service. But my flight isn't until 7:00 and I really (edited)ted to sleep until 5. Oh well. Grab the bag, feed the pets and away I went. One minor travel delay meant that instead of arriving in Vegas way before everyone else, I landed at the Las Vegas airport in time to shuttle over to the hotel with Mandi and Jenn my roommates. Yay for travel bungles that actually work out!

We arrived at the hotel after a short shuttle ride. And, as expected, there's a great big stack of boxes waiting for me. We check in, the nice men at the Bell Desk deliver all the convention stuff promptly and the three of us head downstairs to get some lunch and catch up.

Speaking of catching up. My biggest regret this very short weekend was the amount of catching up I didn't get to do. Bad timing, stuff to do, failing synaptic responses rendering me incapable of speech, all contributed to not nearly enough of what usually highlights my Gatherings - the chance to really sit down and talk to people about everything and nothing. But to Ellen, Seth, Lanny, Hudson, Greg B. and whoever I'm unintentionally blanking on that I did get to see this year - Thank you. And to Leo, a big hug and many thanks for the cd.

After lunch, there's convention stuff to do. Boxes to open, tee shirts to fold etc. We get the errands done and decide to see a show. Not a lot of same day tickets left, but we end up with tickets for "V" "THE ULTIMATE VARIETY SHOW" (second set of quotes are mine). Actually, it was pretty amazing. V is produced by the folks at Cirque d' Solei but isn't nearly as expensive (or sold out) it's a rotating group of performers and supposedly no two shows are exactly the same. We saw a singer with an incredible set of pipes, a drummer in a climbing harness who played a wall mounted kit, a really good juggler, a pair of Russian strongmen/acrobats/contortionists - sort of hard to put a label to, but it's the sort of thing that Cirque in all its incarnation is famous for. There was a pair of dancing illusionists and an impressionist who must have been raised on long hours of the "Gong Show" (you really had to be there, but the act was amazing in a trainwreck kind of way) and finally the host - a guy who told incredibly bad jokes ("When I first came to Vegas my luck was horrible. I lost everything, had to sell my clothes, my car. (beat) Boy was Avis (edited)ed.") He was also Mr. Memory telling the audience where they lived by their zip codes. Then after he'd interacted with more than a dozen people reeling their list of numbers and cities off one after the other.

And of course, there was audience participation. A guy got a group of men up on stage, put them into rubber masks and made them do horribly silly things to the delight of the audience. It was, all in all, a pretty good show.

After the show, there was dinner at Lombardi's an Italian restaurant and shopping in the Aladdin's faux foreign bazar. If it hadn't been for some bad news from home, it would have been a wonderfully relaxing evening. (Safe travels, Serena the cat, you are missed.)

Thursday (A bad dress rehersal means a great show)
Thursday the rest of the con staff gathered from all and sundry points. We had a TERRIFIC group this year and it was a joy to work with each and every one of my fellow staffers. Chris, Lanny, Lynati, Aaron, Mara, Seth, Winterwolf, Dreamie, Hudson, Carol and Abe, without which The Strip would have been a shadow of itself, you all ROCK. Thank you.

Any how, the usual pre-con chaos ensued. But, it was good, productive chaos and stuff got done. 'Course that doesn't mean it wasn't slightly nerve wracking. And then of course, there was Thom and Greg stuck in Ontario (California, not Canada) who missed out on Tournament of Kings, our pre-convention staff and guest dinner.

TOK was huge fun. Our block of tickets was in the DRAGON section, which means (for those who have never gone to one of these medieval themed dinner shows) we got to root for the bad guys. And you know, sometimes it's good to be bad. Sadly, the show was rigged and King Christopher the blandly handsome prevailed over Mordred and the Black Knight.

The group split up after that. Most of the attendees headed back to the hotel to either get the illusive "good night's sleep" or to do more last minute convention prep. I ended up in the wrong car (Chris's) and went for a tour of some of the sites of Vegas.

Bellagio, Luxor, New York, New York... I finally figured out what was throwing me about the Las Vegas hotels. All those famous places re-created, but the scale is off. And of course, they're all juxpositioned against one another in unlikely combinations. It's like being on a steroid enhanced version of the Universal Studios backlot. Cool, but weird.

Anyway, we saw the dancing fountains of Bellagio and the chocolate fountain, the indoor gardens and the fish tank behind the registration desk, missed the Sirens and Pirate battle, but did take in the Volcano erruption before heading back to the hotel.

That of course, began the dreaded search for my cell phone which began appropriately enough, in the Consuite. I was so hoping I'd left it on the table that despite the fact that Greg W. had finally arrived, I waited until I'd torn through everything on the conference table before saying a proper hello. (I'm sorry!)

Cell phones are leashes that tie you to... everyone really. But like every other user of the dread device, I've become dependent and not having it, especially during con weekend was a notion too awful to contemplate.

Never did find the blasted thing, despite retracing steps, reporting it missing in two hotels and the shuttle service. If anyone found a blue Nokia older model and is still hanging on to it - drop me a line, will you?

Anyway, Greg and the rest of the consuite contingent were talking comic books, graphic novels and the like. I stayed to listen for a while but soon it was time to call it a night (morning?) and we all went to bed.

Friday (Places people, it's SHOWTIME!)
Staff meeting, pre con last minute stuff to do and we still had registration running at five after 10:00. Yay team. Thing were off and running. The Dealers Hall and Art Show were assembled, staffed and stocked dispite a technical problem with the drill. There were blessed few problems with reg packet distributions and (eventually) we even got the bulk of the items for the silent auction out for display.

In the midst of much running around, I managed to get in a little shopping myself, acquiring a new cel of Goliath, a nice ensemble pencil sketch and a leather belt.

Good merchandise was had this year. Many thanks to Alan for coordinating the hall. And thank you - Van Eaton Gallery, Designs by Kate, Knightscross Leatherworks and all of our other participants for providing such spiffy stuff and such good company. (I spent several shifts behind the G2005 staff table selling tee shirts, anthologies and calendars and everyone was just terrific looking out for each other and generally keeping the atmosphere lively.)

(Oh! and there was AMAZING flourless chocolate cake and ice cream brought over from the Con Virgin 101 panel. Yum is an pale word choice.)

Eventually though, the Dealers Room and Registration closed for the day. We secured everything that needed securing and it was off to Opening Ceremonies!!

New dvds! New comics! New material from Greg! And to top it off - Thom Adcox's pants! What more could a couple of hundred eager fans (edited)t?

Dinner maybe. Which is where we were off to next. The seafood place was busy, but the Italian one wasn't. Plus we had coupons! Excellent food, good company, leftover eggplant parmesean for breakfast. It worked for me!

Sadly though, a tradition was broken. No frantic jog walk through a new city to make it in time for the Blue Mug. Thom got lost and was late even though it was just up the escalator and around a couple of corners, but that wasn't really quite the same.

The mug wasn't really "blue" this year. Maybe a light skyish color. Many people were really more interested in the impending comic and Greg tried hard not to scoop himself since that was the focal point of the Slave Labor/Creature Comics panel the following day.

After the Mug, it was time for pie! And after that, the group called it a night (morning).

Saturday (We're Swinging Now!)

Cold Eggplant might not be the breakfast of champions, but it did hit the spot. After which there was con stuff to do (silent auction set up) and then a panel to present.

Yep, a panel. With Ellen and Revel to keep things anchored, we talked about writing Action Scenes until we were kicked out of the room. It went great! The audience was engaged and interested and for the first time since I got roped into doing these things I felt completely at ease. Thank you Ellen for organizing my rambles into a coherent outline and Revel for providing really excellent talking points during the discussion.

Then there was cake! Scott (Brother Abe) bakes. Well. Very excellent chocolate goodness. And I never got the chance to thank him properly. Abe, if you're reading this. Mucho appreciado.

More con stuff. Registration table. Dealers room. Moved stuff that was stored in my room into the con suite during the radio play auditions. Fire alarm went off due to an over enthusistic cook. Everyone remembered the 3rd grade drills and exited the hotel through the stairwells in a quiet and orderly fashion, milling around the alley behind the hotel until we got an all clear. I was impressed.

The exact sequence of afternoon events after that is all kind of blurry. I do recall closing the Dealers Room for the Slave Labor/Creature Comics panel so that everyone could attend.

Got there a bit late. See above. But what I did hear was worth it. As usual grass roots participation is a must for project success. Spread the word.

After the panel I went back to the Dealers Hall to do cashier prep for the silent auction lots that sold Saturday and to explain the system to the rest of the crew.

I checked out of the hotel. Then Lanny and I went to dinner,talked about deep and profound things and generally made ourselves late to the poker tournament so I had no idea exactly what was happening during the game itself having not read the rules to Texas Hold'm. But everyone seemed like they were having a good time and the pot moved back and forth between Gore, Greg, Chris and even Thom. (I think Kai had busted by then) before Chris eventually took all.

Everyone trooped down the hall for ice cream. I said my goodbyes and I was airport bound.

Carol, everything was perfect. You dropped me off in exactly the right spot. I got through check in, slogged across the terminal, cleared security and arrived at my gate five minutes before they called my section number.

I wondered briefly what I was going to do on my way home. (I'd read my book and it was too cramped to knit properly). Two minutes after take off they killed the lights and I didn't wake up until we were in approach to Charlotte. Guess I was tired after all.

Sadly, the Charlotte airport doesn't have those comfy rocking chairs in the waiting area where you actually need them. Three cold, uncomfortable hours later, I was headed on my final leg home, and thus ended (for me anyway) the 2005 Gathering of the Gargoyles.

Love and many thanks to all,

kathy

Greg responds...

Kathy,

That was a great read. Brings back memories.

Now that we've started 2005 conjournals, I want to extend a blanket apology in advance to all who posted them here.

Posting ConJournals here was and is very important vis-a-vis the powers that be. But in the interest of trying to catch up on ASK GREG, I'm going to keep my responses to a minimum, so that I can race through the year-and-a-half-old journals and get back to answering questions.

Thanks for understanding!

Response recorded on November 30, 2006

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G2005 - Tuesday, August 2

G2005 - Tuesday, August 2

8:30am. We hit the road back for Los Angeles. Reading Harry Potter most of the way. (Although we didn't actually finish the book until just last night.) We stopped for lunch at Tommy's (chilicheeseburger, chilidog, fries, coke)... and we were home again by 2pm. That's five and a half hours, including the hour-long lunch break. Half the time it took Thom and I to fly to Vegas. Oh, well.

After that, it was Unpack, Nap, Dinner. Beth made a great home-cooked meal of Meat, Corn, Mushrooms and Strawberries.

More Harry Potter. Did some actual work on W.I.T.C.H.

Then finally bed.

So ends my journal.

Please, everyone post your G2005 CONJOURNALS to ASK GREG by the end of August. I've asked Gorebash to shut down the ASK GREG Submit function at about midnight on August 31st. So before memories get even hazier, please take a few minutes to write up your experiences and cut and paste them here.

Thanks.


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G2005 - Monday, August 1

G2005 - Monday, August 1

11:30am. I went down to the art room to collect the kids' art that hadn't sold. (Some of it had!) Spent the entire day saying good-byes to various people as they took off.

12:00pm. Time for my final panel: Creating Original Properties. Talked about DOC SHAKESPEARE. Also showed the animatic "sizzle tapes" for MECHA-SAPIENS (which I developed with Vic Cook and Greg Guler) and KIDD/HERO (which I developed with DAG Entertainment and Vic Cook). Thom came in during the panel to say his goodbyes. Hopefully, he had an easier flight back to L.A. than the one that brought us here.

1:30pm. The auction began with a piece called "Bonanza" by Spike -- which depicted Hudson, Brooklyn, Lexington & Broadway as (respectively) Ben, Adam, Joe and Hoss Cartwright. Now the day before in the silent auction, my daughter had put in a bid on Liz's "Leo" piece and gotten it. And my son had bid $5 on Bonanza. All this was done with Beth's permission. We were willing to buy them each a five-dollar piece of art. But Benny noticed that someone had bid $10 after him on Bonanza. Without asking us, he bid $15. That someone then bid $20. And Benny bid $30!!!!! Thus sending the thing to the live auction on Monday. We were stunned. But he offered to pay in the money he made on his art, so I told him that if the bid didn't go beyond $30 in the live auction, I would get it for him.

So anyway, Bonanza came up for bid. I bid $30. And then... I made faces. Yeah, Spike, I'm truly sorry. No one was forbidden from bidding higher. (And the person who had bid against Benny had already left the con.) But I'm not sure anyone was willing to bid against me or my mock-scowl, so $30 is all you get.

The kids love all the artwork they got from Liz and from Spike and from Jade. Beth has framed or is framing it all. It all goes up on their now very crowded walls. Karine also drew me a picture that I am very fond of -- though I don't see us putting it up on the wall.

I did some signing during the auction. But I also wandered around a bit. Fusion Demon had lost her Doc Shakespeare script, and I found it and returned it. But I also found Thom's script -- which I guess he had given to her -- and didn't realize it wasn't up for grabs. So it got auctioned off for $150. Thom's pants went for big money too, I think.

3:00pm. Closing Ceremonies. Brief and to the point.

4:00pm. A group of us went to Quark's for dinner. Patrick, Tony, Andrea, Trishanna, Cindy, Kyt, Julie, Karine, Jen, Seth, Seth, Jade, Scott, Marina, Liz. I finally got that messy burger that I've been wanting since San Diego. Plus onion rings AND fries.

7:15pm. Then I took a taxi back to the hotel. Packed up.

8:15pm. Checked out of the hotel and waited outside. Saw that guy in the big Top Hat. I'm sorry, I'm blanking on your name, but we had a nice talk.

8:30pm. Beth, Erin and Benny picked me up and we drove to my in-laws, where we read chapter ten of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. And I had a blueberry muffin, minestrone soup and juice. I was still pretty wired, even after the family went to bed.

3:00am. Went to bed myself.

I'll wrap up this ConJournal tomorrow...


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G2005 - Sunday, July 31

G2005 - Sunday, July 31

10:00am. Erin, Benny & Beth arrived at the hotel. They had actually arrived in Vegas the day before, but they were staying at my in-laws house, so I hadn't seen them since Thursday morning. We got them checked in, badged up and showed them the art show. Hung up a couple more of Benny's pictures.

10:30am. Second Day of Auditions with Thom & Jen. Erin auditioned, and did great. We had a number of good people the second day too.

11:45am. Jen & Thom & I went back to Guadelajara's again for our casting lunch. I had a Roast Beef Dip, Fries and a Pepsi. We had some really tough casting choices to make. A lot of good people for only 16 roles and two understudies.

1:00pm. Jen & I posted cast lists at five different locations. I wasn't going to take any chances.

1:30pm. Had a panel next on W.I.T.C.H., the series that I'm working on now. The location got tossed around a bit, but we finally wound up in the ConSuite. I showed the animatic "Pilot" created by the series' first set of producers, who were pushed sideways a bit by Disney, who replaced them with a second set of producers, who were the showrunners for the first season. All four of those producers were then let go, and I did Season Four. I tell this story to show that it can happen to anyone in this business. God knows, it's happened to me. Anyway, it was a fun panel, but I felt very restricted as to what I could talk about. I don't think the entire first season has aired yet, and I didn't want to spoil anything for their stuff, let alone MY second season stuff, which won't begin airing until December at the earliest. But next year's WITCH panel at G2006, should really kick some ass. We'll have a bunch of writers and actors there. Anyway, I recommend checking out the show. We have some really fun stuff planned. It's one of the most fun shows I've EVER worked on.

3:00pm. We had our Radio Play Rehearsal. Everyone showed up, which meant our understudies didn't have much to do, but I hope they enjoyed the process at least. I had fun. It was a great group.

4:30pm. The Radio Play. Again, everyone showed up. This year we were doing an original live-action pilot called "DOC SHAKESPEARE", written by myself & Samuel Bernstein. *UNSOLD*.

Here's the cast list:

Susanna Shakespeare - Laurean Broadbent
Judith Shakespeare - Jen Anderson
Mike Santos - Erik Mambu
Jeff Wylie - Seth Jackson
Anita Santos - Kaylle
Luís Santos - Eric Tribou
Tess Derbyville - Sarah McEvoy
Hamnet Shakespeare - Erin Weisman
Aaron Moore - Adam Leigh
Lewis Santos - Echo Eberle
Arthur Soames - Revel
Ralph - Thom Adcox
Jonas Kent - Alex Garg
Doris - Lanny Fields
Mort - Bruce Lane
Nathan - Vani Shaw
Understudies - Tracy Prelog, Anthony Zucconi
Narrator - Greg Weisman

Everyone really did a great job. I was very pleased with the response.

5:30pm. The family and I went back to my hotel room, to hang out for a while.

6:00pm. Banquet. The four of us were told where to sit, but we were sitting alone and there was some confusion as to how or whether anyone else was supposed to be chosen to join us. Eventually, the Leonard Family (Susan, Robert, Chloe & Carly) joined us and so did GXB, though I think we were too dull for Greg, as he bailed on us at some point. It became a very family oriented discussion there. Erin won the big Gargoyle centerpiece, and Susan was very nice and gave Benny the Garg Puzzle Cube thing. Appreciated, but very unnnecessary. The food was great, I thought. Salad, veggies, rice, eggplant, meat, onions.

No Q&A -- which surprised me. I guess there's just not much left to ask me and Thom. Though I'd think everyone would have wanted a shot at Dave.

After dinner, we went upstairs again and the kids changed into their costumes. GREAT COSTUMES -- created of course by Eden. Last Halloween, Cindy made Benny a Goliath costume (which he reprised for the con) and Erin a Marilyn Monroe costume (which Cindy then added wings to, to transform it into a HOLLY costume, i.e. the mascot of G2001 & G2006).

After they were dressed, we went down to Lanny's room, where Benny got painted purple and Erin got a few make-up highlights. We hung out there awhile with Cindy, Abram, Jen, Karine, Lanny, etc.

9:00pm. Dave, Thom and myself judged the costume contest (after dessert - apple pie, Banana Cream Pie, Swan Puff, Pepsi). Some great costumes...

Junior Division
Erin's Holly won best non-canon character
Benny's Goliath won best canon character
Fusion Demon won best cosplay

Senior Division
Noel's Werefox (with an honorable mention to Jade's La Belle Elisa) won best cosplay.
Eden's sexy Banshee won 1st in canon.
Revel's great Jackal won 2nd in canon.
Onyx won in non-canon.

Tony & Thom won cutest couple.
Andrea won the Thom Adcox Memorial Award.

Shara as Future Tense Brooklyn won both the Gorelisa Award and Best in Show.

Beth, Erin & Benny left at that point to head back to my in-laws and call it a night.

We gave out the art awards too, but I didn't write all those down. I know that Liz's amazing Zodiac series won Best in Show, among others.

After that, I just hung out talking... which is of course one of my favorite things...

Who was there? Thom, Seth, Tony, Andrea, Carol, Dave, Marina, Flanker, Ahkento, Liz, Trishanna, Jen, etc. (I know I'm missing a ton of people. Sorry.)

Finally, we called it a night....

More soon...


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G2005 - Saturday, July 30

G2005 - Saturday, July 30

10:30am. Aborted Mug. I showed up. So did Carol. But no one else... :(

Oh, well. Gave me a chance to have breakfast with Carol and Dave Schwartz -- again at Guadelajara's. (Tomato juice, scrambled eggs, sausage, hash browns, pancakes.) I'm afraid I didn't really have the opportunity to sample many of the Palace's restaurant options. Didn't even make it to the Buffet. But I always love breakfast food.

12:00pm. Next up, Dave and I (Thom was a no-show) took on the Development and Production Panel, discussing the entire process of creating and producing an animated series from start to finish. That was fun. Just hanging with Dave is fun. He's a great guy. I hope a bunch of you got a chance to get to know him.

1:30pm. Voice Acting Panel with Thom. I think this went very well. I'm using the same materials I've been using for years, and I should probably get some new ones... but (a) it's hard to find the time and (b) these materials really do a great job at illustrating the basic (very basic) points that Thom and I want to emphasize in the panel. But people must be getting sick of them. Well, we'll see about next year. Anyway, we had some good readers. It was fun, and a nice preamble to...

3:00pm. Auditions. The first set. As is traditional, Thom and Jen and I handled auditions while Cat (Kat?) and ... and... ARGH... I'm blanking out on another name... worked the door. We got some very good people. We were to have more auditions the next day, but Day One gave me confidence that we'd be able to cast the show.

4:30pm. Next up was the SLAVE LABOR GRAPHICS, CREATURE COMICS.COM panel with myself, Dan Vado and Marty Lund. Dan showed his slide show, which included glimpses of all his upcoming Disney Licensced Books: TRON, HAUNTED MANSION, WONDERLAND and, of course, GARGOYLES. For that all we have to show is one gorgeous NEW piece of pro-art depicting Goliath and Elisa. Illustrated by CCC Art Director Greg Guler and colored by the folks at SLG, the piece really kicks some ass! We talked about the upcoming GARGOYLES comic. A lot is still up in the air, but we're all now fully committed to getting this book out in the first half of 2006 -- i.e. sometime between January and June. I know that's a pretty big window, but we'll keep you posted as we begin to nail things down.

Dan was very favorably impressed by the Garg fandom and plans to make SLG a BIG presence at next year's Gathering 2006 in Los Angeles.

6:00pm. We all wanted to grab some dinner, but the wait at Macaroni Grill was like FOREVER. And I had a poker tournament to play in at 7:30pm, and many of the girls were planning to take off to throw Laurean her bachelorette party. So we (me, Adam, Lexy, Tony, Andrea, Patrick, Anna, Si, Marty, Jen, Karine and Kyt) wound up eating at McDonalds (#2 meal and a peach pie).

Si, Lexy, Jen, Cindy, Kyt, Andrea, Trishana and Karine took off for the aforementioned party. And the MEN headed for the Poker Tourney.

7:30pm. Charity Poker Tournament. Competing were myself, Marty, Tony, Eric, Adam, Chris and Thom. All for great charities. (Mine was Daphneyland, a Basset Hound Rescue Organization in Acton, California -- where we got our two new dogs, Abraham and Sami.)

I had NEVER played Texas Hold'em before, but Kathy bought me a book: "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Poker". It was somewhat helpful... though it did make me feel like: "If this is the Idiot's Guide, I need the Moron's Guide." But I did pretty well. We had a pro dealer named Matt. Heavy chips. Good times.

I busted Tony out first. That shocked him, I think. Marty then got killed by Thom, who went out next. I think I slammed him when he thought he had won with two aces in the hole, but I had something like three of a kind or two pair or a full house or something.

Adam then bit the dust, and it was down to myself, Gore and Chris. Chris had been playing slow and easy, letting us all take each other out. But by the time we were down to three, Gore was nearly busted, and I had a decent pot, but Chris had almost all the play money. It finally came down to one hand where both Gore and Chris went all in. I knew I could fold and stay in the game for longer, but I felt it would just be a game of attrition at that point. If Chris took Gore out, I wouldn't have the resources to fight him. So I gambled on a weak hand... and lost. (Though I did beat Gore, to come in second.)

Anyway, I did pretty well and had a great time. It was fun to play with other people's money. I'd do that again anytime!!

9:30pm. I led a HUGE crowd to the Station's Ice Cream Store. Don't remember all who were there, but I know it included myself, Thom, Tony, Lanny, Marina, Ryan, Patrick, Norcumi, Carol and Dave. I had a Banana Royale.

Then we stopped by the Arcade, but that doesn't really jazz me. I asked what else we could do. (I usually run out of ideas after food.) Someone suggested swimming... so we made our way to the pool.

10:00pm. Took a quick couple of dips in the main pool, but we mostly hung out in the jacuzzi: me, Lanny, Adam, Scott, Carter, Thom, Seth, Eric, Tony, Marty and Marina -- the one brave girl willing to hang with ten dopey guys. Marina, whom I remember as a KID from G1997 is a real sweetie. *But man does she make me feel old!*

12:00am. Called it a night, when the guard kicked us out of the pool.

2:30am. Turned out the lights and went to sleep.

More coming soon...


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G2005 - Friday, July 29

G2005 - Friday, July 29

ConJournal continues...

The Guadelajara Restaurant in the Palace Station bookends my day.

Started there in the morning, eating alone: eggs, toast, sausage, hash browns.

Then I checked in at the front desk, I believe, before heading upstairs for my first Mug-A-Guest at...

12:00pm. Fan was there, and Daniel and Doug, I think. And others. But I can't remember now. (Please forgive me, as always, if I left you out.) We had a nice fairly open chat, I think. Friendly and intimate, which is the whole point of Mugs.

1:15pm. Then I think I helped Carol carry a bunch of the Gargoyles Production art that she had brought down to the art room. (And a shout out to Johanne Beaudoin at Disney for helping arrange this for us.) I also set up the art panel for my kids stuff. I also spent some time admiring all the great fan art.

3:00pm. Next up, the Writing for Animation Panel. I'm afraid I had nothing prepared for this one, so I talked a little about the writing process, and then opened it up to Q&A. Somehow, we managed to fill the time. I hope it was somewhat interesting and/or informative.

4:15pm. By this time, I was hungry again. So it was time for a late lunch across the street at the Macaroni Grill with Jen, Si and Patrick. Still, I didn't want this to be my dinner, so I just ordered a Fried Calimari appetizer.

6:00pm. Opening Ceremonies. Chris spoke. And Jen intro'd the 2006 convention in Los Angeles. Eventually, it was my turn... and I had a lot to cover:
--Talking about the DVDs (First Season out, Volume One of Season Two coming this winter (probably December)).
--the Comics (due out in the first half of 2006).
--A BIG YEAR FOR GARG FANS!!!
--I thanked the current staff: Chris, Lanny, Carol, Kathy, Lynati, Winterwold, Dreamie, Aaron, Hudson & Seth.
--Nearly forgot to thank Thom.

Then I had stuff to play.
--We had pre-recorded Audio Greetings from Kath Soucie and Keith David. That Keith greeting went over very well.
--Then we had pre-recorded Video Greetings from myself, Thom, Michael Reaves, Frank Paur, Jeff Bennett, Bill Faggerbakke, Brigitte Bako and Ed Asner. Those also seemed appreciated.
--I showed a teaser from the Second Season DVD extras. People seemed to like that too.
--I skipped showing the Gargoyles Pitch that I show most years, as it now appears on the first season DVD. Instead, I had dug up a tape that I had forgotten existed: it's an earlier version of the pitch, with older art, read by Jim Cummings. Next year, I may show both.
--Showed the Garg Promo and Garg Presentation videos, as always.
--Showed the New Olympian & Dark Ages pitches, as always.
--Showed Bad Guys, as always.
--Instead of playing the Audio to "The Last", we had a special treat. Vashkoda did an amazing job of editing, coloring and adding music and effects to The Last, based on the audio tape, script and storyboard. It looked just great. The work only really covered ACT ONE of the episode, but I'm really hoping that some of you artistic types will contact her. If every artist in the fandom just boarded one scene, then by next year, we might have a "new" episode totally completed.

After the Ceremonies, a bunch of us went looking for a place that could handle a large dinner party. We (myself, Carol, Kathy, Thom, seth, Marina, Eric and Scott) wound up at Pasta Palace, where I had bread, minestrone, Veal Picatta and mashed potatos.

Also finished in time, so that I didn't need to run to the Blue Mug... though somehow Thom managed to be late.

10:00pm. Blue Mug. A few Blue moments and a stunning near-psychic moment from Andrea Zucconi. ;) But mostly it was just fun talking until late into the night.

Then, as noted above, it was back to bookend the night at the Guadelajara for Banana Cream Pie and "milk". (In quotes, because it was undrinkable.) I think that was me, Kathy, Lynati, Norcumi, Aaron, Emambu, GXB, Tony & Andrea. And... and... i can totally picture him, but I am just blanking out on the name. (SORRY!!!)

Then I called it a night.

More tomorrow...


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G2005 - Thursday, July 28

G2005 - Thursday, July 28

And so begins my annual ConJournal. As I've stated before, it would be very much appreciated if all of you who attended would post your conjournals, diaries, etc. here at ASK GREG. I know there are other places to post them, including the new Gathering Archives, but please ALSO cut and paste the things and put them here too. This is a location Disney is already aware of. In the past, it's helped them to see the fandom taking such a passionate interest.

Okay, the usual caveats... I may misremember some stuff, may leave out some people, reorder events, etc. For that -- in advance -- I apologize.

I do not apologize that most of my conjournal is dedicated to the discussion of what I ate. That's just who I am. Live with it.

Also, some thank yous off the top to Chris Rogers and this year's AMAZING CONSTAFF. GREAT JOB! As always, I had a BLAST at the convention! And you guys did it all!

Okay, here goes...

For the first time in ages, I was taking a non-working vacation. Wasn't even bringing a script to read on the plane. So Thursday morning I woke up and didn't go into the office.

10:30am. Instead, I went to my kids' summer camp to see the neat furniture that my son had built in his furniture building class: a chair (which he named "bacon & eggs") and a table (which he called "hot dogs and mustard"). It was pretty amazing stuff. I said my good-byes to Beth, Erin and Benny. I wouldn't be seeing them again until Sunday at the con.

11:00am. I went home to pack. Had a bit of time to kill, so I had a snack of apple, cheese and salami, while watching a bit of ALL MY CHILDREN, a soap I've watched on and off since the 70s.

12:15pm. Note the time. This is when I departed my house. The car that Carol Wagner arranged picked me up and got me to Bob Hope Airport in no time at all. There, I met up with Thom Adcox. I checked in while he waited to retrieve his cellphone from the driver of his car. Then we went to the gate. We grabbed some lunch (Turkey Sandwich, Chips, Three Musketeers bar, Water, Perrier, Licorice Wheels) and sat and talked.

2:55pm. The flight does NOT leave as scheduled. It's late arriving from Oakland.

4:00pm. We board the plane. Thom gives me some Tootsie Rolls. We wait. Eventually, we depart. I doze off. I wake up, having just missed a P.A. announcement. Seems we're very close to L.V., but we're being redirected. There are thunderstorms in L.V. and unfortunately, since we left Burbank in a hurry -- trying to make our "landing window" -- we didn't take the time to refuel. So now we don't have enough fuel to circle Las Vegas indefinitely. Instead, they send us back to Ontario, California. That's almost all the way back to Burbank.

We land and stay on the plane while they refuel. They give us peanuts. Then they tell us we won't be departing for another hour and a half, so they let us deplane. Thom and I go to Carl's Jr. and order food. Then suddenly a Southwest person comes running through the terminal, telling us all to get back to the plane immediately... we're about to take off. So we grab up our food and reboard... and sit... and wait... and sit... and wait...

One thing I will say is that everyone on that plane maintained a VERY good attitude. Good spirits. You'd expect some nastiness given all the delays ... but it never happened.

I ate my Carls -- Sourdough Bacon Cheesburger, Fried Zucchini and a coke -- and wished I hadn't. Just NOT very good, but with plenty of grease to spare.

Finally, we take off.

8:15pm. We land in Vegas. But there's no gate open for us, so we wait on the tarmac.

9:15pm. We pull into a gate and deplane. Now originally, Chris was supposed to pick us up and take us to the hotel to check in. Then we were all supposed to go to a pre-con staff dinner at the Excalibur. But by the time we arrived, the dinner was already underway. So instead of dragging Chris out, we went to catch a cab. Man -- that's a LONG line for cabs. I spotted Ellen behind us in the line and invited her to share our cab. It was hot. But I was with good people, and like I said, everyone stayed calm.

We finally got a cab. Got to the Palace Station and checked in with no problem.

10:15pm. I finally got up to my room. TEN FULL HOURS exactly after I left my house. Thom and I could have DRIVEN to Vegas and back in that amount of time. Oh, well...

Thom decided to call it a night, so I went down to the consuite and hung around for awhile, chatting with Carol, Hudson, GXB, Lynati, Winterwolf, Dreamie, Aaron, Allayne, Kat (Cat?) and Revel. Kathy came in searching for her cellphone. (The second cellphone search I witnessed just in that day. And people wonder why I don't want one.)

Then, finally, I headed back up to my room and called it a night...

MORE TOMORROW...


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G2005 or BUST!

Hey gang,

Well, I'm taking off tomorrow for Vegas. I'll be back here in August to post my Gathering Journal. Don't forget to post yours too!


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GATHERING JOURNALS

Hey gang...

Gorebash is going to be opening the ASK GREG posting function in the next day or so. Specifically, that's because I'm hoping that a whole bunch of you will post your Gathering Journals, Diaries, Notebooks, etc. right here.

It helps to have a central place for industry types to read this stuff. Plus I like to read it all.

I'm told we have 170 people pre-registered for the Gathering. So my goal is to get 100 Gathering Journals up on this site in the next couple weeks.

During this period, we'll also be open for questions, but I urge you not to post a question lightly. I'm still backlogged nearly two years worth.

Thanks in advance,

Greg


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Raptor writes...

I noticed on the Gargoyles New Central site that you requested comments from the people that went to the Gathering. While I'm not one of them, I would have really liked to go. If it's ever in San Diego again, I'll definitely make time for it! LONG LIVE GARGOYLES!!!!!!!!

Greg responds...

How about Las Vegas? That's only a car ride from S.D.

Response recorded on January 06, 2005

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Denis De Plaen writes...

Hello, Greg!

Sorry I couldn't attend the Gathering, this year. you have asked in the Comment Room to post here the journals of the gathering. Of course, not having been there, I couldn't post any, but I though I could still help a bit by posting what follows.

Best regards,
Denis

to Disney Executives, hello.

While fellow Gargoyles fans will post their convention's logs and journal, I will say this:
I'm a Gargoyles fan from Brussels, Belgium. Due to personnal, real life issues, I wasn't able to attend the Gathering this year, to my chagrin.
I have, in the past, attended Gathering, in 1998 in NYC, in 2000 in Orlando, 2001 Los Angeles and 2002 in Williamsburg. Both because it allowed me to meet up with online friends, but also to support Gargoyles, which is for me one of the greatest animated show ever made and that is very special to me. It revealed to me my vocation of writing fiction, it broadened my mind, views and tastes, and it gave me the opportunity to meet with dozen, hundreds people, and many of them have become my friends.
Gargoyles was, IS, an extraordinary show, an amazing story of which many chapters are left to be told.

I don't know what else to add except thank you to you all for giving us fans such a great story, and I hope that, eventually, we will be able to discover new stories featuring the gargoyles.

Denis De Plaen,
Brussels, 12th July 2003

Greg responds...

Thanks, Denis. Every little bit helps. I hope to see you in Vegas.

Response recorded on January 03, 2005

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Spacebabie writes...

Sunday
Revel and I found some good spots too watch the auction and eat donuts. We received our numbers. At the beginning Cat immediately pulled a Winterwolf. It could have gone better. Cat had to result to stripping to get higher bids. We tried to continue the auction when Greg W, Thom, and Vic broke away for the Atlantis Q and A but with no one in the room it became a bust. We decided to wait until closing ceremonies.
Closing ceremonies is always bittersweet. I hate having to say goodbye to those what checked out that day. We keep in touch over the web but meeting people and seeing online friends in person is even better.
After Revel and I paid for our goodies we dropped them off in our room and returned to the lobby for the trip to Coney island. That was my first time on a subway. Greg W took head counts of us at different intervals although I think he could have counted Revel and me as one person.
We paused to view Ground Zero. My heart fell to the bottom of my body. The feeling was indescribable. I wanted to hug everyone, especially Ethan who lives in Manhattan.
The first thing in Coney island that greeted us was the sweet smell of various goodies. Once we were at the boardwalk we separated and promised to meet back at ten.
Revel and I didn't too much. We did ride The Cyclone first ( Better than Space Mountain). We were famished so we had a couple of Coney Island Hotdogs, and rode the scrambler. The ride lasted longer then the one at the Central Florida Fair. I was glad I brought my coat because it got chilly. I loaned it to Revel until he warmed up. We spent some time at the beach until it was time to go back.
We were walking back to our hotel when Greg developed a craving for pancakes. I love pancakes, but revel and I were tired and still full. We returned to our room.

Monday
We woke up late and checked on our friends in Mara's room. Lynati was dead tired. She was burning up and her skin was like paper. Revel bought her some fruit drink to hydrate her body and restore her electrolytes.
Revel and I took a small stroll through the city. I wanted to have some Chinese food. We had lunch at the Hunan restaurant. (the one that was in Seinfeld). Verra good food and the meal came with a complimentary pot of tea.
After lunch we walked over to the Empire state building. I can safely say I have been inside it. We didn't go to the top because of the price. We did manage to buy miniature Pewter Empires in the gift shop before we went into the adjoining Walgreen's to buy more NY related goodies for our families.
After dropping off our gifts we joined some of the Gathering folk to going to Mid Town comics. Revel checked out the marvel issues with Wolverine, and I loaded up on Shojo manga before we went to China town. After searching through a lot of shops I found a lovely jade house decoration for my brother. I also purchased some candy for my family and wasabi peas for Mara.
We went to Aaron and Mara's and gave Mara her peas before we just hung out and talked for hours and had dinner of burritos. Revel and I returned to our room around midnight to pack. Before we went to sleep he pulled the claddaugh out of its bag and proposed to me. I naturally said yes.

Tuesday
After a quick breakfast we finished packing and checked out. We were slightly confused about the bus but figured it out. Revel and I said goodbye at the airport before we went to our separate gates.
After another dull flight. I grabbed my luggage and called my house. The second I stepped outside my hair poofed up. I stared at the cloudy sky and felt it was good to be home.
Now I have to wait for 2004
I love this fandom. I made many friends and fell in love and became engaged. The fandom has also helped with my social anxiety disorder. I feel more talkative and outgoing thanks to Greg, Thom, Vic, Greg G from last year and my fellow fans. I cannot give everyone enough thanks.

Greg responds...

That's great news. I knew you guys were engaged, but didn't realize it happened at the Gathering.

I'm still waiting for my first Gathering Wedding. And I don't mean a wedding generated from fans who met at the Gathering, cuz we've had a couple of those, but rather a wedding that actually takes place at the Gathering.

Course we're going to Vegas next year, so we could wind up with a few Britney Spears specials.

And, hey, the first wedding I ever attended was my Grandfather's wedding in the basement of Circus Circus.

Response recorded on December 16, 2004

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Question writes...

What exactly happened in Paris with Team Atlantis, Fiona and Demona?

Greg responds...

An adventure. Come to the Gathering in Las Vegas in the summer of 2005 if you want to know more.

Response recorded on December 03, 2004

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Patricia von Graf writes...

Hello Greg,
Okay where do I start? My daughter Elisabeth (she is 8 years old), is a complete die-hard fan of the Disney Gargoyle series. One of her wishes from Santa is to get an Autograph and or letter from (actually she would really love to meet one of the creators, but I told her that this wouldn't be quiet so easy even for the "big guy"to do) for Christmas. And of course if possible to get some of the Gargoyle Action Figures. Now, the later you probably aren't able to help me with, but maybe a with the Autograph? She only has these 2 wishes for Christmas. Due to the limited supply and the fact that I am not looking to collect, but to buy these toys for play, things are a little more difficult for me ($$ wise). Is it possible to get an autograph from you? I have no problem paying postage etc. You would make her Christmas wish come true. I made her a collage from Gargoyles that hangs above her bed & it would be so wonderful to full-fill this wish for her in adding your autograph to it. Please help! (or email me at Pvongraf@yahoo.com)
Thank you,
Patricia
P.S. She has this huge imagination, is a great artist, that sells her pictures for 1$ a piece on the weekend in front of our door (lol maybe a future cartoonist?) and she actually wishes she could be in real life a Gargoyle. I fully support her in her hobby, as I do like the story too. (Thank good she doesn't like Pokemon etc). A big compliment to you! And Thank you!

Greg responds...

Patricia,

Well... two years have passed since you posted this request. I'm afraid I'm only seeing it now for the first time. If your daughter still wants an autograph for Christmas THIS year, contact Gorebash, and he'll forward the contact information to me.

Of course, another way to meet me and other professionals involved with the show is to attend the annual Gathering of the Gargoyles convention. It'll be in Las Vegas in 2005.

Response recorded on November 02, 2004

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Ricardo from Portugal writes...

When will you be revealing info about Fiona Canmore for those who could not go to The Gathering 2002?

Greg responds...

I have no specific plans to reveal anything new about Fiona. On the one hand, I LIKE to give people extra incentive to attend the Gathering by saving some things for that annual event. (2005 is set for Las Vegas, in case you didn't know.)

On the other hand, I don't have a schedule for revealing anything about anyone. Often, it's just a whim thing.

Response recorded on September 10, 2004

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Corrine Blaquen writes...

What's the story behind Bill Faggerbakke's "Better than Barney" comment?

Greg responds...

Come to the Gathering 2005 in Las Vegas and find out.

Response recorded on August 27, 2004

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What else can I do?

"Sure," you say, "I'd love to come to the Gathering, but..."

There are always reasons, I suppose. Some good, some not so good, some very good.

I'd still like you to come. Even now. With less than a month left, I'd like to see you make the effort and show. It's a great year for it, what with the Disney folks there shooting footage for the DVD. Heck, don't we want them to see how strong our fanbase is?

The Gatherings have been the lifeblood of this fandom. Why are we getting DVDs this year. Because of the annual Gathering. Just that simple.

And, yes, I am talking to you. And you in the back there too, trying to sneak out.

But let's say you just CAN'T make it this year. This happened. Or that happened. You just can't. You ask me to understand, by saying, "What else can I do?"

Here are a few things...

1. Buy a supporting membership. It's much less expensive than a trip to Montreal. It helps support the convention. And you're entered for a free t-shirt.

2. Heck, just ORDER THE T-SHIRT. It's also much less expensive than the trip. And you get a T-shirt.

3. Order a pin or the Phoenix Gate Anthology.

4. At least go to the website and check these things out:

http://www.gatheringofthegargoyles.com/

5. Start planning now to attend G2005 in Las Vegas. Start saving. Show your true support for the series and the fandom.

Thanks.


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Dave writes...

Hey Gregg, I'm new to this site, and I was just wondering... is there something I missed about Gargoyles? I mean, I know of Gargoyles, and The Goliath Chronicles, but was there some other Gargoyle show that aired after?

What lies ahead for Gargoyles? Do you plan on bringing them back to the air at some point? I'd really like to see some new Gargoyles cartoons....

Thank you.

Greg responds...

There were proposed spin-offs, sequels and prequels, including

Gargoyles: The Dark Ages
TimeDancer
The New Olympians
Pendragon
Bad Guys
Gargoyles 2198

plus plenty ideas just to continue the "Gargoyles" series itself.

I haven't been able to convince Disney to do any of these things.

But who knows?

"Firefly" was dead. It sold a TON of DVDs and now they're making a movie, "Serenity". "Family Guy" was dead. It sold a TON of DVDs and now they're making new episodes.

Up until this year, the best single way you could help relaunch the show in some way, shape or form was by attending the Gathering, our annual convention. That's still true. So if you haven't heard, check out this year's con at their website:

http://www.gatheringofthegargoyles.com/

The good folks at Walt Disney Home Entertainment took notice of the fandom, largely thanks to these conventions. They'll be attending this year with a video crew to tape footage of the con to put on the Gargoyles DVD, to be released later THIS year (2004!).

The DVD will contain all 13 episodes of the series' first season, complete and uncut. It will also have a commentary track and other extras (in addition to the con footage) that are still being discussed.

If you want to see the 2nd Season on DVD, and if you want to see Disney make more Garg Universe materials, there's no better way to get them to take notice than by buying the DVD. If the fans demonstrate an audience with disposable income, Disney will respond. It's not far-fetched. It's happened before.

Response recorded on July 02, 2004

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Bridget writes...

I cant find garfoyles toys anywhere! do you know a place on line where one might purchase them. And thank you. I saw gargoyles when it first aired, it always stuck with me and I always try to watch it on toon disney. I'm 16 now and I just always wanted to thank someone who had a hand in makig incredible show!

Greg responds...

You're very welcome.

But I'm afraid I don't know where you can purchase any toys... except that the dealers at the annual GATHERING of the GARGOYLES generally have quite a few on sale.

So come to Montreal this summer. *By now you're 18, and an adult who can travel.*

For more information, check out

http://www.gatheringofthegargoyles.com/

Response recorded on May 13, 2004

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Jessica writes...

Hi, How are you? I was wondering if the Gathering can maybe sometime come to Texas, (El Paso to be exact)? I'm only fourteen so I can't of course travel very far, and I would really like to go to one of the Gatherings, (because I live in El Paso) I would really appreciate it. I love the show so much!!!!! I can't wait for the release of the DVD. :)

Greg responds...

The Gathering was in Texas (Dallas to be exact) in 1999.

I don't control where it takes place. This is a fan-run convention. I just show up.

If YOU want it in El Paso, put together a Gathering El Paso Convention Committee and submit a bid to hold it there in 2005 (by which time you should be almost a legal adult).

Response recorded on May 05, 2004

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Jimmy_Q writes...

You know, one of these days I would actually like to attend a Gathering. However, I've found that the past Gatherings have been around the coasts, Virginia, Florida, and the next one is to take place in LA? Here's my problem: I live smack in the middle of the country (Nebraska). With college and a part-time job, not only do I lack the time for a lengthy trip, but I'm not exactly swimming in money, either. I may be a wee bit hopeful, but what are the chances of a Gathering taking place in or around Nebraska in the near-future (within the next 5 years or so)?

Greg responds...

Well, here's the (abridged) history of the Gathering...

1997 - Fans got together and organized the first New York Gathering. Most of the work was done by Mae Li, who should be hailed by fandom as the woman who gave birth to our cons.

1998 - Out of the fist Gathering, a group of fans got together and organized the second New York Gathering.

1999 - Having completely exhausted the New York fandom, another group of fans got together and organized the Dallas Gathering.

2000 - Still another group of fans got together and organized the Orlando Gathering.

2001 - Survivors of the Dallas Gathering got together (with some fresh fan blood) and organized the Los Angeles Gathering.

2002 - Survivors of the Orlando Gathering got together (with some fresh fan blood) and organized the Williamsburg Gathering.

2003 - A new group of fans got together (with a few familiar faces) to organize this year's new New York Gathering. For info, check out http://gathering.gargoyles-fans.org .

2004 - A group of Canadian fans have gotten together and are already organizing next year's Gathering in Montreal.

2005 - Is up for grabs. As you can see from this history, there's no magic to it. Dedicated fans just decide to make it happen. In fact, it's a lot of hard work. But if you want a Gathering in Nebraska, organize a group of fans and put together a bid. You've got at least six to eight months to get your act together before next year's bidding process begins. Go for it.

As for attending before then... it's not necessarily as expensive and time-consuming as you may think. Look into cheap fares or ride sharing and/or room sharing. Just LOOK into it, before deciding it isn't possible. Give it a try. I guarantee you won't be sorry.

Response recorded on May 13, 2003


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