roundhoward.

I know there’s no good excuse, but for what it’s worth, every time I think about how I’ve shirked my duties here at roundhoward, I think about all of the sad puppies created by my absence. From now on, that little guy right there (I’m calling him Gulliver) will be my constant reminder to do right by all you readers, human and canine alike. Consider me returned.

That isn’t to say I haven’t been super busy lately. Over the last few weeks, some cool stuff has gone down that’s required me to go incognito. In case you’re not already in the know, allow me to walk you through roundhoward‘s month of February.

For those of you who missed it or don’t live in the Tri-State area, early February saw the mega explosion of New York Comic-Con. Unquestionably the biggest east coast comic convention, this year’s NYCC was uniquely poised to be bigger than big. Marvel and DC Comics are riding high right now — well, depending on what kind of “high” we’re talking about — and the success of their film divisions has sent a jolt through greater geekdom. Yes, this NYCC was held barely a month before the release of Watchmen, and the latest Terminator installment — which looks shockingly good — is only three measly months from now.

So, yeah, from February 6 – 8, I was holed up inside the Jacob Javits Center reporting on behalf of Comic Book Resources, some of the coolest cats in the comics journalism game. After days of panel reports and endless transcribing, these are some of the stories I ended up with…

• “Wonder Woman” Movie Review
• “Watchmen” Panel Report
• “Terminator” Panel Report
• “Venture Bros.” Panel Report
• “Up” Panel Report
• “Dollhouse” Panel Report
• “Marvel: Your Universe” Panel Report

I’ll get into further detail on some of these when the timing is right, but suffice it to say, every single one of those reports was both a pleasure and a pain to write. I know, whining about how hard it is to write about “Watchmen” (which looks sooo good, by the way) is a high class complaint, but this was a very stressful frickin’ weekend. I have no idea how I’m going to survive San Diego Comic-Con if I do actually make it there this year. But I did manage to break the tension by getting to the bonus levels in Tetris for the first time. That was awesome.

Oh yeah, and there was one more thing…

Yeah, that’s right, Chewbacca. Thanks to my good pal Brian Abrams at Heeb Magazine, I got the chance to sit down with the omega beast that is Peter Mayhew. What an incredible guy — just a gigantic man with lots of hair and a deep, booming, often indecipherable voice. Peter makes the rounds at tons of conventions (two per month on average, as you’ll read in the interview) and he’s very approachable — once you get past his terrifyingly large stature. If you ever find yourself at the same con as Mr. Mayhew, I strongly encourage you to go shake his hand. If nothing else, it’s a heck of a thing to shake hands with a giant.

(Thanks to my buddy and frequent collaborator 3!LL @ Bohemian Zen for the picture. Some content on his site is not safe for work or children, so proceed cautiously!)

After a long weekend and several subsequent days of reporting and transcribing all things NYCC, I took a much deserved four day excursion with the lady friend to California. We spent three nights in Napa Valley, visited roughly eight wineries in one day (can’t remember, was drunk) and then spent the last night in San Francisco’s Nob Hill area. We ate in Chinatown, hung out with old man Dimitri at the Stanford Court Hotel, got seafood in Sausalito, and even traveled over the Golden Gate Bridge while blasting the Full House theme song — twice.

And then I came home, was jetlagged, went to a super secret film event for Wizard (that I’ll talk about as soon as I can talk about it) and got too lazy to write about anything else for a week.

So that was February and now here we are! Welcome back roundhoward! Yay!