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BADLIT.COM WEBLOG - JULY 26, 2009
2009 COMIC-CON INTERNATIONAL: UNDERGROUND STYLE, BAD LIT (excerpt)
BY Mike Everleth
Read The Full Blog OnlineComic-Con is actually a bunch of different conventions crammed into one. Therefore, to not get consumed by all the hullabaloo, an attendee has to find the convention he or she wants to attend. So, what I wanted to know was: Is there an "underground" con lurking in there?
The answer is yes. But, here's the funny thing. I walk in the "D" entrance and the convention floor is completely overwhelming and packed elbow-to-elbow with people. I don't look at the map, so I don't know where anything is. I figure my best bet is to stick to the outer wall to figure out the lay of the land before heading into the thick of it.
I start off by walking left and - BAM! - two minutes later I run into superstar underground animator Bill Plympton, who is selling DVDs in his own booth. I'm a huge fan of Plympton's work and his films, including the feature Mutant Aliens, were some of the highlights of the New York Underground Film Festival when I attended that a few years ago. So I bought from him his latest DVD collection of shorts, Dog Days, which he was proudly telling folks included some of his best work.
I have seen one of the shorts on the DVD before, Shuteye Hotel, which played at the 2008 Spooky Movie Film Festival. But I'm very anxious to check out the Oscar-nominated Guard Dog and it's two sequels Guide Dog and Hot Dog. Plympton very graciously signed the DVD cover, which you can see him holding up in that picture up there. He was also making custom dog sketches on a Hot Dog promo postcard with each purchase. I'll put up a full review of the DVD eventually.
In the booth next to Plympton was actress and producer Alexia Anastasio selling DVDs starring and produced by her. I snatched up The Wild World of Ted V. Mikels, a documentary about the infamous B-movie filmmaker that's directed by Kevin Sean Michaels and narrated by John Waters. To be honest, I don't think I've ever seen a Mikels creation, such as The Corpse Grinders and The Astro-Zombies, but he's one of those filmmakers I think I need to learn more about, so that's why I bought this. Well, that and the Waters narration.
Continuing in the B-movie director vein, from Anastasio I also grabbed a copy of Inside the Ecomm Cult, a mockumentary that features Detective H.G. Lewis who investigates an evil, girl-snatching cult. The film actually does star Herschell Gordon Lewis, director of horror classics like Blood Feast and 2000 Maniacs. Sounds fun and I hope it is. Again, I'll have reviews of these up sometime.
Also, I don't know if Plympton and Anastasio sitting next to each other at the con is a coincidence or what, but she's working on a documentary on the animated called Adventures in Plymptoons, of which you can watch footage from on YouTube.