Category Archives: Interviews

Mick Foley discusses one-man shows, Georgia history and being Santa Claus

Wrestling fans know him as the Hardcore Legend whose extreme antics included losing an ear in a match, being thrown through a table from the top of a cage by the Undertaker and using a dirty sweat sock named Socko to help him win matches. Others are more familiar with Mrs. Foley’s baby boy, the flannel-wearing intellectual who writes best-selling memoirs, supports good causes and dresses up as Santa Claus. When it comes to his Hardcore Legend: An Evening with Mick Foley one-man shows, you’re likely to hear about all these things and more as Foley recounts various moments from his life and career in candid detail. Currently on the Southeast leg of his comedy tour (including performances on Nov. 14 at the Superstars of Wrestling fan fest and on Nov. 16 at Atlanta Improv, 56 E. Andrews Drive NW, Atlanta, 678-244-3612, www.theatlantaimprov.com), the WWE Hall of Famer talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about wrestling, comedy and his new film I Am Santa Claus.

When I saw you perform at The Punchline last year, you had just become an official Santa Claus. And I’m not certain how to properly phrase that.

I had just graduated with a degree in Santa Clausology from the International University of Santa Claus.

Well that time of year is approaching and you’re the producer and one of the stars of a new documentary called I Am Santa Claus. What can you tell me about that?

It’s a project I began as a subject in that intended to follow Santa’s ambassadors around to find out what they did during the rest of the year. My role in the documentary was going to be the rookie, the guy who’s dabbled in that world but never really plunged into it. I got a chance to plunge into it and I loved it. When I did emerge, as long as we’re going with the plunging motif, I really loved the idea of being in that chair and being in that suit and doing it every year for the foreseeable future.

Is there anywhere in particular you’ll be doing the Santa thing this year?

It’s a hobby for me. I can kind of do it wherever I want to. So I’ll be on stage with my friends in Puss N Boots, Norah Jones, Sasha Dobson and Catherine Popper, actually singing as Santa on Dec. 11 in Brooklyn. Then I’ll be doing a lot of things behind the scenes, like making visits for a group called Christmas Magic, which helps make the magic of Christmas morning possible for families with very limited means on Long Island. And I’ll be doing a book signing with my son Hughie for a Christmas story he wrote. So I’m all over the place. I’m doing a few photo sessions and a bunch of appearances for good causes.

You tend to draw an audience of wrestling fans for your comedy shows for obvious reasons. But tomorrow’s Superstars of Wrestling show will consist of an especially concentrated group of wrestling fans. Do you expect that show to be much different from a show at a comedy club?

The fan fest signing and meet-and-greet is right after my show and there’s no extra charge for that. I’ve done a couple of other shows at fan fests and you get the really passionate fans, which is great because they’ll get all the subtleties. Of course I’ll work in some special material just for those guys. And it’s fun to come to an area like Rome or Atlanta where I have history. I think I last wrestled at the Alpharetta Auction Barn in 1994, about an hour away from Rome. Of course I lived in the Atlanta area for five years. So I’m excited about it. I love doing it and I think people get that within the first ten minutes that I’m on stage.

How different is your show from one night to the next? If someone goes the show in Rome as well as the show in Atlanta, will they see similar sets?

I try to make them largely different. I might have a couple of core stories that I include both nights. I’ll go out of my way, especially since they’re only about 70 miles away, to make sure they are different shows. I’ve done weekends at a club where I’ll do four different shows over two days and the owner will be like, “No one does that!” It goes back to my days as a wrestler and thinking I’d be disappointing one or two people who may have driven 300 hours if I didn’t do something special. I’ll even ask when I’m doing the late show, “Anyone here from the early show?” One person will raise their hand and I’ll go, “I’m doing an entirely new show.” It’s just a point of pride with me.

Speaking of your history in Georgia, do you have any favorite memories from your time wrestling in Georgia?

Yeah. One of the stories that I do tell on the current tour is about getting the call from WCW for the big tryout. When I arrived, I was under the impression I’d be getting a promotional push from the company only to find out that my opponents for that evening were the Steiner Brothers. I momentarily contemplated quitting the wrestling business until finding out they actually had a unique idea for me. It’s a fun story and it’s always great to tell the story in the city of its origin, in this case Atlanta. But I’ll have plenty of material for the fans in Rome and Atlanta. Every night we do a Q&A, which means every night we get different questions and the potential to take off in different ways.

I was a big fan of your work in WCW, particularly the matches you had against Sting. Do you have any favorite moments from your feuds with Sting?

Oh, yeah. Sting was one of two primary opponents that put me on the map. It was Sting in WCW in 1991 and the Undertaker in WWE in 1996. Without those two rivalries, you and I are probably not having this phone call. When it comes to Sting, the big moment would be busting out of the box on Clash of the Champions and dropping the finest elbow of my career – an elbow that was so good that I specifically asked for it to be included in the Santa Claus documentary.

Any speculation on what his role might be in WWE?

I have no idea. I don’t know if he’s going to wrestle or if he’s just an ambassador. But he’s clearly a big iconic figure and a great gain for WWE.

You’re also involved in Blanc/Biehn Productions‘ Hellevator Man coming out in 2015. What can you tell me about this film?

I did one of my shows in the Los Angeles area, drove out at midnight, shot until 6 a.m. and was back on the road. That was really just my chance to work with Jennifer Blanc-Biehn, who had helped me find my way to The Artie Lange Show when I had no idea where I was. She saw this very confused-looking guy and guided me to the show. I looked her up and sent her a nice message and she had no idea who I was. She had no idea that this guy she had helped out was this noted wrestling figure. I really enjoyed it. I hadn’t acted in a while, but I look forward to doing more acting projects, especially Santa-related projects, in 2015.

Hellevator Man doesn’t appear to be a Santa-related project.

No, it’s a horror film. I do have another project coming out called Dixieland. It’s a really cool independent film that stars Riley Keough, who is Elvis Presley‘s granddaughter, and Chris Zylka, who was in the last Spider-Man movie and I believe [will portray] Venom in the upcoming Spider-Man movie. He’s such a big fan of mine and got such a kick out of me playing myself in a dream sequence at a strip club with Elvis’ granddaughter.

You always seem to be working on something new. Do you have any other books or movies coming out anytime soon?

I just started getting some thoughts of doing a memoir about my experiences as Santa, one of those heartwarming 20 to 30,000-word mini memoirs as opposed to the vastness of Have a Nice Day!.

You recently appeared on Raw, just before the Hell in a Cell event. Do you have any plans of being on WWE TV again anytime soon?

I don’t know when I’ll be on the main show, but I imagine I’ll be doing something in the future. I believe WWE will be airing my one-man show special on the WWE Network in 2015. That will forever answer the question of, “What does he do?” Because 90 percent of people who think enough of me to put their hard-earned money down to come to my show have no idea what to expect. So it’ll be a real relief, knowing that the shows outperform people’s limited expectations, to just have something out there for people to go, “Oh, I see.” My feeling is that people will be much more inclined to come watch it live.

www.realmickfoley.com

Wyatt Cenac brings “Brooklyn” Netflix special to live audiences

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Photo by Eric Michael Pearson.

In his new Netflix special Wyatt Cenac: Brooklyn, Wyatt Cenac‘s observations of somewhat strange things that take place in his neighborhood are familiarly funny to the Union Hall audience. But when he takes these stories to other towns on the Wyatt Cenac Live in Brooklyn in ___(insert city name here)___ tour, audiences will likely agree that odd things happen pretty much anywhere. It just takes a certain type of perspective to find the humor in it all, which is what Cenac has provided as a writer for King of the Hill and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. The tour runs Nov. 13-23, but first Cenac talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about his special and how it might relate to people outside of Brooklyn.

Your recent Netflix special features stories and observations that are very specific to your home town. On this tour, will you be telling similar stories that are specific to each town in which you’re performing?

Yeah, it’s about Brooklyn. But I would argue that a lot of the things are relatable in any city that you live in. Just a weird experience [such as] seeing somebody bring a kid into a bar, I don’t think that’s a particularly Brooklyn thing. For me, part of doing the special is just talking about, yes, this is the place that I live. But I also think some of the shit in it is sort of relatable to any major city that has an artsy part of town where you see weird shit. As far as this tour, I’m just telling jokes about things from my life and things that I’ve seen.

I enjoyed the puppetry aspect of the special. Is that something you incorporate into your live shows?

No. That took a team of very talented people and it would be very expensive to try to take on the road. That was really more just for the visuals while watching the special. Watching a special on TV, you’re kind of seeing the most watered down version of it. The best version of seeing standup is actually being there. The second best is just listening to it. Seeing it on your TV, at any time you can check your email or do anything else and you’re just listening to it. So I felt like adding those elements with the puppets was a way to add some visual jokes that would keep you visually engaged with the special.

The Barclays Center comes up in your special. WWE held its TLC: Tables, Ladders & Chairs event there shortly after the arena opened in 2012, and has since returned there. Any chance you’ve attended any WWE events there?

No. I haven’t been to a pro wrestling event in a long time. I think the last time I went to one was when I was living in California because I had an agent at the time who was a big wrestling fan.

Do you happen to have any wrestling jokes or stories you can share with me?

When I was younger I watched a lot more wrestling, but I don’t watch it as much now. Every now and again I’ll get a few tweets directed my way whenever John Cena and Bray Wyatt are in wrestling matches against each other. The hashtag #WyattCena will come up and it’s a very strange thing because I’ll see tweets directed at me that will say things like, “Why is #WyattCenac trending? Oh, it’s not him. It’s a wrestling match.” That’s the one connection I have to it at this point in my life. One of the highlights of my time at The Daily Show was getting to meet Mick Foley. He’s a very nice guy.

A very nice guy who also now does standup. What was that experience like? Have you ever considered doing a comedy tour with him?

We met twice and didn’t really get to spend a ton of time together. Once he came in right before we were shooting and we talked him trough what we were doing. He was happy to help out and was really nice. The next time I saw him, The Daily Show went to D.C. for the Rally to Restore Sanity and he was there. We never really chatted too much beyond that and I’ve never had a chance to see him do standup. He was entertaining the idea when I met him, but it was after my experiences with him that he started doing the tours.

In addition to The Daily Show, you also worked on King of the Hill. What were those experiences like for you and how does working for a TV show compare to doing standup?

They were both great. They’re both very different in that it takes about nine months to make one episode of King of the Hill versus The Daily Show, which takes about nine hours. So I learned two very different ways of making something: a fast one and a much more drawn out process with animation, which I’ve always been a fan of. They differ from standup because standup is my own thing, it’s my ideas that I can take out and see how they work. Working on someone else’s show, it’s their show, so you have to be able to write for somebody else. To do things for yourself is a little more satisfying creatively.

Tell me about the film you worked on with David Cross.

I shot a film that David Cross directed called Hits. I’m not sure when it’s getting released, but it went to Sundance this year and got a lot of good attention. So hopefully it will be out soon. And I’m doing these tour dates for the new special, and we’ll see what the New Year brings.

Wrestling comics are “Headlocked” with Michael Kingston’s creation

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Professional wrestling and comic books seem like they could easily have been cut from the same ring canvas. Yet when attempts have been made to take the action and pageantry of the squared circle to the pages of comics, fans have typically tapped out. Inspired by these lackluster attempts at making comic book heroes and villains out of real-life superheroes and bad guys, Michael Kingston takes the opposite approach with Headlocked, the story of a college thespian who decides to become a professional wrestler. Released in July of this year, Headlocked: The Last Territory exposes the gritty and gruff inner workings of the indie wrestling world as an outsider tries to break in in hopes of eventually making it big. With contributions from some of the top talents in wrestling and comics, the book has become an underground hit on the comic convention circuit, as well as amongst wrestlers and wrestling fans alike. The second volume of The Last Territory is scheduled for release next July and features the creative talents of an entirely different set of wrestlers, writers and artists, as well as some returning talents. And you can even help make the next book a reality by contributing to the Headlocked Kickstarter campaign between now and Nov. 4, with multiple exclusives and incentives depending on how much you’re able to contribute. Here, Kingston talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about how Headlocked came to be and what the next book will offer.

Based on what I’ve seen in the Headlocked books, you obviously have a lot of knowledge about the inner workings of professional wrestling. What is your background and how did you obtain all of this behind-the-scenes information?

I have a chemistry degree. I’ve been a wrestling fan and a comic book fan my whole life. I’ve studied it, talked to people, watched stuff, read stuff – since I was 8 I’ve been fascinated by it. Same with comics. I like to think I can look at something and figure it out structurally, how stories are written and whatnot. I’ve read a lot of books and just tried to come up with a story I thought people would like. I guess I don’t have the most storied background.

That actually makes the whole thing even more interesting to me because you just figured it out on your own. Even though the wrestling industry has been exposed a great deal, some of the details you get into in these books are beyond what most fans are aware of and are things only people involved in the business are aware of. So the fact that you’ve studied wrestling to that degree is interesting to me.

It’s a tricky line to walk because you want to tell an entertaining story, but you don’t want to offend the people in the business. It’s tough. You’re trying to serve a couple of different masters. I want the book to appeal to wrestling fans and I want the book to appeal to people in the wrestling business. I also want to make it accessible for people who don’t know anything about wrestling. It’s not the easiest thing in the world for me to write and it takes a little while to work through some of the scripts and conflicts and stuff. So far, I couldn’t be happier with the way it’s been received by everybody.

I first heard about Headlocked when I was talking to Ring of Honor‘s Matt “Sex” Sells at the Wizard World Atlanta Comic Con in May. Then we had Shane Helms as a guest on Georgia Wrestling Now on Oct. 6, just before his appearance at the New York Comic Con, and he mentioned his involvement with Headlocked. I’m curious how all the different wrestlers and artists came to be involved with your project.

“Headlocked” creator Michael Kingston with artist and WWE Hall of Famer Jerry “The King” Lawler.

When I started the book it was just me and my creative team, who are all freelancers – my artist is from the Philippines, my colorist for the first book was Canadian – and I just paid them all to work on the book. I met Shane and Rob Van Dam separately at San Diego Comic-Con. They were just walking around as fans and came across my table. They both bought copies of the book when I just had a preview book, then they both reached out to me separately to tell me they really liked what I was doing and asked if there was anything they could do to help. Jerry [Lawler] was an interesting one. I just emailed him through his website and it was such a long shot I forgot I had done it after I did it. One day I got an email back and I expected it to be from the webmaster, but it was really from him. He said, “Send me some books and I’ll take a look at it.” So I sent him some books and he called me up and said, “Sure, I’ll do it.” He’s done three covers for me and we’ve done a ton of conventions together. Since then, a lot of the wrestlers who like comic books will be at shows and come find me. When I was doing one of my first shows with Jerry, Christopher Daniels came up. I went up to Christopher Daniels and introduced myself because I was a big fan, I’m a huge fan of Ring of Honor, and he said, “Oh, man. I’ve been dying to meet you.” It really kind of blew my mind that anyone would really know what I was doing at the time. That’s how it snowballed. Ken Anderson came up to me at San Diego Comic-Con one year and was like, “Hey, can I do a piece of art for you?” A lot of the guys that like comics like what I’m doing and realize how difficult it is to get any kind of traction in either world without being supported either by WWE or a top-five comic book publisher. The guys who have other skills like to showcase that they can do something other than wrestling. I think that’s kind of why we all get along so well is because we don’t really talk so much about wrestling, we talk a lot about comics.

Jill Thompson came over to my table. She likes wrestling and was interested in the book. It’s just grown from there. My whole intention for writing the book was that there’s never been a good wrestling comic, ever. I thought I would try to do something some fans would like and want to read. I’ve been a fan of both of them since I was about 8 years old and it just blew my mind that nobody’s ever made a wrestling comic that I really enjoyed. I guess I enjoyed Spider-Man’s Tangled Web that dealt with the stories featuring Crusher Hogan. But in terms of a series, no one’s ever done it in a way that I found satisfying. All the wrestlers have been supportive because they see what we’re trying to do and where we’re going. So I feel like I’ve been super, super fortunate that they’ve all been so generous.

The only ongoing wrestling comic books I can think of are the World Championship Wrestling ones Marvel did and the Chaos! Comics ones based on the Undertaker, Stone Cold and other WWE wrestlers. WWE had its own comic book a few years ago. Do you know if that still exists?

Yeah. There’s one that Mick Foley actually writes. I was talking to him about doing a story for my book and he said, “Maybe for the next one.” I don’t care if I ever make a dime off this book, honestly. I have a job that pays my bills and I love doing this. I’ve had a lot of amazing experiences and I’ve gotten to meet a lot of people I really admired growing up. Everybody that’s doing the book loves wrestling, loves comics and loves art. It’s a passion project all the way around.

You’re working on the next chapter of the Headlocked story and you’re funding it through Kickstarter. What else can you tell me about the next book and the Kickstarter campaign?

WWE Hall of Famer Booker T contributes artwork to “Headlocked”.

The way the campaign is structured, people who are just finding out about it can pledge for any book in the series. So if you just want to get the first book you can do that. It’s totally accessible to anybody, no matter what their experience with the book is. We have Booker T and Tony Atlas doing artwork for it and John Morrison, Frankie [Kazarian] and AJ Styles are doing stories. Caylen Croft from the Dude Busters is doing a piece of art and Jill still does our credits pages. Ben Templesmith is doing a piece for it, as are Ramon Villalobos, Box Brown and Jamal Igle. So we’ve got a real all-star lineup. We just announced that Ron Funches, a comedian from Undateable on NBC, is doing our introduction. He’s a huge wrestling fan and there’s a show on Comedy Central called @midnight that he’s won more than anybody else. Judah Friedlander wrote the introduction to the last one. We try to get guys from outside the business that are passionate about wrestling to do our introductions.

The next book will be ready in time for the 2015 convention season. Will you be making any convention appearances between now and then?

I’m going to Pro Wrestling Syndicate to sell books on Halloween night. I’m probably doing the Magic City Comic Con in January in Miami.

www.headlockedcomic.com

Bogey bugs out about Netherworld’s Season of the Witch and Spliced

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Netherworld is the type of place most of us go to encounter ghouls, ghosts and other ghastly creatures to get into the spooky Halloween spirit. Or, for other types of wayward souls and wandering spirits, it’s a good place to find monsters with similarly sinister sensibilities for scaring people. As enchantresses cackle and creep in Season of the Witch and the Mangler continues his underground genetic experiments in Spliced, a weirdo named Bogey wanders the areas in between in hopes that his pets will make some new friends. Only problem is, not many people want to pet his hissing cockroaches! And I can’t help but wonder if he has anything to do with that giant roach I encountered inside Netherworld before conducting this interview. As strange as he may be, however, Bogey is still one of the more approachable of the Netherspawn. Which is exactly why Wrestling with Pop Culture decided he was the safest person to talk to about this year’s Netherworld haunted house.

How long have you been involved with Netherworld? Where did you come from and how did you come to be involved with these ghouls?

Well, I’ve been here at Netherworld for about two and a half years. Before that I worked at a big scientific lab. They had a whole buncha Madagascar hissing cockroaches that they would study, and ol’ Bogey took care of ’em. Can’t tell you which one, though. Last time I did, I got myself in trouble. There was all kindsa hubbub ’bout how the law said I can’t talk about the weird experiments and stuff they were doing in there to get themselves shut down and I had to hide out for a while. There’s not a lot of places a guy like me with a big colony of bugs in tow can go. For some reason, people think me and my babies are creepy. Then it clicked – maybe we can find a home where the other creepy things live. So I came here to Netherworld. They seem to like my babies, and these weird monsters haven’t eaten me yet. So I figure we must belong here. Fine by me. I fit in better with these freaks than those smarty pants scientists anyway.

You spend most of your time wandering around outside with your pets. Explain your fascination with these roaches. Why do you think people tend to be repulsed by you and your pets when you approach them?

The Maddies, as I like to call them, are basically my kids. Not like these nasty-ass roaches that run around in your kitchen. These roaches are clean. They’re sweet. They’re cuddly. They’re perfect. Those sleek shells, their cute little faces – what’s not to love? Hell, it’s the bugs’ world. They just let us live in it. Anyway, one night I was hanging out with the colony and I realized that there was a whole bunch of people waiting to check out Netherworld. So I said to myself, “Self, you should take the bugs outside and introduce them to these folks.” The bugs like people, so I figured they could make some new friends. Now I wander around in the lot trying to get people to pet the babies. Sometimes they do, but sometimes they tell me they’re gross or freak out. For the life of me, I can’t understand why. I don’t like it when people badmouth my babies or act all scared of them. That’s when I have to get a little nasty with ’em and insist that they pet the roaches. It usually ends up in a lot of running and screaming.

The Mangler is back at it this year with Spliced, his latest endeavor. He seems like a guy you might have spent some time with. Do you have any sort of relationship, working or personal, with the Mangler? Have you ever been part of his underground experiments?

That guy kinda gives me the creeps. Reminds me too much of those brainy weirdos I used to work for. He’s always up to no good, just like they were. I let him use my babies in his experiments a couple of times. He promised he wouldn’t hurt them, but I found out he was splicing them with people he snagged and was trying to make bugmen or something. Sucks to that! I steer clear of him as much as possible. If you go see the whole Spliced thing he has going on, I’d suggest you stay far, far away from him.

It’s also the Season of the Witch at Netherworld. I’ve taken a stroll through the witches’ realm and saw some frightening things. What do you think these witches are up to, especially when it comes to The Dead Ones who ruled Netherworld last year? Do you have any ties to them or any of their minions?

Those crazy witches seem to think that if they let all of the beasties loose and make the world as horrific and scary as possible, The Dead Ones might not wanna set up shop here after all. I dunno if that’s gonna work, but if it keeps them away, I say, “Go for it!” I’ll just be here with my babies watching the whole thing go down. They say roaches will survive the apocalypse. Maybe they’ll let me hang around, too, seeing as how I feed them and all. The only folks out of the witches’ crew that I hang out with are the Sawyers. They’re the ones up there running around with chainsaws and throwing people in cages. Ralphus, the big one, that’s one sadisitc bastard. People say we look alike, but I don’t see it. His little sister Lyla might even be nuttier than him. We’re more or less on the same side, though. So we’re cool. I just wouldn’t want to be one of you on their bad side.

The Sawyers look awfully familiar. I think I’ve seen some of them at some of the indie wrestling events I’ve been to.

Then you go to some weird wrestling shows. Like I said, they’re bloodthirsty freaks. So they like those death matches. You know, barbed wire and thumbtacks and stuff. The sort of shows IWA Deep South does. I think Ralphus even makes weapons for ’em. As far as wrestling goes, I like it all, man. Since I spend all of my time hanging around with monsters, I really dig Monstrosity Championship Wrestling. It’s cool to see my kinda sickos mixing it up in the ring. Honestly, though, I’m happy any time folks are beating each other between the ropes. I dig the violence. You know, maybe I do have a little of Ralphus’ sadistic streak in me after all.

The Netherspawn emerge for about a month or so each year. Where will Bogey crawl away to once they’ve gone back into hiding after Nov. 8?

I’ll be right here in the bowels of the building looking after my roaches. Being the bug daddy is a full-time gig. While the Mangler’s in there doing God-only-knows what, and the witches stir those cauldrons of theirs, I’ll be protecting the colony and hanging out with my best six-legged buddies. That’s why, before the crowds die again, I have to make as many of you as possible pet my babies!

www.fearworld.com

Chambers of Horror’s Dr. Splatter discusses Operation Phoenix, MCW and other depravity

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Dr. Dieter von Splechter (better known to us dumb Americans as Dr. Splatter) is the sick and twisted mind behind TORTUREco, an exclusive organization that offers its members the most extreme experiences in pleasure and pain. Each October, TORTUREco’s Chambers of Horror facility opens its doors to the general public, allowing a peek into the perversions that take place within. After literally going underground last year, it appears that Chambers of Horror has found an unlikely supporter this year in the form of the United States government. Those brave enough to venture inside will witness the chaotic creations of Operation Phoenix, which many suspect to be a cover for the Project TCO138 super soldier project. On Oct. 15, when Chambers of Horror and Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse team up once again to present Monstrosity Championship Wrestling, rumor has it some of these creatures will be battle tested against MCW’s top competitors. In what I think is his first public interview ever, Dr. Splatter talks to (and berates) Wrestling with Pop Culture about the TCO138 rumors, MCW and other attractions taking place at Chambers of Horror this month.

First off, great job on this year’s attraction. After what happened last year at Chambers of Horror, I didn’t think things could get any more intense. But you’ve sunken to extreme new lows this year.

I’ve seen your pathetic so-called “blog” and you say I’ve sunken to an all-new low? Ha! No, but let’s be serious now, you do suck.

President Barack Obama has made many questionable decisions during his time in office. But Operation Phoenix could be his most controversial act yet. How did this collaboration come about and how do you respond to the rumors of its ties to a super soldier project called TCO138?

Obama and I go way back. He actually used to be a client here at TORTUREco. Jesus fucking Christ, the things he would do! He once made an entire trench coat out of ass cheeks. It was quite breathtaking, really. Michelle knitted me a scarf made from dried ligaments one year for Christmas. As far as the rumors go about a super soldier project, well that’s a tight-lipped project. But I can say I do love my Obama checks. And so do the ladies at the Clermont Lounge.

I had a chance to speak briefly to Major Hank Hammer, the man appointed to oversee this your project, recently. All he would tell me, however, is that the president is a very nice guy. Why the secrecy?

Dr. Splatter makes some sort of deal with Major Hank Hammer and a former TORTUREco client.

They think of me as somewhat of a black sheep in the political social circle jerk. They believe my tactics and actions in the past would leave a bad taste in the people’s mouths. They haven’t tasted the load I’m about to drop in their mouths, so we’ll see how long this secrecy lasts.

A collaboration between TORTUREco and the U.S. government seems like one of the most unlikely partnerships in human history. And after my recent visit to Chambers of Horror, I can’t help but question the true intentions of everyone involved.

Let’s put it this way, I like money, blood and the sound of screams echoing through hallways. Any sketchy behavior or threats you may have experienced during your visit were sincere.

Not quite as odd, but still a little strange, was the recent partnership between you and Professor Morté’s Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse at a Monstrosity Championship Wrestling event. The two of you will join forces again on Oct. 15 as MCW makes its Chambers of Horror debut. What can wrestling fans, TORTUREco members and everyone else expect at this event? Will we see some of these super soldiers and other creations in action?

What you will see Wednesday night is some of the most horrible displays of sick and twisted depravity. There will be plenty of monsters and creations galore! It’s going to be a blood bath!

Given what has taken place at Chambers of Horror over the years, I would imagine underground fight clubs have certainly been part of the depravity that goes on. Have you had prior involvement with professional wrestling in this form?

Professor Morté and Dr. Splatter form a somewhat unlikely alliance at MCW. Photo by Harold Jay Taylor/Headlocks and Headshots.

Through our various TORTUREco entities that have popped up throughout Europe, we have definitely delved into many underground scenes that are questionable to the masses. In those days we would have some of the biggest, bloodiest brawls that would make Brad Pitt roll over and spit out the cock he has buried in his ass.

Finally, TORTUREco has other entertainment scheduled throughout the month for those taking tours of the facility. What can you tell me about upcoming Splatter Cinema screenings, band performances and whatnot?

On top of the MCW event, we also will have performances from the ghastly and gory Casket Creatures this Friday with DJ Rev. Andy blasting the tunes between sets. Every Tuesday we will be playing late-night movies such as Hellraiser, Pumpkinhead and Halloween III. Also check our Facebook page for other events and performers such as Capt. Stab Tuggo & Maybelle, who are some truly sick and twisted people.

www.chambersofhorroratl.com

Box Brown offers touchingly tall tales with “Andre the Giant: Life and Legend”

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From fans who watched in awe as he defeated opponent after opponent in the ring to those who knew him on a personal level, stories about Andre the Giant are as abundant as his enormous frame was. But despite the legend this real-life giant has left behind, an accurate and entertaining story that goes beyond his wrestling career hadn’t been told until the recent release of Andre the Giant: Life and Legend, a graphic novel that ventures into Andre‘s childhood, his hardships, his triumphs and everything in between. While you might expect Andre’s story to be best told by someone from within the wrestling industry, an award-winning cartoonist named Box Brown, previously known for quirky comics such as Bellen! and Love Is a Peculiar Type of Thing, is the one who has been able to portray the always-interesting life of a world-traveling giant with the unbiased poignancy and celebration deserving of such a unique creature. Before his appearance at the AJC Decatur Book Festival Aug. 29-31, Brown talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about his attraction to professional wrestling and how he ended up being the one to tell Andre’s tall tale.

According to the bio in the back of the book, you’re a lifelong professional wrestling fan. What was it that initially attracted you to wrestling?

The way I first started getting into it was a friend of mine, when I was a little kid in fourth grade, used to bring his copies of WWF Magazine and Pro Wrestling Illustrated to school and we’d always read those. The first event I remember seeing was WrestleMania VI, Hulk Hogan vs. Ultimate Warrior. Something profoundly struck me watching that pay-per-view and from that moment on I was hooked.

That’s still probably my favorite WrestleMania match and one of my favorite matches of all time.

It was so good! Warrior was so big at the time and just watching Hulk Hogan lose – my friend was a bigger fan than I was at the time and he was so upset that Hulk Hogan lost. I think he locked himself in the bathroom and cried for a little while.

Do you think there are any kids that saw this year’s SummerSlam and reacted that way when Brock Lesnar defeated John Cena?

I don’t know. I wonder. It was such a devastating beating. Hogan almost won, but with Cena it was a total squash. If a majority of Cena’s fan base is 5, I would imagine they were pretty upset watching him get destroyed like that.

Was Andre the Giant still involved in wrestling when you started watching it?

Yeah. Actually, WrestleMania VI was kind of his last WrestleMania moment when he turned back to babyface. We went into WrestleMania VI as a Tag Team Champion with Haku, the Colossal Connection. They lost to Demolition and at the end Andre turned on Bobby Heenan and the crowd cheered and he left on the motorized cart.

Was that the first time you had seen him wrestle?

No. I guess I had been following wrestling on TV up to that moment. So I’d seen him and Haku as the Tag Team Champions. This was in 1990 and I would always rent wrestling VHS tapes from the video store. So I was catching up on WrestleMania III, WrestleMania IV and all these things that had come out on VHS before my time.

Oh, I rented a lot of wrestling tapes as a kid, too.

I think a lot of people’s experiences were similar. I would go to the supermarket with my mom once a week and I would always run straight to the magazine area and read all the Pro Wrestling Illustrateds and all the wrestling magazines. I’d flip through every one and beg my mom to let me get one of them.

The book begins with you explaining how wrestling works, then it concludes with a glossary of wrestling terminology. When did you become aware of all these insider terms and wrestling’s inner workings?

When the Internet came around is when people started getting clued in on some of the pro wrestling terms. It wasn’t until a lot of these pro wrestling shoot interviews started being released that you started really hearing the way the wrestlers used these terms and how they would apply them to regular life. I always find that to be super interesting when wrestlers use the wrestling terms outside of the framework of professional wrestling. I remember watching this one interview and Scott Hall and Kevin Nash – or maybe it was X-Pac – were talking about Austin Powers and they referred to Dr. Evil as “the top heel” in Austin Powers. I always thought that was so funny. It’s a language, really. In a way, there are things that can only be expressed in wrestling language, and there are things that exist outside of pro wrestling, but there’s no way to describe them. There’s no way to describe kayfabe, even though kayfabe exists outside of pro wrestling in a million different ways. But it’s only through pro wrestling that we get that language.

You’re telling Andre’s story within a medium in which it is acceptable to, for lack of a better way to put it, keep kayfabe. Why did you choose to clue people in to how wrestling works and reveal all those aspects of the story rather than keeping it somewhat fantasy based?

There was an Andre biography that WWE put out and it was the least interesting book I ever read. All it does is describe the things we saw on TV, which are better experienced via watching them on TV. I didn’t want to do that at all. The thing that was interesting to me and what really got me into the idea of doing a book about wrestling was watching shoot interviews and hearing these stories about the things that went on behind the curtain. The nature of pro wrestling is to have something hidden from the audience. That, by nature, is interesting because you’re like, “What is this thing? What are they not showing me?” So the fact that all these people were coming out with these stories and breaking this years-old tradition of never cluing in the audience was really fascinating to me. And everybody has a story about Andre, so there was a lot of material.

Did you ever actually talk to Hulk Hogan or any of the other people that are mentioned in the book?

I never talked to Hogan. His stuff was taken from a 2007 interview that was on TV. I did talk to Blackjack Mulligan and Bill Eadie, who was The Masked Superstar and Ax in Demolition. Those were extremely interesting for me as a pro wrestling fan. Bill Eadie is a really genuine and really cool guy. He was really good about helping me understand the type of guy that Andre was. Bill was really easy to talk to. Blackjack was just crazy, man. It was wild talking to him. He is Blackjack Mulligan and he says whatever he wants and doesn’t care what he’s saying or who he’s offending. Or what he’s even talking about. It was difficult to even get a straight story or answer from him about the fight he had with Andre. But I was basically just confirming stuff and getting a little more background on the story because he’d already talked about it in his interview and written a book about it. So the story’s been out there and described a lot from his perspective.

With a lot of wrestlers, especially guys from that era, you can never quite tell when they’re being real with you or not. I think it comes from them being so embedded in that old-school mentality that they can’t even step outside of that.

I remember reading a story one time about a female wrestler that was famous back in the day. I don’t remember her name, but she went to her deathbed claiming that wrestling was real. She died never once admitting to anyone that it was a show of any kind.

You have to respect that, to some degree.

Yeah. It’s like magicians. A magician never reveals his tricks. And that’s the environment they were brought up in. Things are different now, but I still think there are ways to work the crowd and keep up kayfabe. You just have to do it in this particular environment. It’s a little bit more difficult and you need to be a little bit more nuanced about it. But it’s definitely possible.

I agree. A lot of people think it’s completely exposed now, so why even bother keeping anything hidden. But that takes a lot of the fun out of it when there are still ways to work the audience.

Totally. I mean, TMZ covers this stuff. So they could use TMZ easily. The best guys, I’m sure, are still working the crowd in their own way. I feel like Triple H is pretty good about working the Internet crowd and building a character while maintaining this real persona as an executive with the company.

There’s a scene in your book where Andre, as a teenager, meets Samuel Beckett. You talk about this meeting a little more in the Source Notes section at the end of the book, but I’m curious how you heard about this story and how accurate you think it might be.

I reached out to the person who wrote the first article about it, as far as I could tell. He said he had found it in this book that I couldn’t find a copy of. So I cited his article as a source. I don’t think he made it up. That wouldn’t really make sense. Why would you make that up? I think it’s generally considered to be true. And it would make sense. He lived in the area at the time. Part of the story is that Andre’s father worked on Samuel Beckett’s house. There’s no way we can know what they actually talked about. What they say is that Andre said all they ever talked about was cricket and sports. In the book I made it that they were talking about football or soccer because I feel like that is just as likely that they would talk about that. The other thing was I couldn’t write dialogue about cricket because I just don’t know enough about cricket at all to write any kind of realistic dialogue.

There’s another scene in the book after he starts wrestling where you show the marquee for two different matches. One is against Ivan Koloff and it reads “Sold Out”. The other is against Rick Martel and it reads “Tickets Available”. Was that some sort of comical jab at Martel?

No. I figured he might be around at that time. It was kind of to show that when [Andre] stayed in the same place for too long the spectacle kind of wore off. That’s why they moved him around the country and he would only come to your town once a year, so it was always a fascinating thing.

Speaking of traveling around the country, you will be at the Decatur Book Festival next weekend. What all will you be doing there?

I’ll be doing a presentation and taking questions, and I’ll be doing a signing there. You can listen to me talk about the book and make comments about Andre, then I’ll be signing copies of the book. You can pick it up right there.

Where will you be appearing after that?

I’ll be at the Small Press Expo in September. I’ll be at MICE in Boston, New York Comic Con and the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville in October. In November I’ll be at the Miami Book Fair and Comic Arts Brooklyn. So I have a bunch of stuff coming up in the fall.

What have you been working on since the Andre book was released?

I’ve been working on a series of books that I put out through my publishing company, Retrofit. It’s called Number and issue 2 comes out in a few weeks. I’m currently working on issue 3 of that series. Hopefully I’ll be working on another book soon.

Any plans to do something wrestling related again?

Possibly. I actually have a meeting about that today. But it’s way too early to reveal any details yet.

www.boxbrown.com

Phantom Troublemaker tells us what the EFF is going on at Dragon Con

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Photo by Harold Jay Taylor/Headlocks and Headshots.

Phantom Troublemaker runs a blog called Needless Things that covers wrestling, movies and other aspects of pop culture. He also hosts a Needless Things Podcast (as part of The Earth Station One Network) in which he interviews puppeteers, wrestlers and other interesting people in the entertainment industry. Wrestling fans may recognize him as a member of the DCW Hooligans, a rambunctious group of fans who have found unity in their love of Dragon Con Wrestling, or as the ring announcer for Monstrosity Championship Wrestling, where he’s able to make the otherwise laborious task of raffling off prizes a fun endeavor. Considering my love of DCW and MCW, the fact that I cover many of the same aspects of pop culture with Wrestling with Pop Culture and that I interview wrestlers each week on Georgia Wrestling Now, one might even question if Phantom Troublemaker and I are the same person, especially since we are rarely seen together and he only appears in public while wearing his signature luchador masks. The fact that we both have been avid Dragon Con fans and attendees for a number of years might only strengthen such a claim. But I can assure you we are not the same person and to prove it I’m going to talk to him on the Aug. 4 edition of Georgia Wrestling Now about the numerous Dragon Con panels he will be part of this year (most of which I will also be attending, as further proof that we are just two guys that wear a lot of similar hats, or in his case masks). And with Dragon Con only a few weeks away, I decided to find out more about what the EFF he will be doing this year.

You’ve been attending Dragon Con for many years and have made the transition from attendee to panelist in recent years. But this year marks your first year being officially involved with Dragon Con. Explain this transition from being a fan to being involved with the event.

Ever since I’ve been going I’ve been covering it in one way or another. It started like anybody else, just taking a bunch of pictures and showing them to everybody you know. To an extent, that’s how journalism starts, I think. You just want to share information. That’s what it was for me. I went down there and took a ton of pictures of all the cosplayers, which back then “cosplayers” wasn’t a term. A few years ago, when I started Needless Things and started writing about it, I’d do full recaps afterwards and eventually got to the point where I started doing pre-coverage where I’d write things leading up to Dragon Con. I’d try to interview people involved with the show and, as I got involved with The ESO Network, I started making more connections to the point where I started to know people who actually worked with Dragon Con. Last year I was granted media access and covered it in a professional capacity (I don’t like to use the word professional in relation to myself).

This year, thanks in part to my involvement with MCW, in part to all the work I’ve done on panels for various conventions and in part to people just knowing who I am a little bit more, I’m an attending professional, which is not a guest. I don’t sit in the famous-people room, I don’t necessarily sign things – although if a titty is presented, I will sign it. Or if you want to throw your dong out there, I’ll sign that. I’ve got no standards. Attending professional, which means if somebody says, “Hey, I need a masked dork on my Swamp Thing panel,” I am at their disposal. Currently I’m scheduled for eight panels, including the two late-night specialty panels I’m running.

Before we get to that, when did you first become officially involved with Dragon Con panels?

Photo by Jay Hornsby/Belligerent Monkey.

My first panel was in 2012. I sat in on 1982: Best Movie Year Ever for the American Sci-Fi Classics track. I’d never done anything like it before. I love talking and I love talking about nerd stuff. When I do a good job at something, I’m not shy about saying it. And I did a great job. I blew everybody away. After the panel everybody was like, “Hey. That was fantastic. What else can you do? Come back next year and do more stuff.” Aside from the first real MCW show I did, it’s probably one of the most gratifying things I’ve ever been through in my life.

How did you get to do panels before becoming an attending professional?

This is something a lot of people don’t know. If you go to a panel, the people that are sitting up there talking are also fans. All you have to do is go talk to those guys and be like, “Hey. I love this thing you just talked about. What else are you talking about?” If you go to Dragon Con this year and you see a panel you’d want to speak about, you can go talk to somebody and get on that panel. It happens all the time where they’ll have three or four panelists scheduled and somebody gets too drunk, somebody gets double scheduled on panels, all kinds of things can happen and they may need somebody and that somebody could be you. If you’re a fan and you’re good at talking, you can be on a panel. You just have to have personality and knowledge. You don’t have to have any special connections. Granted, I was with the ESO Network at the time, so I did have kind of an in. But now I know if you’ve got charisma and are at least a little bit entertaining, get in there and ask. Like I say with everything in life, if you don’t ask you don’t know.

You’re doing eight panels this year, one of which can be previewed on Aug. 5 at the Red Light Cafe. What the EFF are you doing this year at Dragon Con?

Until four or five years ago, I was unfamiliar with the concept of erotic fan fiction. Call me naive. I just didn’t know there were such depths to our society. But if you go online you can find stories that fans have written about Wolverine and Jean Grey getting it on – graphic depictions of Wolverine butt sex. But it gets worse than that. There’s stuff out there like Lucius Malfoy skull-fucking his son Draco. There’s a whole spectrum of thoroughly disturbing fiction that fans of different levels of mental sickness have produced on the Internet, usually under false names. I wouldn’t know anything about writing under a false name.

When I first discovered this, I thought it would be really fun to get together at Dragon Con one night with some friends and everybody bring their own selections of fan fiction – whether it was Batman and Robocop having sex or Watson giving Sherlock Holmes an enema – and we read them out loud. It’s challenging to read these without laughing because a lot of the people that write these don’t have the best grammar. They’re not skilled writers, obviously, or they wouldn’t be writing Snorks porn. So I thought it would be fun to just sit around with pals, read these and maybe have an adult beverage or two. After working with the American Sci-Fi Classics track for a couple of years, I pitched the idea to Gary [Mitchel] almost as a joke. “Hey. We should do a game show where people have to read erotic fan fiction.” I figured at best the response would be, “Oh, that’s kind of funny. But we couldn’t do anything like that. That’s gross.” Instead, Gary said, “That’s fucking amazing. Done!” I still kind of didn’t believe it was going to happen. Then Joe [Crowe], who runs the American Sci-Fi Classics track with Gary, said, “Here’s the deal. You want to do your game show. You want to show your movie (I’ll get to that in a moment). Saturday night from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. the room is yours. Whatever you want to do.” That blew my mind. They’re putting a tremendous amount of faith in me to draw people in and run the room.

So I’m doing a game show called Whose EFF Is It Anyway?, co-hosted by Miss Lady Flex of Le Sexoflex, the sexiest band in the mother-fucking world, straight out of Buttlanta, Georgia. Please visit www.lesexoflex.com and download everything you can. They are incredible and they are the band that brought you the eponymous Dragon Con theme song “Marriott Cock Squat”. So it’s basically like The Gong Show: we’re going to bring people up out of the audience. We want it to be right, so we’re doing a dry run of the game show Aug. 5 here in Buttlanta at the Red Light Cafe. Doors open at 7:30, the show begins at 8. Myself and Miss Lady Flex will be on stage, we’ll have three judges and we’ll be drawing members of the audience up on stage to read selections of erotic fan fiction. This event is sponsored by Inserection and Stardust, which are adult-themed stores that have tobacco products, dildos and sexy lingerie of many different forms. We’ll have prizes from Stardust and Belligerent Monkey, my friend Jay Hornsby who is fantastic and does a lot of pop culture stuff, but does not paint penises. The art provided by Belligerent Monkey will be family friendly. We’ll have lots of prizes, we’ll have lots of fun and if you come out on Aug. 5 you’ll get to see the formation of something that I think is going to be pretty spectacular.

Before we started this interview, you told me about some wrestling erotic fan fiction you had come across. What else can you tell me about that?

This is something I’ve been peripherally aware of since I discovered erotic fan fiction. There is a community of folks who write fan fiction about wrestling. There’s the standard portion of this community that just does stories about maybe AJ Lee and John Cena having a romantic relationship and their struggles behind the scenes working for WWE and maybe a love triangle develops with Roman Reigns or something along those lines. There are a lot of female writers of that stuff and they’re just really expanding on the soap opera aspect of professional wrestling.

So this is completely different from fantasy booking?

No, it’s not even fantasy booking. This is like fantasy backstage booking. They barely even cover matches. They’re worried about the drama aspect. It almost makes sense that this kind of thing would be out there. Of course, like anything else, there is a seedy underbelly of wrestling fan fiction and that is wrestling slash fiction, which I found out today, nine out of ten wrestling slash fiction stories star Randy Orton. It’s just a thing. I didn’t even look for Randy Orton stories. My big goal is to find something with Mick Foley and The Rock. Although Hulk Hogan would be good, Macho Man would be good, a pairing of the two would be great. But Randy Orton came up time and time again. My favorite story that I found today, and I’m still in the midst of research, is one where John Cena gets Roman Reigns pregnant. It was enlightening, really. The reason I’m looking for wrestling-oriented fan fiction is for a very special surprise that I don’t want to announce here, but I can tell you if you’re a fan of Georgia Wrestling Now you know these guys and you’ll be very excited when they show up Saturday night at Dragon Con. We have surprises planned for the Aug. 5 show as well, but the Dragon Con show is the one where we’re going to blow it the fuck out of the water.

Well, I’ll let you wait until the Aug. 4 edition of Georgia Wrestling Now to reveal some of those secrets. Tell me more about the movie screening that will follow your gameshow.

This is the second portion of my Saturday-night activities at Dragon Con. Honestly I think I’m going to be spent after Whose Eff Is It Anyway?. But I will struggle through in order to share one of my most beloved movies of all time. It’s a Canadian masterpiece called THINGS. No, not The Thing. THINGS: All caps, all red, always. It is a very, very low-budget movie. It’s the most incompetently-produced movie I’ve ever seen in my life. Your life will literally be changed after you see it. I know a lot of movies make that claim. Citizen Kane, supposedly the greatest movie of all time. It will change the way you look a the world; Schindler’s List, enlightening and will show you a whole different side of things; The Passion of the Christ. I will put THINGS up against any of those movies as a life-altering experience. I’ve shown THINGS to people over the last 15 years time and again and I’ve had people leave the room, I’ve had people leave my home, because of watching THINGS. It’s an experience like nothing else and Joe and Gary, sweet, innocent fellows that they are, are letting me expose Dragon Con to THINGS. I’m very excited about the possibility of ruining so many lives in one night. First is going to be the fan fiction, which I guarantee people are going to be upset about that, then THINGS afterwards. I might put myself out of business, quite frankly. It’s going to be interesting to see if Phantom Troublemaker has to make a heel turn after Dragon Con.

Before all that, of course, is Dragon Con Wrestling and the DCW Hooligans.

The DCW Hooligans will be in full effect once again at Dragon Con Wrestling Friday night at 7 o’clock in the Hyatt Centennial Ballroom. We will be representing in our purple T-shirts. You will see all 430 of us now. Something like that.

Are you a founding member of the DCW Hooligans?

This has never been stated before. Technically I am not. While I had been enjoying Dragon Con Wrestling for a couple of years, it wasn’t until I hooked up with my buddies Ryan, Jay and Pete – they had been attending together for a while and I reconnected with those guys. While I am certainly the catalyst for us becoming the group that we are now, those guys were watching DCW as a group for a couple of years before I was around. Then I started writing my recaps of it and we started really making a concerted effort and making the T-shirts and everything. I put the name on it, but those guys were the heart of it. We take up a whole section now. You’ve been there with us the last couple of years, you’ve seen how ridiculous it is. And you’ve seen that the guys that actually run the DCW show fucking love us. It’s a great experience.

When does your official Dragon Con attending professional experience begin?

Saturday is the beginning of my official panel presence. I don’t have my full schedule, but I can tell you right now – and this is the first time that this has been announced – Saturday morning (and this is probably a terrible mistake) I’m going to be part of a panel called D20. What that is is the American Sci-Fi Classics track is creating an enormous pair of 20-sided dice. One die will have topics on it, the other one will have panelists on it. All of the panelists that work with the Dragon Con American Sci-Fi Classics track are going to be in the room, they’re going to roll the dice and pick panelists and topics. Then we’re going to do five-minute speed panels. It’s going to be ridiculous because chances are most of us are going to be hungover and it’s entirely possible that I’m going to get a topic that I don’t know jack shit about and have to talk about it. So this is one of those random chance things and this is what makes the Sci-Fi Classics track so great is that they’re willing to take chances like that. This could be terrible. It may not be entertaining at all. But at the same time it could be an entertaining train wreck. It’s going to be memorable regardless of the quality. These guys are willing to take chances like that and Whose EFF Is It Anyway and they’re letting me show THINGS. They’re willing to do things for the sake of fun and that’s what makes the track so great.

Immediately after that I’m doing a Transformers panel where we’re going to be talking about the 1984 movie and the toy line in general. Then I’m doing a She-Ra panel because this is, in some weird way, the 30th anniversary of She-Ra even though She-Ra didn’t come out until 1985. Mattel is calling this the 30th anniversary. I don’t get it, but Mattel owns her so I guess that’s what they’re going to do. So I’ve got three panels in a row in that room right after my biggest night of drinking. It’s going to be rough. Whose EFF Is It Anyway? is Saturday night in the same room, then we’ll start the showing of THINGS. Sunday morning is my big panel on ’80s toys where I’m going to be discussing how important gimmicks were to toys in the ’80s. I’ll be sponsored by Billy’s Toys and we’ll have a shit ton of toys there not only for display but for sale. So if you’re looking for Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Air Raiders, StarCom, Inhumanoids, we’re going to have all that stuff sitting there on the panel table for you to look at. We’re going to have a great time. Last year it was one of the highest-rated panels at Dragon Con, five out of five stars. It was a really, really great time, so I’m looking forward to this one.

Last year I hosted a panel about Masters of the Universe, the 1987 live-action film and the guys kind of surprised me by having William Stout on the panel, who is a very well-renowned artist who did design on the movie. He was absolutely fantastic, a wonderful talker and had lots of great stories about the movie. You can find the podcast of that and my other panels if you go to www.needlessthingssite.com and search for Dragon Con. William Stout is coming back this year and I get to work with him again on Sunday night. We’re going to be sitting down and talking about Conan the Destroyer, which he worked on in the same capacity as he did on Masters of the Universe as a production designer. Just like Masters of the Universe, lots of people malign Conan the Destroyer as being inferior, but the production design is beautiful. The castles, the sets, everything is just gorgeous. William Stout is a fascinating guy and this is another panel that was a surprise to me. I guess he had a good time last year and wanted to work with me again, which is very rewarding.

www.needlessthingssite.com