Any history is an oversimplification, but a significant amount of comic-book history was made by two of the guests at this weekend’s Big Wow! ComicFest in San Jose. The festival—at this point the Bay Area’s biggest gathering of the thousands of local comic-book, science- and speculative-fiction fans—was formerly known as Super-Con. That name was borrowed by parties in another state; Big Wow!‘s convention manager Steven Wyatt says, “We have taken the name ‘festival’ to heart and are trying to have more events going on.”
Articles by Richard von Busack
The global event Free Comic Book Day, which began in Concord about a decade ago, is now what Mountain View’s Lee Hester of Lee’s Comics calls it: “the world’s biggest comic event, bigger than the SanDiego Comic Con or any comic con.”
Four terrific films and a fine TV show are a great way to get started on St. Patrick’s Day. I hope someday to see the old stones and meet the old sods, and gape at the Neolithic tombs that were ancient when Stonehenge was a suckling, but in the meantime there’s always the cinema for a received idea of what it’s like in Eire.
When Angela Cartwright, never to be forgot as “Penny Robinson,” comes to the San Jose Super Toy, Comic and Collectible Show this weekend, she carries with her the residual electricity of having been a passenger on perhaps the bravest of 1960s TV spaceships, the Jupiter 2.
In the popular stereotype, comic-book-store owners are shaped like Santa Claus. On the first Saturday of May, they act like him, too. Free Comic Book Day (May 5 this year) is a worldwide promotion that began in the Diablo Valley
Starlight Cinemas concludes this summer’s outdoor movie series with ‘Fido’ while the undead roam the streets of San Jose.
WHAT PROFIT it a man … ? Jesus’ question was on comedy director Tom Shadyac’s mind. There were already elements of spirituality in his Bruce Almighty and Evan Almighty. The director was in the process of giving away his money when he got to the point described in his confessional new Cinequest entry, I Am.
Today, March 1, San Jose temporarily turns into one of the nation’s movie capitals as Cinequest arrives. In the first edition of Today at Cinequest, Richard von Busack, film critic for Metro Silicon Valley, previews the festival.
Twenty-one years after it began, Cinequest is the biggest item on the local film fancier’s calendar. A generation ago, the festival was a meeting place for film fans who wanted to a chance to see movies that flew under the radar.
(U.S.; 105 min.) Dustin Schuetter is the star, director and writer of a would-be Greek tragedy set in Terrebonne Parish, La. Of the various roles Schuetter takes on, none impresses more than his role as producer. On a sub-shoestring budget, he has assembled a fine cast.
