Name: Stephane Savoie
Location: Nova Scotia
Location: Nova Scotia
Occupation: Comic Shop Lackey / university philosophy student
Website/blog: nil
Comics you read: Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Immortal Iron Fist, Nova, Annihilation stuff, Infinity Inc, Usagi Yojimbo, anything Grant Morrison or Alan Moore do. Wait, that's what I buy... I read nearly everything tied into continuity, just to know.
Fave artist: JH William III
Fave writer: Grant Morrison
Fave character: don't have one First comic you ever read: Fantastic Four #250
Your favorite comic book "memory": Sitting in my dad's car, and seeing a sign on a store labelled "Comic Book Shoppe", and being awestruck that there could be such a thing as a store dedicated to comics.
Website/blog: nil
Comics you read: Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Immortal Iron Fist, Nova, Annihilation stuff, Infinity Inc, Usagi Yojimbo, anything Grant Morrison or Alan Moore do. Wait, that's what I buy... I read nearly everything tied into continuity, just to know.
Fave artist: JH William III
Fave writer: Grant Morrison
Fave character: don't have one First comic you ever read: Fantastic Four #250
Your favorite comic book "memory": Sitting in my dad's car, and seeing a sign on a store labelled "Comic Book Shoppe", and being awestruck that there could be such a thing as a store dedicated to comics.
Most frustrating comic book "moment": Having to hunt down books which were "hot" for reasons unrelated to the hotness (such my needing the Hellboy "pancake" story in the Dark Horse Presents Annual, which was "hot" for the first Buffy comic appearance; or Absolute Vertigo - a teaser book - which I needed for an Invisibles short, but which contained a preview of Preacher... which Wizard listed as a "first appearance", and went for 40 bucks for a time.)
Where/how do you buy your comics?: The store I work at - Monster Comic Lounge
Floppies or trades?: depends on how much patience I'm feeling.
Marvel or DC?: DC, although I still love Marvel characters and 80s stuff.
Star Wars or Star Trek?: Wars
Non-comic book hobbies: Least embarrassing - yoga; most embarrassing - Dungeons & Dragons
Personal motto: Life is good so long as you remember it is
How did you start reading "Occasional Superheroine?": a link on Comics Should be Good, started reading "Goodbye to Comics" and was hooked.
Never be embarrassed of DnD!
ReplyDeleteSecond that. We're on blog that talks mostly about comic book stuff. D&D doesn't even come close to being a source of shame in this crowd. Heck, I still have my first edition stuff in a box around here somewhere.
ReplyDeleteNow, knitting might raise some eyebrows.
Usagi Yojimbo!! Good looking out!
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, knitting is *way* more embarassing than D&D! lol Seriously though, if you want to be embarrassed by playing D&D, go post elsewhere!
I miss playing D&D. I wish I could find people cool enough to enjoy playing it!
Val, how do we submit these profiles? I wrote one, but I don't know how to submit on it!
Okay, another Beland story.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid in junior high school, I made friends with this short, nerdy red-head guy named Tom Emmons.
Really weird kid, in a way that I totally miss in people in general these days. He loved nerd stuff. And when he found out I was into comics... a union was joined.
One day, Emmons tells me that he's getting a game of DnD on Friday night at his house with about four other friends. They play all the time and he thought I'd like to play.
Yeah, sure... I tell him. I had NO IDEA what this thing was. Now, this is before computers, so this meant that Emmons, as the Dungeon Master, was in charge of creating the dungeon. He spent days on making this thing.
Emmons tells me that I should just plan on staying over for the night, since the game goes on forever. I figure, no problem... we'll have a few rounds of this thing and talk about John Byrne's work on Starlord.
I get to Emmons' house around 8pm and he answers the door wearing a red robe with the back hood up. He looked like a fucking Druid.
"Get in." he says. I follow him into the living room and all the lights are out and they've got candles lit and they're all sitting at the table in the dark.
They each tell me their names and what character they are and brag about what level they are. Since I'm new to this, I'm told that I won't be very powerful at my level.
I ask them what my character is. Maybe a warrior like Conan.
I was a fucking minstrel. A fucking pointy-hat, pantaloons-wearing juggler/singer.
They tell me to roll the two-hundred dice of every size and shape. That's when Emmons picks up the map and begins to tell us what happens.
"You're walking down a very long hallway..." he says in what he considers a creepy voice. "... it twists... left then right.. you keep walking until you reach the end where you find two doors."
We all listen like children sitting around the campfire listening to a good Bigfoot story.
"One of the doors is steel. The other is a thick oak door. You must choose which door to open."
I think. One door hides a treasure, I figure. The other door's probably hiding a huge monster I'll have to battle. You'd have to use the steel to keep a huge monster captive... so I'll open the LARGE OAK DOOR!!!!
"You open the door," Emmons says. "You find a level-six fairy. You're dead."
"What do you mean, I'm dead..?" I gasp. "That's is..?? My first turn and I'm dead???"
"Well you ARE a level-one minstrel." they all respond with a very it's-so-obvious manner.
"So do I start over again..?" I ask.
No. I don't. In fact, Emmons tells me that I'll have to wait for the game to begin again before I'm back to life.
So I sat there, on the couch... and waited... and I mean WAITED for HOURS and HOURS as these professional DnD nerds battled and killed and "HAZZAAHDDD!!" their way to entertainmentville as I was left off at the first bus stop out of town.
Next game started at 3am.
I was dead at 3:07am.
I then cast the spell of "fuck everybody in this goddamn room" as I made my way back to the couch.
On my D&D shame:
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to describe... In my struggle to reinvent myself as an adult, I've had to re-envision my hobbies a lot. I'm trying to get away from the "collectable" aspect of comics, and more into the literary and social analysis aspects.
My D&D habits tend towards the obsessive compulsive though, and I just can't make it cool. I'm rules-obsessed, and characters obsessed.
And maybe no one else cares... but I care.
That being said, man do I love D&D I would play 4 times a week if it wouldn't destroy every shred of self-dignity I have. :)
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ReplyDeleteTom, that has got be the saddest D&D experience I’ve ever heard. You have my sympathy. Not only did they not let you make your own character, but their concept of teamwork sucked. At least you got a good story out of it.
ReplyDeleteAnd Stephane, I’ve found the adult form of the hobbies tend to be a natural consequence of mild burnout (ie. developing preferences because of lots of exposure) and lack of time and money because of relationships and kids. But, yeah, it does sounds like your still pretty hardcore about it. :)