Hot & Sweaty in New York

Last Updated on Monday, 24 August 2009 09:34 Written by Scott Wegna Monday, 24 August 2009 09:15

Last week was national visit your mom week. I can tell already that most of you are in serious trouble.

While Brian was frolicking in the heat and humidity of Alabama (which is really no different from the heat and humidity of Florida as far as I can tell) I decided to go see what late August was like under the stifling smog hat of North American’s only megalopolis, the Big Apple.Before I launch into that though, here’s more links than you can possibly be interested in clicking, all about how awesome Atomic Robo 3.4 seems to be.

-CBR’s Comics Should Be Good applies the patented Burgas Awesome-O-Meter™ to see just how great Atomic Robo just might be. Apparently we averaged 2.73 Awesome Things per page in this issue.

-The Weekly Crisis got up a last minute but highly favorable review (second from the bottom), and then went on to post about half the issue in their Moment of The Week section. Don’t worry, no real spoilers. Enjoy.

-We got a great little Done In One review from Comixtreme’s columns editor, Blake Petit.

-And finally, Comics Alliance took us to task (in a nice way) for including one of the Nerd Pantheon in our comic.

As always I am extremely grateful for the kind words. When the comps arrived at my house last week I felt like crying because I thought my art looked horrible. And then I get 2 Planetary and an Invincible TPB in the mail that same day and I’m forced to compare my own work to John Cassaday and Ryan Ottly. Then again, that would also force us to compare Brian to Warran Ellis and Robert Kirkman . . .

-Speaking of awesome things that put us to shame, the folks at ComiXology have outdone themselves. You can now get the Atomic Robo FCBD story for FREE on your iPhone and it looks great!

-Under aged strippers. Satanic cults. Old Testament vengeance. And more White Castle Sliders than you can stuff down your gullet. You know you want to go get the Killer of Demons TPB. It’s out, and you should BUY IT.

-Do you like zombies? Of course you do. You can check out GONE ZOMBIE, written by Steve Thor and illustrated (for a little while) by me. I had really REALLY wanted to do this entire story, but then Marvel called, and Atomic Robo took off, and I had to be a dick and drop the project. Luckily, Eduardo Garcia is doing a fine job picking up that shiny red ball that I seem to have dropped.
Man that was a lot of administrative stuff.

Okay so New York. More specifically, Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Manahattan. As much as I have confessed to loving Goss Park, after twenty days in a row trying to work at a picnic table I was starting to go nuts. Like bat-shit Marlin Brando Heart of Darkness nut. So I decided to pack the Widget up and go visit my mom and brothers on Staten Island. As a last minute surprise my wife Dorinda’s plans changed suddenly and she came along also. Not only did it mean I got to enjoy her wonderful company, but that we didn’t have to take my 14yr old Honda Civic on a 280 mile road trip that it might not survive, and instead got to take her nearly-new Scion instead. Granted, the Scion is a lot like driving a bumper-car escaped from Coney Island, and it’s one of the few things I’ve ever driven that made me miss the “power” and “handling”, (and especially cruise control), of my geriatric Honda. But it is fairly comfortable, and you can’t knock driving Wilton to Staten Island with the A/C blasting on less that 3/4 of a nine gallon fuel tank. For some reason yet to be determined, my Civic averages a shittastic 24 MPG.

We arrived late Tuesday night and went almost immediately to bed, because we had to get up at 7am to get to the American Museum of Natural History. To say that the AMHN is “fucking huge” is kind of an understatement. We arrived at 10am and didn’t leave until after 3:30pm, and there was still a lot that we didn’t see. You should check out some of the greatest photos of the AMNH, taken by people who are not me, right here. We then capped the day off with a walk from the AMNH to find the Central Park Zoo.

Did I mention how HUGE Central Park is? Despite living on Staten Island for twenty years I’d never been. Because really, who wants to take a boat, and a subway to go to a park when I had two really nice parks a short bike ride from my house? Now I know the answer to that question; because Central Park is fucking epic. That’s why. And when you’re trying to entertain an nearly-nine year old, riding the Staten Island Ferry and having an adventure in the NYC Subways is easily just as fun as staring dumbly into the vastness of the the park going, “Fuck, that’s big . . .”. So I’m looking forward to going again.

One day, with the help of a friend who works for the City Parks Department, we got to visit the Central Park Zoo via a super black ops type exchange of official ID badges and secret code words. Okay fine . . . we just walked up to the gate and he said “these folks can come in”, and the dude said “Excellent, you guys have a super-fun time at the zoo!”

So we did. Polar bears, a penguin and puffin exhibit, a snow leopard, red pandas, snow monkeys, and a tropical rain forest exhibit that made returning to the humid 98 degree air out in the park proper feel like stepping into an air conditioned swimming pool. Did I mention that it was hot? Normally the Widget only visits NYC at Christmas time. It’s usually too damn cold to do anything really fun, except visit the excellent SI Children’s Museum. So instead we thought we’d go down when the weather was nice. Except a heatwave hit three days before we arrived and things became unbearable in a whole new way. Maybe we should shoot for October or April next year.

Any Southerner will tell you how to cope with high temps and disgusting humidity -you air condition the shit out of everything. So for example last Wednesday. Waiting for the ferry was nice. Waiting for the ferry to leave dock was gross. Riding the ferry out in the harbor was nice. The walk up to Bowling Green station was gross, and I thought I might die standing there in the stale air waiting twenty feet below the streets for a train that might never come. The fancy new subway car was delightful. the Museum was great, depending on what floor you were on. The top floor was hot and sticky, the lower levels were ice cold. Lunch under the trees across the street at Central Park was comfy. The hike across Central Park through “the rambles” was a horror (though the enjoyable sort of horror).

So that’s how it went. Hot and sticky or dry and freezing. Yay summer. I wanted to blame the beastly heat on the city and all that concrete, but it wasn’t any better when we got back to New Hampshire. And while my mom’s house is air conditioned to the hilt, my own home currently has zero A/Cs installed. Which would be okay if the humidity level weren’t hovering between 99% and raining every ten minutes.

Anyway, the rest of our trip in brief. We visited a bunch of friends, spent some quality time with my mom and brothers, and did a bunch of touristy stuff that no New Yorker would ever bother doing. But since I haven’t actually been a New Yorker for a decade now I felt entirely justified in doing the tourist thing. The only thing that really killed us was eating. Like Tourist Traps everywhere, they seem to make sure that there is nowhere to eat nearby except at their official cafeterias or nearby street-meat carts. It’s possible that there is a great hole-in-the-wall joint right around the block, but how would you ever know? So one day I spent $40 on hot dogs and snow cones and two days later spent $30 on one of the best sit-down meals going at this great little Mediterranean place in Park Slopes. Ten bucks less for a feast. WTF? Next year I’ll have to really spend my pre-trip planning mapping out cheap eats in the city.

Silly as it sounds, one of my favorite things to do in NYC is ride the Staten Island Ferry. I know it can be a grind if you commute to work on it like I used to -but really, only if you let it be a grind. On those days were I actually took my nose out of my book and appreciated the ride it was always very zen. So I love the Ferry. For one thing, it’s the only direct route to lower Manhattan from the Island. For another, it’s got the cheapest beer in the city. But also I’ve always felt like it was a throwback to another era. It’s slow, and it’s mellow, and when they aren’t running into maintenance piers and killing a dozen passengers and injuring hundreds (like in 2003), it’s the best form of public transportation in the city.

We were really sad to leave, and returning to our crappy rental after my mom’s beautiful house is always a serious downer. But at least I’m back in my office surrounded by my stuff. And in two more days the Widget will be back in school and I can start getting some serious work done on the next Atomic Robo FCBD story.

RANDOM SPLENDOR