Back From Italy, Caio!

Last Updated on Monday, 9 November 2009 10:29 Written by Scott Wegna Monday, 9 November 2009 10:13

I can’t believe it’s been almost a week since we got back. I’m still a little off my schedule. Last night I stayed up until midnight and it was amazing -until about Thursday my internal clock was still rockin’ out on Milano time -six hours ahead of us.

Italy was, of course, amazing. The food, the people, the history, the mopeds, the insane drivers, and most importantly -the coffee. Our guide for the week was the incredible Michele Forschini, who despite the fact that I emailed in advance and asked for the correct pronunciation of his name tolerated me mangling it almost the entire time we were there. I had written it down phonetically and committed it to memory -incorrectly. Despite that, Michele made certain that we were well fed and thoroughly entertained. In Milano I acted exactly like the silly awestruck tourists I make fun of back home in New York.

Our little group of Abrasive American was six in all. Two other fantastic artists were along for the trip; Dan Hipp (Amazing Joy Buzzards, Gyakushu!) and Priscilla Hamby (known as REM to her Vampire Kisses fans). With them were wife Sunny, and boyfriend Clint. I’ll let you work out who was with who. Brian and I had no one but each other to cling to in the dark of night, and despite the persistent comments on Twitter.com that we bicker like an old married couple, we are in fact not married and not truly bromantically involved. The worst part about not having Dorinda and Lydia with us was that we had no way of contacting them. Free WiFi does not exist in Italy, and unlike in Canada, (my only other international travel destination since I started using a cell phone), texting didn’t work either.  We shot off quick emails from the Renoir offices, and again later on from an Italian shop that was like a combination Best Buy/Barnes & Noble where they were selling Macs, which had internet connections. Otherwise we were on our own. I thought I would call Dorinda and chat her face off during my lay-over in JFK, but despite having been turned off all week, my cell phone was dead, and the recharger was with my checked-luggage.

On the bright side, it made coming home that much sweeter.

I don’t think we can thank our Italian hosts at Renoir Comics enough. In particular I cannot thank them enough for helping me find a rosary to being home to Dorinda. They gave me three -each one extremely unique and wonderful. That meant a lot to me, and Dorinda was floored by the gifts.

I could ramble on for pages about the details of our trip. The grandeur of the Duomo in Milano, the stark beauty of the monastery that we stayed at in Lucca, and how one of our group discovered that the water fountain in their hotel room was in fact a bidet.  But I just missed a week of work so I can’t! I will leave you with a link to all 170+ photos that I took and let you figure out who the people and places I snapped pic of are.

My Italy Photos.

Oh, a few last notes! ATOMIC ROBO looks fantastic in Italian!! We need to get Red5 in touch with Renoir, because their TPBs look even better than the already fantastic looking English ones do. Ronda’s colors, which look amazing normally, transition to awe inspiring on the paper Renoir is using. I also love the satin matte finish on the TPB covers.

Huge props to our prop-man, Devin who won the Major Spoiler’s Costume Contest with his mind boggling Atomic Robo costume. See that Tesladyne wall hanging in the first photo? That is totally hanging above my drafting table right now. The detail and craftsmanship is amazing. If you ever want a replica prop made or need some help with your cosplay you need to contact Devin.

As many of you know, Brian and I are role-playing game nerds. Out in the real world we do out best to never actually acknowledge this. Not because being RPG nerds is something we’re ashamed of (well okay, yes we are) but because making your secret shame public knowledge all too often  leads to some jackass telling you all about his 12th level Paladin, and really, no one should have to deal with that?

Like heroin addicts who know they need to kick the smack before it kills them, we continue to do what we do anyway. Even with all the crazy stuff going on we made some progress with the Atomic Robo RPG this weekend. We didn’t do much I guess, but we have a solid outline for how the book will be structured. The basic idea (right now and totally subject to change) is that you will play the game as employees of Tesladyne Industries. As novice Action Scientists you will go out and deal with the stuff that Robo is just to busy to be bothered with.  So if you ever wanted to take on clockwork mummies, zombie cyborgs, and vegetable men, with guns and super science, I think you will enjoy this game.

Speaking of RPG’s, I’ve been loving the every-loving shit out of Fear The Boot’s podcast. I’ve even hopped on the forums a bit and traded some unwanted RPG material for such fine items as mustard packets, microwavable pork rinds, a musket ball, and some bottle caps. I sent one of the hosts some Atomic Robo comics as part of a swap. He emailed to say that it came up while they were recording and you can hear about it on the show that drops this coming Wednesday. Episode 169 I think.

There are a lot of podcasts that I enjoy, but FTB is my favorite. Well okay, it’s in my Top 3. Don’t freak out Dave and Barry. FTB is personally relevant to me because despite the nearly 1,000 miles between myself and the hosts our life experience (as far as RPGs go) has been strangely parallel. The first time they started busting on Vampire the Masquerade, and making fun of  Mork Quellfast the Dark Lord of Denny’s, I nearly wet myself. I flashed back to my own local Denny’s in the mid-90’s and remembered fondly how I would dream of shoving my Moons over My-hammy  down the throat of the first vampire LARPer who strayed too close to my booth.

So if you want to listen to a bunch 20-30 something year old geeks take the piss out of other geeks FTB is for you.

I leave you with some pre-production art from Atomic Robo Vol.4 issue 2, the cover to that same issue because Diamond is stupid and needs it for Previews a week before I even planned on starting the comic never mind thinking about what the cover should be, and the Action Scientist that I made for our eventual play-testing of the Atomic Robo RPG.

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