Chris Claremont.

§ January 5th, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on Chris Claremont.

When I was but a young Mikester, I somehow badgered my dad into hauling me out to a comic shop in Simi Valley for a Chris Claremont signing. It was 1984, and I had my copies of the Claremont-written New Mutants #18 (which I admittedly bought just for the Bill Sienkiewicz art) and Man-Thing #11 (last issue of the second series, featuring, as a character, Claremont himself!) clutched in hand, ready for autographing.

Anyway, we got there a few minutes before the signing was to begin. The fans who were already waiting and had only seen Claremont as a grainy black and white photo of a man his blondish hair and a beard on the Bullpen Bulletins page, spotted my dad, a man with blondish hair and a beard. Yes, a gaggle of kids ran up to my dad, X-Men comics in hand, wanting his autograph…and knowing my dad, he was surely tempted to do a little signing.

Alas, my dad’s inadvertent impersonation of an X-Men writer was short-lived as the real Chris Claremont arrived and the session began…I don’t remember much about it, aside from asking Claremont a super-fanboyish question — “Uh, Mr. Claremont, what did you think of John Byrne killing off Guardian in Alpha Flight?” “Well, what did you think of it?” was his reply, and I’m sure I stammered out some kind of lame answer while thinking “I know what I think…I want to know what you think!” In retrospect, it was a very politic answer, not having to pass judgement on what another creator did with a certain character and risk having his opinion be blown out of proportion among fannish circles, even in those pre-internet days. Or, just as likely, he just wanted to get through the autograph session without putting up with lame fanboy questions like mine. And who could blame him?

I still have my autographed comics, though…I have a signed Man-Thing #11 and you don’t!

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