Hi everyone!
The time has come to announce the winners of the 2009 GoGreenMachine “I Didn’t Get To Go TO Comic Con-Test” winners!
Through careful deliberation and painstaking selection (I drew your names out of a hat), we would like to congratulate the following three people!
CONGRATULATIONS TO:
Richie Williams
Adam Kiefer
Daniel Schwarz
As a reminder, these three lucky dudes have won:
A copy of of the Special Deluxe Edition Reprint of the first issue of Eastman and Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (given away to attendees of the Turtles Forever Screening) signed by:
Kevin Eastman
Peter Laird
Steve Lavigne
Eric Talbot
Dan Berger
Jim Lawson
Mike Dooney
Tristan Jones
Andres Ponce
Dario Brizuela
ANNNNNNNNND! (Did he say AND?) YES, ANNNNNNNNND!
a print of the Famous Talbot piece “Shadow-Splinter-Casey-April” Signed by Eric Talbot himself!
Prizes will be sent out this weekend 🙂
As promised, the winners entries will be posted on the site….riiiiiiiight….NOW!
Richie Williams
Well, where can I begin? There were a number of reasons why I could not
make it to Comic Con this year but one particular event lingers in my
mind and forever haunts me.
It all started while I was on my way home from work. It was a nice,
pleasant drive down through the corn fields of Missouri. I was cruising
at about 60 miles per hour when I came upon what looked liked a turned
over 18 wheeler. My gut was turning and my heart was racing. I knew
something was wrong and I just felt the urge to rush over and make sure
everyone was alright. Of course the mess was bigger than I expected.
Upon reaching the door of the cab I found myself shuffling through some
odd glowing ooze. It didn’t burn my skin or anything like that but
rather gave it a nice soft “baby’s bottom” feeling. Plus it smelt a
little like “tropical rain” shampoo. Ask my wife how I know that…
Anyways, after making my way through this stuff that was spilling out of
the truck I reached up to the cab and pulled open the door. I seen that
the driver was physically okay but he had a couple bumps on his head and
was somewhat delirious. I asked him his name and he replied “Oscar”. I
then said “Oscar, we got to get you out of here, can you move?” He
replied that he thought he could and I helped get him out of the cab.
With Oscar using my shoulder as support I helped limp him over to
safety. Both of us now covered with this weird ooze waiting for the
ambulance to show up. We stood there shoulder to shoulder probably for
about 3 minutes before the paramedics arrived. When Oscar started to
head over to the ambulance I felt a tight tug on my arm. Without
realizing it I just thought Oscar was wanting me to follow him, but what
I didn’t realize at that moment was that that strange ooze bonded our
skin together. At that time the fire fighters also arrived and started
hosing down the scene, washing away any evidence of the mysterious ooze
with their fire hoses. The paramedics were shocked and dumbfounded by
what had happened to our skin. They made no attempt to separate us. So
instead of going home to register for the 2009 Comic Con I instead went
to the hospital with Oscar to find out what had happened to us.
So after weeks of testing and unfortunately… unsuccessful probing… I
am sitting here on the couch with Oscar by my side. In the weeks past I
have learned a lot about this 6′ 4″ 376lbs man. For starters he really
is not a fan of the Turtles. I know, what a shame it is… He said he
would rather watch NASCAR and the T.V. version Talladega Nights on TBS,
over, and over, and over again. I begged him to go to Comic Con with me
but he refused calling it unfortunate for me. My wife has since left me
because of how this bum acts while eating. He insists on blending all of
his food together in the food processor before eating it. He says it
helps keep him “regular”… His bathroom habits I’d rather not mention
and is no treat to experience. He seriously reads and entire issue of
Guns and Ammo while sitting there on the porcelain thrown. And my
literature? Well besides being asked “what’s it bout?” every 2 minutes,
if Oscar doesn’t like what I am reading he makes me read “The Radicalism
of the American Revolution” by Gordon Wood. Why? I have no idea. He
falls asleep during the first couple of sentences.
Aside from the fact that I no longer have a wife, this poor excuse of
DNA has caused me to miss the TMNT cartoons every Saturday morning since
the accident, the 25th Anniversary TMNT Tour stop here in St. Louis, and
the 2009 Comic Con. So here I am, telling you my story of why I missed
out this year. I am sure TMNT will be there again, but not in an event
as spectacular as a 25th Anniversary. I know why the Turtles help out
defenseless citizens, and I thought I could do the same and show some
good to the world, but now, well now I am just a mutated fanboy,
attached to someone who looks like Bebop and smells like Rocksteady and
has no appreciation for the Turtles.
Adam Kiefer
My intentions were to find the cheapest and most crazy way possible to arrive in San Diego, to a point where I don’t have to worry about gas and luggage, so I decided I would rent a blimp to float me from coast to coast. I must’ve booked my reservations on this thing back in March of 2007 (since everyone wants to rent one!), and laid down a $1500 dollar deposit on it. So, the company sends me this telegram stating that it should arrive on May 15th, 2009, but it didn’t really make it until the 18th due to unexpected wind changes caused by fast planes going over 100 mph. Anyway, so I spend the next few weeks gathering supplies such as camping stuff, clothing, Fruit Roll-Ups, … the usual. So, I gathered my 50 fellow travelers (1/2 of them were hobos who hop from blimp to blimp), and we flew off towards San Diego.
So after 3 days of chaos, I come to discover that we were hovering over New Hampshire, when we were supposed to really be somewhere around Bonerville, Kentucky. I go to my friend in charge of navigation, put a parachute around him, and pushed him out. Next thing you know, my friend Eugene comes over and says,” What the heck did you just do to Jamal!?! You just put that backpack full of bricks on his back, and threw him out. What’s wrong with you?!?” Apparently, Jamal wasn’t in charge of navigation for the day, but it’s okay, he’s used to these kinds of situations. So, I go to my other friend Walter and demand him to turn us around, he just said something like the wind current has got us, and we’re stuck up here until we can gain control. Suddenly, I see Peter Laird in his personal helicopter with his face on it coming towards us. We thought he would save us, but he just drew the Ninja Turtle logo on the blimp, and put 4 Ninja Turtles on the front wings, and then paints under everything a huge copyright symbol, and just turns the blimp into one big advertisement. Then he fled the scene, and left us to forever wander the world in a Turtle Blimp.
After 2 weeks, we’ve been through most of the Eastern U.S., partied over New Orleans, got stuck in the Grand Canyon, and saw the lights of San Diego from a distance, unfortunately we were being chased by heat seeking missiles with Jamal’s face on them. The missiles chased us all the way to the Alaska, when the missiles gave up and committed suicide. But, due to the cold air, the blimp deflated and landed us in empty tundra, so we headed towards the Pacific Ocean. Thanks to Tom Cruise (who came with us), because of his immunity to being hit by random death rays and dying in the worst of condition gave us inspiration to sell him to some Eskimos for some snow cones and biscuits to last until we get to San Diego. Then we hit the ocean and found some fishing boats. We took the one that looked the worst because it was insured by Geico, yes even they cover abandoned fishing boats in Alaska! Yet, the best man at my wedding, Michelle (pronounce the “i” like “ee”) decided to take everyone to the airport a few blocks away to get to San Diego, so we got in an argument, fought for 5 minutes, cried a few times, started using weapons, cried a little bit more, and eventually just walked away making that 30 minutes as pointless as possible (like Hannah Montana). So, in my little fishing boat named “Jenny 47” was me, Cleveland, Dick, and the Jonas Brothers.
We got as far as Portland, Oregon but then the Jonas Brothers got mauled by a Bear, a Rhino, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, so we weren’t so motivated anymore because we didn’t have any bad music to run away from anymore. We decided to go hang-gliding, got a little side-tracked and ended up in Vegas. We lost Dick somewhere, but we found his mattress on one of the balconies outside the hotel. Until Cleveland also pointed out that today was August 3rd, and that we totally missed the convention. So, right now I’m in a covered wagon (yes, with WiFi) on my way East so I can try to explain this odyssey to my wife, and then go off and find Michelle so I can slap 5 with him (he told me to meet him at the East Harbor on Friday so we continue slapping 5 there!) THE END!
Daniel Schwarz
It seems like only yesterday (though in truth, it was about a week ago), I woke up early, exhausted, but incredibly excited. Sure, I had been to comic conventions before, but this was different. This was the granddaddy of all comic conventions—the San Diego Comic Con, and I was going to be there for all four action-packed, costume loaded, exclusive give away days! On my way out the door, I double checked to make sure I had everything. Suitcase? Check! Back pack? Check! Comics to get signed? Check! Plane ticket? Check! Con ticket? That’s a big check! Nothing was going to stop me.
Or so I thought… It’s no secret that things do not always turn out as we plan. Hey, it’s a fact of life that we all face sooner or later to our utter disappointment. This was not the first time Chance decided to ruin my plans, but nothing quite like this had ever happened before. I wish I could say that my troubles were thrilling from the start, but to be honest, the first hiccup was as boring as it was terrifying. We got a flat tire on the interstate. My mom was the one driving me, so the actual repair was in my hands, and I must say I did pretty well for my first flat. I jacked up the car and got the wheel off without any problems. Did I mention that this was in the middle of a hail storm? Well it didn’t matter. I had a comic con to get to, damn it, and a silly flat tire wasn’t going to stop me. I opened the trunk and removed the bottom panel to get to the tire. There was no tire.
Now I had a real problem. After calling triple A and finding out that they couldn’t help me due to my location and the severity of the weather, I knew that I would have to rely on my own wit to get to San Diego, and I did what anyone in my place would have done. I hijacked a car. Even more impressive was that I did with nothing but a car jack and my mom screaming at me “what are you doing?” I grabbed my suitcase, backpack, plane ticket, and con ticket and was off. I made it all the way to the airport only to find out that I had missed my plane. No biggie, I thought, and I booked a later flight. I slept for 6 hours while I was waiting for my departure, until I was awoken by an angry security guard, showing me a faxed photo of me brandishing a car jack. “You’re wanted for grand theft auto,” said the security guard. “I just called the cops. Come with me.” I looked up at the monitor. My plane was taking off in twenty minutes. “Please,” I said, “the car is in lot 7A, green section. I didn’t intend to keep it. I was just trying to catch my plane. I wasn’t thinking. See, I need to get to the San Diego Comic Con, and it just didn’t occur to me at the time that I could afford to miss my plane. Please, this means everything to me.” The guard took out his night stick and threatened me. Without thinking (I think I had abandoned rational thought long ago) I bit the security guard and high tailed it out of the terminal. Somehow, I managed to lose him and make it back to the terminal just as they were closing the boarding gate for my flight. Whew!
Now here’s where it gets interesting! Somewhere over the Midwest, this dude jumps out of his seat brandishing a shard of a ceramic plate from dinner at a flight attendant. “Land this plane, now!” he shouted. Oh man, I’ll never get to the con! Well, I had gone too far to quit now. I grabbed my backpack out of the overhead compartment, and I walloped that psycho as hard as I could. He went down, and everyone clapped. Gravy! I thought.
It was smooth sailing from there on. I took a cab from the air port straight to the con, and got out of the cab with my backpack and my suitcase… but… not my comic con ticket. I must had left them on the cab, or in the airport, or on the plane, or in the other airport, or maybe I had dropped them when I bit that security guard… Anyway, admissions said there was nothing they could do. I didn’t have my ticket, and the con was sold out. Now tell me I didn’t do everything I could to try to make it to SDCC! Really, I dare you! So please, please send the raffle prize to me. I think I’ve earned it. But make sure to send it to Somerset County prison in Somerville, New Jersey, because I’m awaiting trial right now and can’t make bail.
Congratulations once again to all our winners! Your prizes will be on their way shortly!
