>It was fantastic to see you again Saturday at Comic-Con. The panel was fun.
>I
>wanted to ask you if you have lost weight since I saw you last at Westercon
>in
>'98, because you looked great! I almost didn't recognize you when you came
>out
>onstage.

It's funny, all during the convention, people kept asking if I'd lost
weight...at one point, Peter David came up to me and said, "Joe! You lost
weight! But you're in luck, I found it for you!"

When I'm in the midst of a series, I do tend to run around a lot. Moreso on
Jeremiah than on previous shows because this is such an outdoors show...lots of
running around the countryside, up and down hills, slogging through rain and
mud and snow and yuck.

Also working a con takes a lot out of me; this weekend, as is usual, I lost 5
pounds between when I arrived and when I left, just from sheer running around,
signing, the multiple panels (SDCC said I was the hardest working con guest
there this year with the most panels/presentations)..I put a lot of effort into
these things because I'm always worried somebody will come all the way from
across country and not get his/her money's worth. I did a rough count and
during the signing alone on Saturday I think I signed something like 3,000
autographs in two hours, though I really had to slam through them all to get it
done and didn't have as much time as I'd've liked to chat.

>Congratulations on winning the Eisner!

Thanks...turns out it was the first time Spiderman has been nominated, let
alone winning. I was utterly convinced that it was gonna be somebody else,
probably Rucka, and twice had to fight the impulse to leave because I was just
totally exhausted. I figured, why stay since there wasn't even a chance in
hell of winning against such terrific competition? But I wanted to be a good
sport and a good loser, so i stayed to the bitter end...almost three
hours...and was wog-boggled when John and I got the Eisner. Still can't quite
believe it.

jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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