A Comic-Con Tribute to Ray Bradbury

The evening’s tribute to Ray was very beautiful and moving. The hall sat 4,000 people and followed a Gleek Fest. I know of a few people who attended the Glee event in order to get a good seat for the tribute.

Even with having a line-up and an outline we had fifteen minutes to set-up and decide how to actually do the panel. It was decided to take the tables off the stage and have a single podium so each speaker would be able to give their personal tribute to Ray.

Sam Weller was the organizer-host (The Bradbury Chronicles, Listen to the Echoes & Shadow Show). He shared podium duties with Mark Evanier (Kirby: King of Comics). Each tribute was separated by video clips of Ray over the decades.

First up was Rachel Bloom who had prepared a PG-13 version of her Hugo nominated song. When she came on stage she asked the assembled masses if they wanted to hear the CENSORED version or the real version. Not one person in the hall opted for the CENSORED version and Rachel added some audience “call & response.”

A number of the people who spoke have known Ray for half a century or more, William F. Nolan, George Clayton Johnson and Stan Freberg. Both Bill and George, let people know how Ray helped those two young writers. If you younins’ do not know the name, Stan Freberg, just Google “Ray Bradbury Stan Freberg prunes” then sit back and prepare to laugh out loud. Ray introduced Stan’s wife to him and was best man at their wedding.

Joe Hill gave a lovely tribute, of course. He mentioned he had only met Ray the one time at the 2010 Comic-Con and that a man came over to him asking if he’d like to say hello to Ray. I am proud to say that I was “that man.” Joe also read a moving tribute from Frank Darabont.

Margaret Atwood had never met Ray and was supposed to visit him earlier this week but that was not to be. She talked about how she read, as a young girl, Ray’s books as they first came out. That she used some of his themes in her books. In “Handmaid’s Tale” she used that women were not allowed to read because of Fahrenheit 451.

Marc Scott Zicree told how he first met Ray. As a young man, Marc had done a “mixed tape” mashing up various audio renditions of Moby Dick. Marc handed this out to a few friends. A copy would up with Ray. Marc says he comes home one day to find a message from Ray on his answering machine asking him to call. Marc was afraid he was in trouble when in fact Ray loved the tape and they become fast friends.

On a final personal note, the only times I attended Comic-Con was with Ray. Not a bad way to visit the zoo. I did not speak but in talking to the guest speakers backstage I told how Ray’s hearing aids really did not work well with the den of noise in the hall but that hundreds of times an hour you could hear people shout out such phrases as, “OMG it’s Ray Bradbury.” “I LOVE YOU RAY.” “THANK YOU Ray.” But the one that really got to me was when a young father and his son, who was riding on his shoulders said to the son, “There goes Ray Bradbury the greatest writer of all time.” Once a man came up to Ray, got down on his knees bowed three times, got up and just walked away without saying a word. There were lots of laughs, hugs and tears backstage and that will be how I will always remember Comic-Con.

To steal a quote from Ron Perlman from last Thursdays Los Angeles Times, "Comic-Con has gone from Bradbury to Barnum."

(I'm not sure why but the board shows me the George Clayton Johnson photo has been unloaded but does not show up in my slide show. Sorry.) (And it shows up hours later. Thank you amazing InterWeb.)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jkt,

Thanks for the report and photos jkt. Not quite the same as being there, but almost.

Thank you much jkt!

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On a final personal note, the only times I attended Comic-Con was with Ray.

I'm a tad ill with envy.

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(I'm not sure why but the board shows me the George Clayton Johnson photo has been unloaded but does not show up in my slide show. Sorry,)

I was going to say it was because you unloaded him instead of uploading him, but he decided to come anyway and showed up!

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Not one person in the hall opted for the CENSORED version and Rachel added some audience “call & response.”

Oh yeah, baby! You go, Rachel. Say it like I feel it!

Thank you JKT for posting this.
I very much wanted to be there and this helps.
-Patricia

It was very beautiful, I didn't video it with my camera, because I just wanted to enjoy it. During Rachel Bloom's performance in my mind's eye I could picture Ray sitting there laughing his head off, as he would if he was there.

We had gone to Gary Gianni's booth earlier, and we talked with him about Ray, and bought the Nefertiti-Tut Express book. He said he listens to the phone message Ray left him a year and a half ago every time things are getting him down and he needs to feel positive, because Ray was such a positive person and it was so infectious.

Thank you for doing the lovely write up, jkt.

As noted elsewhere, here is a very personal tribute to Ray.


http://www.americanmusicpreser...dburyRemembrance.htm



Steve

A wonderful post, John. Thanks for sharing the event.

Indeed! Thank you so much, John, for this great review of such an awesome tribute. I would so love to see a video of this.

For those of you who will be attending Dragon*Con, here in Atlanta on Labor Day weekend, there will be two tributes --

On the SF Lit track, there will be a panel titled, "In Memoriam: Ray Bradbury". It will include Stephanie Souders, Brad Linaweaver, and Terry Pace.

On the American Sci-Fi Classics track, there will be a Bradbury Tribute, with Terry Pace, Anthony Taylor, James Palmer, and me (Mike Langford).

It's all about love for this incredibly wonderful man, this giant of literature, but Comic-Con set the bar very high indeed -- as it should be, for dear Ray! Thanks evermore to Sam Weller and Mark Evanier for organizing this and for all the speakers!

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Originally posted by fanboy:
It was very beautiful, I didn't video it with my camera, because I just wanted to enjoy it. During Rachel Bloom's performance in my mind's eye I could picture Ray sitting there laughing his head off, as he would if he was there.

We had gone to Gary Gianni's booth earlier, and we talked with him about Ray, and bought the Nefertiti-Tut Express book. He said he listens to the phone message Ray left him a year and a half ago every time things are getting him down and he needs to feel positive, because Ray was such a positive person and it was so infectious.

Thank you for doing the lovely write up, jkt.

Claudia: And you didn't come up to say hello. Heck, I'd have invited you back-stage or in the green room.

I looked around and I didn't see you.....I think I must have had Comic-con burnout! Didn't know you were there til you posted.

Oh well, perhaps I will be able to make it to one of the other memorials.

quote:

Originally posted by fanboy:
I looked around and I didn't see you.....I think I must have had Comic-con burnout! Didn't know you were there til you posted.

Oh well, perhaps I will be able to make it to one of the other memorials.

Oh well.