Author - Artist - Voice Over Actor

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This Hospital

Blog – The Hospital

Today’s blog is going to be brief, because of family issues.

In earlier blog posts I have mentioned a certain hospital. My father worked at this hospital for nearly twenty years. At this hospital, I was born, and so was my sister. My grandfather was taken care of after a heart attack at this hospital. My grandmother passed away at this hospital. My sister worked at this hospital for a short time, and now her husband works with the company that has been doing remodeling at this hospital.

Favorite Reading

When I was a young kid, elementary school age, as mention in a previous post, I had trouble reading. My parents took me to a special extra-curricular study place called The Reading Game.

It is no longer there. The building torn down and replaced by a multi-use apartment complex for students and others from the nearby University.

Reading their remedial booklets went on for many money, I no longer remember how long I attended there.

Then one day I picked up a comic book (I’ve already written about How I got that first comic), and it all changed. I was enjoying reading.

My parent’s asked the instructor if it was okay for me to be reading comics. The response was simple. If he’s reading, done stop him. Encourage him. And so, I have been reading comic books my entire life.

The next thing that got me further into reading was a series of books called: Choose Your Own Adventure. They were fantastic, especially as you could read it three or four times and get an entirely different story each time. Probably the only regular books I checked out of the school library.

(My relationships with libraries is a story unto itself.)

Comics would remain my mainstay reading content.

The reading material assigned to me in class, continued to be a struggle, hard to remain focused on whether it be elementary, junior high, or high school. It would be these outside sources, especially comics, where I could grow and learn.

If I could read something at my own pace, I could enjoy it. If it was an assigned book or chapter, I’d force my way through it but it was always a struggle, and I didn’t always learn anything from it unless the topic was of great interest to me and brought me enjoyment.

I’d later learn to enjoy doing research, but I had to find something interesting in it, something that was fun, in order to devote that much time to it. Otherwise, it was a real struggled.

The first real novel I thing I read was HG Wells’ The Time Machine.

I eventually discover the short stories and novels of Ray Bradbury. Then I found the essays of Harlan Ellison. So you know my creativity and learning process was growing.

Again, it would take an interest to get me to start and then complete reading of a book.

I remember reading a Shakespeare play in high school and enjoyed it, followed by Arthur Miller’s play the Crucible. Probably reading these in script format was probably easier than a full out novel.

During college and friend introduced me to two book series. Since I enjoyed Watch Doctor Who he thought I would like Douglas Adam’s Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Which resulted in my writing several stories for class in Adam’s voice. I don’t think my teacher appreciated it.

He then introduced me to Steven R Lawhead’s Pendragon Cycle. Looking back, I am still surprised by how fast I read through these books. They were heavy novels (figuratively and literally). I greatly enjoyed the books.

Over the years I would become more and more of a reader, but finding the books that appealed to me, that I enjoyed wasn’t always easy.  The number of books I have read, per year, has been relatively few.

Sometimes it was the type of book, the type genre.

“So, what’s your favorite fiction genre?”  – Here we are back at this question again, remember my last post.

As to Genre, I think the answer is the same as my “Doctor Who” answer previously:

I will admit I don’t like Horror, but when it comes to the rest of the genres.

“I like the one I am currently reading.”

I grew up on super hero comics, which lead into science fiction and fantasy, and especially mystery/detective fiction. Plus, over the last decade or so I’ve discovered a love for romance novels.

The first romance books I read were fantasy romance, about dragons.

Then I discovered a series called Once Upon A Con by Ashley Poston, starting with Geekerella. Telling a story that took place around a Comic Con, you had me, but these were fantastic stories, and I’ve been all of Poston’s books since.

Because of Poston, I’ve discovered other great romance authors.

Since the start of this year, I have read more books than I have in any full year I have ever had, and they were all Romance novels. Sure, they were all light novels, but still, it’s quite different for me.

Will Romance remain my Favorite Genre? Probably not, I’ll shift back to Mystery and Fantasy, Science Fiction, and shift back around again.

Looking back that the little kid I was, I am still so surprised by how much I am currently reading.

Reading is fantastic. Enjoy it.

It all came to this

Engaging Humor – Writing a Compelling Blog

Okay, it took a couple of extra days, but I was finally able to do a recording of my Toastmasters Speech that was based on the blog series I began writing at the start of the year. So let’s get to it.

The Speech Approaches

If I’m going to keep this up, writing two blogs a week, I’ll need to learn how to be better plan them out in advance. I also have to schedule my writing periods for the blog in the middle of everything else I’m doing.

As mentioned in my previous post, I am currently working on a speech I’m going to be giving at Toastmasters this Saturday.

Toastmaster, am I?

TOASTMASTERS

Thank you all so very much for reading my blogs over the last weeks as I wrote this series on comic books for my Toastmasters assignment. The series is complete, but I’m sure I have more to say about comic books in the future, but I thought it might be a good idea to tell you about what Toastmasters is and my involvement in it.

How the heck did they even let me do a whole project on Comic Books?

Dream of What Lies Beneath

My previous blog post was officially the last of my Comic Book series for Toastmasters, but I have one more story to tell.

While I was telling you all about my love for the Golden Age of Super Heroes, about Earth 2, the Justice Society, and the All-Star Squadron, one evening I had a dream.

Over the last week I’ve been drawing a pseudo comic book cover based on that dream.

Everything Built to this FLYING GLORY AND THE HOUNDS OF GLORY

My career in comic has been a long and slow journey, but from the very beginning as a child I was creating my own super hero characters.

My first character I created was called… Captain Combo <cringe, I know> – I tried to draw a character that was partially every character I knew in the DC Universe – The Superman Shield, the bat symbol, Flash’s lightning bolt, the Dr. Fate’s helmet with Dr. Mid-Nite’s goggles, and so forth. It was really silly, and long before I discovered the android Amazo which was basically the same thing.

Education of Reading Comics

When I was young, during my Elementary School and Junior High years, I was struggling with reading. It was recommended to my parents that I should take further classes and have special tutors. One such tutor was in an after-school period on campus, while another one was off campus at a place called “The Reading Game.” These tutors helped me, but there was other help that I received that would improve my education.


It was during this period of time I first discovered comic books, as mentioned in my previous post, and I was regularly reading them… and I was reading them not just looking at the artwork (and I’ll tell you about the artwork and artists in a later post).


One day when my parents are having a ‘parent/teacher’ meeting with my special reading tutor to talk about how I was doing. They brought up the fact that I was reading comics, and asked if this was a good thing or should they take the comics away to have me read “real” books.

Digesting Super Heroes

“Thank you, God, for bringing Mom and Dad home safely,” my mother would always say as we drove past the hospital. Both her parents had been in a patient there a number of times, and we praised God for them returning home safe and healthy.

That hospital has held many joyful and sad memories for us. Hopefully me being born there was one of the joyful ones.

My father also worked in the lab, and my mom would walk me over to have lunch with him from time to time.

So, what does all that have to do with comic books, and super heroes? Quite a lot, actually, at least for me.

The hospital had a small gift shop where visitors could purchase flowers, snacks, or stuffed animals for the patients they were coming to see. They also had a small magazine display rack, and upon it were a few (very few) small comic books.

These were digest size books that were reprints of other already published books. Most of these digests were done by Archie Comics, about Archie, his two girls Betty and Veronica, Jughead, and the rest.

But every so often there were other digest comics. These were mostly from DC Comics (actually, I don’t remember Marvel publishing Digests like these).

Yesteryear

“This is KPSB radio, beginning its broadcast day.”

My name is Kevin Paul Shaw Broden ‘Four Names of Creativity’.

I have always imagined my initials as the call letters of a radio station. Not any Top 40 pop station, or 24 hours of talking heads; no, my station exists in the golden age of radio of the 1930s to the 1950s. When tales of adventure ruled the airways.

That was the beginning of my very first Toastmasters speech, and as this blog series is part of an upcoming speech, I thought I would start here.

Before comic books, and while super heroes existed inn Saturday Morning Cartoon, I was discovering them on the radio.

Comics & Me – Introduction

Hi All,

May this New Year be enjoyable and successful for all.

I have several goals for this New Year, mostly focusing on my career, but to start off I’ll be writing this blog and posting twice a week. Which will hopefully be a whole lot better than what it has been in the past. This first blog series is about how comic books and super heroes have influenced my career. This is also part of a Toastmasters assignment, “Writing a Compelling Blog,” which when the blog series is complete, I’ll be giving a speech about the whole experience.

Reawakening The Blog

Hi All.

            Hope everyone has had a blessed Christmas and happy holiday season.

It’s been nearly a year since my last blog post.

Did you like my interpretation of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer? He is the Shiny One.

Though I did update my Voice Over Demo Reel last month.

This post is to ‘reawaken’ my blog here and keep it going in to the new year.

2020 Comic-Con Thoughts

            Nearly forty years ago I went to my first comic book convention.

            It was fun, and quite small.

            Next I would attend a Robotech convention, it was fun, and even smaller.

            A few years later I went to my very first San Diego Comic-Con.

            At the time it was held in the old San Diego Convention Center downtown, I’m not old enough to have attended in the hotel where it first began. But that year, it was quite an amazing experience for the kid who had his hopes set on becoming a comic book artist.

            Two things stand out in my memories of my first Comic-Con. Getting inking lessons from Dick Giordano, (especially how to create ‘Kirby Dots’) and hoping to meet one of my favorite writers. Unfortunately, he missed his panel, afterwards a few of us attempted to have him paged, but he never showed.

            Many years later I spotted him across the lobby of one of the San Diego Comic-Con hotels and I rushed across to talk with him. I told him how much his comics, his writing, his research, influenced the young boy that I was and the man I am. That was probably one of the best experiences of all my Comic-Con visits.

            The year of my first San Diego Comic-Con the attendance was 5,000.

            That sounded like a massive amount of people at the time, but it is nothing compared to the 120,000 to 160,000 that have attended each year over the last decade or so. Many more who hang out in the Gaslamp District.

            In over 30 years I only missed San Diego one time.

            I’ve always been a loner geek, and in a massive con crowd even more so. I’d have to find someone to go with me.

            With in weeks of when the woman who would become my wife moved to Southern California, I took to her to her first convention. To the San Diego Comic-Con. She’d later say I should have started her off small, but she enjoyed it all the same, and has gone with me every year since. Both of us with Pro-Badges now.

            This year things are different, for all of us. Convention season hasn’t been canceled; it has gone virtual. The Convention Center, Exhibit Hall, The Masquerade, the Panels, they all exist in The Cloud right now. On YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, and more.
For San Diego Comic-Con they are now Comic-Con@Home. Wednesday, July 22nd. to Sunday, July 26.

The 2020 Comic-Con souvenir book. Click on the image to download a PDF copy.

            It’s disappointing, but it’s not gone.

As for the future, no one really knows yet. Conventions will probably never be that large again, but maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s time that our love for comics, movies, video games, science fiction, and fantasy returns to being more intimate. Where a small group of fans can enjoy their shared love for a comic book, or good naturedly argue over how a movie didn’t quite get their favorite character just right, and not be crowded out and have to shout over one another. Where Disney Princesses and Transformers don’t have to worry about thousands of feet tramping on their costumes.

            The Cons are about us, the fans, and our love of stories that exist in four-color comics, books, celluloid film, digital pixels, computer screens, smart phones, and much more.

            Speaking of that love, and of our fandoms, I’d like to recommend something:

ONCE UPON A CON

            As I write this blog I am finishing reading a book for the third time. It seemed to be the right book to read in the midst of this Con Season.

            It’s title is GEEKERELLA: A FANGIRL FAIRY TALE, part one of author Ashley Poston‘s ONCE UPON A CON series of novels.

            This book is a love song to comic and science fiction conventions, to comics and science fiction television, to fans and fandom, to just plain being a geek no matter who you are. Are you an actor, a writer, an artist, a blogger, or just a good old fan of an old TV series, you exist inside the impossible universe of Geekeralla.

            While not being able to go to a con and need something to pull on your convention heartstrings, this book will do it.

            Then go pick up the second book in the series THE PRINCESS AND THE FAN GIRL, and coming in August BOOKISH AND THE BEAST.

            Your Inner-Geek will thank you.

Silly late night comic book thought…

Silly comic book thoughts (not based on any ‘announcement’ or image released today).

If the modern day Batman was became Ra’s Al Ghul in a similar way to whats happening in the ARROW tv series; he would move the entire League of Assassins to Gotham. They would become Batman Inc. and he’d put at least one member on every street corner.

A week later the Joker would have killed half of them with Joker gas.

…Okay, I’m too tired. Going to bed now.

The DC Comics Move

Thinking about DC Comics​ having now moved from New York to Burbank.

Having wanting to work for DC since childhood, I only got to visit their New York offices (666 5th Ave) once.

While on a family vacation we were touring the city, and thought it would be neat to drop off a fan letter directly to the offices. (It was for the first Annual of BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS.)

While touring the city we picked up lemonades from one of the street vendors. Unfortunately, I hadn’t finished mine when we arrived.

“I can’t take my drink into an office building,” and reached out my arm just as I entered. My arm got caught in the revolving door, and my watch was flung across the lobby. (I have no memory of what happened to the lemonade.)

Thank God my wrist wasn’t broken, but it did hurt for days.

Even with that happening, we still went on up to the DC Comics offices.  Being my shy self, and distracted by what had happened to my arm, I was slowly and quietly approached the reception desk. I told them that I had a letter to drop off.

I sat on the lobby couch next to the worlds famous Clark Kent (as many others have mentioned this past week), with the glass table filled with comics in front of me, and eventually got to talk with someone and give in my letter.  I didn’t get a tour or see art work, but it was still a really great time.

Since that time I have gotten to many of the artists and writers who were working for DC at the time.

Now that DC Comics has moved to Burbank, and I’ll be living only a few miles away starting this summer, maybe there is a greater chance for me to work for them.  I promise not to bring lemonade into the office or get hurt while I’m there.

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