The two Jimmy Aquinos at NYCC

This is like one of those Doctor Who episodes where the Doctor meets another incarnation of himself.

At NYCC over the weekend, I finally met Comic News Insider podcaster Jimmy Aquino, who interviewed me about Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology, A Fistful of Soundtracks and the fact that we share the same name. At one point on his blog, he joked that I'm the Earth-2 Jimmy Aquino (heh!).

CNI will post the interview soon. Also on this very special episode of CNI, Blossom gets her period.

The interview marked both the first time I've ever been interviewed by a podcaster and the first time I've been given the opportunity to plug Secret Identities and "Sampler" in an interview. Props to CNI's Jimmy for giving Secret Identities some coverage on his podcast.

Right after we recorded the interview, I showed Jimmy one of my baby pictures because I once rocked the long hair like Jimmy does now:


Later on, I had fun kicking it with an exhausted-sounding Jimmy(*) and his friends at Phonogram artist Jamie McKelvie's party at the Nolita dive Botanica, a joint that reminds me of the Red Room from my Santa Cruz days. That night, I overheard cute or gutsy karaoke renditions of tunes ranging from "Punk Rock Girl" to "Wanted Dead or Alive." The night was also scored by the worst mangling of "Bohemian Rhapsody" I've ever heard (it sounded like it was being sung by Christian "Mr. Sunshine" Bale in his Batman voice).

I got to meet THE BEAT's Heidi MacDonald, who has helped plug our Secret Identities novel on her blog (thanks, Heidi!). I was disappointed that I wasn't able to attend NYCC's Chuck panel and say hello to another favorite blogger of mine, Chuck panel moderator Alan Sepinwall, so meeting Heidi, whose blog I also read everyday, made up for that.

Despite a scratchy, under-the-weather voice that made her sound like a Bouvier sister (or me when I was 13), Heidi chatted with me about topics ranging from the clever British educational filmstrip spoof Look Around You to the Stephen Chow flicks Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle (she said Chow knows how to write for an ensemble cast, and then I told her that's why those two Chow films are superior to Bryan Singer's X-Men installments as superhero flicks--Singer and the X-Men screenwriters weren't as good at writing for an ensemble).

(*) I hope Jimmy's voice has recovered in time for his podcast because I've occasionally had to record my voice when it was really shot, and it's no picnic.

My next post will contain pics of me at NYCC's Secret Identities panel.