Saturday night at Comic-Con International: San Diego, at 6pm in the Hilton Indigo Ballroom, fans gathered for a tribute to Ray Bradbury, an author who made his mark not just in science fiction but in mainstream fiction. Co-hosted by Sam Weller (Ray Bradbury’s personal biographer of the past decade) and animation writer and producer (among many talents, but that’s how I personally know him) Mark Evanier, the event mixed video footage of Ray from interviews about his career and rarely seen footage from documentaries and commercials along with memories from some on his friends from both the literary and media worlds.
The event opened with Rachel Bloom singing an uncensored version of her viral video hit. Since AmoXcalli is considered a family friendly blog I can’t quote the title here. However, for a man who strongly opposed censorship and really liked this woman’s tribute, to censor it would have been even more inappropriate than the offensive profane word in the title at Ray Bradbury’s tribute.
Literary authors such as William F. Nolan, George Clayton Johnson, and Margaret Atwood shared remembrances of their longtime friend. Author Joe Hill shared his memories along with a tribute sent along by author Frank Darabont. Mark Scott Zicree, known for writing in multiple media, shared how Bradbury influenced him. Also, the producer/writer/director of a short traveling around festivals called The Smallest Assasin (based on the Bradbury short story of the same name) talked about experiences with the film.
The evening was incredible, very moving, and a piece of history I am glad not to have missed. Every year, my now-fiance’ and I made seeing Ray a yearly “can’t miss” event above anything else at Comic-con; to us, such a tribute would be no different.
Mark Evanier is always a very busy man, but especially so at Comic-Con. Since I know him as a professional acquaintance, I dropped him a note to see if I could get an email response about his thoughts about being part of such a moving event. He responded: “I was very proud to be part of a panel honoring Ray. I think there should be a lot of them. Or maybe we should all just re-read our Ray Bradbury books.”
Echoing the impact Ray Bradbury felt as a youth meeting the carny man, may he live forever through the works and words left behind for us to read. Thank you also to Mark Evanier for sharing his thoughts from “professional to professional” as part of our Comic-Con series as AmoXcalli covers this historic occasion.
