Starlord Goes to the Motor City ComicCon: Part 2
Written by Jude Terror Saturday, 16 May 2009 06:27
Starlord continues his adventures at the Motor City Comic Con, meets new people, and takes more pictures! Featuring John Schneider, Tom DeFalco, and Ron Frenz!
The Motor City Comic Con
Day 1
Pt 2: “From Smallville to Asgard”
By: Brian Burchette
Photos by: David Ross
My day continued with a short stop to talk to John Schneider of both Dukes of Hazzards and Smallville fame. Here’s a man who has been around for many years, still looks great, and is obviously still very much in touch with his inner Bo Duke. That same boyish grin showed through as he and Catherine Bach Daisy Duke talked to a room full of old fans about their days in Hazzard County.
John wanted to make it clear that he was the better driver of the two men, but also admitted that he was scared of heights.
“Tom [Wopat] couldn’t swim and I was afraid of tall places. So any water scenes I was in and if we had to jump from building to building, Tom did that. We had an understanding.”
When asked about his departure on Smallville he wanted it to be known that he had nothing to do with the decision. The PTB felt that episode 100 was a perfect time to eliminate the character from the canvas. He went on to say that his most enjoyable moments on the show were with Tom [Welling]. He and Tom had an almost “father/son” relationship on the set as well as on film. In many ways he felt like a mentor.
“There are certain tricks to acting on television that one doesn’t come in aware of, and I would give Tom pointers when I could. He was already a terrific actor, and I just wanted to help him out.”
Later Mr. Schneider did tell me that although he misses the show and cast, he doesn’t miss the trips to Vancouver so much.
After that I made my way to meeting room 2 where legends of the comic industry, Ron Frenz and Tom DeFalco were in the midst of discussing how they came to be on Thor after the legendary Walt Simonson.
They had gone to Marvel Editor Ralph Macchio after they had heard that Daredevil was going to be available. Ralph was very interested, having loved their work on Spider-Man, but needed a team to do a filler month of Thor. Agreeing to this, they did their first issue which was an untold story that happened during the Secret War (the original that is).
After that they went back to Ralph who heard their ideas for Daredevil, loved them, and asked them if they could do two more fillers for Thor while they waited for Daredevil to open up. Again they agreed and wrote two more issues.
Not long after that Ralph called them in the office and asked them to be on Thor full time. Tom said they couldn’t do it. “We do the street level stuff; we can’t do the Cosmic stories!”
“What are you talking about; you just did three issues of it!” Ralph replied.
After that DeFalco and Frenz stayed on the title for seven years, creating one of the most memorable characters in Marvel history; Thunderstrike!
Alas I was not able to speak one on one with either of them yet, but there’s always tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is another day!
To Be Continued!
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