Just got back from the latest shoot for the CBL documentary. We headed south to get some historical content for the film.
The first stop was the Houston Gem & Mineral Show to talk with some folks from "Dinosaur World." "Dinosaur George" Blasing is a dino-expert who gives lectures to schools and other organizations about prehistoric beasts of the past. The group also publishes educational comic books that chronicle their time traveling adventures.
These comics are available on their website: http://www.dinosaurworld.com
We had interviewed Dinosaur George in the past (for "RockHounds: The Movie" - shameless pug!) and spoke with some of the others in his group about kids, comics & learning. They had one of their traveling exhibits set up with plenty of fossils, skulls and other cool stuff.
On the way to our next shoot we ran into the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile on the highway:
That was particularly cool for me because one of my first documentary shorts, "Fast Food," was about the Wienermobile and other product mobiles (the SpamMobile, the Hershey's Kissmobile, etc.). So we went from prehistory to personal history.
While staying in the historic realm, we headed to Houston Baptist University to interview Professor John Suter who teaches a graduate level class on comic book history. He is also the director of the campus library and keeps plenty of comics and trade paperbacks in stock.
We also interviewed one of his grad students, Paul Lytle, who is one of the contributing authors to the book "The Man From Krypton" which is available in bookstores and at Amazon.com
The book is one of several anthologies in the "Smart Pop" series that takes a look at various aspects of pop culture phenomena. This one focuses on Superman and Paul had several unique insights.
All in all, it was a pretty successful shoot but there is still plenty more to do.
