Marc Von Ahnen

Apr 10, 20197 min read

5K, Vampire Shark Comedy Tour, Shazam, and the Tick

5K

Travis and I have been trying to get into better shape in 2019. We both were dieting and hitting the gym on a regular basis and planned on doing a 5k in early April. As the weeks moved on I began to push myself a little harder on the treadmill, to get ready to walk a grueling 3 miles. I didn't think that would be humanly possible.

Saturday morning rolls around and I get to Travis place. "Hey do you like surprises?" he asks. "I hope so because by the time I went to sign us up for the 5k it was full up. So we need to get your money back."

Instead of walking around outside on the first really beautiful day in Des Moines we were going to shuffle around malls. The first stop was South Ridge Mall. Not much to report here because this mall is totally empty. Can you really call yourself a mall if you have a church, an animal rescue league, two colleges, and a karate center. The only stores they had were headshops and a place that sold Bruce Lee posters and swords.

On the plus side I did meet a celebrity!

Travis had another mall picked out for us but I argued that we should make a trek downtown and get ourselves a healthy dose of vitamin D.

The two of us crossed the Des Moines river at the Women of Achievement bridge, checked out the Chinese garden and then swooped back around to the car.

At that point we were about 2 miles into our 5k and needed to find another mile somewhere.

"Let's pretend to be Rocky and run up the stairs at the capital," I said. We would be just like Rocky, if Rocky had to stop every 5 steps to hold his side and catch his breath. I passed a new record store on the way their and said "Let's stop in there on our loop."

So we parked the car near the capital and began heading to the record store. As we walked down the street Travis had the bright idea to walk around the Iowa Historical Museum. I hadn't been in there for about 20 years so I said "why not."

The first exhibit I went to check out was the bathroom. Across from the bathroom was a restaurant and I felt that the two of us had earned a break and needed a coffee. We enter the restaurant and Travis decided it was time to eat lunch, you're not going to have to twist my arm to get me to eat.

In the middle of our 5k Travis and I were sitting on a patio drinking coffee and cokes and eating meatball sandwiches and soup. Probably not the most dedicated athletes to come out of Des Moines. The best (or worst) part was when Travis put his last bite of sandwich on his plate and reached for his napkin. I thought he was done and grabbed it.

"DON'T EAT MY LAST BITE," He screamed snatching it out of my hands.

At that point I laughed and said "we are the two fattest people in Des Moines."

We finally got to check out some of the exhibits. They had a big one about Iowans in the movies. Field of Dreams exhibit, Music Man, and Superman himself Brandon Routh.

We followed the path to political figures from Iowa. Here's a fun fact. I am a direct descendant of the first Governor of Iowa when it became an official state in 1846, Ansel Briggs.

"Wow, your family has really gone down hill," Travis said. I texted these pictures to my family and my aunt said "He was a drunken stage couch driver before he was Governor." I also heard he had a gambling problem. So I think we would have been good friends.

Not being a history buff my favorite part of the museum was the Woolly Mammoth. I looked at the security guy and said "that doesn't look wooly." At that point he kicked Travis and I out.

We then hit a couple little shops, small book stores, an antique store, a Chinese grocery store, and then Marv's Music. It was a cool record store and I pushed Lauryn's music on to them to see if she could get a show set up.

Vampire Shark Comedy Tour Issue 1

Issue 3 of Ahab Van Helsing vs Nosferatu Carcharodon was finally coming out! This is the half way point in the 6 issue epic that would introduce the world to the vampire shark! I wanted to do something big for it other than just selling it in Jays and I thought to myself "What if I did a stand up comedy tour? Around Iowa and outlying cities and try to raise awareness for the comic and maybe get it into other comic shops.

Saturday night was the first night of the tour. I grabbed some comedian friends and my buddies band and got us booked into a cool venue called Vaudeville Mews. I created tickets and sold them online and I began pushing this on people. Hard. Constantly harassing every Facebook friend I have until Facebook made me stop. I'm sure some people were ready to give me a restraining order if I pushed my little comedy show on them one more time.

Wes and I were the first two down town and we set up a quick merchandise table filled with vampire shark comics, posters, Millie the Duck books, and I even gave Chris my blessing to put some of his CDs on the table.

Most of my friends where doing the show pro bono which was really nice of them, a couple that had to drive a few hours I hooked up with gas money but everyone got a gift. Either a shirt or a graphic novel.

Travis got the book about a man who was born with two penis'. I got that because I thought Travis would get upset and say "Everyone got something awesome and I got a book about a man with two dicks?" but surprisingly he found it hilarious. The rest of the night I would walk past his table and see a group of comedians gathered around him, talking about the man with the extra wiener. It was like a really weird story time.

Surprisingly, people began to arrive but the show hadn't started yet so I had a bit of line outside. I never felt like more of a big deal in my life.

The show started with Travis and Mike hosting for us doing improv comedy.

Followed by Dan who was sort a perfect fit since he is prone to talking about comic books and action figures all the time anyway.

Next up was a main stay of the My Week blog Wes Cozad who had one of the most amazing sets I have ever seen. In the stand up comedy world you tell people that "I killed" when you do well. Wes seriously slaughter that night. As his friend I was super happy for him. But as the star of the show I was pretty upset. Don't steal my thunder jerk!

This was followed by Caudillionaire headliner Jeff Caudill who I total wanted on this show and he didn't complain until I finally caved and felt obliged to include him.

Then there was stand up comedian super stud Chris Schilchting who just annihilated the room. This crowd didn't get killed. They got double killed! I am surprised CNN didn't have 24 hours of news coverage asking if Wes and Chris's comedy was safe for America.

Finally there was me. Everyone I talked to said I was really funny... Maybe I was to into my own head but I felt like I stumbled more than I should have. I was so busy pushing the show that I didn't take time to really commit my set to memory and relayed on notes more than I wanted. Also, I am not on the level of Schlichting, Travis said it would be a good idea for me to headline since most people would be int he crowd for me. I feel like that was a mistake. You don't have the opening band follow the Rolling Stones.

Then to end the night Chris English's band English performed. They were also a blast!

Everyone seemed to have fun and thought the comedians were funny. So I have decided to call this an overwhelming success.

I also saw someone walking a large rabbit like a dog so this weekend was pretty amazing!

The Tick

See my Boston Blog post 1 to see how big of a fan I am of The Tick!

I had an incredibly busy weekend but some how I was able to get all of The Tick Season 2 into it. It would be next to impossible for a Tick show to surpass the greatness of the 1990s animated series but this iteration is defiantly a worthy successor! Tick's voice will always be Townseed Coleman but Peter Serafinowicz has become my favorite live action Tick.

He's the Heather Ledger Joker to the Mark Hammill Joker.

I did enjoy season 2 more than season 1 mostly because we finally started to see the Tick world fully infested by super heroes. That is what the Tick is to me. Not really about crime fighting but about a bunch of people dressed in capes and masks sitting in coffee shops and talking about their days. I am excited for more!

Shazam!

I decided not to post about every movie I see, mostly because I never really wanted to be reviewing movies. But I was completely smitten by Shazam! It was so fun and light hearted but at the same time terrifying and dark! This may be my favorite sharkless DC movie.

Issue 3 is on stands now!

It is finally on stands! Finally! After all this time and work we finally got it printed and on to the racks! I am so excited to have this out there. Go get your issues while you can. This is where the comic goes off the rails!