Early in the day, John Regan, Tod Howarth, and Karl Cochran came out for a Q & A with Drew Harris of KISSin' Time radio as the interviewer as well as taking questions from the fans. I got to ask two questions: My first one was what did they think of the book KISS & Tell. Tod first quietly joked, "It's all true...." and then commented that they get asked this question a lot. Karl said he hadn't read the book so he couldn't really say anything on it. Tod said he hadn't read it as well. John laughed as he said something like, "I saw the movie, so I don't need to read the book!" That got a good laugh from the people. I was hoping for something a little more substantive from them, but oh well...

My other question was how involved was Ace in putting together 12 Picks and the forthcoming Loaded Deck. John Regan answered that one. Based on his answer, I got the impression that Ace wasn't really involved at all in terms of putting it together (which is what I thought), but Ace was happy with how 12 Picks came out and was glad to have his solo material out there again. In his Q & A, Bruce had something interesting to say about KISS putting on the makeup again during the time his with the band. He said they were always upfront with him about putting it on again. Bruce said he would ask Paul if there is a chance they would go back and do the makeup again and Paul would say, "Yeah." Bruce gave the impression that it was something he anticipated happening at some point so it was a relief when it did happen in some ways. He said the reason Gene & Paul would always say to the fans we'll never put the makeup on again with Ace & Peter was because they didn't want to not make the version of KISS they were presenting at the time look inferior compared to that lineup.

The merchandise that was there was swamped with the new stuff. You saw the halloween masks, new action figures, cards, the new books, all over the place. Gordon Gebert was there signing and selling KISS & Tell. I think the dealers overestimated the demand for the original silver European tourbooks because they had a lot of them and they were pretty cheap.

I bought the new Metal Edge version of the European tourbook for $10. The differences are that the poster that was originally one-sided, now has a 1998 calendar on the other side. It is now stapled into the centerfold as opposed to it being loose like the original version. They fixed the silver finish problem on the new version. They replaced the Gene Ampeg amplifier ad and the Ace/Paul Marshall amp ad with ads for the two previous Metal Edge KISS specials and an ad from Sony Signatures like that found in the COS CD. The main content of the book is exactly the same as before. John Regan was selling sealed decks of the promotional Trouble Walkin' cards for $25. I bought one of those.

I also bought the new Ace tribute CD, The Return Of The Comet at that table. The first thing that struck me was how classy the packaging was--real nice artwork and such. It's up there with Spacewalk in terms of that. I haven't really listened to all of the tracks yet, but I like what I've heard so far. Eric S. singing "Strange Ways" is cool. There is a version of "Speedin' Back To My Baby" on there that I like too. It's sung by a woman and it's definitely different. I think it's gonna be one of those love/hate kind of songs. The way the song is done really works, IMO. I'm really getting into "Back On The Streets" by The Comet Band, too.