Date: July 23-27th, 2008
Location: San Diego Convention Center
Attendance: 125,000 people
I suppose I'll do something a bit unique and do the con report from a
Canadian perspective. This was my first San Diego and I learned a lot
from the experience. I left around 2 AM to go to Syracuse, NY to catch a
plane, which after a stop over in Washington, DC would take me to San
Diego. At the US boarder a friendly boarder guard asked me where I was
going and for how long, then checked my luggage. This was something I'd
have to get used to throughout the trip as my luggage was inspected 5
different times throughout the trip. I didn't realize how unnerving I
would find this to be until it happened.
Unlike the 401 in Canada, Highway 81 going through NY State was not
painted with florescent lines. I drove through a foggy, heavy downpour
of a thunderstorm and there were times I could only tell which lane I
was in when the lightning flashed giving me some vision. Headlights
reflected back at me with the fog but I could at least tell where the
road was heading with the reflective surfaces on the side poles.
I got to the airport at 4:30 AM and learned about airport security (take
off your shoes, no you can't bring that water bottle through, etc..).
Just after 6 AM I got on the plane and took off for California. Did I
mention this was also the first time I was in an airport, much less on a
plane? I learned I need to take some medicine or something for my ears
as the air pressure drop as we land really hurts. My ears continued to
pop and make funny record scratching like noises for all of Wednesday.
I met up with Sheryl and Paul and it we had some time to kill before
going to the con to pick up our badges. We visited the San Diego Zoo and
mainly saw birds but also some other animals too.
What surprised me about San Diego was how wonderful the weather was. It
was like a spring day in Canada. Warm sun, cool breeze all the time. If
the sun wasn't out you'd be chilly. I also learned every morning there
was an overcast and I kept thinking it would rain, but the sky would
clear up by 9-10 am - ish. I suspect that's air pollution but I dunno.
We got our badges and it was pretty quick going, but a line up for pros
began to form around a bit after 3pm. Around 6:30ish we came back for
Preview Night and it was crammed packed, especially around the company
booths. Apparently everybody has the same idea, get the limited amount
of free stuff, Ebay it and use the money to help pay for the con. I
slowly maneuvered my way out of that area and over to the dealers area.
From other long time con goers I was talking to the amount of people in
on Preview night was scary as people suspected it would be worse on
Saturday, typically the busiest day of the con.
I also managed to introduce myself to a number of pro's I've either
interviewed in the past or just wanted to meet due to reading their work
and blogs. I was happy to discover my 10 years in doing interviews,
writing comic history and posting on a variety of message boards got my
name recognized by a bunch of people. If they didn't immediately know
who I was, they would usually say "I recognize that name from somewhere..."
Other Toronto (or frequent Toronto con goers) people were there too and
it was nice to see familiar faces in the crowd. Blake Bell was there
promoting his Steve Ditko Strange and Stranger book. Peter Birkmore from
the Beguiling was helping out the Drawn and Quarterly booth. I also saw
Darwyn Cooke and spoke to him a few times throughout the show. I also
bumped into Ray Fawkes and Cameron Stewart. Kevin Boyd was at the CGC
booth. Liana K was there. I noticed Aman Gupta walking around in his
HobbyStar jersey. Unfortunately I didn't bump into Chris Butcher or
Peter Dixon among others.
I visited a number of panels throughout the weekend. The first panel was
How Not to Break Into Comics by Randal C Jarrell (Oni) and Jennifer de
Guzman (SLG). The two talked about a bunch of mistakes that the vast
majority of beginners make when trying to break into comics. It was
quite humorous as they spent about a half hour going down a laundry list
of stuff aspiring pros have done to them. Then they took questions from
the audience. The room was quite full.
I recorded the panel and
you can hear it online. (50.5mb 55:13)
The 2nd Thursday panel I went to was The Future of the Comic Pamphlet.
On it was retailer Carr D'Angelo, Image's Joe Keating, Age of Bronze
creator Eric Shanower and it was moderated by author Douglas Wolk. I
missed the first 5 minutes rushing between panels but when I came in
Eric Shanower was talking about Age of Bronze in comic book vs. Graphic
Novel format. Eric admitted the comics don't make him much money and
wonders if he should still be doing them. He says he ends up using the
left over comics as giveaways and even brought a Diamond box full of
various Age of Bronze issues to give away to the audience.
Joe Keating took exception to the calling a comic a pamphlet and
brought some normal 3 way folded pamphlet leaflets to show everybody
saying "THIS is a pamphlet!" Carr D'Angelo talked about being inspired
by the old Delphi Warren Ellis forum and using his store to stock a
large variety of Graphic Novels. He says for 5 years straight
traditional comic books have been half his sales, which surprised him.
Towards the end the panelist and audience talked about how to grow comic
book sales, with everybody recognizing distribution is a major issue
that couldn't be easily or quickly fixed.
I recorded most of this panel. It
can be heard here. (40.8mb, 44:39)
The 3rd panel I attended on Thursday was the Golden Age/Silver Age of
Comics Panel. This was moderated by Mark Evanier and its panelists were
Russ Heath, Larry Lieber, Jerry Robinson and Al Feldstein. The
microphones were quite faint and I imagine it was sometimes hard for
people in the back to hear the panelists. Mark tried to get the panelist
to tell funny stories about other creators in the past, as well as
talking about particular stories they were proud of. Jerry Robinson and
Larry Lieber did some back and forth joking about the respective Iron
Man and Batman movies. Larry Lieber told a funny story about how he was
invited to the Iron Man premiere (he wrote the first origin issue) and
was given a seat at the back of a balcony. Prior to the movie Joe
Quesada announced Iron Man co-creator Lieber was in the building and
asked everybody to give him an applause. Lieber stood up but only the
people around him noticed and began to clap. Others in the theatre heard
the clapping and joined in for 10 seconds, not being able to see him.
Lieber mentioned that if it was Stan, he wouldn't have accepted a back
seat in the balcony which drew a lot of laughs.
After the panel, the audience rushed to the front handing comics and
whatever they had asking for autographs.
You
can hear the panel here. (73.4mb, 80:16)
On Friday I attended four panels. The first was That's 70's (Comics)
Panel. It was moderated by Mark Evanier and on it were Jim Starlin, Joe
Staton, Mike Grell, Mike W. Barr, Bernie Wrightson and eventually Len
Wein. The group told stories about who their mentors were in the comic
industry. There was also some funny stories about how they used colour
to get around the Comics Code. The CCA only saw the art work in black
and white prior to colour, so they would make stuff look one way in B&W,
but with colour it would turn into something else the code would not
have approved of. Mike Grell announced DC will be reprinting his Warlord
work in the future.
This
panel can be heard here. (66.7mb, 72:56)
I attended (but did not record) the Broccoli Books panel. This had an
editor talking about their company which publishes niche market manga
books. The editor spoke for a while about two new books they were
publishing and then took some questions. There seemed to be some concern
regarding the overall manga market and how it might affect them. The
editor said when they first started publishing everything manga was
selling really well, including books that got horrible reviews by
everybody. Said today the manga market overall is still growing but the
amount of books has increased to the point where the individual title
sales is lower. They also said they didn't think financial issues with
Borders would affect them much as most of their books were not mass
market appeal books. They said are focusing on growing sales in smaller
stores that fit their niche. At the end of the panel they gave away
books based numbers closest to peoples birthdays.
The next panel was the Jim Warren spotlight. For those that don't know,
Jim Warren was a publisher that put out Famous Monsters of Filmland,
Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella and many other titles. He got a huge applause
when he showed up which really moved him. On the panel with him was
Verne Langdon and it was partially moderated by Phil Kim. Jim said at
the beginning that he usually hated panels like this as they were boring and
a lot of the stuff said on them was not true. Jim spent much of his time
standing while speaking. He is hard of hearing now and was just given
magazine names to discuss, which he did. Eventually he took questions
from the audience. There wasn't very much that was new revealed on the
panel but seeing Jim speak was an experience on its own. He was very
blunt on his dislike of Creepy's first editor Russ Jones.
This
panel can heard here. (50.8mb, 55:33)
The last panel I attended on Friday was Colleen Doran's Resources for
Creators panel. The large room was packed with people who wanted her
advice on a variety of issues although the topic ended up getting bogged
down on copyright and trademarks by audience questions. Colleen brought
a bunch of hand outs about volunteer lawyers for the arts, affordable
health care for freelancers, and other topics. Along the way Colleen
talked about her experience with a particularly bad publisher. More
people showed up than anticipated and Colleen vowed to put the info on
her blog so everybody could read it. There was a big applause for her
afterwards. On her blog Colleen says she's been asked to expand it to an
hour and a half next year.
The
panel can be heard here. (39.9mb, 43:36)
Friday night was the Eisner Awards. The awards got to a late start. They
were hosted by Bill Morrison and his wife handed out the trophies to the
winners. The theme of the show was magic and there were occasional bits
of magic by Morrison and later Paul and Misti Dini. Frank Miller came
out and gave the keynote speech. Some of the other major moments of the
award ceremony were:
- The creators of the self published 5 winning an award for . Their
passionate acceptance speech made the awards mean something.
- The family of Archie Goodwin denouncing publishers that declare Archie's
work as public domain and publishing them without any compensation to
the family.
- A surprise visit by Samuel L. Jackson who announced and presented 3 awards.
- Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba winning for Umbrella Academy.
- Pia Gurrera's award for her work on Y the Last Man.
- Gary Groth reading an acceptance speech on behalf of Barry Windsor Smith
denouncing Work For Hire.
- The Nicholson-Wheeler family standing up for Major Malcolm
Nicholson-Wheeler and wanting to change what some historians have
written about him.
- Standing applause for the Joe Fields speech about Rory Root and also the
acceptance of the Eisner Retailer Award by Atom! and Portlyn Freeman,
especially when Atom! said it was Rory who convinced him to submit for
the awards last year.
- Jane Weidlin grand entrance with Star Wars music and a bunch of stomping
Storm Troopers.
- Paul Levitz winning the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award.
- The star of the Spirit movie Gabriel Macht presenting a few awards.
I'll note for a number of the awards all you had to do was listen to
which nominee got the largest applause and you knew who the winner was.
The full list of winners were:
- Best Short Story: "Mr. Wonderful," by Dan Clowes, serialized in New York
Times Sunday Magazine
- Best Single Issue (or One-Shot): Justice League of America #11: "Walls,"
by Brad Meltzer and Gene Ha (DC)
- Best Continuing Series: Y: The Last Man, by Brian K. Vaughan, Pia
Guerra, and Jose Marzan, Jr. (Vertigo/DC)
- Best Limited Series:The Umbrella Academy, by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá
(Dark Horse)
- Best New Series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, by Joss Whedon,
Brian K. Vaughan, Georges Jeanty, and Andy Owens (Dark Horse)
- Best Publication for Kids: Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 and Mouse Guard:
Winter 1152, by David Petersen (Archaia)
- Best Publication for Teens: Laika, by Nick Abadzis (First Second)
- Best Humor Publication: Perry Bible Fellowship: The Trial of Colonel
Sweeto and Other Stories, by Nicholas Gurewitch (Dark Horse)
- Best Anthology: 5, by Gabriel Bá, Becky Cloonan, Fabio Moon, Vasilis
Lolos, and Rafael Grampa (self-published)
- Best Digital Comic: Sugarshock!, by Joss Whedon and Fabio Moon,
http://www.myspace.com/darkhorsepresents?issuenum=1&storynum=2
- Best Reality-Based Work: Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow, by James
Sturm and Rich Tommaso (Center for Cartoon Studies/Hyperion)
- Best Graphic Album-New: Exit Wounds, by Rutu Modan (Drawn & Quarterly)
- Best Graphic Album-Reprint: Mouse Guard: Fall 1152, by David Petersen
(Archaia)
- Best Archival Collection/Project-Comic Strips: Complete Terry and the
Pirates, vol. 1, by Milton Caniff (IDW)
- Best Archival Collection/Project-Comic Books: I Shall Destroy All the
Civilized Planets! by Fletcher Hanks (Fantagraphics)
- Best U.S. Edition of International Material: I Killed Adolf Hitler, by
Jason (Fantagraphics)
- Best U.S. Edition of International Material-Japan: Tekkonkinkreet: Black
& White, by Taiyo Matsumoto (Viz)
- Best Writer: Ed Brubaker, Captain America, Criminal, Daredevil, Immortal
Iron Fist (Marvel)
- Best Writer/Artist: Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #18 (Acme Novelty)
- Best Writer/Artist-Humor: Eric Powell, The Goon (Dark Horse)
- Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team: Pia Guerra/Jose Marzan,
Jr., Y: The Last Man (Vertical/DC)
- Best Painter or Multimedia Artist (interior art): Eric Powell, The Goon:
Chinatown (Dark Horse)
- Best Cover Artist: James Jean, Fables (Vertigo/DC); The Umbrella Academy
(Dark Horse); Process Recess 2; Superior Showcase 2 (AdHouse)
- Best Coloring: Dave Stewart, BPRD, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cut,
Hellboy, Lobster Johnson, The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse); The Spirit (DC)
- Best Lettering: Todd Klein, Justice, Simon Dark (DC); Fables, Jack of
Fables, Crossing Midnight (Vertigo/DC); League of Extraordinary
Gentlemen: The Black Dossier (WildStorm/DC); Nexus (Rude Dude)
- Special Recognition: Chuck BB, Black Metal (artist, Oni)
- Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism: Newsarama, produced by Matt
Brady and Michael Doran (www.newsarama.com)
- Best Comics-Related Book: Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and
What They Mean, by Douglas Wolk (Da Capo Press)
- Best Publication Design: Process Recess 2, designed by James Jean and
Chris Pitzer (AdHouse)
- Hall of Fame: Judges' Choices: R. F. Outcault, Major Malcolm
Wheeler-Nicholson; Voters' Choices: John Broome, Arnold Drake, Len Wein,
Barry Windsor-Smith
Other Awards:
- Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award: Paul Levitz
- Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award: Cathy Malkasian
- Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing: Archie Goodwin,
Larry Lieber
- Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailing Award: Atom! and Portlyn Freeman
of Brave New World.
The
entire Eisner Awards Ceremony can be heard here. (163mb, 178:06)
We got to the con early Saturday morning because some of us wanted to
get into the Heroes Panel. This was by far the most popular panel of the
show with people camping out Friday Night to get into it 10:30 Saturday
morning. By the morning the line for the panel was huge and zig zagged
all over the place.
I was at the front doors and watched the craziness of everybody wanting
in the doors as early as possible. I saw the guards escort out some guys
who managed to sneak in and they were quite ticked about getting caught.
Also heard somebody with a pro badge argue with the con security saying
pro's always get in 15 minutes early so they'll be at the table when
fans come in, but the security bosses said no, pros and regular people
get in at the same time. It appeared only Exhibitors and Volunteers were
able to get in prior to the 9:30 start time. There was a lot of crowding
and people on the bus lane which caused some loud yelling by security.
Then when 9:30 did come around some people were ticked about not getting
in right at that moment, but then they let the disabled people in first
(who were already inside the building, but not the exhibition floor.)
Come 9:50, the regular (and pro's) were let in, and it surprised some
people in how they ran/rushed the doors the moment they opened.
Saturday morning started off with the Black Panel. This was by far the
funniest panel of the con with several laugh out loud moments. There
seemed to be a guarded optimism in the room. With Obama quite possibly
becoming President, Reggie running BET, John Dokes being an executive at
Marvel, Dwayne McDuffie running Ben10 cartoon, etc.. The panel was
moderated by Michael Davis. On the panel was Method Man, Faith
Cheltenham, somebody sitting in Dwayne McDuffie's spot but I didn't
catch his name, Rusty Cundieff, John Dokes, Denys Cowan and Reggie
Hudlin. There was plenty of people asking about support issues within
the black community. Another major talk of more Black Superhero
characters in other mediums like the upcoming Black Panther cartoon on
BET. Reggie Hudlin says he's a fan of all those characters too and if
Black Panther works they will look at doing other characters. I should
note Dwyane McDuffie was double booked and had to be on the Ben10 panel
running at the same time. From the audience, Jamal Igle joined when one
person asked if the more conservative looking black creators were the
ones getting work or not. Igle said he's had to fight for every job he's
got (Igle is a pretty normal looking guy). One big guy dressed up as the
Black Captain America who got props from everybody for the costume. This
is one panel I'll be sure to return to the next time I go to San Diego.
The
panel can be heard here. (82mb, 89:36)
I joined part way in the Story of an Image panel which had Kim Deitch,
Jim Woodring, Jim Ottaviani and Kyle Baker talking about a particular
image they drew that would go on to represent a great deal. The panel
was moderated by Douglas Wolk. In particular Deitch spoke of how a
little sketch would end up inspiring a whole story for him which would
become a published book. Kyle Baker used an image of a shark eating a
baby to talk about his Nat Turner book. He mentioned in researching it
he only used interviews with former slaves and worked their true stories
in his book. The room was about 75% full. I did not record this panel.
Last panel for Saturday was Blake Bell's The World of Steve Ditko. This
panel was different because it had a wide cross section of panelists.
There was underground cartoonist Kim Dietch, Fantagraphics Publisher
Gary Groth, creator Jim Starlin, former Marvel editor Carl Potts, and TV
host Liana K. They looked at and talked about Blake Bells Top 10 pieces
of Ditko art, which spread throughout his early and mid career. There
was a lot of talk about what Ditko did well and set him apart from other
artists, there was a bit of talk about how his views changed his work.
There was also a bit of contention between an audience member and Liana
K over Ditko's philisophical views. The panel was educational in terms
of describing what Ditko brought to comic art and eventually lost.
This panel was recorded
and can be heard here. (49.1mb, 53:41)
Sunday was the fan vs. pro panel, which was funny and unique. Peter David
moderated and was hilarious. Mark Waid had to leave early and Kurt
Busiek wasn't at the show so two audience members took up the Pro side.
The name pro's were Len Wein and Robert N. Skir from the animated X-men
TV show. Several people called for Peter David to join the pro side but
as moderator he had already read all the questions and answers. One of
the audience members (Peter Svenson) was really knowledgeable and
actually answered most of the questions for the pro side. The other
(Jason Luna) made some groan inducing guesses to some questions. Peter
was called early in the show to discover his flight was canceled and
he'd have to spend an extra night in San Diego. He joked the winner of
the show gets to put him up for the night. Overall the questions were
quite heavy on DC related stuff.
I
also recorded this panel too. (60.4mb, 66:00)
On Sunday there was some major discounting of TPBs going on, one booth
dropped prices from 50% off to 60% and the one next to them started
hollering $5 dollars a book. I didn't have enough time to ask the
various exhibitors how the show did for them but I do know the more
popular books at the show was Watchmen, which completely sold out and
Blake Bell's Strange and Stranger Steve Ditko book.
Probably my biggest complaint about the show was Artists Alley being in
the back corner of the con. There were a lot of great artists both new
and old there. People like Ethan Van Sciver, Jerry Robinson, Brent
Anderson, Al Feldstein, Paul Chadwick, Ramona Fradon, Wendi Pini, David
Finch, Mike Grell, Howard Chaykin, Jim Wooding, Ron Lim and many many
more. I suspect a large chunk of the comic fans didn't quite realize
they were there and bothered to make the trip to go see them.
Back to my Canadian perspective. I noticed a lot of online complaining
about the crowds and not-comics focus at San Diego. If you ever been to
the HobbyStar convention on Saturday afternoon it's about as crowded as
that on it's worse days (at certain parts of the convention), which were
preview night and Saturday. If you can deal with that, you can deal with
San Diego.
Regarding non-comic related stuff, I found there is a larger percentage
of comic related stuff at San Diego show than at last years HobbyStar
show. The comics portion of San Diego felt like a 3rd of the convention
while at Fan Expo it feels like a 5th of the show. With San Diego being
much bigger than HobbyStar's show there is a lot more to see and do
during those 5 days it's on. Choosing which panel to see and which ones
to miss was a hair pulling experience. There were a bunch of people I
wanted to meet and just never got the chance to do so. Major headlining
pros from Toronto area shows were sitting in artist alley at this show.
If you wandered outside of the main comic areas, you did find comic
related stuff in other areas. There was a booth with Matt Wagner, Michael
Golden and Art Adams way over by the Illustrators section. When I was
there I saw Robert Kirkman, Erik Larsen and Rob Liefeld (among other
industry folks) hanging around shooting the breeze with them. Way on the
other side of the convention where there was a lot of toy focus several
dealers had many boxes of TPBs and old comics for sale that were
enticing enough for me to look through.
My pictures from the convention are here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/comichistory/SanDiegoComicon2008
By the time the Fan vs. Pro trivia panel was done there was only an hour
to go before the convention closed up. I needed to get my luggage so I
didn't get around to asking the various exhibitors how their show went.
At the airport I'm 99% certain I saw Samuel L. Jackson. I talked with a
couple of people who had their flights bumped, one of which was a fellow
Canadian who would end up sleeping at the airport overnight. I
discovered on my stopover at Washington, DC that flight gates can change
while you're waiting. I thankfully caught it in time and was able to
boogie over to the other gate to catch my connection.
Then came the trip back home. While at the Canadian border, customs had
me stop and they did a massive search of my car. Every nook and cranny
of the car and my stuff was examined and they even questioned my
medicine. The entire process took an hour and a half (exactly what I
wanted after a 8 hour flight and a 2 hour drive). I was shitting bricks
worried they were going to go by the cover price of my books and not the
actual price I paid (about 50% off US on average). I didn't bother to
get receipts from most of the dealers so I'm not sure they would have
taken me at my word. But in the end the only issue they had was 1 book I
had. This was Ghita of Alizarr #1 by former Red Sonja artist Frank
Thorn. Apparently in it was a rape scene and a mention of bestiality.
The book was confiscated and is being sent off to somebody else in
customs to examine. If they approve the book they will mail it to me, if
they don't approve of it they'll simply keep the book (and I'll be out
the $10 bucks I paid for it). There is also an appeals process if they
keep the book.
Despite this, I really enjoyed San Diego and I'm eagerly looking forward
to going again next year.
Regards,
Jamie Coville
http://www.TheGraphicNovels.com
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