Location: San Diego Convention Center
Attendance: Maximum capacity as usual, 125,000
My 5th year of going to comic-con kinda started after I got off the plane at San Diego. On my way to grab my luggage I saw Jill Thompson and helped her out of a jam. She's doing a free sketch for me as a thank you. I also got to see some friends of mine from Toronto while at the Horton Plaza which was nice since it's very easy to not see them at all during the convention. I stayed at the Doubletree Downtown San Diego this year and I can't say I was that happy with my experience. I was there in 2010 and we had no problem getting checked in at 12pm, but this time they insisted nobody checked in before 3pm. Also, they screwed up my order and gave me 1 bed instead of 2 beds and there were 3 people staying there. They tried to charge us $20 a night for a roll out bed that one of us would have to sleep on. I managed to talk to the manager that night and they were able to give me a room with a two beds as somebody had cancelled but they charged me a $40 upgrade fee for it. They will not be on my list of picks next year.
Wednesday Preview Night
I was informed by my friends that the con started getting the press and pros their badges before the 3:00pm opening that was advertised which was really nice. Getting in and getting the badges was painless as usual. Afterwards the same issue that always pops up occurred and that being "where do the press & pro's line up inside the convention once they got their badge?" My friends and I wandered around the con asking random volunteers and security people and nobody knew for sure but they did mention there was a line up around ballroom 20 for something and we found out that yes this was the line up for press and pros. While waiting I went through my program guide to find out which booths/artists I wanted to see. The line up started moving around 5:40pm, letting us in early which is nice and is not something they do every year.
I spent preview night visiting booths that I regularly shop at that have rare books and don't discount on the last day. Since I was going to spend much of the convention doing panels it was better to get some of my shopping out of the way up front. One of the things I bought was the Hero's Initiative Overstreet Price Guide Hardcover, which I generally get once every couple of years. I also got an exclusive print for a friend (*Editors Note: THANKS Jamie!!!) The rest of the time I spent wandering around the Gold and Silver section looking at books, seeing if there was anything I wanted to get. I couldn't help but notice that some regular dealers had smaller booths this year and some regular dealers were not there at all. I had heard table prices went up considerably from last year and I've been regularly hearing from those selling comics at this convention that back issue comic buyers are no longer showing up like they used to.
As always the big media booths were a mad house with people looking for exclusives to buy and ebay to pay for their trip. With 1 exception that was a gift I stayed the hell away from that area.
Thursday:
As usual, I spent most of my day going to panels. The first one was:
How to Get News Coverage (53:51, 49.3mb)
Moderated by Rik Offenberger, a bunch of comic news sites writers talk about how to get coverage on their sites. One the panel was Rich Johnston, Alan Kistler, Bryan Young, Dan Manser, Holly Golightly, Chris Thompson, J.C. Vaughn, Josh Waldrop, Heidi MacDonald and Glenn Hauman. They talked about what e-mails they did and did not read, what information should be in the e-mail, things that people shouldn't do which will ensure you get ignored. They also talked about smaller sites versus bigger sites when it comes to promoting a project.
More specifically, some of them wanted the e-mails personalized to them, saying they read those for sure. They really don't like large attachments as many of them read their e-mails on their phones and downloading them can really clog up their phone for a while and they hate that. Proper punctuation and grammar in the press releases are important because it makes you look professional. Also, don't write in all caps because then they need to rewrite it normal and many of them just don't bother doing that. Be polite as nobody's project is entitled to coverage. A link back via some sort of social media is nice too. There was a bit over 60 people at this panel when it first started, it had swelled to about 100 towards the end.
Immediately afterwards was the:
Spotlight on Geof Darrow (100:30, 55.3mb)
Geof Darrow wins an Inkpot award and talks about how he got started in comics with Moebius, Frank Miller and the Wachowskis. He showed a partly worked on Shaolin Cowboy anime that had no audio, but Geof gave funny commentary as it played. He talked in detail about trying to get the anime created and some road bumps he encountered along the way with the Japanese. There were things they didn't get and thought the Japanese audience wasn't 'ready' for, but he told of one funny instance where they wanted something that general North American audience wouldn't be 'ready' for. He did praise the Japanese company for working with him and keeping their end of the bargain. He also mentioned it would take 3 million from a US company to finish it which never materialized. The crowd thought he could get it from Kickstarter. Geof took the unusual step of asking the audience questions and giving them some signed prints for answering them. The audience did ask him some questions and the Geof talked about good movies the audience should see towards the end. There were about 100 people at the panel.
I came in toward the very end of the Mark Evanier and Sergio Aragonés show, on with them was Stan Sakai. They talked about why there was no Groo movie or cartoon made yet. Mark and Sergio said the right deal hasn't come yet. Said there were deals but the Hollywood people wanted complete control so they could change things, which neither of them wanted. Mark told a funny story about a former agent who got mad at him and considered it rude to not hear how much they were offering before turning down that type of deal. He believed, like the Million Dollar Man, that everybody had a price. Somebody from the audience brought up kickstarter and Sergio had no idea what it was. It was revealed that Sergio doesn't even own a computer and Mark made the joke about doing a kickstarter to get Sergio a computer. Mark also got a message on his cell phone from Sid Jacobson asking about if he was to be at any panels for Comic Con, and he was... in about 15 minutes. Sid was not even at the convention centre (he lives in LA I believe) and was obviously not going to make it. Also at this panel was a kid who was attending Comic Con as part of the Make a Wish Foundation. He was pointed out and stood up for pictures.
The 2 Editors Panel . . . which was actually 1.
This was the panel that Sid Jacobson was supposed to be at. I was not given permission to record this panel by the moderator.
The one 1 editor there was Victor Gorelick, Editor in Chief of Archie Comics. The panel was moderated by Mark Evanier.
Victor spoke about his history with Archie, which began in 1958 and how he started off doing things like art corrections and other production tasks until moving up to being the Editor in Chief. He said his most reliable freelancer was Harry Lucey. He told a story about how he got hit by a car and still showed up with his work. Victor told Harry how he should be going to a hospital as there were bloodstains on the artwork, but instead Harry stayed and used white paint to cover up his bloodstains and turned it in. They talked about prolific writer Frank Doyle, who was getting a Finger Award. Victor mentioned when Archie tried bringing back the superheroes in the 60s Jerry Siegel wrote some of them. Mark Evanier brought up that they made an Archie pilot TV show in the 70s that he did some uncredited writing for, as all the people hired to do it didn't know anything about comics and he did so they all went to him. Mark mentioned that originally a young David Caruso (CSI: Miami and other shows/movies) was hired to play Archie, but he was replaced at the last minute. Still the TV guides had credited David Caruso for playing the character. Mark asked if Archie noticed anything on the covers that spiked sales like DC did in the 50/60's (ie purple talking Gorillas) and Victor said no. He said their sales were very cyclical with them going up and down during the seasons. They talked about the digests they put out and said their limit on reprints is 6 years. Victor also mentioned that being the EIC puts in him the middle of disputes between freelancers and the owners of the company. An audience member asked about how Archie sold in other countries and Victor revealed that the Archie wedding was front page news in India, which wowed the crowd. There were about 30 people in attendance.
I came in at the tail end of the Bringing Comics to Life in the Library Panel and heard one Librarian give what sounded like really good summary on starting a Graphic Novel section in a library, how to deal with opposition along the way, maintaining the collection and how to defend challenges. I wish I had been there for the full thing. There were at least 200 people there.
The panel right after it was Batman's Biggest Secret: The Bill Finger story. This was advertised as Michael Uslan (Batman movie producer) interviewing Marc Tyler Nobleman, but it was just Marc himself. The panel was actually better that way as Marc just bombarded the audience with all the new information he found on Bill Finger, a lot of was astounding. I don't think there would have been time to get all this out had there been a back and forth between him and Uslan. Among the revelations were: New, better pictures of Bill Finger. It was long through that there was only 2 or 3 pictures of him in existence. Marc showed pictures of buildings that Finger lived in, including one where he believes Batman was created (Marc is of the opinion that Kane went to Fingers apartment, not the other way around). Marc also played an audio of Bill Finger speaking! It's only a couple of lines but they were about how he felt Kane had used him to increase his own page rate. Marc showed Bill's death certificate and showed the cause of death was Heart Attack. He revealed that Bill had 3 of them in his lifetime. Marc also wanted to pop the myth that Finger was an alcoholic. His talking with people who knew Finger said that Bill did drink, and occasionally more than he should have (for obvious reasons) but wasn't your standard definition of an alcoholic. One of the pictures of Bill showed Bill without his shirt in later years and he was physically fit as he worked out. Bill was on his couch when he had his heart attack and died and was found later by a friend. Bill had a son named Fred (who was gay) and he had Bill's body cremated. Fred took Bill's ashes and spread them out in a shape of a bat on a beach (he got this from 2 family sources). Bill does have sisters. One is alive but refuses to talk about Bill at all. Bill had a major falling out with his family. His family used to go with Bill to DC to pick up his paycheck and demand he hand it over to them immediately. Marc has just discovered another sister but has not yet had time to track her down and contact her. Bill's son Fred was married and had a child early in his life. Bill's granddaughter is named Athena and Marc and Paul Levitz were able to get Bill's reprint fees sent to her. That money was previously going to a drifter who had lied about being related to Bill. When the Micheal Keaton Batman movies were being filmed Bill's ex-wife tried hard to get Bill's name in the credits in some way. They originally had agreed to do this, but then changed their mind at the last minute. At the end Marc gave away a number of Bill Finger yellow foam fingers (think Hulk Hogan merchandise) to give away for people to wear and spread the word about his book. Marc is also trying to get a memorial plaque set up for Bill in his hometown. Among other things Bill showed was a trailer for his book and a cute video of his daughter replaying "Bill Finger" after every question he asks her. There were about 200 gobsmacked people in attendance.
My last panel of the day was:
Bleeding Alliance of Beat Reporters (47:51, 43.8mb)
On this panel was Andy Khouri, Rich Johnston, Heidi MacDonald and Tom Spurgeon. The panel was moderated by Douglas Wolk. The group talked about making a living with their blogs (they have other sources of income), how they deal with commentators (Tom has none, Rich doesn't moderate except in extreme cases, Heidi is in the middle), how much they write versus editing their contributors, what type of stories get under reported, why they got into comics journalism and they took questions from the audience. There were 300 people in the audience and it was pretty obvious they were there for the next panel, which was for Mega64: Year One (gaming panel). Still after the panel they gave a large applause which shocked the panelists.
That night I had a delayed shuttle bus ride back to the hotel. I was at the back of the line at the 10pm bus and wasn't able to get a spot. The 10:15 bus showed up and let people off but wouldn't let anybody on. After much discussion it was commandeered for the Red Line bus for some reason. I then got in the next bus to go back.
Friday:
First panel:
ComicsPro: Retail Optimism (54:31, 49.9mb)
A cross section of retailers talked about reasons to be optimistic in the current comic market. On the panel was Joe Field (Flying Colors Comics, Concord, CA), Carr D'Angelo (Earth-2 Comics, Sherman Oaks, CA), Thomas Gaul (Corner Store Comics, Anaheim, CA), and Calum Johnston (Strange Adventures Bookshop, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada). From the back Amanda Emmert (Muse Comics + Games, Colorado Springs, CO) asked questions. They revealed some very good news about how the market has rebounded in 2012. The first half of 2012 was better than the 2nd half of 2011. Usually the 2nd half is the stronger half as that's when A) people go back to school in September and B) Christmas. So retailers are likely going to see a really strong 2nd half of 2012. The audience was primarily retailers and some traded stories on cheap, easy promotions that created big sales. They had a show of hands on how many of them were expanding and most of the audience was. Ed Ferrara (wise old retailer of Atlantis Fantasy World) talked about how the Walking Dead money won't always be there and they should not be depending on it. He talked about how he did 50k in Beanie Babies 1 year and 0 in the next. He also suggested giving their staff a raise too. Joe Field strongly recommended they use that money to invest in outreach to create new readers. The panelists talked about the demographics of readers now (they are seeing more women and children buying comics). Carr said how he was pretty skeptical of digital comics at first, but says he is seeing new digital customers coming in and wanting direction for their comic buying and they are buying print books.
Next Panel was:
Spotlight on Larry Hama (51:52, 47.4mb)
Larry Hama got an Inkpot award to start off the panel. He then began taking questions from the audience. He talked about how his service in Vietnam influenced GI Joe. He talked seriously about the military and how soldiers don't cover grenades with their bodies for God and Country or any crap like that, they do it to save their buddies. He made sure the jingoistic stuff in other war entertainment was not in GI Joe. He used how soldiers thought and talked into the characters in the comics. He mentioned how soldiers will only reveal some things about their experience to other soldiers. He also revealed about how old Japanese films influenced the ninja aspect of GI Joe. Also how much long term planning he puts into his stories. Larry spoke about the Baroness and how she was a breakthrough for girl action figures as Hasbro thought boys wouldn't buy those characters at first. After they saw the Baroness, they realized she was hot and would want that toy if they were boys. That lead to the other characters like Lady Jay and Scarlet (among others) being produced. He talked about the animated ads for the GI Joe comic books, said they were really a way around using the animation limit to advertise the toys. When it came to toys, they were strictly limited in how much animation they could use in the commercial. So they did a full on animation for the comics, knowing that would help sell the toys too. Larry also talked a bit about his Wolverine run for a bit. An audience member asked him about editing the Nam (a very realistic Marvel book about the war). He said when Jim Shooter came to him about putting out a war book, he said he wanted to do it realistic and not in the usual comic book manor. He gave Jim credit for giving him the okay to do it realistic. He hired Doug Wildley and told him to keep it very real and factual. He then told a funny story about Doug Wildley getting an Award for the book (beating the movie Platoon) from an organization made up of Vets who judge how close war related entertainment was to the real thing. There were about 200 people in the audience.
Next Panel:
Comic Book Entrepreneurs (50:24, 46.1mb)
Moderated by Rob Salkowitz, on the panel were 4 Comic book Entrepreneurs in different areas of the industry. They were David Steinberger (ComiXology), Mike Richardson (Dark Horse Comics), Peter Levin (Nerdist) and Joe Field (Flying Colors). They all talked about how they started their own businesses and gave tips for doing so to the audience. Other topics were the hardest part of starting their business and fighting back against those that doubt your ability. Mike Richardson in particular told a story about how he left a well paying job to start a comic book store in the middle of nowhere. His friends all got together for an intervention of sorts, which he ignored. Then he decided to become a comic book publisher and they again got together for an intervention and he ignored that too. Now that he's been successful at publishing and selling comics for a couple of decades there hasn't been any more interventions. There were about 100 people in the audience.
Next Panel:
A Tribute to Richard Alf (49:20, 45.1mb)
Richard Alf was one of the co-founders of the San Diego Comic Con and was it's chairman in the early years. Moderated by Mike Towry, friends of Richard Ed Cormier, Earl Bookhammer, David Clark, Bob Beerbohm, William Clausen, Paul Sammon, George Clayton Johnson, Greg Koudoulian, David McClone, Denis Smith, Clayton Moore, David Glanzer and Rob Ray from San Diego University gather to talk about meeting Richard, what he was like, how he helped the convention and more. Bob Beerbohm was originally in the audience but was invited up on stage. William Clausen gave out an Alf #3 mini comic that finished a long standing story that featured some of comic con early participants. David Glanzer talked about how Shel Dorf would call him once in a while and how people tend to reinvent history, particularly with this convention and the backlash against the movie/media stuff and it's important to remember the past. Richard had kept a lot of the early comic con material and it's all being donated to the San Diego University.
That night:
Full 2012 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards (2:19:47, 127mb) - 105 Photos
The 2012 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards was held in the Indigo Room at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront on Friday, July 13th. The welcome was done by Jackie Estrada, Eisner Awards Administrator. Among the presenters are Kayre and Bill Morrison, Tricia Helfer and Michael Trucco, Lynn Johnston and Alison Bechdel, Michael and Laura Allred, George R.R. Martin, Jonathan Ross, RC Harvey, Erin Gray and Michael Uslan, Debbi Derriberri and Phil LaMarr. The Bill Finger Award was presented by Mark Evanier. The Spirit of Comics Retailer Award was presented by Joe Ferrara. The Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award was presented by Ruth Clampett. Maggie Thompson did the Memoriam.
Before the ceremony started there was Mexican music playing and some of the hotel staff couldn't help dance to it here and there. This year they started about a half hour earlier than normal. They also cut down on the amount of presenters. It used to be there were 3 levels, Bill Morrison, then presenters who would oversee 3 awards by... presenting each awards individual presenters. It would then go back to Bill Morrison and start over again. Almost all of these presenters would want to do something funny and occasionally long. A lot of that was cut out this year. Bill Morrison was replaced by "the voice of god" and he (and his wife Kayre) became one of the presenters. Kayre actually spoke which was a first for the Eisners. Another nice change was the different music. Last year somebody joked about the "band" being good but it's too bad they only know one song. The changes cut 50 minutes between last year and this year's Awards Ceremony, which is a really good thing.
The Winners can be found at the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards page.
Saturday:
First Panel:
comiXology Open Discussion: Everything Digital (48:16, 44.2mb)
comiXology co-founders David Steinberger and John D. Roberts give a short history of their 5 year old company and then answer questions from the floor. They announced that Bongo and Abrams are now going to be selling their books digitally through their website. Among the questions they answered were about release times for their new comic books and doing 3D Comics for 3D monitors. Some users who had questions on specific problems were directed to staff members who were sitting in the audience. They also mentioned they had 20 openings on their website.
Next Panel:
Comics Arts Conference Session #10: Focus on Steve Englehart (49:09, 45mb)
Travis Langley moderated this Q&A with Steve Englehart. They talked about Engleharts formal education (psychology degree) and getting into the comic business, working in the Marvel bullpen, the reason he stopped writing the Avengers (the editor fired him because he wanted to write it himself), his writing for DC Comics, bouncing in and out of the comic industry, his work on the Nightman TV show (a character he created for Malibu), how he got Stan Lee's okay to do a God character in Dr. Strange (funny bit of deception), Marvel vs. DC competition, his working for Dell and very briefly, Atari. He mentioned he really loved working on Green Lantern and the movie made him really mad because they could have made a much better movie. He also gave his views on academic reviews of his work among other topics.
Next Panel:
CBLDF: The Fight To Defend Manga (49:20, 45.1mb)
Charles Brownstein gives a bit of history of comics and censorship and what the CBDLF does to fight it. He talks about specific issues with the problems of crossing the Canadian Boarder. With him was Ryan Matheson who talked about his horrendous ordeal when the border authorities deemed an manga chibi parody on his laptop to be child porn and tried to get him to confess to the "crime." Matheson talks about the various head games that were played on him while in custody and how eventually all charges were dropped when it was clear they didn't have a case. Among the things they did to Ryan was refuse to let him see a US Embassy representative after they had offered it. Told him if he got raped, it wouldn't mean anything, switch prosecutors on him several times to stretch out the proceeding while trying to get him to plead guilty. Ryan got pretty emotional at the end while talking about these issues and the influence his family had on helping him with his decision to not plead guilty.
Next Panel:
Will Eisner and the Graphic Novel (46:14, 42.3mb)
Klaus Janson, Denis Kitchen, Charles Kochman and Diana Schutz talk about Will Einser and his influence on the Graphic Novel. They talked about what underground comics influenced Eisner (Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary by Justin Green and some works of Jack Jackson), Klaus talked about he reacted to Eisner's Graphic Novels when they came out and how Einser influenced him and Frank Miller. Then Denis and Diana talked about how it took some time for the format to catch on and even talked a bit about the term itself. The panel was moderated by Charles Brownstein. It was advertised as going to be moderated by Paul Levitz but he missed Comic Con due to family illness.
I should note the person who did invent the term Graphic Novel and published the first book with that as a label was interviewed by myself and it ran in last months Collector Times. You can read Richard Kyle's interview here.
Next panel:
Spotlight on Gilbert Shelton (1:78:01, 70.5mb)
Moderator Gary Groth does an interview with Gilbert Shelton and talks about his career. He had a number of pieces of artwork and got Gary to talk about them throughout the interview. Among the topics were origins of Wonder Warthog and Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, talked about working with Harvey Kurtzman and how he knew Janis Joplin, said he used to do graphitti and had a potty character he would spray on billboards, and the how and why he ended up living in France. He also revealed he'll be working on Zap #16 and there will be a new Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and Wonder Warthog story in there. Shelton also answered questions from the audience. This was held in a large room filling roughly 400 people.
My last panel of the day:
Ted Naifeh and the 10th Anniversary of Courtney Crumrin (53:26, 48.9mb)
Ted Naifeh talks about what comics he loved as a kid (Superfriends, Batman and Ultraman), how he got private art lessons as a kid, talked a bit about his parents and where they worked (his Mom: Nasa), his artistic influences. Ted spoke a lot about Courtney and designing her as well as the new colour editions of her books. The audience also asked questions about various aspects of Courtney and her world, from particular characters reappearing and potential stories about Courtney as an adult. About 5 minutes before the panel ends movie star Ron Perlman (Hellboy) walks in from a back door. After the panel is over he's giving an interview right beside the only exit door in the room. Even though I don't seek out celebrities at comic con, I usually end of seeing one or two of them anyway. San Diego is crawling with them.
Sunday:
I caught the tail end of a Comic Strip Legends Panel that was moderated by Andrew Farago. At the very end (after they told Con people waved away the people asking questions) Scott Kurtz gave a thank you to them all for their years of hard work, saying he dissected their work, analyzed it and applied it to his own work. On the panel was Lynn Johnston (For Better of Worse), Morrie Turner (Wee Pals), Bill Amend (Foxtrot) and Greg Evans(Luann).
After it was:
Digital Comics Price Fight (51:35, 47.2mb)
Moderated by Chip Mosher, Mark Waid, Jeff Webber, Scott Kurtz, Chris Ross talk about how to price digital comics. Mark Waid was late getting to the panel which lead to Chip calling his cell and leaving a voice message with the audience participation. This got the group laughing. There was much talk about Mark winning multiple Eisner Awards last night the first Eisner award he's won in his long career in comics. Waid also opened giving an apology about a comment that came out the way he didn't mean it (where he said comiXology was the new Diamond). Scott Kurtz said he wished he did mean it that way because it's true (which started the sparks for the panel). The group talked about what price a digital comic should be and a bit about how much comics they should get for that price. Waid was adamant that it should be 99 cents, but later revealed that the economics don't work for a standard 22 page comic for that price. Scott Kurtz was not shy about talking about his issues with the way comiXology business works, those on the panel asked the audience some question about pricing structures for digital comics. DRM (digital rights management) was also an issue that was brought up too.
Next Panel:
The Fine Line of Inking (50:47, 46.4mb)
On this panel we have a few inker/artists who talk about their work and inking. The panelists are Mark Schultz, Rudy Nebres, Gary Gianni and Andrew Farago was the moderator. Klaus Janson was supposed to be on the panel but was not able to make it for some reason. The group talked about how they got into the industry and their influences. Part way through Rudy was given an Inkpot Award. A large number of the audience were artists themselves who asked technical questions about inking which the panelists, particularly Rudy, answered for them.
My next panel was a Spotlight on Alison Bechdel. She did not want a recording of this panel as she gives similar talks and she'd rather it not be online. The panel started off with her receiving an Inkpot Award from the convention, which she was excited to win. She had a slide show of her work and pictures to go along with talk of her career. She showed some early rejection letters that she got. Alison said she was influenced by Charles Adams and showed some Adams Family cartoons, saying the Adams household had things in it that looked similar to hers. She showed some of her early work, some of it X rated. Politics was a topic she touched on. Fun Home was a big part of her presentation as showed some panels, the process of creating it. Her process was draws the panels on a computer, then does the caption lettering, she puts a picture or a sketch she did of what is supposed to be in the panel. Then she prints it out and draws it on a board. Then scans it back into the computer and does inking and lettering. She mentioned she takes a lot of photographs of herself for drawing reference and that she took 4000 of them for her new book that's coming out. Bechdel read a part of Fun Home that was an emotional part for her (about her father). She then talked about her new book about her mother and how her mother has reacted both before, during and after Fun Home was published. She talked a bit about doing family memoirs when some family members are still alive. She doesn't recommend it, saying it does not bring families closer together - as she had hoped with hers. The audience asked questions as well and one person pointed out that Alison never draws herself smiling for some reason. Alison does have another family related book she wants to do but her mother doesn't want her to do it right now.
And my last panel at San Diego was:
Super Secrets: Lifting the Curtain on the Man of Steel (55:28, 50.7mb)
Larry Tye, author of Superman (a new book about the history of the character) and Mark Waid talk about Jerry Siegel in particular, his father and the origins of the Superman. Waid talks about finding the K-Metal story that Jerry wrote that introduces an early version of Kryptonite and has Superman revealing his secret identity to Lois Lane. Tye talks about George Reeves suicide and the conspiracy theory around it. Tye does believe George Reeves killed himself. He does agree the original investigation was shoddy but he said using the same evidence a modern investigations have come to the same conclusion. Waid also talks about the 100 page memoir that Jerry wrote and the lawsuit between the Siegel heirs and Warner Brothers. Tye and Waid gave their opinions on what they think needs to happen for resolution to the case. They talked about splitting the baby in order to create a settlement. Mark believes that DC did offer the Siegels a fair settlement but the Siegel's lawyer is acting in his own interest and not the Siegels. There were over 300 people in the audience for this panel.
Between panels at various times I did get see and talk to various artists. I learned that Erik Larsen has been doing TPBs of his Savage Dragon run and has been doing them since 2010 (why didn't nobody tell me!?!). I was an old Savage Dragon fan, looking to get back into it but I didn't want to buy the comics. I got one at a cheap price at TFAW.com booth and ordered the rest from my comic shop. I had suggested to Erik that he have some at his Artists Alley table and he agreed and later on got them from the Image booth. I briefly talked to Ramona Fradon and noticed she was selling a self published Children's book which made me smile. During an interview I had done with her she said she should have drawn children's books and thought that would have been a better career for her. Glad to see she's doing it now. Oh I also saw Tom Galloway multiple times the show. I first ran into him at the airport and he said I might be the guy he runs into every 20 minutes at the con. Sure enough I was. Wandering the floor, at panels, at the Eisners, even on the shuttle bus back to the hotel, he was there. I usually run into Craig Yoe and James Owen but didn't see them at all.
I did find navigating the main hall to be harder than usual this year with more line clogging than usual. I think next year I'll be doing more traveling through the lobby. I did learn to relax a bit more this convention, I wasn't very concerned about being there right when it opened or staying until it end like I was in previous years. I did find there were less comics this year than usual. Typically in almost all sections of the cons you'd find booths that did have comics to sell along with everything else. It might only be a short box or a couple shelves of trades, but it was typically a place where you could find some odd stuff at cheaper prices.
At the end of the show I asked 10 comic book dealers in the Gold and Silver area how the convention went for them. 6 said it was down from last year, 3 said it was up, 1 said the same, but maybe but a bit. Most people said a mix of everything sold, but one dealer found people were looking for Silver Age books. Several dealers said there were lots of dealer to dealer sales, but sales to readers were down. One dealer specifically said sales to people who spend $100-300 range were down.
I had an okay time at the convention. Some health issues and getting turned down on recording some panels (particularly all of Mark Evanier's) did make this less fun than previous San Diego Conventions though. But still, it's San Diego and arguably the best North American convention. Especially if you are into panels like I am.
I also took 174 photos. Mostly cosplayers, but some creators as well.
All my San Diego and other convention panel recordings are here.
Regards,
http://www.TheGraphicNovels.com
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