Comic-Con 2011: Post Mortem

The two constants at Comic-Con International: San Diego -- much as in comics themselves -- are continuity and change. Sometimes, the two go hand in hand. For instance, at this year's Comic-Con, I commissioned a sketch from Wendy Pini, from whom I commissioned a sketch at my first Comic-Con, 31 years ago. And considering the passage of decades, the price wasn't much different: $40 now, compared to $10 then. But while for years convention sketches have been paid for in cash, or on occasion by check, I paid for this one (and several other purchases in the Dealer's Room) by credit card, signing my name with my fingertip on Richard Pini's iPhone. These two themes of continuity to past conventions, and changes, played themselves out over and over during the four-and-a-quarter-day con.

Along with the Pinis, many creators I met or saw at the con three decades ago can still be seen there. Folks like Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Mark Evanier (who hosted a baker's dozen panels, as he has for years), my old friend Phil Yeh (whom I first met at a Seattle convention nearly 30 years ago), Brent Anderson, and others still come to the con to meet their fans and talk about their craft.

Many changes related to the Con's swell of popularity in recent years, fueled by its reputation as a source of word-of-mouth promotion for the superhero movies and other film and TV projects that relate to Comic-Con's pop culture sensabilities. For instance, for years Amy and I have purchased our memberships for the following year's convention onsite. In the past, this involved walking up to a table in the main lobby, perhaps waiting in a line one or two people long, and picking up the memberships. Last year was a bit more complicated: We bought the memberships on the last day of the Con, and because the Preview Night passes were being sold only at the convention (and because memberships started selling out a few years ago, for the first time), the line was fairly long. This year, the process of getting the next year's membership devolved into madness. The passes to be sold at the convention were apportioned between each day; and on each day the passes were sold only between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. Those who lined up before the sun came out were able to buy 4-day passes with the Preview Night, at an unprecedented price of $175 each. We got into line shortly after 7 a.m. on the second day of the con; waited nearly four hours; and were still unable to get either the Preview Night feature or four-day passes. Instead, we got four one-day passes each.

Eventually, the sheer effort necessary to obtain memberships will likely cut down on the number of memberships sold, resolving the problem. Or the con may expand -- although it already fills the convention center and slops over to the two closest hotels.

Major movie studios' participation in the con also changed. Disney/Marvel and Warner Brothers/DC made headlines by declining to put on presentations for their upcoming comics-related films, leading to commentary that Comic-Con might be losing its buzz as a tastemaker.




We held on to some hope that this trend would allow us to actually attend some of the movie and TV presentations we had been unable to see for the last few cons, since they required lining up for so long that we'd miss a major portion of the convention if we tried to attend them. But unfortunately, we did not get into Hall H, or (for the first time) Ballroom 20, the mecca for TV programming. The closest we came to media panels was to attend the highly-entertaining panel put on by Penn & Teller to advertise their upcoming TV show on Discovery. (To do so, we sat through a mildly-interesting panel on Voltron.)





Further, Marvel did not abandon the con entirely. Notably, they premiered CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER at a nearby theater, a day before it opened nationwide, leading to lots of goodwill from con goers (particularly in response to the trailer after the opening credits for next year's highly-anticipated AVENGERS movie.
And Marvel tricked out its booth in the Dealers' Room with a stunning recreation of SHIELD headquarters from the Avengers movie, complete with models in SHIELD jumpsuits:









And DC Comics was certainly represented at the con, with T-Shirts and con bags emblazoned with Jim Lee's redesign of the Justice League, and high-rises decked out with supergraphics advertising the upcoming Batman video game, Arkham City.

But what I really come to Comic-Con for are the comic-book creators, and the panels on which they talk about their pasts and future.



Indeed, since by Friday afternoon I had not attended any comics panels (having spent most of Thursday attending the Captain America screening, and Friday morning in the hideous pre-reg line for 2012), immediatly upon finishing the pre-reg and getting lunch at one of the handy food trucks a couple of blocks away, I insisted on sitting through three comics-oriented panels in a row: A tribute to the multi-decade career of the recently-deceased artist Gene Colan; a discussion of the comics fanzines of the 1960s; and the '70's panel, a tribute to the somewhat-staid, somewhat-experimental comics of that period. Interestingly, one of the con guests of honor, Roy Thomas, was on each of those panels.









Saturday, as in previous years, was steampunk day. The steampunk panel was put in a much larger room than in previous years, yet filled up completely -- showing that interest in the subculture is not waning. And that afternoon, we once again had a big steampunk gathering on the mezzanine of the convention center, filled with amazing outfits and gadgets.















We finished out Saturday watching the masquerade -- not watching it live, nor at the party under the sails on top of the center, but in yet another ballroom where it was being simulcast. I suspect that between the three venues, everyone who wanted to see the masquerade had a chance to do so.

Sunday is generally our day for packing up, attending a few final panels, and doing a last sweep of the Dealers' Room. This customarily includes visits to the booths of Comic Relief and Bud Plant. But there again, change was in store. Comic Relief of Berkeley went out of business last year. And Bud Plant, after 41 years selling comics and art books, is retiring and selling his business. We went to his (much diminished) table, bought some books and chatted with Mr. Plant, but the atmosphere around his table was filled with the sensation of time passing.

We will be coming back to Comic-Con next year. (After what we went through to get passes for next year, we'd damn well better.) And we'll probably have a good time, like we did this year. But we'll probably be aware next year, as we were this year, that you can never go back to a Comic-Con you went to in the past, because, for better or worse, Comic-Con must always change.

Here are some parting miscellaneous photos of the con. More next year.

Comic-Con Preview Night

We managed to get to Comic-Con Wednesday in time to enjoy a full preview night -- which, although limited to those who got 4-day passes plus the preview night (i.e., those who pre-reg'ed at last year's con) was stuffed to the gills with eager fans spending at a pace that belied the dire economy. Photos at Photobucket.

Thursday: The Captain America movie.

Comic-Con 2010 Photos

Comic-Con Tips

With Comic-Con next week, I figured I should post some of the tips I've picked up from attending over 20 of these shows over 30 years:

• Plan as much as possible. This is easier than ever before: The Comic-Con website (http://www.comic-con.org/) not only features the entire schedule (including autographs and anime presentations) online before the show, but it features a link to the Sched website which allows you to put together a custom program of the stuff you're interested in and export it to platforms such as Google calendar.
• When planning the events you will attend, bear in mind that the con center is large; the hallways will be crowded; and that some may be one-way only. It may take a while to get where you're going.
• Bear in mind that most rooms will not clear the audience before the next panel. If you're going to a panel that you know will be crowded, you may want to situate yourself in the room for an earlier program. Try not to be obnoxious about it -- don't sit in the front row of an event you're not interested in and take a loud, snoring nap.
• There will likely be lines in which you'll have to wait. Bring something to amuse yourself over a long period -- like, say, a book or comics to read.
• If you can, bring some nonperishable food so that you don't have to miss the panel you want while you have lunch. That will also save you from the choice of eating expensive mediocre con food or wasting a long time heading into the Gaslamp District to a restaurant.
• Think comfortable and light. Comfortable clothes and shoes. Light bags. If necessary, use the bag check at the con. Anything you carry will get heavier as the day goes on.
• If you start freaking out from the crowds, try exiting the back part of the con center and strolling down to the bay.
• If you're with a group, try to arrange a central place to meet. The con generally won't do pages. Texts are useful.
• Bathe, use deodorant, brush your teeth, and change your clothes. The life you save may be your own.
• Take some time to enjoy the night life and restaurants around the con center.
• Instead of driving out of San Diego immediately after the con, you may want to stick around and have dinner and a movie. You'll miss the traffic, and the overall time you spend may be the same as it would have been if you hit the freeway right after the con closes.
• Have fun!

Comic-Con Disneyland?

The debate over moving Comic-Con made the front page of the L.A. Times Business Section today. (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-comic-con20-2010mar20,0,2448909.story)

According to the story, the Con organizers have contracted to stay in San Diego through 2012; and are committed to staying in Southern California. But apart from that, they don't appear wedded to SD. Both L.A. and Anaheim have made bids for the convention and the $60 million + business it generates for the city in which it's held.

Of the two, Anaheim seems to have the better bid, since its convention center is bigger than either L.A.'s or San Diego's; and it has 4,000 hotel rooms within walking distance of the Center (not as many as San Diego, but far more than L.A. even with the lux hotels being built around the downtown convention center).

I've been going to conventions in Anaheim for 26 years -- ever since the Worldcon in 1984. I would rather like having the con close enough to home that I could drive there and back to my house every day (although it would be a long drive, it's not nearly as long a one as L.A. to S.D.) But the problem with Anaheim is that, apart from Disneyland, there's no there there. There are none of the vibrant restaurants, bars and nightclubs that surround the S.D. convention center, or anything like the L.A. Live complex around the L.A. one. Downtown Disney just isn't the same.

We'll see what happens in a couple of years.

Have Comic-Con, Will Travel?

There's been a bunch of press recently about what they used to call the San Diego Comic-Con, but now call Comic-Con International:San Diego, talking to other cities, such as Anaheim and Las Vegas, about moving there, because the SD convention center has maxed out its room.

Mark Evanier, who has been to every Comic-Con over the past four decades, doesn't think the con is going anywhere. (http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2010_02_26.html#018576) And I agree. Comic-Con has been very good to San Diego; taxes from its attendees have helped redevelop the city's downtown, which is light years better than the bordertown cesspool it was when I and my family went to my first Comic-Con 30 years ago. San Diego isn't going to let the con go without a fight.

The more likely result is that the con will spread out in town itself. When I went there in 1980, the con events were distributed between the (much smaller) old convention center and the surrounding hotels. The con is heading back in that direction, especially with the new hotel that sits next to Hall H. That will probably require more shuttle buses, and won't do much for downtown traffic. But people like San Diego, which is gorgeous in the summer; and they like the Convention Center, which sits right on the bay and has spectacular views for those who pull their heads out of the dealer's room once in a while. I think the con's going to stay there for some time.

Women of Wonder

When I went to my first San Diego Comic-Con in 1980, there were a number of girls and women who dressed in costumes. Over the years, that number has exploded -- likely precipitated by the increase in women drawn into fandom by anime, manga and videogames.

In fact, the number of women who dress in costume at Comic-con was so large last year that a British professional photographer has filled a 192-page book with photos taken just at that convention.



The book is sprinkled with quotes from the cosplayers, setting forth the reasons they dress up. For some, it's grown-up Halloween; for others, it's a social experience; and for others, an escape from complicated everyday life by becoming a character in a simple saga of good against evil.

Somewhat inevitably, there are at least two women depicted in the book whom we know.

The photographer and his collaborater should be credited with not limiting the book to cosplayers with supermodel bodies (although there are some).

There are some interesting trends. Princess Leia is a popular choice, particular in her slave/harem costume from RETURN OF THE JEDI -- a costume that requires a certain attitude, a certain confidence, a certain amount of fixative, and a certain amount of sunblock. There are several dressed as Wonder Woman, with varying degrees of faithfulness to the costume. A surprising number of women dress as Power Girl, the DC superheroine who wears a longsleeve top with a keyhole chest. And race is no barrier to portraying characters; one set of photos shows a white Storm next to an African-American Poison Ivy.

The book is available in the US as an import at specialty shops, or by mail order.

Comic-Con 2008: The Rest of the Con

Okay, so I posted about preview night of Comic-Con International:San Diego; then have remained silent until now. Well, during the con I was too busy to post; and since then (a) I've been working like a dog; (b) I've been unpacking; (c) I've been working on uploading lots of photos, and the bulk uploaders on my laptop aren't cooperating; or (d) all of the above. (Anyone who's taken a multiple choice test knows: when in doubt, pick the last choice.)

Anyway, this con was one of the best San Diego Comic-Cons I've been to -- and I've been to 22 of them in the last 28 years. This despite the capacity crowd (it sold out before the first day of the con) and some unseasonable grey weather.



Thursday morning began with a blast of humor as I attended the Tiny Toons/Freakazoid panel. Along with Warner Brothers Animation stalwarts Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, Andrea Romano and MC Paul Rugg (the voice of Freakazoid), the panel featured my old friend John P. McCann, who was a writer/producer/voice actor on Freakazoid back in the mid-nineties. (John was one of two TV writer-producers at our wedding 11 years ago. I'll talk about the other one shortly.)








I didn't get a chance to talke to John, but we did get to catch up with his wife Joy, aka Miss Attila (see the link to her blog on the right margin).



I attended a spotlight on one of the guests of honor, photorealistic comics penciller Paul Gulacy; and found out that he could do a terrific Sinatra impersonation. Gulacy revealed that when he was drawing "Master of Kung-Fu" back in the pre-VCR days, he would attend martial-arts movies in grindhouse theatres, toting an audio tape recorder with him. After the flick, when he sat at his drawing board, he would play back his tapes of the fight scenes; and when he heard the kyaas and grunts and impacts, he could play the fights back in his mind and draw them.



Later that afternoon, we went to a panel on the upcoming RED SONJA movie. Red Sonja is a character with an odd provenance: Seventies Conan the Barbarian comics writer Roy Thomas based her on a character Conan creator Robert E. Howard had wrote in a non-Conan story, but inserted her into the Conan universe. She was fairly popular when she appeared in a two-part Conan story, but her popularity exploded in the mid-seventies when her fairly practical battle outfit (a mail shirt and leather hot pants) was transformed into the most impractical suit of armor in history: a scale-mail bikini that left most of her body exposed. In the eighties, the producers of the Conan movie made a highly forgettable RS movie with Brigette Nielson, minus the bikini. Later, when Marvel lost the license for Conan, it also lost the license for Sonja -- a character created for Marvel. Currently, Dark Horse has the license for Conan and Dynamite has the comics license for Sonja. Now, Robert Rodrieguez (of SPY KIDS, DESPERADO, and SIN CITY fame) is planning a new Sonja movie, inspired by the issues of SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN he used to read as a kid. Rodrieguez won't direct it; his assistant director on several projects, Doug Aarniokoski, will (because he's DGA and Rodrieguez quit that organization), with lots of collaboration by Rodrieguez. The actress chosen as Sonja, Rose McGowan (whom GRINDHOUSE viewers will remember as the lady with the machine gun on her stump), appeared on the panel with Rodrieguez. And the poster art they flashed showed that, yes, she would be wearing the bikini (although it's more of a tankini now).



We attended a panel put together by Entertainment Weekly featuring Jim Lee, Grant Morrison, Colleen Doran, John Cassaday, and Mike Mignola (fortunately, the room did not ignite from sheer talent); and finished off the day by visiting our comics writer friend who was holding court in the lobby lounge of a nearby hotel. He snapped this picture of us:



We started Friday out with the panel for BATMAN: BRAVE AND THE BOLD, the latest animated incarnation of the Caped Crusader. (I'm too tired to count all the animated series that have featured the Darknight Detective.) This one avoids the dark, brooding version of our hero; the producers rightly opine that the Bruce Timm-Alan Burnett series from the nineties did the dark animated Batman about as well as it can be done. Instead, this series takes the more cartoony version of Batman drawn by 40's to '60's artist Dick Sprang, and tries to do a lighter-hearted Batman that is still action-packed and not a total goofball. The footage shown looked great.




I somehow managed to get into Hall H for one of the most anticipated movie-project presentations of the con: WATCHMAN. (Amy wasn't able to join me; the 6,500 seat hall quickly filled to capacity.) 300 director Zack Snyder and artist Dave Gibbons introduced essentially the entire cast of Watchmen, most of them relative unknowns except for Billy Crudup (who was so good in ALMOST FAMOUS) as godlike naked blue guy Dr. Manhattan; and Carla Gugino (the mom from SPY KIDS, KAREN SISCO, and the topless parole officer from SIN CITY) as Sally Jupiter, the superhero stage mom with a dark secret. The cast was tremendously enthusiastic, and the footage shown truly looked ripped from the graphic novel.

Here's Dave Gibbons on the panel:



Here's Crudup:



And some other cast members.



That afternoon, I attended the Scribe Awards/Media Tie-in Writer's Panel, primarily because my cousin Lee Goldberg (who co-founded the tie-in writer's organization that gave out the awards) was on the panel. When I got to the panel, Lee was waiting outside with his cute daughter Maddie. He shared the panel with co-found Max Allen Collins, STAR WARS/DUNE author Kevin J. Anderson (who handed out gummy sandworms as a promo for his latest DUNE book), and veteran SF/tie-in writer Alan Dean Foster. Everybody took turns telling Foster how much they loved his STAR TREK LOG novelizations of the STAR TREK animated series in the seventies. (I loved them too.) Lee won an award for his Monk novel MR. MONK AND THE TWO ASSISTANTS (which the moderator mispronounced, twice, as MR. MONK AND THE TWO ASSASSINS).





Yes, Lee was the other TV writer/producer at our wedding. (And Maddie was there too, although she doesn't remember it now . . . )



Amy put on a costume and took part in a HELLSING costume photoshoot:





Then we hied ourselves to a local theater where Viz was screening the first BLEACH movie, BLEACH: MEMORIES OF NOBODY. The film was important to us for two reasons: First, when we were in Japan last year, the DVD of the film was just coming out; and we loved the Japanese announcer for the TV commercials who intoned -- with that odd cadence of one delivering lines in a foreign language -- the English words "Bleach! Memories of Nobody!" Second, the creator of the Bleach manga, Tite Kubo, attended the screening, as did several winners of an essay contest given by Weekly Shonen Jump, the mag that publishes BLEACH in Japan. As was explained at the screening, this was Kubo's first appearance in North America; and it was rare for creators of weekly manga features to venture abroad, because they have to produce a mind-boggling 19 pages of story and art EVERY WEEK. (Kubo's been doing that for seven years!) But the magazine allowed him to get ahead on the feature so that he could make this trip. The movie itself was fun, if primarily an excuse to allow each of the supporting characters in the strip to appear and show off his or her power.

Saturday began with an extra special treat: I was one of twenty winners of an online contest to actually meet Kubo, and get his autograph on a specially-prepared Bleach Shikishi (autograph board). Despite some logistical problems, I managed to get my autograph; and wished the smiling, Rayban-wearing, red-hair-dyed Kubo-sensei (in Japanese)a good time in America -- to which he responded, in English, "Thank you very much."




Amazingly, I then managed to get into another panel I had been looking forward to: one concerning the new comics anthology COMIC BOOK TATTOO, featuring stories inspired by the lyrics of Tori Amos. Ms. Amos herself was front and center in the panel, and was both articulate and entertaining, particularly when delivering imitations of her exasperated conversations with her English-accented daughter.






Getting into the Tori panel was particularly surprising because although I had secured seats in the room before the panel (by slipping into the Ralph Bakshi panel while Bakshi was waxing political -- "If you don't vote for Obama, you're crazy!"), I left it when I received a phone call on my cell from Seattle-based comic book writer/artist Mike Grell. Grell was doing sketches by commission at the con, and would take the cell phone number of the, er, commissioners. Thus summoned, I met him at his table at Artist's Alley, and picked up a beautiful sketch of Saturn Girl of the Legion of Superheroes (which Grell drew in the mid-seventies). I then fought my way upstream through the attendees who inevitably throng the dealer's room on Saturday; and still managed to score a seat fairly close to the front of the room.

(Interestingly, although publications such as the L.A. Times have bemoaned that the interest in comics programming at the con has been eclipsed by the movie blitzing, I noted that some of the hardest panels to get into were those aimed squarely at comics fans. I tried to get into some of Mark Evanier's comics history panels after they started, only to be confronted with a sign on the door of Room 8 announcing the room was at capacity.)



One of the best panels on Saturday was the one celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Legion of Superheroes, the ever-expanding band of future teen superfolk that has maintained a loyal fan following for decades. The panel included Paul Levitz (who wrote the Legion in the Seventies and Eighties, and is now president of DC Comics), Keith Giffen (who drew and plotted the Legion in the eighties), Mike Grell (discussed above), Tom and Mary Bierbaum (the married couple of Legion fans who wrote the comic in the late eighties), Geoff Johns (currently writing a Legion miniseries), and Colleen Doran (Legion fan and, often, artist). It's a joy to be in a room where everyone's so enthusiastic about the subject material.

Saturday ended with the Comic-Con masquerade, to which our friends Natalie and Sarah (who were in the masquerade) got us VIP tickets. (Unfortunately, the fellow "VIPs" behind us apparently took their status as license to talk non-stop.)



Here's some photos of our friends on stage:





On Sunday, we packed up our toys; had breakfast at Cafe Noir, down the street from our hotel, and hit the con for the last time. We attended a panel about the goth icon Emily the Strange (a merchandising juggernaut, with stores in Hong Kong and Tokyo),



one about Elfquest, the long-running (30 years) comics series which has been optioned by Warner Brothers for a film (the director was on the panel),





another on The Art of the Cover (moderated by Evanier -- the last of the 17 panels he MC'd);





and a last strike at the Dealer's Room before we said goodby to the con. (And the Con said goodbye to us . . . .)





Our last comics event of the evening was the movie we watched while waiting for the traffic to die down: HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY. It was a fun and visually beautiful movie, even if the paper-thin plot depended on supposedly brilliant characters doing really stupid things. (Mild spoiler: I am sick of fantasy movies in which the characters spend most of the movie trying to keep the magical macguffin the bad guy needs to take over/rule/destroy the world away from him; and then deliberately deliver said macguffin directly to the bad guy. Whatever happened to outwitting your opponent?)

That was it for another Comic-Con. Hope the next one is as good or better.