Comic-Con 2008 - Third day

I had written before about intending to not go to Comic-Con on the Saturday, but after thinking about it, decided the key to having a good Saturday experience there is to not go in the exhibit hall. I recalled being in the exhibit hall on a Saturday was the real source of horrors, from the frequently non-moving monstrous masses of people in the aisles to the huge piles of trash not being collected. So, closest I got to it on Saturday was entering and exiting the building via the lobby areas

First panel I went to Saturday was an annual event I have not seen before, Quick Draw!

The idea is that three cartoonists draw cartoons on the spot, very quickly, based on topics given them by the moderator, with the cartoons being displayed simultaneously for the audience on three large screens as they are being drawn.

So, the participants were:

• The moderator, Mark Evanier, a comics and cartoons writer and historian.
• And the cartoonists:
• Sergio Aragonés - Well known as a long-time cartoonist for Mad Magazine. (Though that is by no means all he has done, as can be seen at the link.)
• Scott Shaw! - (Apparently he uses the exclamation point as part of his name.) A comics artist and writer for many years, he also has experience in cartoons. He demonstrated the cartoons experience during this Quick Draw.
• Mike Peters - The relative new kid on the block in this group, he is known as both an editorial and comic strip cartoonist.

This was a wonderfully very funny time.

The best way I could find to organize the Quick Draw photos was to post them up by the topics that I recalled (should have taken notes of the topics!), then link here to each topic. So, here we go:

• Bad Decisions by Popeye
• The Incredible Hulk as President
• Why You Don't Bring an Elephant to Comic-Con
• Things Not to do with King Kong
• Worst Costume YOU have ever worn
• Worst Costume you've seen at this Comic-Con
• New Jobs for Iron Man
• You as Batman
• Guess the words A word of explanation for this topic. It involved the moderator pulling a person out of the audience, then having three words displayed while the person's back was turned to the screens. The person than guessed the words based on cartoons illustrating the words. These sequences were especially funny.
• Aragones - Don't Do That And again a word of explanation for the topic. From time to time throughout the Quick Draw, the moderator would say "Sergio, don't do that", at which point Aragones would do a cartoon of something that should not be done. The last of these had the condition the cartoon include a pig.
• Shaw - Draw Hanna-Barbera characters
  For this the moderator would from time to time give Shaw a string of names of Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters to draw. Shaw had worked for that studio in the past; he drew the head of each and every character whose name he was given.
  

Second panel for me on Saturday was DC: A Guide to Your Universe. This was moderated by Dan DiDio, senior VP and executive editor of DC Comics, and the panel was composed mostly of a boat load of DC writers. This was basically general chatter about the current state of DC Comics and what is in the works for the rest of the year and early next year. They also answered lots of questions from fans.

And my third event for Saturday was another annual happening I went to for the first time: Oddball Comics. This is presented by the same Scott Shaw! who was part of Quick Draw earlier in the day. He explained he owns a large collection of comic books from years past that have very strange covers, and each year he presents slides of a selection of them, based on various themes he selects. This was a hilarious show, the comics covers he showed were absolutely wild!

I'm uncertain why, but I took no photos of the slides during this, though now that I think about it, I think it might have been possible to get decent photos without using the camera's flash.

But, as Shaw announced at the end of the show, he does run a web site where these covers can be explored: Oddball Comics.

And here are photos from the third day.