Comic-Con 2010: Anticipation and Being

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I usually take a full week of vacation around this time every July. (Last year was an exception for reasons I won't get into.)

This is in anticipation of attending San Diego Comic-Con, usually for multiple days. This year I had every intention of buying a 4-day membership. So, in early March I went to the web site for Comic-Con, and proceeded to learn all 4-day memberships for this year had sold out in November of last year, which truly blew my mind.

So, I decided to go for a 1-day membership, for July 22 (tomorrow), and find other ways to fill my time during the week of vacation.

One good innovation Comic-Con is doing this year is offering early distribution of membership badges on July 21at a place away from the San Diego Convention Center (the site of Comic-Con) for those with 4-day memberships and 1-day memberships for July 22. I'm back from going to that. It happened at the Town and Country hotel's convention facility. The announcement of this that was emailed said this distribution would be available starting at 3 PM. I decided to get there about 2 PM and wait in line after parking at Fashion Valley mall, which has free parking and is next door to the Town and Country hotel.

As I was pulling into Fashion Valley property, I saw people walking away from the Town and Country wearing Comic-Con badges. Huh. There must have been a major line of people waiting for the distribution to have been opened early!

So, tomorrow morning it will be very nice to go straight to Comic-Con programming areas without having to get in line first for the badge.

One complication tomorrow is that in the evening I have a meeting of a class I am currently taking at UCSD Extension. Can't afford to miss that, so I'll probably leave Comic-Con somewhat earlier than I would have otherwise.

Comic-Con 2008 - Fourth day

Arrived at the Convention Center around 9:00 AM, and before entering powered up my camera and was astonished to see it displaying a message to the effect of "Can not record". Powered off, opened the door for the storage card, and yep, it was not there. After my head exploded from that shock, I realized what had happened. The evening before I had decided to copy to my computer photos I had taken of the Con up to then, in order to use them as memory aids while I typed up preliminary blog entries. So, after I had done that copying and removed the card reader from the computer, I had simply kept the card in the reader.

I did some thinking about where near the Convention Center I could purchase a new card. I walked the four or so blocks to the Longs Drug Store at Horton Plaza, and obtained there a 1-GB card for less than $20. Not bad.

First panel I went to Sunday was another one for DC Comics -- DC Nation: One Weekend Later. My interest here being the promise of a major announcement. Dan DiDio was again the moderator, but this panel was mostly composed of DC editors and managers. The hour was composed of reviewing the DC panel's that had occurred earlier and a questions-and-answers session. The big announcement? That Neil Gaiman is writing a Batman story. Sweet.

Also went to an annual Comic-Con Sunday event: Starship Smackdown. Like the annual events I wrote about in the post for Comic-Con third day, I've also never been to this before, so no clue from the description in the program exactly what might occur. This deals with what is the best starship, so I had thought that perhaps there would be computer generated videos of famous starships battling each other.

Not so much. What this turned out to be was the nearest thing to anarchy I saw the entire Con! Firstly, a list of 10 well-known starships was written down on a white board. Six more starships were needed on the list, which was thrown to the audience, and that's when things started getting wild. Names of other starships being shouted out, the moderator and panel accepting or rejecting (for all kinds of reasons) them, boos and cheers from the audience for the decisions.

The moderator and panel then began discussing which of each pair of starships (as written down on the whiteboard) would be the survivor in a battle, all to more shouting, booing, and cheering from the audience.

After the first round dropped half of the starships, the moderator introduced a random element to add to the remaining starships: a captain for each one. Names of 20 captains had been written on slips of paper and were pulled out of a hat one the panelists had worn. Included in the first seven captains selected were: Captain Merrill Stubing of "The Love Boat", and the Captain and Tennille. The audience loved those. For the final captain, the moderator read out the names of all remaining captains and asked the audience to select which one to use by cheering. And the selection was: Cap'n Crunch! Good times, good times.

Now, for the first time ever, the Smackdown had another panel running immediately after it, so the moderator was for the first time did not have the luxury of allowing discussion and voting on which starship survives each battle to run long, and had to press the panel to finish in the allotted time.

The final decision on victorious starship was: the Star Wars Imperial Star Destroyer, as captained by James T. Kirk!

Here are my fourth day photos.

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.

Comic-Con 2008 - Second day

First panel I went to Friday was for Batman: Brave and the Bold, a new cartoon coming out this fall on Cartoon Network. I was curious how it might be dealing with Batman in a way that might be unique.

The panel was comprised of producers Sam Register and James Tucker (Tucker seems to be the big ideas guy for this cartoon), writer Michael Jelenic, director Brandon Vietti, voice director Andrea Romano, and voice actor Diedrich Bader, who does the voice of Batman in this cartoon.

The new take on Batman being done in this instance is:

• Does not take place in Gotham City.
• Does not use Alfred.
• Does not use Commissioner Gordon.
• Does not use Robin.
• Has Batman teaming up with generally lesser known DC heroes.
• Has Batman fighting against generally lesser known DC villains.
• Does not take a dark tone, as it needs to be child friendly.

A very entertaining video was shown of short clips from the cartoon.

Also went to Spotlight on Connie Willis. I've enjoyed many of her novels, so definitely wanted to see and hear her at this.

She was first given one of Comic-Con's own achievement awards, the Inkpots.

She then talked about what she is currently is working on, especially a novel that she has had in the works for more than 10 years, All Clear, and is hoping to have wrapped up and on the way to her editor within 4 weeks.

She also talked about other writing she has plans to do, a couple stories and then a novel.

She then took questions, which got her talking at length about her passion for history and incorporating it into her science fiction, about writing comedy science fiction, and other topics.

Here are my second day photos.

Comic-Con 2008 - First day

Attended three panel discussions.

The Gene Roddenberry Legacy: Roddenberry in the 21st Century

Hosted by Gene Roddenberry's son Rod, with Trevor Roth, COO of Roddenberry Productions, and Paul Keller, editor of a feature documentary that firm is creating, Trek Nation.

Discussed Gene Roddenberry's philosophy, that he imbued it into everything he did in television, and how Roddenberry productions is bringing it into the 21st century. In addition to talking about the documentary, also discussed two web-based comics that are hosted by Roddenberry.com, Gene's Journal and Rod and Barry.

And to wrap up the hour, they revealed a large object that had been sitting in the front of the room covered during the session: a functioning replica of the captain's chair from the original Star Trek series. It was announced this chair would be given away to Roddenberry.com's member of the year.

30th Anniversary Battlestar Galactica Panel

Hosted by Richard Hatch, who was Captain Apollo on the original Battlestar Galactica ("BG" for the rest of this post), and Tom Zarek on the current version. With Bear McCreary, music composer for the current series; Tom DeSanto, a producer who had been involved with development of a proposed BG series that would have been a continuation of the original series, and Dr. Kevin Grazier, science consultant for the current series.

Interesting discussion of both the original and current versions of BG. Included a development video for the proposed series mentioned above. It was explained the story would have taken place 20 years after the end of the original series, with the humans believing they had evaded the Cylons permanently, and having given up the search for Earth to established a successful new colony.

There was also a very funny video from Bear McCreary spoofing his role as music composer for the current series.

Science Fiction That Will Change Your Life

Hosted by science fiction blog io9.com. Panel was composed of three of io9's editors, Annalee Newitz, Graeme McMillian, and Charlie Jane Anders; and author Austin Grossman, and Patrick Lee, editor of Sci-Fi Wire.

The panelists each spoke at length about works of science fiction that had inspired them to change perceptions or how they approach life.

Here are my photos from the first day.

Comic-Con 2008 - Preview Night

Arrived by trolley at the Convention Center a little after 5 PM for Preview Night to find truly monumental lines of people outside the building. Which startled me because I recall the last Preview Night I went to, a couple years ago, I went straight into the building and fairly quickly got through the process of getting my badge.

So, I went with others I had been on the trolley with to find the end of the line, which took some doing, as the lines were very confusing; they just seemed to be going all over the place. Eventually a security person was found who was saying "End of the line here! End of the line here!"

And I proceeded to shuffle forward a few feet every three or four minutes. Until a little after 6 PM, when all of a sudden the line started moving continuously forward at quite a brisk pace. After that it was a matter of just a few minutes to get my badge and then be in the exhibit area to start looking around.

As I've been typing this up, it's occurred to me what the change in policy for Preview Night between 2006 and 2008 must have been. In 2006 if you got your badge before 6 PM, you then had to wait in the lobby areas of the exhibit area until 6 PM to get in the actual exhibit area. (As I recall, the doors were actually opened at least 10 minutes late.) Which meant the lobby areas got very, very crowded. I'm thinking that between Convention Center management and Comic-Con management it must have decided that was unacceptable and Preview Night procedures were thus changed to start badge processing and open the exhibit area all at the same time, thus allowing a smooth flow of people into the exhibit area.

The highlight of the evening was purchasing the two books that have been produced by the creator of the web-based comic Octopus Pie, Meredith Gran, and getting a sketch and signature in each of them done right there and then by the artist herself! Very nice.

Here are my Preview Night photos.

Huh?

Arrived at the San Diego Trolley system's station at Qualcomm Stadium a little after 8:30 AM today to take the ride to the Convention Center for the first day of Comic-Con.

This station is elevated above the Stadium's parking lot, which basically means one can possibly park under the structure of the station itself. I've gotten into the habit of doing so under the eastern section of the structure. But when I approached that area this morning, I was waved off by security guards, which was the first surprise. So, I went around to the western section to park and proceeded into the station.

Next surprise was after purchasing a trolley boarding pass for the four days of Comic-Con. I spotted several police SWAT officers exiting their vehicle, which had parked under the western area of the station's structure.

I then spotted several men walking away from the station to a position where they lined up and each placed his hands on top of his head with fingers interlaced, a position I equate with the person being arrested.

So, I'm wondering: What is going on here?

I glanced back towards the men 2 or 3 minutes later and saw all of them drop their hands from their heads, walk over to another spot, and then huddle up for what was obviously some sort of discussion.

That's when the light came on: This must have all been some sort of police training exercise!

Comic-Con 2008 approaches

Image by boooooooorbs via Flickr

As a follow-up to this post, and my comments in it that an option for three-day registrations would be available for the 2008 edition of San Diego Comic-Con: WRONG.

I have no idea if I misinterpreted what was written in the booklet I mentioned in the earlier post, or if there was a change in policy, but turns out three-day registrations are not being offered for this year after all. Which I think is unfortunate.

Due to various factors I won't get into here, up until recently I had thought I wasn't going to have enough free time to attend more than one day this year, but circumstances shifted. So:

• I bought a four-day membership.
• Will plan on trying to get most of my shopping done during preview night.
• Will skip going Saturday.
• And will try to plan out in advance what panels and events to go to Thursday, Friday, and Sunday.
• On top of all that I've reserved a vacation day for the Monday after to help ensure I've recovered from it all before going back to my job.

Comic-Con 2007

For job-related reasons I was only able to attend the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con on the weekend sessions (July 28 and 29). After last year's nasty experience with the Saturday session, I knew I didn't want to do that again any time soon. So, I made an on-line registration for July 29.

Related to that, I was pleased to see in the final information booklet the Comic-Con organization mailed out for this year's convention that as a direct result of the many complaints they had received about conditions during Saturday sessions they had created a new registration choice: A three-day registration option for the Thursday, Friday, and Sunday sessions. This new option includes eligibility for entry to the Wednesday preview night in the exhibits hall, which previously was only available to those who registered for all four days.

Assuming I do have the time available next year, I will definitely use the three-day registration option.

Now, getting to what occurred July 29. The one panel I definitely wanted to go to was one in the morning that was going to discuss the life and work of the late comics artist Jack Kirby. I was especially attracted to this panel because it was going to include Neil Gaiman, who has become one of my favorite writers, both of graphic novels and prose novels and stories. I have recently read his graphic novel Eternals, which is based on ideas and art by Jack Kirby.

I must admit to not having experienced (to my knowledge) Kirby's art, but the Gaiman tie-in was enough of an attraction to make me interested in this panel.

The panel was composed of writer Mark Evanier (who moderated), Gaiman, artist Erik Larsen , writer and artist Darwyn Cooke, and the attorney for Kirby's estate, Paul Levine. Gaiman has a reputation for normally dressing entirely in black, and that held true here. Here is a photo I took of Evanier, Gaiman, and Larsen:


(Apologies about the bad photo - turned out I had my camera incorrectly set for the lighting in the room.)

Before starting the panel discussion Evanier went into the audience to introduce a few people who knew Kirby in person, including his daughter Lisa, who is executer of his estate.

The discussion was very interesting for the fondness and enthusiasm the participants very clearly have for Kirby and his work. Gaiman talked about his working from concepts and characters Kirby had created to write the script for Eternals.

I was interested to note before and after this panel that the area that most of the rooms that panel discussions are held in had been set-up with an eye to improving the flow of foot traffic - this was new for 2007. This area has four corridors that run it's length; they were set-up to alternate as entry and exit corridors, and convention center and security personnel were enforcing their being used as such. I saw there was still a tendency (which I had seen in previous years) for groups to stop and congregate in the corridors for discussions, which can be somewhat disruptive to foot traffic, but I think the basic idea of alternating entry and exit corridors was working.

After completion of the panel about Jack Kirby I went to the Convention Center's Sails Pavilion to sit down at the large number of tables and chairs that are always set up in one area for Comic-Con and ate the lunch I had brought with me.

My plan was to then venture down to the exhibit hall floor and browse the large booths a couple book stores set up each year. One of those booths, for Mile High Comics (which has the same prime location in the exhibit hall every year, right inside some of the main entrance doors) was full with a solid wall of people. The other one, for Comic Relief, was much less jammed so I entered it to look for titles I was interested in, and found nothing. I had thought it likely that was going to be the case, what with all the previous days people would have had to go through the stock these stores had brought, but had thought I might as well try. After that I decided to do some wandering of the hall to see what might catch my eye for photo taking.


The crowds seemed to be just about as heavy as I've experienced in the exhibit hall in previous years.


Full-size statue of Jabba the Hutt, with a model posing as captive Princess Leia.


It's Batman. Made entirely of Legos.


I guess some people just had to touch it to prove to themselves those were Legos!


A Legos Transformer.

One resolution I made after this visit to the exhibit hall is that if I do indeed use the three-day registration next year, I'll probably get the bulk of my shopping and looking around the hall done during the preview night!

After that the only other plan I had was to go to the playing of a video record of the convention's annual masquerade, which occurs Saturday night each year. The manager of the masquerade and some people who work for him took a few questions and complaints (and responded to them) from people who had participated in it the night before, then ran the recording. This was fun, but during it I developed a really nasty headache for some reason, and decided to leave before it ended.

That wraps up this report!

Comic-Con International 2006: Part the fourth

July 22

Comes the flood (of people)! The Saturday session of each Comic-Con has become very notorious for having MANY more people attend then any of three other days (as I noted in the initial entry about this year's Con.) So much so that I considered skipping it entirely this year and attending on Sunday instead.

I finally decided that I was going to make an effort to confront my traditional reaction to very crowded situations (getting super stressed).

As it turned out, I should have skipped Saturday and gone on Sunday instead. What really caused me to stress out even more than the astonishing crowds was getting a good look at the sanitary conditions in the Convention Center. To be blunt, there were no where near enough janitors on duty. They were completely unable to keep up with the amounts of trash that were being generated and the amounts of usage the restrooms were getting. I found that to be rather alarming.

Well, at least I was able to get to one really good presentation. This was a talk by the artist Shag, during which he commented about and showed photos of his life and how his personal artistic style grew and developed over the years. I think Shag's art is very entertaining, so I was happy to see and hear him in person.

It's way too early for me to say if I will or will not go to Comic-Con next year, but if I do I will most definitely not go on the Saturday!

(Part the third)
(Part the second)
(Part the first)

(My photos of the Con are available here.)

Comic-Con International 2006: Part the third

JULY 21

A highlight on Friday was the Bruce Timm Retrospective; I greatly enjoy the style of animation he created for multiple Warner Bros. series that were based on characters in the DC Comics universe. This retrospective was done largely as an interview. The interviewer (whose name I unfortunately failed to make a note of) asked Timm questions about multiple aspects of the series, and he replied with lots of details.

A "clips reel" of highlights from each of his series for Warner Bros. was also shown, which the audience loved.

But the really BIG event on Friday was a presentation on the new movie "Snakes on a Plane." This occurred in the Hall H that I wrote about earlier. I knew that would likely fill up all 6500 seats, at least partly due to the fact the big star of the movie, Samuel L. Jackson, was going to attend. Another factor being the incredible build-up about the movie that has occurred on the Web for the last several months.

I admittedly got into the admission line late. By the time I was in the line, it was running along a considerable portion of the outside of the Convention Center, going around a corner of the building to one side of it, doubling back, going back around the corner, going inside, then doing some more snaking around (I know, bad pun! Sorry) before finally going into the Hall. So, by the time I was in the Hall, I ended up in a seat quite a long ways toward the back. Which was no worry because there were many large video screens hanging from the ceiling to display live what was happening on the stage, thanks to at least one camera that was near the stage.

The presentation for "Snakes on a Plane" was hosted by Kenan Thompson, who acted in the movie. First guest was David R. Ellis, the movie's director. The two of them chatted about making the movie, then the movie's chief snake handler, Jules Sylvester, came out to show some of the actual snakes that had been used during filming. He first came out carrying an albino python on his shoulders, that was one of the larger variety of pythons. After talking about snakes in general (including emphasizing that snakes are NOT trainable, so he prefers not to be referred to as a snake trainer. Oh, and he said he brought 450 snakes to the start of filming, and when filming completed, he had 500 snakes. :-) ), he moved the albino to the director's shoulders, and then brought out another python of the same type that had standard coloring.
After putting away the two pythons he and four of his assistants brought out to the stage an example of one the larger varieties of anacondas. All these people were needed because it was about 9-feet long (and not full grown)! Wow.

A major surprise was then unveiled. Namely, the world premier of a 10-minute continuous clip from the middle of the movie! As the lights went down, an announcement was made that there was to be NO photography of the video screens while the clip ran, which I thought was understandable. I'll just say about the clip that it was VERY intense. It really impressed me, and solidified my desire to see the film when it does come out in theaters, which will be August 18, 2006.

As the clip ended, and just before the lights came up again, we heard the one line from the movie that the Internet has already made famous. (For those who may object to profanity, I'll just provide a link to a site that reveals the line.) The lights came up, and there was Samuel L. Jackson, microphone to mouth. The crowd loved it!

The remainder of the presentation was lots of fun: Jackson answering several questions from Thompson about the movie, and the whole panel answering questions from several members of the audience.

(Part the fourth)
(Part the second)
(Part the first)

(My photos of the Con are available here.)

Comic-Con International 2006: Part the second

JULY 20

The highlight of Thursday for myself was the formal presentation by the U.S. Postal Service of a new set of stamps that feature superhero characters from DC Comics. I am NOT a stamp collector, but I have become a fan of DC Comics, so that made me curious to see the presentation.

When I entered the meeting room this happened in, I was pleased to find each person was getting a free first day of issue cover that had one of the stamps on it, along with the unique cancellation mark that was only available July 20 in San Diego post offices and at the Con.
For each of the selected superheroes, there are two stamps:

1. A reproduction of a comic book cover that featured that superhero.
2. A portrait of the superhero.

The stamp on the cover I was given was the reproduction of a comic book cover for the superhero Green Lantern. Here is a photo I took of it.

The presentation included remarks by a couple USPS officials from Washington, D.C., concerning the general process of selecting what images will go on commemorative stamps, and specifically about working with DC Comics on preparing this set. There were also remarks from the president/publisher of DC Comics.

A very nice touch was that the artist who had created each image was there, or in those cases where the artist could not be there, a member of their family was present, and each of them was asked to stand to be recognized by the audience.

(Part the fourth)
(Part the third)
(Part the first)

(My photos of the Con are available here.)

Comic-Con International 2006: Part the first

Each year in July San Diego hosts Comic-Con International, a gigantic four-day blowout of popular culture. I had attended the previous two years on the Saturday only. As I learned, the Saturday session is always by far the most heavily attended of the four days, and as a result I found the experiences overwhelming, at least partly due to my tendency to get very stressed in highly crowded situations.

So, this year I decided I'd try attending all four days, and hopefully get a better experience by spreading it out. I preregistered through the Con's web site earlier this year. Registration confirmation letters were sent out in June to everyone who registered for the four days up until that point in time. The point of sending such letters at that time only to the 4-day registrants is that those people are admitted (if they wish) to a Preview Night on the Wednesday evening before the Con officially starts.

Preview Night involves admission to the Exhibit Hall.

The major areas of the San Diego Convention Center are exhibit halls on the first floor, and various sizes of meeting rooms and spaces and ballrooms on the second floor. There are eight exhibit halls, designated as halls A through H. Basically, each hall can be used on it's own, or any number of the halls can be used together, all determined by positioning of sliding barriers. For Comic-Con, halls A through G are used together as one gigantic exhibit hall. (Hall H is used for major events about specific topics; during the Con is seats up to 6500. I'll go into more detail about Hall H later, as I did attend one event there.)

On Preview Night (July 19 this year), the Exhibit Hall is open from 6 PM to 9 PM. This Hall is used by all manner of people and businesses that hope to sell their goods and/or show off new material that is not yet ready for sale to people who attend the Con. During Preview Night, they have their booths staffed and ready to make sales. Examples of the businesses:

• Brick-and-mortar vendors of comics and/or book-based comic collections
• Publishers of comics and/or book-based comic collections
• Other book publishers
• Web-based businesses related to comics
• Publishers of board games
• Makers of electronic games hardware
• Artists
• Costume makers
• Jewelry makers
• Cable television channels
• Movie studios

...and more.

I wandered through the Hall and purchased several comic-collection books.

One highlight of the evening was that shortly after the doors opened a woman came on the PA system and said (sounding very irritated): "There is no running allowed in the Convention Center. Yes, I mean you in the green and white baseball cap!" (Approximate quote.) That got lots of laughs.

(Part the fourth)
(Part the third)
(Part the second)

(My photos of the Con are available here.)

Keenspot: A Web Site Review

In my report about Comic-Con, I mentioned going to a panel discussion that had some of the creators of web comics that are based at Keenspot. In this post I'm going to take a look at Keenspot itself.

Keenspot hosts over 50 comics and Flash cartoons. At present, I follow about 15 of the comics. I wrote "at present" because Keenspot has always had a policy of not interfering when a creator decides to take his/her comic independent. Which means I have continued to follow several comics after they have at one point or another left Keenspot.

There are other hosts of multiple web comics; so why do I follow Keenspot comics? To be blunt, one point is because Keenspot does not charge for full access to the comics. Unlike other sites which allow the most current edition of a comic to be viewed free of charge, but to view the archives of comics they host, one has to pay a subscription fee. I tend to be cheap and look for good free alternatives whenever possible, whether it's a matter of viewing web comics or selecting software.

Another point is that I feel Keenspot simply attracts quality comics. Of course, as I noted above, sometimes the creators of those quality comics choose to go elsewhere. Which brings me to another good point about Keenspot: it frequently recruits comics to join the firm. Thus being able to find new (for me) web comics at this one source can be great fun.

So, all in all, for anyone interested in comics, I heartily recommend Keenspot as a good site to find new ones to follow.

The Comic-Con report

My one day at Comic-Con for this year had ups and downs, but overall I enjoyed it. I'm thinking for next year I am going to want to schedule vacation for the week it will be running in and go more than one day. Discussion of why later in this post.

I had preregistered via the Comic-Con web site. Thanks to doing so, I was pleased to find I could sail right past the extremely long line that was waiting to register by displaying my printed confirmation to Convention Center personnel and proceed directly to the check-in area for preregistered folks. Yay for preregistring!

I decided first thing to do was go to the exhibit halls and wander the aisles for a while. That did not last real long. The numbers of people in the those areas of the Center were just incredible. An example of the problems thus created: All vendors who were selling or displaying anything Star Wars related had been grouped together in one area that was labeled the "Star Wars Pavilion." While I was trying to walk around this area, I found myself in the middle of one spot where foot traffic was so dense I was unable to move in any direction for at least 30 seconds. After that I had had quite enough of the exhibit halls!

So, that is one of the factors in my thinking I'll want to do more than one day of Comic-Con next year; my understanding is that Saturday is always by far the most crowded of the four days the con runs every year. So, I am assuming the exhibit halls will be more reasonable to get through on the Thursday and Friday next year.

This year I wanted to experience a few of the seminars and panel discussions that are held in the many meeting rooms that are on second floor of the Convention Center, above the exhibit halls. So:

• I am a casual fan of the "Teen Titans" animated series. One of the larger meeting rooms had a session for the writers of the series and for the voice actors, in separate panels, one after the other. The room was packed with fans of the series, and sitting in on that session was very enjoyable.
• I visited a room that was showing short animations by independent filmmakers.
• I went to a panel discussion for web comic artists who are associated with the web site Keenspot. I follow a fairly large number of web comics, and several of them are part of Keenspot. So, I was curious to see and hear some of these artists, and to also hear the promised news about corporate developments at Keenspot. This session was lots of fun. For instance, for one question, the panel answered by singing opera; several members of the panel had excellent singing voices! For another question, the panel was required by the moderator to include an "interpretive dance" in their answers; the definitions of "interpretive dance" got pretty bizarre.

So, another reason I'll be wanting to attend more than one day next year will be to simply get to more of these panel discussion sessions.

Here is a quickly put together album of the usable photos I took at the con yesterday.

Brief Comic-Con report

Just back from Comic-Con. Much better experience this year (see earlier post about Comic-Con about last year.) I'll work on writing up more tomorrow.

Comes the con

Comic-Con, that is.

Every year in July, San Diego Comic-Con International occurs for four days, including a weekend, at the San Diego Convention Center. This has over the years become a mammoth event that attracts tens of thousands from around the world and occupies the entire Convention Center.

It deals with comics obviously, but also with many other topics: science fiction, fantasy, horror, cartoons, art and artists, writers, films, gaming, television, anime, and on and on.

Last year I attended the Con for the first time ever, during the Saturday session. As might be expected, Saturday is easily the most crowded of the four days the Con runs. I was thoroughly overwhelmed by the whole thing that first visit!

Having gotten some idea for myself of the scope of the whole thing last year, I decided I'd try it again this year and hopefully have a better experience. This year's Con is running right now; once again the Saturday is the only day I really have free to go. So, this year I'm really hoping to get lots of photos and attend at least a few of the many seminars. One big lesson I learned when I went last year is that buying food in the Convention Center is a big mistake; what is offered is insanely overpriced! There are plenty of other options for getting food within a reasonable walking distance of the Convention Center. So, I'll be doing that and/or bringing my own food in a backpack. And I'll also definitely bring a water bottle with me!