The thing I’m learning about attending Comic Con is that you need to keep a pretty strict schedule to do all the things you want to do. That contradicts my somewhat laid-back approach and has resulted in a few missed opportunities. The flip side is that I’ve stayed pretty relaxed and have avoided crankiness.
Ben and I got started earlier than yesterday, though we still didn’t make it in time to see the first panel that I was interested in (Powerpuff Girls and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends). We decided to go stand in line to see a panel with Shaun of the Dead stars Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes, but the line was very, very long and snaked in and out of the building onto the veranda and we decided to skip it. I did get a free Stan Lee adverfan in the hallway, though. I don’t know what it’s really called, but it’s a sturdy paper cut-out of Stan Lee’s cartoon face stuck to a piece of wood that’s pimping a documentary of his life, True Believer. Advertising fan. Adverfan.
Other freebies I picked up today: a lot of button pins from various booths, a Ghost Hunters 4-inch statuette of Jason Hawes, a bright orange Nickelodeon slap bracelet, issue #1 of a comic called Burn, a paperback copy of Kushiel’s Scion by Jacqueline Carey (who signed it for me at the publisher’s booth), a Land of the Lost movie promo lanyard, an Attack of the Killer Tomatoes bag, and tons of random postcards.
I made it to three panels today. “Looking at Our World: Eye on the Present” was supposed to be about how authors use the supernatural in stories of contemporary society, but covered stuff that was sort of hit-or-miss according to my interests. Authors were Kelley Armstrong, L.A. Banks, Kate Brallier, Marjorie M. Liu, C.E. Murphy, Justine Musk, LIlith Saintcrow and Samantha Sommersby. I mostly went to that panel (with Ben in tow) so that I could squat a seat for the next panel, “The World of Graphic Novels.” Turns out that neither filled up, but oh well.
I learned a few interesting things from the author-illustrators on the second panel, but was disappointed that none of them were just writers or just illustrators. As a potential graphic novel writer, I’m interested in learning how writers can best collaborate with artists when their art skills don’t exactly fall under the umbrella of the word “talent.” The panelists were Nick Abadzis, Eddie Campbell, Rutu Modan, Alex Robinson, Adrian Tomine and it was moderated by Tom Spurgeon. I’d heard of Rutu Modan’s graphic novel, Exit Wounds, and she had a lot of interesting things to say. She’s Israeli but her book has not yet been published in Israel… the comics/graphic novel scene is almost nonexistent there and so she turned to the U.S. I recorded all these panel sessions and hope to be able to post them in some format on my website after I return home.
After the first two panels, Ben and I headed down to the exhibit hall to visit totally famous artist Katie Cook, a geek girl who we first met at Wizard World in 2004 when she drew a fun monster couple for us on the spot. I love her style, but she’s much busier these days so we settled for a signed print of her cartoony Darth Vader holding two small kitties with the caption “The Dark Side… is full of cat people.”
Then Ben and I split off and I happened to walk by the G4 tv channel booth… where Attack of the Show’s Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn were interviewing Samuel L. Jackson! I got a few crappy photos of him and my hands may have been visible in the background. I wanted to yell “Tell me more about your role in S.H.I.E.L.D.” but would have been drowned out by the retards who were just randomly screaming “SNAKES ON A PLANE!” Seriously, WTF. There was a mega horde of bodyguards surrounding him at all times.
From there, I walked around the exhibit hall and took lots of photos of cosplayers… even Barf from Spaceballs!
To be continued…