Okay, a very brief linkage of some of the points of interest we saw during yesterday’s recovery time:
§ Douglas Wolk reviewed >ASTERIOS POLYP for the NY Times, in a review Scott McCloud deemed “insightful.”
§ This Booth Babe business is pretty annoying.
§ Here’s that letter by Chuck Rozanski everyone is talking about.
§ i09 asks Who Won Comic Con’s Buzz Wars? and doesn’t mention a single comic book. However, this quote is worth parsing for its implications;
Look at last year — Comic Con 2008 had a clear winner (Watchmen) and a clear loser (The Spirit). And the bad exposure at Comic Con definitely hurt The Spirit, but it’s hard to argue the event helped Watchmen all that much. Meanwhile, Star Trek stayed away from Comic Con 2008, and did better than almost any movie that actually did panels there. (Looking back, Wolverine did a panel, and it grossed less than Trek domestically.)
§ ComicMix has a few #SDCC: Overheard at San Diego Comic type posts. We LOVE those!
§ Letterer extraordinare Todd Klein posts a series of >“What I did at the con” styles that make it very, very clear why going to the show IS still cool:
My last event of the con was a panel by writer/artist Bryan Talbot about his upcoming new graphic novel, Grandville. Here he is holding an advance copy, it will be out this fall. Of all the new projects I heard about at the con, I think this is the one I’m most looking forward to reading. As Bryan described it, imagine a detective along the lines of Sherlock Holmes, but in turn of the century France, and in a story that might have been directed by Quentin Tarantino, but with the lush, detailed art no one can do so well as Bryan. And, the characters are anthropomorphized animals. Bryan’s talk was on all the influences and similar approaches that inspired him, from 18th-century political broadsides to Beatrix Potter, to Rupert the Bear, and right up through Dave Sim’s Cerebus. Bryan’s work on the 98-page story is incredible, and I urge you not to miss it.
§ A nice round-up of con observations
§ This fan — who spent $50 on babysitting for a panel they would never get in to — had a pretty crap time at Comic-Con. Even allowing for post con bitching and moaning, this experience doesn’t sound like much fun:
have to have spent the ENTIRE day in one room if I wanted to see this panel. In essence I could have to have been there for SIX hours with no chance of doing anything else at the con. I know true fans will say that camping out is a tradition, and that I’m being a whiny baby. I say anyone paying fifty bucks for a single day ticket, and another fifty for daycare should be entitled to more than sore feet and lingering bitterness.
§ And yet…Keith Chow had a SWELL time!
When I did manage to navigate through hordes trying to get free swag and gawking at various booth babes and celebs, it was pretty maddening. (Quick tip: when trying to blow some steam off after being stressed out, walking the exhibit halls is not the way to go.) They’re not exaggerating about this place being packed to the gills. Making your way to, say, Artists’ Alley requires planning, preparation and patience. And blisters on your feet. Fortunately, being an exhibitor allowed me to gain access to the halls before the doors were open, and this was the best time to check out all the studios’ elaborate booths, though they were not open to offering their free (or even not free) swag until doors opened. Boo!
§ Perhaps Ming Doyle’s way is the best.
I agree that spending time and money to wait exclusively for one panel IS a waste of time, and this is why everyone should ask themselves ahead of time if that’s really how they want to enjoy SDCC. I’d just as soon read the news here after the fact.
Wolk makes much the same observations about style in ASTERIOS POLYP that Fulton and Rogers did in their reviews, but he’s less critical about the overall results:
Another question is: Since a graphic novel is a combination of words and art, shouldn’t the words work as well as the artwork does? If they don’t, then the result is somewhat the same as a superhero comic with dynamic, heroic figures, but little story content — or concrete poetry that has doggerel forming the impressive shape. Does Polyp exist to serve the artwork, or does the artwork exist to serve Polyp?
I’ll be getting ASTERIOS POLYP this week, assuming that a local bookstore has a copy.
SRS
I spent the five days of Comic-Con following it via Google News. There was very little comics reportage featured via news feeds. Most of it centered around media, with Twilight, Alice in Wonderland, Tron, and Avatar being the primary winners. (Feel free to do your own keyword survey.)
Regarding the fewer freebies and carny huckstering, it could be a result of tighter budgets. I doubt CCI imposed behavior modification.
And the EA fiasco… the above link got filtered by work, so here’s a more friendly link:http://tradeskill.blogspot.com/
Did anyone attend the panel at the end of the con where people can complain to Con management?
What did people think about Kim Munson’s panel on the Comic Art Show and related topics?
SRS
While I sympathize with the person who couldn’t make it into the Iron Man panel, I think the story is a bit exaggerated.
I posted this on that blog (awaiting moderation):
I totally sympathize with what happened in your situation. I wanted to watch the Avatar panel, but gave up when I saw the enormous line an hour before it was going to start.
I did make it into the Iron Man panel, however, and luckily it did not require being there six hours early. A little over 2 and a half hours, but not six hours.
Going by my text message logs from the day, I lined up at 1:20 PM. Got in by 1:40. Watched the Extract panel. Watched the Sony panel. The Iron Man panel started at 4 PM. So 2 hours 40 minutes to get in. It was fairly full by the time I got in, but people were getting in for at least an hour or so after.
My girlfriend lined up at 1:06 and had a seat by 1:18. Her texts are why I decided to try the line.
Are you sure you were there at 1 PM and in the right place? By my experience, and by how many people were still coming in after me (I was by the entrance), I’d guess that if you had lined up as late as 1:30-1:45, you had a shot at making it in.
It’s time to return the Comic-Con to it’s original intent. I’m finding fewer and fewer reasons to go, as it becomes less and less about comics. I know people think now that this convention has hit the main steam, that it is better. I couldn’t disagree more. Hollywood needs to go away and have their own love fest.
There are so many disturbingly bad trends occurring, that it has ruined what I once enjoy about the convention. It is way too big and chaotic, and I feel like soon the name will be changed, and more and more corporations will take over and just crush any of the original intentions of the Comic-Con. Please someone, start a new convention and return it to it’s original roots! This one is a bloated beast and needs to be destroyed, before it consumes everything in it’s path.
Ah… the last time I attended was in… 2002? I was helping the always enjoyable and interesting Trina Robbins at her booth in Hall F, home to the small press tables. That was the frontier, with Halls G and H closed off, the corridor at that end somewhat empty and forlorn. During that show, I felt the distances were too great, that the Convention Center should install a monorail so one would not need to trek to Hall A or the meeting rooms upstairs. Now, with crowds, the entire Center being used… I can’t imagine.
“There was very little comics reportage featured via news feeds. Most of it centered around media, with Twilight, Alice in Wonderland, Tron, and Avatar being the primary winners.”
Isn’t comics a medium too?
“It’s time to return the Comic-Con to it’s original intent. I’m finding fewer and fewer reasons to go, as it becomes less and less about comics. I know people think now that this convention has hit the main steam, that it is better. I couldn’t disagree more. Hollywood needs to go away and have their own love fest.
“There are so many disturbingly bad trends occurring, that it has ruined what I once enjoy about the convention. It is way too big and chaotic, and I feel like soon the name will be changed, and more and more corporations will take over and just crush any of the original intentions of the Comic-Con. Please someone, start a new convention and return it to it’s original roots! This one is a bloated beast and needs to be destroyed, before it consumes everything in it’s path.”
Like Comic-Con and TheBlob-Con?
Comments are closed.