I arrived in San Diego off of a 45 minute flight that took 3+ hours. I then took the shuttle from my hotel which took forever. I walked into the San Diego Convention Center relieved and sweaty as hell. If it were any more humid I could start swimming.
My first task was to go retrieve my pre-registered badge. As we were pulling up to the spaceship looking convention center we could see the hundreds of poor unfortunates who hadn't pre-registered lining up around the building standing in the direct sunlight. That line of people always gives me the willies, thinking I could never last the 2 to 3 hours in line it normally takes to get in.
I walk up to the pre-registered desk to find that the good news is that they have really streamlined the whole process of issuing badges. The bad news is that they have really streamlined the whole process of issuing badges. They got that whole line of people outside checked in so fast that the whole showroom floor was wall to wall bodies dressed in some kind of geek uniform. Normally, the first couple of days of the show people kind of trickle in and the crowd slowly builds up until when Saturday rolls around I'm ready to start whirling my arms around like a human windmill, taking out any stormtroopers or elves in my path. My friend and I were in the main hall for about ten minutes when I turned to him and said that it already felt like Saturday and I wasn't ready to start swinging my guns. So we held onto each other like a coupla' girly boys as we were swept away on the sea of nerds.
We spent the rest of the day trying to cover as much ground as possible. After about 5 hours of walking, talking and taking pictures we covered a little less than half of the main hall. That's how big this bitch is. Of course it doesn't help that I get easily distracted by all the pretty artwork, getting to meet some of my idols in the art world and the, ahem, occasional "booth babe".
Another pursuit of mine that eats up my time on the floor is trying to obtain smiley faces in my little Smiley Face sketch book. I have found over the years that it is hard and intimidating to ask an artist you look up to draw you some image on request. I feel bad because it?s what they do for a living. It's like going up to somebody and saying, "So nice to meet you, now get to work." I know it's just me but that's how I feel. So, who can't take a quick little minute and draw a smiley face? It's quick, it's easy and it's all I ask. Any creativity they bring to the table is their own artist's ego at work. And that's how I get some neat little works of art that are unique and fun to show to friends. I won't go into every sketch I got today, but the highlight was meeting my art god, Dave McKean. I bought his latest sketch book, which he signed, and then asked him to contribute to my smiley face collection. He looked at me like I was daft and asked about four times, "A smiley face? All you want is a smiley face?" Nope Mr. McKean, not the Mona Lisa, just a smiley face would make me happy. His artistic ego got the better of him.
All the pics are in the gallery, but you can also see all the captions for the beauties, the geeks and the art gods I met today at our Flickr site.
I arose from my short 3 hours of sleep on Friday morning to get prepared for an even longer day at the show. My friend Albert and I headed over to the bus stop by our hotel to get the shuttle to the Convention Center. Among the people waiting for the bus was a guy wearing a baseball cap with an Arizona flag on it. I began talking to him and found out he was an artist from Tucson. After a little more small talk he slowly revealed to me his area of interest and expertise, Furries or anthropomorphic characters. Now we?re not talking Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny here, we?re talking humanized versions of animals as a genre. This guy starts bellyaching about how misunderstood and looked down upon the genre is and how he really wants to see somebody make something that will bring them a little more mainstream street cred. I couldn?t help myself though; I had to start a debate with him. After awhile I got him to pretty much admit that as much as he wanted to be taken seriously, ultimately the majority of Furry fans, including himself, have some kind of sexual interest involved. I was about to call him Pig Fucker and spit in his face but then the bus arrived. (Disclaimer: I am all for anybodies sexual preferences or slants, as long as it's consensual between adults or an adult and their half human half animal lover I say play ball.)
Some of you may be asking, "But Joel, where's the coverage from the Go-Bots Movie panel?" Well, I've learned over the years that waiting in line for 3 hours to get into a giant room to see some movie star projected on an overhead screen from across the room just isn't worth the wait. In some parts of the world they call that a movie. No, if you want coverage of those events go to www.aintitcoolnews.com or about 5 million other sites that think like everybody else ComiCon is not really about comics. As great as it is for comics to get more recognition and to some degree respect, the sad fact is that there is an even greater degree of it being pushed aside for what other people think is more important. I've only been going to the ComiCon for 5 years now, but even in that time I have seen the movie and video game industry take over the show more and more each year.
Friday at the Con had a surprising amount of costumed people walking around. Usually you see a lot of them on Saturday because that is the night they hold the Masquerade Ball and Costume Contest. But on Friday you could throw a rock and hit some chick dressed up as an elf. I know because I did it several times.
I guess I've been going to the ComiCon long enough that I've made a few friends that I see there each year. What surprised me was how many people that I kind of know in Tucson that were at the show. There were a few friends of mine that I knew would be there on official business. My friend and former Tucson based illustrator Leah Tiscione (www.leahtiscione.com) was there to sell her very first comic that she collaborated on with online sex symbol, Maddox (www.maddox.xmission.com). I visited them at their booth and was happy to find out that the comic was already starting to sell out. F.O.B.s (Friends of Bookmans), Top Shelf Comix, were there selling the complete and finally finished Lost Girls by Alan Moore and his wife Melinda Gebbie. It looked beautiful, thanks to the care and attention to detail that publishers, Chris Starros and Brett Warnock invested in the project. Check it out at www. Topshelfcomix.com. Another longtime F.O.B., Last Gasp (www.lastgasp.com) were always very hectic and very popular due to the fact that they seemed to almost always be hosting a book signing by some cult favorite artist, including painter Mark Ryden.
Another thing I've observed at the show this year is that a lot of the companies like Lucasfilm and WETA who normally have huge hard to miss properties on the showroom floor had much smaller and subdued showings this year. Still impressive but very scaled down.
I was able to acquire a lot of good smiley faces in my collection today. I WILL get around to posting them somewhere sometime for anybody interested. The "Smiley Face" highlight among many for me today was one I wasn't expecting. I had just met and gotten a smiley from Mark Ryden thinking I couldn't top that when I noticed that one of the older cartoonists sitting at a booth was Jeff Keane, son of Bil Keane and model for Jeffy in the Family Circus cartoons. Now I grew up on Family Circus and to be quite honest it was how I learned to read. My mom used to buy me the old paperback collections at the Fedmart and I would crawl into whatever fort I built at the time out of couch cushions and read it all the way through. When you're 5 or 6 reading one of those held the same satisfaction as finishing a novel does for me now. Plus a six year old mind thinks the "Not Me" ghost is friggin hilarious. But as with most of us I got older and jaded by the world. I stopped seeing the humor that Bil Keane was selling through his portrayal of a good family. I began to like my humor dark and twisted. So when I saw Jeff Keane, who now draws and writes the strip with his dad, I thought the Irony of having such an upbeat cartoonist enter his page in my sketchbook after the darker artist Mark Ryden was too good to pass up. I began to tell Jeff the story of my mother helping me learn to read through his father's cartoons. A story he's heard from more than one person. As he sat there sketching and chatting with me about his dad, who lives in Scottsdale, I began reflecting on my mother and how much her encouragement through reading and art has made me who I am today. My mom died in 2000, but the 20 or so minutes I spent talking to Mr. Keane put me in touch with some of my fondest childhood memories.
To see Friday's photos go here:
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