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| Entry tags: | comic con |
San Diego Comic Con 2006
Overall, this year’s Comic Con was a great show --just like pretty much every other San Diego Comic Con I’ve been to (I think 6 or 7 now). Full of ups and downs and chaos all around. I always try to channel that chaos into something either productive and/or fun (hopefully both), and not let the overwhelming commercialism of it crush me. Because ultimately the point of it all is to jump into the fray and self promote our little home-made comics on the same floor space as the mega-corporations movies, videogames and toy lines. No matter how crazy it gets, I still love comic books AND all the other pop culture stuff too (I went to the Dark Crystal 2 panel!).
And at the end of the 5 days... I’m always sad it is over! And thinking of what I can do next year to get more out of it!
The view from our hotel room in the Manchester Grand Hyatt. Raina and I arrived in San Diego Wednesday around noon. We got a chance to go swimming and enjoy poolside french fries while we waited for our friend/boothmate, John Green, to arrive.
Looking down on the Seaport Village, our favorite place to eat in San Diego. We eventually headed over to the convention center where we faced off against thousands of attendees in line.
As soon as I got into the convention center, I headed to the Slave Labor booth, to check out the promo poster for my new book, Agnes Quill!
John Green stands vigilant at the Cryptic Press/Take-Out Comics booth wearing a shirt promoting his zombie videogame, Nearly Departed.
Traffic in the small press pavilion was on and off throughout the weekend. Wednesday/Preview night was the most crowded I've ever seen it. But Thursday and Friday were kind of slow for us in terms of selling books. It seemed like people were interested in buttons, T-shirts, videogames and the various hand-crafted items at neighboring tables. But paper items that involved reading didn't seem as appealing.
Sales of our comics, mini-comics, trades etc. definitely picked up though on Saturday and Sunday, which was surprising considering how much competition there was in terms of awesome panels and events. But I tend to feel if there are more people, there is often more potential.
Here’s a Baby-sitters Club sketch Raina drew for a jam drawing that was going around.
On Thursday and Friday, I spent a few hours at the Flight Comics booth, signing copies of the newly released Flight 3. There were few breaks as books kept being passed down the line of contributors at the table. Seen in the photo above are Joey Weiser and Johane Matte!
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At one point I saw Joss Whedon walking down the aisle near our table. I was too chicken to take a picture with him but I did give him a complete set of Teen Boat mini comics!
The most popular cosplay choices this year seemed to be Shaun of the Dead, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, and The Corpse Bride. But I felt like I didn’t see as many costumes this year, even though I did see an ewok (FINALLY!) and this mini-sized Boba Fett! Naruto headbands also seem to keep growing in popularity.
Boba Fett's reveals his identity and makes a run for it!
There were definitely more young kids at this year's Comic Con than I can ever remember.
Which is perfect because…
Friday at 3:30 was the Nickelodeon Magazine Comic Carousel, an interactive panel that Chris Duffy, R. Sikoryak and I have been planning for weeks. It included cartoonist performers Sam Henderson, Lauren Weinstein, James Kochalka, Johnny Ryan, Steve Weissman, and Deep Orange: a cardboard box painted to look like an advanced computer.
Deep Orange reads a gag in his best Stephen Hawkin voice as Johnny Ryan contemplates his next move!
Everyone's bio pics up on the big screen.
Chris Duffy introduces the artists and gives some background info on the comics within Nickelodeon Magazine.
The first segment by R. Sikoryak was "Real Funny Estate." It featured famous comic strip characters visiting the homes of other comic strip characters and getting all mixed up. In game show style the audience was asked to fill in the blanks.
Every time the audience got a question right, this kid (with the help of his mom) rang the triangle.
The second installment featured 2 different "Scene But Not Heard" comic pages. Since it is usually pantomime, creator Sam Henderson and fellow cartoonist Lauren Weinstein improved some dialog on the spot. Then we asked two kids from the audience to create voices and sound effects for the second strip. Both did a really great job and got a lot of laughs from the crowd.
The third installment featured James Kochalka's Impy and Wormer comic strips. James himself performed the voice of dimwitted bug, Impy, and a volunteer from the audience played the sarcastic worm, Wormer. And James also sang an a cappella rendition of the Impy and Wormer theme song, as well as a musical tribute to "the triangle!"
That was followed up with even more Kochalka comics, this time spotlighting his distinctive take on SpongeBob Squarepants. Yet another kid from the audience jumped at the chance of playing SpongeBob to James Kochalka's Patrick and Gary. The confident boy grabbed the microphone and declared, "Let's do this!"
James does his imitation of Gary the Snail.
The grand finale was the competition between Johnny Ryan, Steve "Ribs" Weissman, and Deep Orange: The Cartooning Computer.
The audience was divided into three sections and each asked to root for a different cartoonist by screaming their name before each gag. Each team also had a leader, who was given an instrument (horn, tambourine, or triangle) as well.
The "in-joke" that we tried to set was a play on the false assumption that comics are all done on computers these days. So we built one to replace the human cartoonists who usually write and draw for us.
We programmed the "computer" with lots of market research about what kids like. But all of the gags were lifeless and just shilling for the Nickelodeon TV channel. Which may have been a bit too ironic for the younger kids, unless they've been raised on Lemony Snicket and NPR.
Chris put on a lab coat and goggles and acted as tech support for Deep Orange which because of some technical glitches, started to spit out binary jokes, as well and trash talk; calling the human cartoonists, "scrubs." The audience appropriately boo-ed. But at the end some kids weren't completely sure if we made up Steve Weissman as well as Deep Orange!
I pretend to be confused and annoyed with the computer. Everyone agrees that maybe we should maybe technology does always know what is funny and agree to keep Johnny, Steve and the rest of the cartoonists employed for the time being.
Even though I work for Nickelodeon and am editing the spin-off comics, I still had to wait in line like everyone else to get into the Avatar: the Last Airbender panel. It seems that more than ever if you are an exhibitor it is almost impossible to check out any panels because you have to get there almost an hour in advance if you want to guarantee yourself a seat!
The Comic-Con logo, scarred in the fashion of Prince Zuko!
The panelist included Aaron Ehasz (head writer), Giancarlo Volpe (director), Jack De Sena (the voice of Sokka!) and Dante Basco (voice of Prince Zuko and…Rufio, the Lost Boy in the movie, Hook!).
Aaron Ehasz put together a funny presentation that played to the internet phenomenon of ”SHIPPING” (short for relationSHIPPING).
Basically fans theorize who they think will/should "hook up" and create a name for the camp they fall under. Aaron encouraged loud responses to help get a sense of what the fans would like to see.
After the panel I tried to get some photos of the Avatar cosplayers but this was the only one that turned out.
After the con we swung by a local Borders Bookstore to see if they sold Raina’s book!
And they did!
Saturday night we went to dinner with Scott McCloud’s family, most of the Flight Comics gang and a few cool new people we just met.
Like Skry and Rachel.
Raina made fast friends with the McCloud sisters, Winter and Sky, who insisted that as Buffy and Angel fans, we must start watching Veronica Mars on DVD, ASAP.
Winter mentioned that one of her best friends had read Raina's Baby-sitters Club over 3 times... and would flip out if she knew she was having dinner with Raina. She asked if she would autograph a piece of paper as a gift, but Raina ended up doing a full drawing of the BSC instead!
The Sci Fi Booth once again large and mysterious.
The Nickelodeon booth continues to be a hot spot, even if it was only half the size as last year's incarnation.
They held an Avatar "Find Appa" scavenger hunt that involved going to the 3 other booths with Avatar promotions (Upperdeck, Mattel, Lego), getting stickers, and returning to the Nick booth for a prize. Boy howdy!
The Nicktoons channel had it’s own side of the booth.
But I have to say that Cartoon Network's Adult Swim had the swankiest booth of the con!
Sunday Morning, Raina held a "Kids Day" workshop about adapting your favorite books into comics. It was an ambitious panel for such young kids, but Raina was an excellent teacher and most of the participants seemed to really get into it.
They got to choose from sample pages of either Harry Potter, The Golden Compass, Mary Anne Saves the Day, or Little House on the Prairie. Here, Raina draws a scene from The Golden Compass, where Lyra goes shopping for winter clothes before her dangerous trip to the north.
The class enjoys watching Raina draw on the dry erase board.
This kid decided to draw his Harry Potter scene with Lego versions of the cast!
Another kid shows off his finished comic page.
One last shot of Amy and Kazu at the Flight table before packing up.
When the show was all over and we said our good-byes, I crammed into a van with my crazy cousins and drove north to Garden Grove, playing Nintendo DS in the back seat. Then Raina and I flew back to Astoria, where much to our luck, the massive power outage that plagued our neighborhood was over by the time we got back!
And now, it looks like no more comic conventions of the rest of this year. Just lots of weddings and comic drawing ahead! Maybe even a few hours of sleep!
Oh, wait I should probably start promoting Agnes Quill since it's in this month's Previews catalog. Yikes! back to work!
Umm, and I should be posting drawings from my con sketchbook soon! Gotta do that tomorrow...
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yaytime) wrote,
