This shot was taken outside the convention center Thursday morning. The sign he’s holding reads:
"FOR SALE: 4-day Membership. Best offer."
And this was before we found out that the individual days had also sold out. I wonder what he got as his final price.
On the other hand, perhaps it’s best not to know — if it was known, the Con might consider that the opening price for a membership next year.
Day Two of the San Diego Comic-Con 2007 teaches The Big ComicMix Broadcast we never know just WHO we’ll will run into in the Dealer’s Room. We also preview another upcoming convention coming in January in Orlando – and why would you want to be ANYwhere in January but sunny Orlando? Join us as we give Kevin Smith’s favorite "fanboy" a moment in the sun, too, and look back at what it was like this weekend in San Diego over a decade and a half ago!
Curious about who we found digging for old comics? You’ll never know unless you Press The Button!
IDW announced at their SDCC panel this morning that they’ll be doing a Doctor Who comic series, featuring the tenth doctor and Martha Jones. It’ll be written by Gary Russell (Doctor Who story editor for the BBC) with art by Nick Roche. Russell T. Davies will be keeping his eye on the series as well. The series will make its bow in December 2007, starting as a 6-issue limited series, with more to follow.
They’ll also be reprinting the Dave Gibbons Doctor Who stories from many years back, many in color for the first time.
It’s Day One for the Big ComicMix Broadcast at the San Diego Comic-Con International 2007, which begins with time spent in a long line … but we make a new friend … then we hit the panels for a scoop on where Countdown is going at DC. Next we head down to the dealer’s room for a a quick lesson in buying original art and then over to the publisher’s row for a sneak preview at the Babysitter’s Club Graphic Novels. We even had energy left to look back at the FIRST San Diego show – and the hit album track everyone was listening to that weekend!
You PRESS THE BUTTON while we soak our feet for awhile!!
Seventeen years ago yesterday in San Diego, Roseanne Barr sang the National Anthem at a Padres game.
While we can’t promise you anything quite like that from any Hollywood types in town for this year’s San Diego Comic-Con International, we’re bringing you the most quotable things we can eavesdrop on.
At the Newark Airport terminal: "It’s tough to tell who’s going to the convention on this flight. You used to be able to tell at a glance." "Yeah, no one’s wearing comic book shirts." "Everybody’s reading Harry Potter, but that doesn’t tell you anything."
On the floor of the convention: "We’re opening up new boxes to sell books on Preview Night. In the first hour. I hope we’ve got enough to last the weekend."
Outside the hall: "I think they’re going to use those Superman bags as tents for emergency housing."
What have you heard? Send your snippets to overheardSDCC@tips.comicmix.com, or come up to us at the show– we’re the one’s in the ComicMix shirts.
It’s the day before the biggest convention in an American comic fan’s year — the San Diego Comic-Con International. Just about every one of my ComicMix colleagues is heading out there. (Don’t ask me how they got hotel rooms, it’s still a mystery to me.) I’m not. My boss told me a long time ago that I can’t go on vacation when he’s in the country (yes I know, but it’s still better than being unemployed and sans health insurance), and even if I could I just don’t think I could work up the enthusiasm any more for something so expensive and exhausting. The closer I get to pushing 50, the more 50 pushes back harder.
I vaguely remember when I used to have the energy for Events. When I was in college I enthusiastically queued up for a couple hours to see The Empire Strikes Back and was severely disappointed because I was expecting a movie, complete with a resolution, not a chapter. (When Robin expressed much the same sentiment years later on Usenet, I responded with "Marry me," and the rest is history, sort of.) I get the idea of wanting to be a part of a phenomenon bigger that one’s self, wanting "bragging rights" to fill your anecdotage. (I wish I could say I coined that word, but I didn’t, I got it from a Fred Astaire movie and goodness knows where the movie’s writer picked it up.) When it’s organic and unexpected, the Event phenomenon can be quite fun. But what’s really organic today?
San Diego grew out of comic fans’ love for their medium and the people who toiled therein. And then it just grew, and grew, and grew. It’s nigh unto unwieldy now. Before Wizard took over the Chicago Comicon, it too was centered around the comics artform; now it’s just another notch on the WizardWorld bedpost. The more cons grow, the more the fans can convince themselves of the comic industry’s health — but the growth ain’t about comics, it’s about product.
The Chicago Tribune‘s Maureen Ryan reports Paramount is "close" to signing Zachary Quinto to play young Spock in the next Star Trek movie. Right now, Quinto is playing bad-guy Sylar on Heroes.
If this comes to pass, a few changes might be in store for one of the few successful teevee shows launched last season, as Sylar was expected to play a major role. Quinto’s Trek shooting schedule might disrupt those plans.
An announcement is "expected" to be made at the San Diego Comic Con.
Our pals Mark Wheatley and Robert Tinnell will be at the good so’ San DIego Comic thing this week – booth 2308 – where they’ll be showing off their latest project, EZ Street.
In addition to his comics work, Robert, of course, is the writer and/or director of such movies as Frankenstein and Me, Kids of the Round Table, and Believe; he also produced the classic Surf Nazis Must Die! Bob also wrote the column on autism for ComicMix last month that generated so much comment. Mark is the man (or at least a man, when he’s standing next to Marc Hempel) behind Mars, Breathtaker, Tarzan, Frankenstein Mobster, and all sorts of other cool stuff. He’s got a new sketchbook called Handmaid debuting at SDCC.
Together, Bob and Mark are doing an on-line comic strip The Mighty Motor-Sapiens at the NASCAR fan site – it’s in collaboration with Daniel Krall and Craig Taillefer. It starts August 6th.
And we’ll tell you all about EZ Street right here at ComicMix.com… when the time is right.
Artwork copyright 2007 Mark Wheatley and Robert Tinnell. All Rights Reserved.
As these very words see the dawn of a new week, I shall be at home packing my ComicMix shirts for the San Diego Comic Con International. It’s the most important event in the comics year. Really; don’t read that with any sarcasm because I mean that. I agree with every word Michael Davis wrote in his column last Friday the 13th: it’s a hell of an effort, it’s a hell of a show, it’s a huge event.
But I can’t help but get a little nostalgic for the old comic book shows, where the primary focus was on comic books as a hobby and an art form. These days, most of Hollywood and all of New York moves out for the SDCC; it’s a massive business. Meetings, negotiations, mega-promotions, dealers dealing comic books made unreadable by being embalmed in plastic to other dealers for very high-stakes, lawyers, agents, managers, suppliers… it gets to be overwhelming.
My first national conventions were back in New York in the late 1960s, where the sainted Phil Seuling created the model for the comic book comic book convention. When I was involved with the Chicago Comicon (now Wizard World Chicago) back in 1976 – 1985, I shamelessly ripped off Phil’s format and approach; thankfully, he saw that as a tribute. It was a different world then.
As I recall, I was at the first Seuling show to crack the 300 barrier. That’s 300 fans. Today, San Diego has more than 300 pros in attendance. Hell, it’s got more than 300 lawyers in attendance. Back then, most of us were amazed there were so many of us all over the nation. For the first time, we realized we were not alone. We weren’t that unusual. Comics were not hip; hell, from a real-world point of view, they weren’t even very profitable. This was before the direct sales market – we have Phil to thank for that, too – and comic book stores only sold back-issues. There were no action figures or posters or alternate covers; in fact, there wasn’t much of an original art market as neither DC nor Marvel returned the art in those days.
As a young fan, I was exposed to older fans’ nostalgia. I read The Spirit and Justice Society, and I met people who gave me access to Milton Caniff and to The Shadow and to old time radio and movie serials and other relics of The Greatest Generation’s lost youth. Guys like Jim Steranko and Al Williamson would personally turn me on to great artists and concepts and projects. I was exposed to America’s popular culture history, and it was great fun.
As the days roll by, I have two stacks of paper here on the Big ComicMixBroadcast Desk. One is labeled “Before San Diego,” the other is marked “Whenever.” That pretty much stands as a metaphor for things here right now as well. However, that doesn’t mean I have lost ANY of the notes I need to share with you from the week:
Back at you in a couple of days as we continue to edge closer to the San Diego ComicCon, marvel at Harry’s magic boxox office and clear off the shelf for a big pile of new comics and DVDs!!
Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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