Tired. So very tired. Between an insane amount of networking, selling and drawing, and preparing for the LA leg of my trip, I'm afraid I don't have a full report for you today. Later, I hope.
Comic-Con 2009: Day Two
I am very tired and hurty, and it's not even actually Saturday yet. I'm taking that as a sign of Convention Success. Lots of stuff happened, little of which I can share yet. I did meet an artist from Pixar and that was definitely one of the high points.
Sales are steady, too. At this rate, I'll have only a small number of books to bring back, and absolutely no trades. Win.
My only big star sighting was seeing Tony Todd. Didn't have a chance to say anything, but I wish I did. His "Visitor" episode of "Deep Space Nine" is one of the finest hours of TV ever.
Oh, and "Lost" fans were camping out last night, which I thought was kind of ironic. I'm sure Scooby Doo once showed a way to make a smoke monster out of dry ice and a film projector. I wish I had paid attention bevause that would have been an epic prank.
Comic-Con 2009: Day One
Three parties. One night. A ton of walking.
I don't know that I'll make it.
It's going well, though. At the very least successfully. Sales are crisp at the show, lots of people coming up and talking. The book is definitely getting notice.
And, I got to meet Dennis Miller, who was walking the floor with (I think) his son. Plus, I waved to Jorge Garcia (Hurley from 'Lost'). I didn't get a chance to talk to him, but it seemed the thing to do, dude.
So today it's another spell at the show. We'll see if any of the Twilight Girls come over to check out my booth. And a mixer and a party or two, of course. It shouldn't be as crazy as the partypalooza last night.
But you never know.
Comic-Con 2009: Day Zero
After Day Zero, I've got a feeling that most of my con reports are going to read like redacted national intellegence reports. For instance:
Yesterday, I spoke with a publisher I can't name and talked about doing a cover for a project I can't talk about. I think it went well, and at some indeterminate time in the future, I will let you know what it is.
I was at my booth for a little over two hours yesterday. I had to leave early to go have dinner with Bill Willingham, Bill Williams and some other friends. It was a great dinner and even better conversation.
Incidentally, Bill Willingham is the phenomenally-talented writer of Fables, which you should be reading, and Bill Williams is a likewise talented writer and inker. You may know him from SideChicks fame. You'll probably hear more about both of them this show, I think. But that's all I can say about that.
I did pretty well at the booth for such a short time, too. It hadn't occured to me that I'd be meeting some of the Love and Capes wedding attendees here. But I met three of them last night. That was really cool.
A couple other short notes:
The biggest change at Con this year is the Tent City that's formed around Hall H. I don't want to paint them all with a broad brush, but they're mostly Twilight fans, near as I can tell. They've been in line since Wednesday to be in line for Hall H to see the Twilight people. It's like abunch of perky, freshly-scrubbed homeless people.
And I shall not tease them! (Well, aside from the homeless crack, I guess) We've all got our passions, and I did spend five hours and a day off from work in a line to get Star Wars: The Phantom Menace tickets. I love seeing that kind of devotion. In fact, I gave them some copies of Love and Capes with my booth number scrawled on the cover and the only instruction being that when they got done reading them to pass them down the line.
Okay, that may have been enlightened self-interest. But hey, they like romantic stories with guys with powers, and that's Love and Capes, isn't it?
And, I have to give crazy props to the Hilton Bayside Starbucks. My coffee addicition is legendary, especially here at the Con where I try to see just how few hours of sleep I can get and not go insane. This Starbucks got HIT with people. And they were ready for it. A full crew of people, tons of pastries (try the banana nut muffin, by the way) and as fast as possible.
I've done a lot of shows, and often places like that aren't ready for the onslaught of con goers that follows. This one was.
And they played superh-hero themed music, too. The Danny Elfman Spider-Man theme, Particle Man by They Might Be Giants and so on.
For that matter, the hotel's been exceedingly prepared, too. They've got box lunches and specials and all sorts of goodies for the con crew. I think they're making a play to become the de facto convention headquarters hotel, and given some of the things I've heard about the Hyatt, I think they can pull it off.
Just about an hour now until I head back over for Day One. I've got like eighteen parties I have to go to tonight, but I don't know what will happen at the show itself. But then, that's part of the fun.
Comic-Con 2009: Day Negative One
Oddly, today was not negative at all. It was actually exceedingly pleasant. But tomorrow is Preview Night, and that’s Day Zero in my mind, so, in order the first day has to be Negative One, positivity aside.
I managed to pack yesterday with little rush or fuss. As a result, I managed to not forget anything. Well, I take that back. I didn’t remember to bring a baggie of laundry detergent, but I’m going to bet that I can pick some up somewhere in LA for a relatively reasonable price. And even so, it’s so minor compared to other things I’ve needed FedExed from the Buckeye State that I’m considering it a win.
I woke up at the unThomly hour of 5:30 without any real effort. I even slipped to Starbucks to partake of Free Pastry Day. I had the banana chocolate chip cake, and it was quite tasty. And it had the icing of freeness on it, which is always good.
My flight out was great. Not too many screaming kids, an aisle seat. Things were going so swimmingly that I started exaggerating on my Twitter feed just to make it interesting. So, if you were wondering why I said I was sitting next to a New York cop who was going to Nakatomi Plaza to see his estranged wife, now you know.
Bob picked me up at the airport, we grabbed a bite at In-n-Out (Damn you, Eugene, for addicting me to their delicious burgers and fries!) and headed south. No traffic to speak of, no hassles, just pulled into the hotel without issue.
Man, this is a boring report, isn’t it?
Fine, we went to visit with Chris Ryall over at IDW. He’s got some cool things to reveal at the show. I can’t tell you what, but if you, like me, thought Cop Rock was cancelled too early, well… I’ve said too much already.
Have I mentioned that IDW publishes the Love and Capes collection? And that it is gorgeous and you all need one? I think I don’t say either thing enough.
Bob and I then set up my booth at the show. No issues getting badges, did the whole set-up in one trip, and things even seemed to be going well for my booth mate, Paul of Toon Tumblers.
Did I mention that Paul does the awesome Toon Tumblers glasses? With new characters, like Iron Fist, Spider-Woman, Silver Surfer, Doctor Doom, the JLA, JSA and Green Lantern coming out? I really should mention that more.
Bob and I headed to Mission Beach for a late dinner and sunset. We did our Con Shopping, buying water and pretzels. And we even kind of stopped at Ghirardelli’s for a little ice cream repast. And now I’m back here.
I suppose it’s a variation of the old “it’s quiet… too quiet” thing. But it does seem like this has been the smoothest start to a show yet. Let’s hope it continues.
Comic-Con Time Again
It's almost time for Comic-Con. Less than two weeks, according to the clock on this site. Probably a good time to mention where I'll be and what I'll be doing.
I'll be at Comic-Con in San Diego, at the same booth location I was last year, the easy-to-remember Booth #2000. I'll be splitting the space with Toon Tumblers (which may have some new glasses, maybe even a con exclusive) so look for the shint glass, and I'll be there.
I'll have copies of the new issue of Love and Capes. LNC #11 is the last one before the wedding issue, and features the Quest for the Dress. I'l also have the whole back catalog, IDW's excellent trade paperback collection of #1-6, t-shirts (including a design not yet seen in San Diego) and my third Powerful Women sketchbook. And, as always, I'll be signing and doing sketches.
I may even do the Free Books for Ladies promotion that I did at Charlotte. See if the sign is up at the booth, and if it is, ask!
So be sure to come on by!
I'll also be at the Screaming Tiki SuperCon in Cleveland this weekend. It'll be a little practice run at San Diego.
2009 Harvey Nominees Announced and… Great Googly-Moogly!
Wow! I've been nominated for not one, but two Harvey Awards. I've been nominated for Best Letterer for Buzzboy, which is cool enough, but I've also been nominated for Best Cartoonist for Love and Capes. That's fantastic. Amazing. And humbling. I'm up against some great competition, too. But hey, it's an honor just to be nominated. And yes, I am practicing saying that.
The awards are given out (well, I'd say earned) at Marc Nathan's awesomely awesome Baltimore Comicon in October. All of the cool kids will be there. You should be there, too.
Blink and You'll Miss Her
Okay, I admit, I have no 
idea who Blink is. (I know now, though, so I know she's from the X-Men books. Don't worry.) But it's part of the fun of doing convention sketches, when someone comes in with a character you've never heard of. As well as reference, man is reference important. At HeroesCon, if necessary, I could use the insanely useful iPhone to pull some reference off the web. At San Diego, that's not going to be possible, I presume, since I think everyone in the Creative Services and Hollywood has an iPhone, and that's going to slam the 3G network at the San Diego Convention Center.
Back to Blink, though. She was fun to draw. I think this is a definitely different pose, and her skin tone was fun to color since it's not a traditional tone. It made it fun to color.
A Little Early for Independence Day
I don't know why I didn't think of doing a 
Stargirl piece before, but when someone commissioned me for a sketch at HeroesCon, man did I take to it. My booth neighbor, Rich, was pretty impressed with it, validating my opinion. There's something about the pose and attitude that comes through so nicely. And, this is another one that I ran through my iPhone pic/blueline print process.
Cat Scratch Fever
Here's one of 
the sketches I did at HeroesCon. I grabbed a snap of it on my now-sadly-outddated iPhone. I messed with the levels in Photoshop and converted it to a blueline so I could reprint it on bristol and ink it again. It's a nice way to save sketches when you can't get a scan per se. And then I have another original to sell, too. How cool is that?
This one is of the Black Cat, created by Marv Wolfman for the Spider-Man books. She hasn't made an appearance in Powerful Women yet (unlike Poison Ivy, who seems to command at least a page a volume), so it's always good to see someone new in those pages.