Con Again

I've been out of commission the last few days but this week is-finally-the 2008 San Diego Comic Con. I can't remember everyone, so forgive me as this is done on the fly, but off the top of my head here are some booths and people you've got to visit if you don't know them already. Since you're reading this blog, you probably do. But nevertheless a good cast bears repeating, as Universal(or was it RKO?)used to say at the end of their films when they ran the credits.
So here are:

Conduct Happiness: Joe Moshier and Chris Sonnenburg

Red Window: Scott Morse, Don Shank(absent in the flesh, but art will be there!), Lou Romano, Bill Presing and Jeff Pidgeon, Booth 4800.

"Who Is Rocket Johnson?"-the epic book with an incredible array of talent inside--and on--the covers. Front cover: Paul Felix. Back cover: Glen Keane. About 24 guys in between. Think you'll be visiting them? Yeah, I thought so. They're at booth 2302.

Chris Sanders will be there again, I believe.

Red Tango is run and designed by an old friend of mine, Cynthia Petrovic. She's a huge Fred Moore fan too. Booth 4201.

Donnachada Daly is a super talented animator from Eire who's at Dreamworks; he'll have his new book at booth B8 of the exhibitor tables.
Incidentally Donnachada(pronounced "Dannika")is also represented in the niftiest art show/auction in a long while, the Totoro Forest Project, which you all must go read, drool and dream about right now.

E-Ville Press manned by Ted Mathot and Derek Thompson from Up North, will have things you won't want to leave without. Booth 1534

Dan Goodsell, he of the inimitable Mr. Toast and an amazing amasser of the most fun stuff ever, will be at booth 4831.

Of course this is far from a complete listing; the above are mostly friends and people whose whereabouts are immediately known to me so I can post their booth locations. I've left out some obvious stops like the great Stuart Ng, Bud Plant, Super 7, Fleet Street Scandal, and Graphic Collectibles...but it's late, so before Hulk smash! and Jenny crash! I'll put this post to bed.

artwork copyright Dan Goodsell 2008
Have fun!

New York Times writes about the Comic Con's relations with Hollywood

Normally I'd eschew a post of this kind--there's not much that's news in it--but this year the animation-to-comics quotient is going to really spike, and moreover while I'm a longtime daily reader of the New York Times and enjoy it, although occasionally their take on the doings of our west coast seem, well...a little clueless. Late to the party as it were.

Case in point: today there's an article that deals with Hollywood studios' presence at the annual San Diego Comic con. While the piece is titled "Comics Convention Beckons Hollywood"(click the title to read it in full), the print version adds a sub-header: "The film business grudgingly courts fans in San Diego". The internet version looks even more askance, using this: "Hollywood still leery of Comic Convention".

Really now?

It's exactly what you'd expect. No cliche about unwashed bodies goes unused. One of the accompanying photos online (there's none in the print version) shows an overweight, bespectacled teenager sitting cross-legged on the floor engrossed in his reading material,paper receipt dangling from his mouth. Reference is made to something called "Con crud" which it's suggested is either a common cold or an STD. Ugh(I suspect that the Con magazine that offers numbered "tips" and cites the aforementioned "crud" is probably meant to be a little more humorous in tone than the Times presents).

The overall slant is that a motley, frighteningly crowded contingent of cosplay folks and "fanboys" are "grudgingly" catered to by an unwilling Hollywood. It bemusedly describes things that go wrong (example: Joel Silver was actually kept waiting last year while star Kate Beckinsale claimed to be held up at a railroad crossing-no doubt the gospel truth as anyone knows who's been to the Con and tried to cross the street when the crossing arm goes down; the thing seems to take a minimum of 35 minutes each time). You'd think from the overall tone-studio people are desperate to get in and get out as quickly as possible-that the City of San Diego, is, well, perhaps a little plebian.
Actually the downtown area that surrounds the convention center is a Seattle-like, revitalized district featuring a lot of great restaurants and pubs and an enjoyable sidewalk scene not often seen in Los Angeles save for a few blocks of 3rd street, Robertson, Melrose or the Grove-familiar haunts of Business players(and I daresay Times scribes).

But back to the picture painted of ComicCon: while we get the travails of this or that company and their booking acrobatics, no mention is made of the extent that arguably the most powerful(certainly the most world-famous)director in Hollywood, Steven Spielberg, went to last year to do a live feed to the convention from the set of the then-filming "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". The SRO crowd was treated to a meet & greet with not only all the principals- Harrison Ford, Shia LeBeouf, Ray Winstone-but the confirmation by Spielberg officially for the first time the casting of Karen Allen. No, in lieu of any of that proof of ComicCon's importance we get a focus on a production company called Summit Entertainment-an outfit with a slate of titles I've never heard of. They're probably niche fan properties.

Neither was there any mention that "Iron Man" was represented last year by stars Robert Downey Jr. and Gywneth Paltrow and director Jon Favreau, all of whom have been to the snarkily compared Cannes film festival many times also, I'm sure.

No mention of "Hulk" star and writer Edward Norton, prince of the Serious Acting school of critics(with whom I agree-he's good) who also deigned to go to San Diego for his Con appearance and panel in '07.

No Pixar, either, although as far as I am aware Pixar for years has maintained a strong presence there, planning panels featuring its most well-known artists and directors, plus peeks and premieres of upcoming work.

I wonder how much more significant contributing film honchos could get than Spielberg, Lasseter, Bird, Lucas...yet none of them are mentioned. Nor is there a mention of Matt Groening, Bill Plympton, JJ Abrams, and a host of others I can't think of off the top of my head. Not chopped liver they. Remember, this is all just last year I'm citing, not a 10-year span of attendees. One year.

The fact is, for a lot of people who aren't your sterotypical comics geek the Con has become cool; it's a place to gawp, buy, and party-and not at Ralph's either(another mention in the article presumably showing how low-rent the affair skews).

I'd bet writer Cieply has never attended San Diego himself. He seems to have approached this article armed with a dated, preconceived notion of what a crowd attending something called a "Comic Con" would be like-and he was only partly accurate.

How much more intriguing if he'd been aware-and related to the readers-how a humble, standard annual comics show became over 20 years a mega-marketed, serious venue that makes clear the reality of pop culture's cross-pollination in its most egalitarian and visible form?

Instead it's merely a brief story about the supposed discomfort that Hollywood must endure to market to the sorts of people who buy tickets to "blockbusters". Sure, there are plenty of sweaty bodies-I'm sure I've been one since the heat is fierce in San Diego every year and the Convention Center main exhibition room always seems overloaded with attendees. Yes, there are people in costumes, which I always thought were great fun to look at. Yes, the Con is a ridiculous, hot, impossible to navigate, frustrating carnival of giant Lego Chewbaccas, crazy walkaround things, killer backpacks on oblivious collectors, nerdy crazy people, cool crazy people, artists, scenesters, lots of camera crews and a terrible din of a million people all talking at once. It's terrific fun.

But what's also there is is an every-growing contingent of film professionals-mostly from animation-who are presenting their own work alongside the huge players, offering self published books and toys as well as other merchandise they've designed, some of which are substantial businesses; former and current Disney, Dreamworks and Warner Bros animators' companies such as Conduct Happiness, Electric Tiki, Red Window, Red Tango all selling, networking, and in general having fun amid all the chaos; it's been one of the places that, love it and/or hate it, is a place to see and be seen and meet up with old colleagues.

some of last year's haul, and a big part of why I and my friends go to the Con

Given the people I know of this year presenting their own books, prints and wares there's a good article to be written about the crossover between the graphic books of the past and present and the people whose graphic work is usually employed in big-budget "Hollywood" animation doing their own small-press thing.

And you know, all of us are geeks if by geeks you mean lovers of cool stuff yearning to see new and exciting work of all kinds-be they filmed, drawn, sculpted or written. In that sense we have a lot in common with the non-pros sitting cross-legged on the floor. By the way, I confess I've done that myself as have most of my (adult) friends. That's because there are no other places available to sit in the Convention Center.

Michael Cieply-why don't you come on down? The train is a great ride.

See you in San Diego.

"Comics Convention Beckons Hollywood", by Michael Cieply 6/21/08

Conned

what it's all about: Rej Bourdages' son Jake contemplates the force

No, this isn't going to be a slam on the venerable San Diego Comic Con. I just couldn't resist the title--why not recast the verb for the purposes of titling the grueling-yet-satisfying con experience?

The main thing about San Diego is the enormity of it. There were at least several booths I'd specifically wanted to visit, and yet not only did I not happen to stumble by them, I completely forgot about them until the next day. People and stuff I'd looked forward to seeing for a year. That'll give anyone a good idea of how intense the thing is. But I wasn't ever idle during my six hours on the floor of the exhibition hall: Stuart Ng Books, Bud Plant, Illustration House, Graphic Collectibles(seeing original Sullivant and Gibson and Hurst drawings and paintings and actually contemplating buying them almost made the entire trip worth it alone), Red Window, Chris Sanders, Conduct Happiness, Van Eaton Galleries, and the myriad smaller vendors and individuals whose wares were fun and appealing...all that and a peck of stormtroopers.

Part of the haul:

ComicCon 07

The scene outside the hall at last year's Con
The circus is in town again. Or rather, leaving town for San Diego.

Every year the Comic Con gets bigger, if that's possible, and more and more artists are representing themselves with books and other items of interest.

Last year, many of us were at the Con on the same day, and while I was only able to dash about for a brief two hours of sweating madness
(tips: never leave late, don't drive, and don't go on a Saturday), I had such a great time--my first trip in years--and was so inspired that I determined to do a book...or something. As it happens, so did my friends. Lots of my friends. Eventually six of us story folk decided to do a book project together, and get a booth for the Con this year. We did. But along the way we had a detour from self-publishing; now our compilation book will be released by a real company, one of the best ones. Due to the dealmaking and the publisher's schedule it won't be available until next year's Con. I'll post more about our project later.

In the meantime our booth was ceded to another band of Dreamworks-based bloggers:



All swell guys. Read more about them over at Donnachada's Daly Blog, complete with floor layout and location. This is going to be a great weekend with lots of eyepopping loot to be got.