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ComicCon '09 Report

  • Jul. 31st, 2009 at 12:46 AM
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Overview:

Sightings/Meetings: Mike Mignola, Camilla D'Errica, David Mack, The Penny Arcade Duo, Josh Howard
Far Away Sightings: Peter Jackson, Tyrese Gibson
Loot: Nothing, really. Just my sketch notes and some free junk like promotional TPB/manga.

Missed: Flynn's Arcade, Tim Burton, CommunityChannel
Missed Loot: Swallow, Sparrow, BluRay Freedom

Details:

I packed a lunch and arrived at the con by 7:00am or so. The line for single-day admissions was already about a quarter mile long and wrapped around the Convention Center to the Marina and along the Marriott.

I'd planned on going to Henry Selick and Neil Gaiman's Making-Of-Coraline panel, but once I got to the con, I realized that I hadn't alloted any time for the gargantuan exhibit hall, so instead, I used the morning to map out places-of-interest. (For me, that was usually artists' booths with interesting art books.)

Yeah, I spent the morning walking along the exhibit hall drawing circles on maps.


ComicCon '09 Map with doodles and Sketchbook



I saw a few artists, like Josh Howard at their tables, but I'd already gotten his signature on his trades (in his case), or they'd already be talking to somebody else, and I was on a timeline. I also saw a few stars like Edward James Olmos and Adam Baldwin.

I did my most fervent shopping for davidd in the morning.

I got in line for the CBDLF Mike Mignola artwork panel a half hour early, and that was plenty of time to get in. There was another line dangerously close that was very, very long. ::shudder:: It might have been Twilight-related or something.

The Mike Mignola panel was great! He spoke about what he was doing as he drew a scene with HellBoy in it. He'd say things like, "I love knuckles with the fleshy parts moving around." He said that Frank Frazetta was an early big influence, but he went through phases, too, like when he wanted to draw like Vaughn Bode and Alex Niño. He said that since he's right handed, he tends to draw from the bottom left to the upper right, so that's why his scenes are always composed with the smoke rising to the upper right.

Sometimes he'll place a word balloon first, without anything to say in it, just because the balloon looks good there. Then he'll have to think of something for Hellboy to say in it.

I stayed in the room for the life-drawing of Amanda Palmer by Terry More, Camilla D'Errico and David Mack. That was awesome, too. Go check out this flickr set.

Camilla D'Errico did all her drawing with a cheap, blue Bic pen. David Mack did his with an ink brush. It was fascinating to compare and contrast their styles.

After that panel was over, I made a bee-line for the line for Hall H. I got in line for the Focus Features panel (with Tim Burton) about 20 minutes early. That wasn't nearly enough. I stayed in that line, outside, for the whole panel. I didn't get in until the next panel (which I also wanted to see), the Sony Pictures panel for Legion and District 9, with Peter Jackson.

After that it was back to the exhibit hall to revisit the places I made note of in the morning. I went from Hall H to the very opposite end of the exhibit hall. Phew, that place it big. After I'd had my fill, I headed back to the hotel, where my family was waiting for me.

It was another great con, but there's far too much to see and do for a one-day pass. Going alone was a mixed blessing. I missed being with friends, but I liked not making any compromises and doing exactly what I wanted. If I wanted to camp out at IDW or Slave Labor, I could. I think the one time I really paid the price for going alone was with regard to the line for Hall H. I shoulda had a friend waiting for the Focus panel for me.

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A-frackin'-Men, Brother

  • Apr. 21st, 2008 at 9:44 AM
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Is it any wonder that after another weekend love-fest with Python (I chose to use Python to read Javascript's native format) that I'm totally delighted with this awesome xkcd comic?

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A Little Link Love

  • Apr. 4th, 2008 at 9:34 PM
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My favorite April Fool's Joke this year?

Ben Templesmith's "30 Days of Night: Blood of Christ" For a split second I thought it was real, and was ready to call Lee's and ask them to put it in my saver.




Also, welcome back Lex! Lex's original Beyond The Sea blog was taken down by WordPress.com, but he's back at beyondthesea2. Lex maintains the best J-Pop review blog I've seen.  I missed all the drama because I let my rss feed do the polling. I thought Lex was just being inactive for a while.

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Unintended Consequences

  • Dec. 12th, 2007 at 9:46 AM
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Today's XKCD stopped me in my tracks.  I wonder how many of its readers stopped what they were doing to further investigate the problem in panel four...

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Thus endeth a significant era in my life. I've collected individual translated comic issues of (some) manga from the first issue of Viz's Mai, The Psychic Girl to the last issue of Dark Horse's Blade of the Immortal.

That era extends from my early college years at UCSB to this month.  (That is: a long freakin' time.)  Dark Horse just ceased publication of BOTI in comic format, and will now only release it trade paperback.  (In a format that doesn't quite match the tankoubon releases, but are pretty close.)

I don't know if there are any manga that are still published in single issues of comics anymore.  It doesn't bother me one way or the other.  I like the trade paperbacks, too, and I'll continue to support Hiroaki Samura any way they let me.

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It's a bat'leth, You filthy p'tahk.

  • Aug. 6th, 2007 at 12:58 PM
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I framed my signed Armadeaddon poster, and it's here at work hanging above my desk.  It give me joy just to look at it.  (Not because it's signed, although that's cool.  I loved the story arc.)

I try to be professional here at work.  But the desire to talk about the poster is making that nigh impossible.  It doesn't matter if a VP or Director of Your-Division-Here comes into my cube.  I'm all:  Look!  It's the Fruit Fucker!  A bloodied cardboard tube!  And he rolls 20s!  Isn't that awesome?!

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ComicCon Report

  • Jul. 27th, 2007 at 8:26 PM
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Overview:

Sightings/Meetings:  David Mack, The Penny Arcade Duo, Josh Howard, Frank Miller
Far Away Sightings: Neil Gaiman, Kate Beckinsale, Steve Carell, Masi Oka, The Rock, Edward Burns
Loot: Signed Penny Arcade Poster, Signed Kabuki Loot, Signed Dead@17 TPBs, free junk.

Missed:  Ben Templesmith
Missed Loot:  An Anansi Boys T-Shirt.  (Crap!  I liked it.)

Details:

Barely made it to the Warner Bros. Screening.  ComicCon staff didn't know that that event had its own waiting line.  But the FAQ in the guide made note of it.  Huzzah for FAQs!  So I saw a custom trailer for Get Smart, followed by an interview with Steve Carell, Masi Oka, The Rock.  They were very respectful of the source material. 

Saw clips for One Missed Call and Whiteout, too.  Zack Snyder talked for a long time about Watchmen.

Neil Gaiman and Zack Snyder had interesting stories about Alan Moore.  Poor Zack.  Despite a fine movie, 300, based on a graphic novel, he knows that Alan Moore will never give him a chance.  Hollywood has burned Moore too much.

I made a slight fool of myself in front of David Mack, who is a very decent, tolerant, man.  Must learn to speak more eloquently.

Neil Gaiman's Spotlight interview was an informal conversation between himself and 5000 fans.  He stood the whole time, for no apparent reason.  There was a chair on stage right in front of him.

Mike and Jerry from Penny Arcade were kicking back in their booth every time I passed by it.  Looks like they take their job seriously.  I'd have enjoyed their panels if I could have made it.

At Slave Labor, I wanted to meet Aaron A., but just missed him.  The line for Jhonen's signing wrapped completely around the SLG booth.  He's quite popular.

Stepped outside to call my wife, and Frank Miller was walking in the same direction, just 10 feet behind.  I only found out when I overheard a couple of guys who recognized him, and were looking just past my shoulder.  I stopped and gawked with them, and he passed within two feet of us.  One guy called out, "Frank, love your work!"  Frank acknowledged him, but kept his stride.

SciFi Channel had an awesome KickIt space.  Just a weird, pretty blobby surface/space that you could get a breather in.  I don't know why it wasn't more crowded.

ComicCon was crowded.  A strange mix of exploitation and genuine art.  Studios had booths with booth babes.  (That seemed weird.  It was ComicCon after all.  There was even an amputee dressed as Cherry Darling from Grindhouse.  Yes, as stripper with gunleg, dancing around a pole.)  But not far away, you'd see the work of small-time artists who have a story to tell, or simply very compelling art.

All in all, not bad for a single day pass.

Zuda gave out pre-paid postcard for guests to draw on, and promises to post the best ones.  Remind me to come back and visit this link.

Up next:  Sandcastles!

Photos after I fly back home next week and get the cable to connect the camera to the computer.  Heh.  ^_^;

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Octopus Lips

  • Apr. 25th, 2007 at 2:06 AM
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Somebody at Wired has Gunnm's blade.

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Nny knows where the love is.

  • Apr. 7th, 2007 at 2:47 AM
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Nny's logo and the logo for Where Is The Love.  Yes.  Nny can help you find the love.

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My car is back!

  • Mar. 7th, 2007 at 12:03 PM
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My car was rear-ended two weeks ago, and it's back from the body shop today!  Whee!

And I just found out that Google's headquarters is about two blocks from my favorite comic book shop!  Who knew?  I foresee an excursion!

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Releases make me happy

  • Jan. 23rd, 2007 at 11:43 AM
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Why yes, the latest Blade of the Immortal TPB did come out.  And it's as gorgeous as ever.  I highly recommend re-readed the previous two TPBs before reading this one, to bring oneself back up to speed on the plotline.

Oh?  Yes.  My wiki does now support autosave.  There was a new release and I upgraded, and got the cool new features and plugin set.  All hail Anreas Gohr and Esther Brunner.

That?  That's Wordpress 2.1.  I'll be updating when I get home.

Over there?  That's Habari.  I've been keeping my eye on that one.  It's not released yet.  I guess development makes me happy, too.

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On Vox: Kosuke Fujishima Ears

  • Nov. 26th, 2006 at 3:51 PM
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View David’s Blog

I've got most of the Ah! My Goddess trade paperbacks. And I don't even like Harem/Romantic-Comedy Genre manga. I don't even like one of the main characters, Belldandy. The series is simply too saccharine for my taste.But I can't resist...


» Read more on Vox


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Your Daily Kabuki

  • Aug. 21st, 2006 at 2:46 PM
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Apparently we can now read a page of David Mack's Kabuki a day.

I'm a huge fan of David's watercolor and mixed media work. This gives me the chance to see his early work and decide if I want to own it. I wouldn't be surprised if this effort increases sales of Kabuki.

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CBGB ABCB

  • Aug. 16th, 2006 at 3:48 PM
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You know what I want? I want a rockin' black CBGB style shirt with the letters ABCB instead, and other subtle references to Orange Road in it.

Oh, and despite all the corporations whose initials actually are ABCB, how cool is it that abcb.com is a site named after the very cafe I was thinking of?

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Tivo, please call home.

  • Jul. 27th, 2006 at 1:25 AM
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Just today, literally stranded on a remote pacific island, do I learn that Mike Mignola is premiering a new show on the SciFi channel. And that later today. I cannot miss this.

So, it's a race of technology against the clock. Minutes before making this post, I ask Yahoo to ask Tivo to schedule a recording of The Amazing Screw-On Head. The next time my Tivo calls the mother ship, its todo list will be updated. But is it still calling home? Will it call home before the show airs?

Tivo, hurry, please call.

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End of an era tomorrow

  • Apr. 25th, 2006 at 4:30 PM
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Tomorrow will see the release of the last Hellboy TPB fully illustrated by Mike Mignola.

It's all well and good that Mike's a great writer, and has been doing more writing than illustrating. And that Hellboy is such rich source material that others have collaborated/written/illustrated their own Hellboy stories. More power to them all.

But this is likely to be the last Hellboy TPB I buy. (Except maybe the next, since Mike does some of it, even if not all. And of course, maybe the ones after that. Aw, dang it.)

Also, how could I resist the recent issue of Kabuki with a cover by Mike, and art by Dave? I'd love to see an artists' collaboration between those two with segments of work from each.

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Battle Angel Alita

  • Aug. 8th, 2005 at 12:23 AM
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I still want a Gally/Alita UFO Catcher doll. And I'll pretend that Last Order didn't happen. I'll pretend that Ghost in the Shell:Man Machine Interface, and Dark Knight Returns 2 didn't happen, too. (Although Frank Miller is forgiven for Sin City.)

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Break from reading MacHall

  • Jul. 25th, 2005 at 2:39 PM
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Thanks to [info]halophoenix, over the past week, I've been reading every issue of MacHall since the beginning.  I've been reading a few months at a time, and it's been really fun.  Today, thanks to Penny Arcade, MacHall got wanged, so I guess I'll have to take a break from my reading, until their server recovers...

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Morpheus and Death again...

  • Jun. 3rd, 2005 at 10:08 AM
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A couple of nights ago I woke up from another vivid dream about imminent death. The scene was probably influenced by the ending of Fight Club.

I was near the top floor of one of the tallest buildings in San Jose. Let's call it, oh, the Adobe building. (It wasn't necessarily Adobe, but it may have been.)

It was a nice summer day, and I was looking down on the smaller buildings and churches around me. Then I see the effects of bombs going off. Big car bombs. For some reason, I'm on my cell phone with Ted, and we're discussing the coordinated terrorist attack I'm watching in San Jose, of all places. Dirty, house-sized cotton-ball clouds blossoming every couple of blocks.

We both reason that the building I'm in is certainly targeted, and that I'm not going to make it out. As I tell him to let my wife and children know that I love them, I feel the floor, relatively intact, begin to tilt and descend.

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The movie I want to see

  • May. 7th, 2005 at 5:05 PM
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Today, at Free Comic Day at the local comic book store, a couple of the employees were talking about a certain movie:

"Yeah I can't wait to see it."
"You're gonna hate me."
"Why? You haven't seen it yet, have you?"
"There was an advance screening, I had to sign a non-disclosure."
"Ooh, I hate you!"
"All I can say is, you're not gonna be disappointed."

So, I get all excited, and I ask, "What movie are we talking about?"

"Episode 3 of Star Wars."

Imagine my disappointment. I was hoping they were talking about Serenity.

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