The Road
|
|
The Road |
|
|
Comic-Con InternationalIn August, 1998, I spent a week in San Diego, California attending Comic-Con International, a convention for comic book readers, writers, publishers, etc. Actually, it's the convention for comic book readers, writers, publishers, etc. There are a number of other conventions that are held at various places around the country, but this is the biggest one. Part of the experience of this trip was getting my airline ticket over the Internet (through Southwest Airlines). For a trip to a comic book convention, this seemed like the most appropriate way to arrange a flight -- when you're a geek, you're a geek all the way!
The day I arrived at San Diego, I had some time to kill before I could show up at my sister's place, so I hung around the Gaslamp District in downtown San Diego for the day. The Gaslamp District is basically the tourist zone in San Diego -- similar to Melrose in Los Angeles or Pike Place Market in Seattle. It consists of mostly bars and restaurants (a lot of them), but also had a number of pawn shops and gun stores. Go figure. The other thing that it has is the Horton Plaza. The Horton Plaza is basically this huge mall that's not enclosed. Each store, of course, still had walls and a ceiling, but the walkways between the stores were open-air. In Southern California, this makes a lot of sense (another smaller outdoor mall in San Diego is the Mission Valley Center). Obviously, this isn't something that would go over well in Seattle. But, the architecture of the Horton Plaza is also quite interesting. There are, apparently, five levels to the thing which is vaguely kidney-shaped. But there are also a number of walkways and ramps between levels in a very non-symmetrical way, so that it's easy to get disoriented. Add to that a brightly colored southwest motif, and you get a very interesting structure. I thought it would make a great setting for some kind of action movie: lots of potential for exciting gunfire and stunts. The stores at the Horton Plaza were basically what you'd find at any mall, I guess. Most interesting was the big Hello Kitty store, the Store of Knowledge (which is a lot like the Discovery Channel store, which the Horton Plaza also has), and the Gamekeeper where you could buy games like "The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon." The one thing that I did find disturbing, however, was the amount of Taco Bell Dog merchandise that there was. Personally, I find that little ratty dog to be irritating and will probably never eat at Taco Bell because of it (although, I generally don't eat there anyway, so I guess that's not much of a change). But, to think that a meaningless commercial icon has become so marketable seems more than a little weird to me. Sure, there has been precedence for this kind of thing before (heck, "Where's the Beef" was all the rage for a while), but even the Americana store (which had mostly Elvis, Marilyn Monroe and James Dean paraphernalia) was sporting Taco Bell Dogma. Ah well. Just more confirmation that "mainstream" is something I ain't! Although I had registered for the convention through the mail and had them mail my badge to me, I was still required to pick up a badge holder at the convention center in order to be allowed in. The earliest that one could pick up a badge holder was the evening before the convention (Wednesday night). So, rather than wait in a long line to do so on the day of the convention, I went in that night to get my badge holder. Along with the badge holder, they handed out a schedule of events and a bunch of free stuff (Italian comic pogs, a preview of Terry Brooks' new novel, and a Star Wars for Kids magazine). Frankly, I don't see why they couldn't have mailed the badge holder at the same time they mailed the badge (which they stressed was not valid without a badge holder). This is one of the things about the convention that I thought was really silly. Furthermore, not sending out a schedule until the night before doesn't give people much of a chance to plan which events they want to see. Oh well. I spent the rest of the night scoping out the events and figuring out which ones I wanted to attend. Turns out there were a lot of them, so it was going to be a very busy weekend for me. Got to the Con around 9:45am in anticipation of the doors opening at 10am for pre-registered con-goers. Parking was amazingly reasonable ($4/day), compared to parking in Seattle, anyway. At the front of the Convention Center, there was a long line for people who had pre-registered but who had not picked up their badge holder the night before and a longer line for people who had not pre-registered. The line for people who had everything squared away was relatively short. They eventually let us in around 10:15am and led us through a round-about route to the back of the convention center where we could enter the exhibit floor. The exhibit hall was larger and smaller than I expected it to be. It was a huge space with hundreds of booths, yet it wasn't totally overwhelming. Booths were generally run by writers, artists, publishers and retailers of books, comic books, and collectibles. One corner of the hall was dedicated to small press comics, another was dedicated to golden age comics (the old stuff), another for art exhibits and the last was an autograph area where various personalities would be, according to some schedule. Putting the autograph area separate from the rest of the exhibit hall was a good idea as the lines of people waiting for an autograph wouldn't interfere with the rest of floor. Despite the number of people that eventually showed up, it never felt terribly crowded in the exhibit hall. One of the exhibitors observed that that was probably because it was Thursday and the busiest time would be on Saturday. In any event, I took advantage of the crowdlessness and checked out the booths of a number of my favorite comic books. Generally, I read independent ("indy") comics -- comics put out by small independent publishers or by the artists themselves. Usually, you don't see much of these around because retailers won't often gamble with no-name comics. But, the Comic-Con was a great place to check them out as many indy publishers would have booths to try to increase exposure and build a fanbase. I picked up a number of independent comics and chatted with several of the writers/artists; namely,
The make-up of the crowd was about what I expected: mostly nerdy gaming geeks, cyber punk rockers, goth hounds, and grunge heads (guess which group(s) I belong in!). I discovered (again) that my enjoyment of comic books is still only at the level of "hobby" and that there's another level of geekiness that I can aspire to. Although the masquerade ball was on Saturday, there were still a few people walking around in costume, including a bunch of American Ninja wannabes walking around with katanas strapped to their backs. A friend later observed that this was the last refuge of guys with pony-tails. Aside from checking out the exhibitors, I also attended a number of seminars and events. The first one I went to was about the legal issues involved when producing a comic book. More generically, it was about copyright and trademark laws, but was presented with a focus on how those laws apply to the comics industry. It was an interesting seminar presented by a comic-loving attorney. The seminar itself was broken up into three parts, this being the first of the three. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend the other two. The second event I attended was a panel discussion about the Jay & Silent Bob action figures (Jay and Silent Bob are characters made famous in the movies Clerks, Mallrats and Chasing Amy, and who now have their own comic book). It was moderately interesting with Kevin Smith (creator/director of the movies) being one of the panel members. In any event, the action figures seem to be popular, including the anatomically correct dog, Big Red. I bugged out of that one early to catch the tail end of a panel discussion with Indy 4 -- a small coalition of independent publishers (including Crucial Comics, Hurricane Comics, Dark Angel Productions and Dreamsmith Studios) who banded together to increase exposure for all of them. It was another interesting panel which discussed the issues of promoting sales and overcoming small-press difficulties. Later, I attended another panel discussion about self-publishing. Three panelists (including Linda Medley of Castle Waiting fame) described their experiences in self-publishing. It was fairly informative, but didn't say much more than I already knew or could surmise (basically, that it's really really hard to self-publish). It did shed more light on the printing and distribution aspect. Apparently there are two major printers in North America: Brenner and Quebecor. And, of course, there is now only one distributor: Diamond Distributors. All in all, it was a very cool discussion, but it also demonstrated that some people attend these things to use as soapboxes for their own ideas (as evidenced by the woman who insisted that publishers could put Diamond Distributors out of business if they distributed through Borders and/or Barnes & Noble instead). Apart from the seminars and exhibit hall, there were a number of concession stands where con-goers could get some food. Someone mentioned that this was new, as the con of the previous year didn't have any onsite food available. This year, though, they had stands at every level. There were food venders at one end of the exhibit hall, on the mezzanine level, and there was a large open area outside on the top level where some tables and food carts were set up. A table for "free stuff" was also here as well as a giant statue of Spawn. But, while getting food was now convenient, it wasn't cheap. Lunch: fried rice + eggroll + Coke = $7 (ouch!). Dinner/snack: muffin + Snapple + bottled water = $8 (Doh!). Obviously, the trick is to bring food with you, unless you like spending $1.75 for a can of soda. The convention center itself is a very neat structure. It has an upper and lower level, plus a smaller mezzanine section. The lower level was taken up by the exhibit hall. The mezzanine had a number of rooms which housed the panel discussions and rooms for gaming (although I didn't go into any of those). The upper level had larger rooms which were used for the larger panel discussions and for showing non-stop anime and movies. There were also balconies on the upper and mezzanine levels which overlooked the harbor. Generally, these were quiet areas away from the crowds. I spent some time there hanging out and relaxing (and reading comics). At 7pm, the Comic-Con Super Kung Fu Film Fest started. Hosted by Ric Meyer (co-creator of the Jackie Chan comic book and Hong Kong film evangelist), they showed three movies, back-to-back. Ric claimed that the Hong Kong film industry is dead, and many of the stars are looking for careers in America. Jet Li, who recently broke out in Lethal Weapon 4 is said to have two film studios vying for him -- a very lucrative position for him to be in. Michelle Yeoh (Tomorrow Never Dies) apparently will be starring in a remake of Charlie's Angels. Samo Hung will be doing a TV show for CBS. And Jackie Chan -- well, you probably already know about him. In any event, the first movie -- The Fists of Legend starring Jet Li -- was an amazing re-interpretation of Fists of Fury (aka The Chinese Connection) which starred Bruce Lee. It pretty much confirmed that Jet Li is awesome. The second movie -- Once a Thief -- was a slow and mostly pointless tale starring Chow Yun-Fat and directed by John Woo at his worst. The third, Heroes Shed No Tears was a bizarre early offering by John Woo. I can't say that I liked it (but that may be because I hate movies that have whiny kids in it), but it was weird enough to be interesting. Between films, they gave away some movies on DVD and VHS for people who could answer trivia questions. That wrapped up the first day. I got home about 1:30am, went to sleep around 2:30am, and got up around 6am. Got to the Con in time for the panel discussion about The Crow TV series to be out on syndicated television soon. An interesting discussion, they showed two clips of the show which looks intriguing. I had heard rumors that James O'Barr (original creator of The Crow comic book) wasn't actually involved in the making of the series and that there was some dissent between him and the producers. This was partially confirmed by some comments made by James O'Barr, who was on the panel. The producers vowed that ther would be more collaboration in the future. After that, there was a panel discussion with the writers of the Cartoon Network show, Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. Although I've seen the old Space Ghost cartoons as a kid, I hadn't seen Coast to Coast before, which is a hilarious combination of the old animation and live action shots with the premise being that Space Ghost is the host of a TV talk show. As part of the discussion, they showed two pilots and two episodes of the show which were a blast. The writers seemed a bit out of their element, being on a panel, but there seemed to be two teams of writers. One team included Evan Dorkin (of Milk & Cheese fame). Afterwards, they handed out Space Ghost key chains. Later, Claudia Christian was supposed to make an appearance, but she cancelled at the last minute (because she got "called away" by Hollywood). So, I attended View Askew's panel discussion with Kevin Smith (creator/director of Clerks, Mallrats and Chasing Amy). Kevin revealed the status of his newest movie, Dogma which is apparently already done, but the studio didn't want to release it at the same time as something else so is sitting on it for now (although its release is imminent, it seems). Kevin also talked about the Jay and Silent Bob characters and how Jason Mewes (who plays Jay) is very much like Jay and has a tendency to fall asleep during scenes he's in. After that, I walked the exhibit floor a bit more, but quickly became overwhelmed by the crowd (which still wasn't as bad as it could have been, but just bad enough to make me uncomfortable). Of particular interest were the booths featuring models representing their comic book characters (Harris' Pantha, for instance, as well as Marvel's X-Men and Slave Labor Graphics' Too-Much-Coffee-Man). There was also a booth dedicated to Playboy Playmate Alley Baggett. I'm not sure what that has to do with the comics industry, but the guys clustered around the booth didn't seem to mind. I didn't get much stuff this time around (spending most of my time in the panel discussions), but did get a signed copy of Phil Foglio's Xenophile (you nerds who used to play Dungeons & Dragons back in the 80s might recognize Phil as the guy who did the cartoons in the back of Dragon Magazine). After that, I caught yet another panel discussion about independent film-making which included Chris Gore (producer of Film Threat magazine) and Dee Snyder (former lead singer of Twisted Sister) who apparently has gone into film-making. The audience had its share of frustrated would-be film-makers and actors who were looking for tips for making it in the industry. All in all, it was an interesting panel, but one of the members (Gigi Porter) had a tendency to interrupt everyone and then go off on long tangents which made it difficult to get everyone's opinions about the art. Finally, I caught the second half of the Comic-Con Super Kung Fu Film Fest. Again hosted by Ric Meyer, they showed three more films: Dragons Forever, starring Jackie Chan, Samo Hung and Yuen Biao; Prodigal Son, starring Samo Hung and Yuen Biao; and Tai Chi Master, starring Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh. All of them were great (even though I've seen the first one before), although it was difficult to read the subtitles on the third movie because the subtitles were done in white over a predominantly white background. But, if you watched closely, you could still get the gist of what was going on. More movies on DVD and VHS were given away, but, unfortunately, I didn't get any of them. Got to the Con around 12:30p. The Convention Center parking lot was full by this time so I had to find parking in the Gaslamp District a few blocks away. Thankfully, parking there wasn't much more expensive (about $5 for the day). As this was Saturday, there were quite a few more people than the last few days, including more kids and parents with strollers. The exhibition hall was significantly more crowded. There were also more people in costume as the masquerade ball was that night. Of note, there were a number of Klingons (planning on attending the seminar on Klingon lifestyles, I'd bet) and women dressed up as comic book characters (like Vampirella, Shi, Rogue, etc.) displaying a lot of cleavage. Yow. The Frank Frazetta booth found someone who looked like his famous Leopard Woman drawing and had her stand around and pose at his booth. At some point, I attended a demo of an "adult interactive multimedia comic." Called something like "Elfen Desires", this was kind of interactive adult manga/anime on CD. From the demo, I couldn't tell anything about the story, if there really was one. All in all, it didn't seem very interesting except for the concept of multimedia interactive comics. If done properly, I could see there being a market for such things. However, I'm not sure that they'd ever be cost effective -- the work it would take to put out a single interactive issue of, say the X-Men would be much more than I think people would want to pay for it (when a comic book costs about $3 now). The company producing Elfen Desires was asking $25 for the CD. Later, I saw a preview of the new Wesley Snipes movie, Blade which has just been released in theaters. Although I'm not a big fan of Marvel comics or movie adaptions of comic book heroes, this one actually looked pretty interesting. There was a panel discussion afterwards which included Stan Lee (Marvel Comics God). At the same time, in another room, Patrick MacNee was promoting his new book "The Avengers and Me". So, after awhile, I bailed out of Blade to check this out. There were a lot of people at this one. A lot of the discussion actually leaned towards the Avengers movie that had just come out, although I think Patrick would have preferred to talk about his book. Afterwards, they handed out free t-shirts to the mob which became insanely unruly in an attempt to get free stuff -- a funny commentary on human behavior, I think.. I got caught in the throng (which manifested itself right outside the room near the only exit) but managed to come away unscathed (and with a t-shirt, I might add). The thing about the Comic-Con was that there was so much stuff going on at the same time that it was torture for people with diverse or ecclectic tastes. What do you decide to see and what do you end up missing? For me, the things I ended up not being able to go to included the rest of the Comic Book Law School series, and panel discussions for the 75th Anniversary of Weird Tales (which was the original publisher of most of H.P. Lovecraft's works), the Trilogy Tour (another coalition of independent comic creators including Jeff Smith of Bone fame), Terry Moore (creator of Strangers in Paradise) and the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as a preview of the Gen 13 movie, to name only a few. Plus, I didn't end up seeing any of the movies or anime that they showed non-stop while the Convention was going. Oh well, maybe next year! In any event, after Patrick MacNee, I caught the first few moments of the promo for John Carpenter's new movie Vampires, which inlcuded a Q&A session with John Carpenter himself. Instead of sticking around for that, however, I bugged out to catch a showing of some cartoon "rarities, outtakes and oddities." These consisted of some never-aired episodes of Dexter's Laboratory, some promos that were also never seen, a satirical series of "cartoons that never made it" (like Salt & Slug), and some war-time Looney Tune cartoons. Luckily, I got to the show early because they ended up having to close the doors since too many people showed up. After that, I toured the exhibit floor one more time. Among other things, I picked up a Vigil trade paperback and chatted with the creators for awhile. Then, for some reason, I suddenly had the urge to get the hell out of there. I guess my crowd-tolerance had hit its limit, so I fled to the car. On the way back to the car, I found a $50 bill on the ground that, apparently none of the other pedestrians wanted or saw as they stepped over it. Serendipity is alive and well. The last day of the Convention was, by all appearances, going to be a slow day. Most of the big draw events had already happened, and the exhibit floor was going to close at 4pm. Surprisingly, however, there were still a good number of people there (about as many as there were on Thursday). I walked the exhibit floor one last time, just to see what was up. Sometimes, towards the end of a convention like this, exhibitors will cut deals for their remaining stock to avoid having to ship it back to wherever they came from. In smaller cons in Seattle, I've seen people walk away with boxes of comics for about $20. At the Comic-Con, however, there didn't seem to be much of that going on, even a half-hour before the hall closed. But, this was probably because there were still so many people buying stuff (they didn't need to make any deals). In any event, I did find some animation cels which were being sold for very cheap. I picked up a series of overlapping cells which apparently came from the Disney movie Alladin plus a few others. So, I managed to spend the $50 I found the day before -- like you didn't know that was going to happen! Later, I caught the tail end of a showing of some Bill Plympton cartoons which were very funny, as usual. After that, I watched a video recap of the previous night's Masquerade Ball. The "Ball", as it turns out, was a kind of contest where entries would be called out one at a time and they would either just strut around showing off their costumes, or perform some kind of skit. It was hosted by Phil Foglio and a woman who seemed familiar, but whom I couldn't identify. There were 50 contestants, some of whose costumes were really good. Others were not so good, and some of the "skits" were frightfully embarrassing. The Japanese cartoon Sailor Moon was the most popular theme. The funniest skits, though, were the ones by Sailor Scot (a cross between a Sailor Moon -- a Japanese schoolgirl -- and a scotsman) and the cast of Southpark doing Star Wars ("They've killed Obe-Wan-Kenny!"). The sound system for the Ball didn't seem to work well, it seems, but it still looked very entertaining. That wrapped up the end of a great weekend. The entire trip (including airfare and car rental) cost me about as much as a month's rent, but it was worth it. If I can swing it, I'm planning on going again next year, and perhaps to the Alternative Press Expo in San Jose, too. We'll see! |
|||||||||||||||