We’ll be going into radio silence in a couple of days, but until then we’re rounding up some of the more interesting links to stuff we’ve read, a not at all even remotely broad ranging account of crap that went down at this year’s Nerd Prom. We have more photos to post, maybe a few more video blogs, and then a couple of nearly actual vacation days before flying back to the ranch for real life.

We’ll be skipping Chicago this year, not an easy decision as we always have a blast there, but physically we just can’t do it this year. Three weekends in a row away from home is just too much. We’ll miss all our drinking buds, lobby soccer and Al Snow, but that’s how the cookie crumbles.

A word about our video blogging. We didn’t make a big deal of this before hand because we weren’t exactly sure how it was going to work out. It seems to have worked out very well indeed. The blogging is sponsored by DivX, as they provided the crew and equipment, and the videos are hosted and linked to on their site, but are posted first here on The Beat. The DivX folks were incredibly helpful and cool peeps, and getting to run around and make videos at the con was a great experience.

That said, what does the group mind think of such things as video blogging? Is it worth the time? The Beat isn’t really a YouTube surfer, but knows many are.

In the meantime, we’d like to thank Scott Hinze and Oliver Tull of Fanboy Radio for having us on their panel at the show AND giving us a super nifty Fanboy Radio goodie bag which, with its plethora of pockets and so on, has become our new favorite thing in the world.

We’d also like to thank the following people: Zena, Ben, Frank, Josh; Bruce Lidl and the DivX gang, who were super awesome the whole week; Dan and Jah Furry from the home crew; Faye Desmond, David Glanzer and Gary Sassaman from the San Diego Con; Bob Chapman; Katie Merritt and Shannon Crane; Len Wong; Ed Douglas; Paul and Anina; Jimmy and Amanda; Jackie and Bat; Ryan, Kendra and Sharon; Stuart, Greg and Gus; The Mighty PWCW crew: Calvin, Douglas, Ian, Kai Ming, Peter, Chris, Laurel and Tom; The Blogosphere Assmbled; Scott, Ivy, Sky and Winter for the ride to LA; and all the fine people we’re forgetting. Wasn’t it a time?

We’re just sitting here, for the first time in days surfing the web unimpeded by any of the following: presenting an award; people sitting around your hotel room drinking Jack Daniels; moderating a panel; racing to an editorial meeting; hooking up with a camera crew; sitting around waiting for a proof; trying to find out where some party is; having 25 text messages to answer in 5 minutes; desperately trying to find food; or the need for anything really except to drink some water and make sure the bunnies are cool.

Speaking as someone who was at the San Diego Con, we think everyone watching at home probably had a better idea of what went on than anyone who was there. Of course, sitting around at home surfing the internet is hardly as much fun as running around the San Diego Comic-con — for, make no mistake, a few unpleasant encounters, mental confusion and aching limbs aside, it IS still fun — but we won’t spend the next few days endlessly linking to con reports, because whose report you want to read really depends on who you like. Do you want to know about Bob Fingerman’s con or Comics Unlimited’s con? Or any of a thousand other people. Technorati shows over 6000 links for the words “San Diego” and Comics. Not all of them are con reports, to be sure, but there are too many for any one human who isn’t working on a thesis to read.

Anyway, we’ll soon be repairing to a nice cool Starbucks with WiFi where we can use our own laptop (we’re on a friend’s computer without any of our usual tools) and will post pictures and perhaps some closing thoughts as Con-mageddon sinks into the Sea of Collective Conscious. Remember, when people begin to understand consciousness, it FRIGHTENS THEM.

The Hollywood Reporter Risky Business blog has all the actual happenings at San Diego – a world of parties far too cool for comic book people to attend.

Sci-Fi Channel threw a cool rooftop party at the Hotel Solamar attended by not only the channel’s “Battlestar Galacticaâ€? cast members, and Colin Ferguson from its breakout hit “Eureka,â€? but also director Jon Favreau, Stan Lee, Marvel Studios’ gang including Michael Helfant, Ari Arad, Jeremy Latcham and Stephen Broussard, plus comics writer Geoff Johns and producer Adrian Askarieh. At that party producer Daniel Alter called the Con, and its growing party scene, “Sundance, but with cooler movies.â€?

Many segued from Sci-Fi to the Rogue Pictures gathering, which was kicking it back at Stingaree, a slick restaurant-bar a block away that was also the scene of a private Picturehouse dinner for Guillermo del Toro and his “Pan’s Labyrinth” people Thursday night.

Friday night saw DC Comics’ throw down its second annual bash at Tesoro Restaurant. The party had the comics crowd – Johns, Grant Morrison, Marc Andreyko, Mark Waid, Howard Chaykin, Dan DiDio, Paul Levitz – and the film crowd – Mike Dougherty, JC Spink, Mason Noveck, Eric Olsen, David Goyer, Josh Olson, Tom DeSanto – but it also drew actors, including “Galactica’sâ€? Edward James Olmos and James Callis.

Kyle Newman and Adam Goldberg were on hand for a celebration of their ode to geeks “Fanboysâ€? (it’s about four friends who journey to Skywalker Ranch to see a screening of “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menaceâ€?) at club Confidential. “The Grudge”co-producer Shin Shimosawa spun tunes that people actually liked while wrestler Diamond Dallas Page tried to get filmmaker Darren Aronofsky to do some of his yoga moves.

Graeme McMillan explains what its like to try and see the con in five hours.

Anyway, it was just after half past one in the afternoon, and I still had five hours or so to explore the San Diego Comic-Con for the first time in my life before catching a plane back to San Francisco and my visiting family. Five hours, I thought to myself, would be more than enough time to see the sights and say hello to everyone that I wanted to say hello to.

That sound you hear? That’s the laughter of everyone who’s ever been to San Diego, mocking my innocence and lack of time-planning.

We’re in beautiful Hell-A, where it’s hotter than we ever remember. We had a lovely dinner last night at the retro jetset restaurant Encounters at LAX (piccies to come, maybe) and now we’re waiting for some copyedits to come in for PWCW.

We’re having computer issues at the moment, so may not be posting a whole heck of a lot for the next day or so. Or we may.

Yes, this is the moment we have been waiting for, and you have too, whether you knew it or not.

The greatest moment in Beat history.

We’ll be spending the next few days reading the internets to see what actually happened at the show, maybe a few posts today. If you see any particularly telling links, please send them our way. Right now we’re assembling our Team PWCW coverage — look for that in your inbox tomorrow!

A few updates — the convention was never actually shut down by fire marshals, although online AND onsite registration were both stopped on Saturday. No attendance figures, although the early guestimate of 125,000 felt plausible.

The convention was, by any stretch of the imagination, a monstrous and unqualified success. Publishers and artists had record sales, movies and TV shows were given endless internet inches, autographs were collected, rare comics and art were purchased, drinks were consumed at movie studio parties, podcasts were recorded, life sized statues of Ray Harryhausen were presented to him, movie stars gave quotes about loving comic books, anime costumes were remarked upon, Klingon was spoken, and so on. But now, it’s all over.

Stormtrooper Elvis has left the building.

At some point today or yesterday this showed up on the San Diego website.

While the official numbers aren’t in yet, attendance is definitely WAY up from last year. So much so that last evening we needed to close online registration (which remains closed today), and as of 12:30pm today, have had to close ONSITE registration as well. We expect online registration to resume this evening and onsite registration will be available tomorrow.

We heard a lot of reports today about the fire marshals showing up and not letting anyone in for an hour or two but do not have this confirmed. Whatever happened, this was the most crowded, most sweaty, most overwhelmingly busy SDCC anyone ever saw. By mid-afternoon, the halls were littered with exhausted congoers, perhaps tired of fighting the crowds. The parade of stars from comics, TV, film and elsewhere was so huge that an unannounced appearance by Brandon “Superman” Routh to sign at the DC booth seemed almost normal; the surprise appearance of the entire cast of SPIDER-MAN 3 went almost unremarked on the floor, swallowed up by the tsunami of announcements, booths and previews.

Pretty much everyone survived, however.

James Kochalka sings!

A few photos, and no time to write captions except for one…

SAN DIEGO ‘06 — MAKE WAY FOR DUCKLINGS!

(more…)

Video Blog #3: Geof Darrow

Video Blog #4: VIZ Media

Unfortunately we can’t link the players to the front page here. But we can link to them!

Today we have very limited online time, due to our other schedules. so we won’t have much of an update. It is very very very crowded here. Despite that, everyone is kind of calm and collected, perhaps in a shell shocked way. In a way it is hard to report on the show from the show — you people out there probably know more about what is going on than we do. There’s a ton of news out there from David Arquette forgetting the tape of his movie, to a new Dick Tracy reprint.

On the floor, its been getting pretty hot and sweaty in spots. Most observers feel this is simply because of the sheer number of people on the floor. Every day has been like Saturday. Shell shocked indeed.

We shoot the breeze with celebrity Kyle Baker!

Arrival, registration and booty.

The 2006 Eisner Awards were presented tonight at the San Diego Comic-Con. In addition, several other industry awards were presented. Multiple award winners including the anthology SOLO, which won three awards, Kyle Baker, and Chris Ware.

Russ Manning Award:
R Kikuo Johnson

Bill Finger Award:
Alvin Schwartz and Harvey Kurtzman

Will Eisner Spirit of Retailing Award:
Zeus Comics

Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award;
Calvin Reid, Publishers Weekly

The complete list of Eisner Award winners.

Best Digital Comic
* PVP, by Scott Kurtz, www.pvponline.com

Best Publication for a Younger Audience
* Owly: Flying Lessons, by Andy Runton (Top Shelf)

Best Anthology
* Solo, edited by Mark Chiarello (DC)

Best Coloring
* Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #16 (ACME Novelty)

Best Lettering
* Todd Klein, Wonder Woman, Justice, Seven Soldiers #0 (DC); Desolation Jones (WildStorm/DC); Promethea, Top Ten: The Forty-Niners, Tomorrow Stories Special (ABC); Fables (Vertigo); 1602: New World (Marvel)

Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition
* Aaron Renier (Spiral-Bound)

Best Reality-Based Work
* Nat Turner, by Kyle Baker (Kyle Baker Publishing)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Strips
* The Complete Calvin & Hobbes, by Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Books
* Absolute Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (DC)

Best Penciller/Inker
* John Cassaday, Astonishing X-Men (Marvel); Planetary (WildStorm/DC)

Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art)
* Ladronn, Hip Flask: Mystery City (Active Images)

Best Cover Artist
* James Jean, Fables (Vertigo/DC); Runaways (Marvel)

Best Comics-Related Periodical
* Comic Book Artist, edited by Jon Cooke (Top Shelf)

Best Comics-Related Book
* Eisner/Miller, edited by Charles Brownstein and Diana Schutz (Dark Horse Books)

Best Publication Design (TIE)
* Acme Novelty Library Annual Report to Shareholders, designed by Chris Ware (Pantheon)
* Little Nemo in Slumberland, designed by Philippe Ghuilemetti (Sunday Press Books)

Best Penciller/Inker
* John Cassaday, Astonishing X-Men (Marvel); Planetary (WildStorm/DC)

Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art)
* Ladronn, Hip Flask: Mystery City (Active Images)

Best Cover Artist
* James Jean, Fables (Vertigo/DC); Runaways (Marvel)

Best Comics-Related Periodical
* Comic Book Artist, edited by Jon Cooke (Top Shelf)

Best Comics-Related Book
* Eisner/Miller, edited by Charles Brownstein and Diana Schutz (Dark Horse Books)

Best Publication Design (TIE)
* Acme Novelty Library Annual Report to Shareholders, designed by Chris Ware (Pantheon)
* Little Nemo in Slumberland, designed by Philippe Ghuilemetti (Sunday Press Books)

Best Graphic Album—New
* Top Ten: The Forty-Niners, by Alan Moore and Gene Ha (ABC)

Best Graphic Album—Reprint
* Black Hole, by Charles Burns (Pantheon)

Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material
* The Rabbi’s Cat, by Joann Sfar (Pantheon)

Best Writer
* Alan Moore, Promethea, Top Ten: The Forty-Niners (ABC)

Best Writer/Artist
* Geof Darrow, Shaolin Cowboy (Burlyman)

Best Writer/Artist—Humor
* Kyle Baker, Plastic Man (DC); The Bakers (Kyle Baker Publishing)

Best Limited Series
* Seven Soldiers, by Grant Morrison and various artists (DC)

Best New Series
* All Star Superman, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (DC)

Best Short Story
* “Teenage Sidekick,� by Paul Pope, in Solo #3 (DC)

Best Single Issue (or One-Shot)
* Solo #5, by Darwyn Cooke (DC)

Best Serialized Story
* Fables #36-38, 40-41: “Return to the Homelands,� by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, and Steve Leialoha (Vertigo/DC)

Best Continuing Series
* Astonishing X-Men, by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday (Marvel)

Hall of Fame
Judges’ Choices: Floyd Gottfredson, William Moulton Marston
* Vaughn Bode
* Ramona Fradon
* Russ Manning
* Jim Steranko

OUR GLAMOUROUS SAN DIEGO: The Beat, Ian Brill, Laurel Maury and Calvin Reid hard at work on tomorrow’s edition of PW Comics Week.

Sitting outside the press room. The cast of HEROES is awfully attractive. Tim Sale tells us he’s ghosting the artwork for the painter character on the show.

The ladies room here smells worse than any ladies room I’ve ever smelled.

Just walked into the press room to get power. David Boreanaz being interviewed about BONES over the way.

Need coffee.

We missed the first part of this due to a scheduling mix-up, but the part we saw was probably the most intellectually trippy panel in San Diego History. “When conscioussness starts opening up, it terrifies people!” exclaimed one questioner excitedly.

Chopra spoke about the transformation of the caterpillar to the butterfly through the “imaginal cells” which mysteriously change the nature of the caterpillar. He compared the people at the convention to “imaginal cells of culture.”

“After the Age of Information comes the Age of Knowledge, then comes the Age of Wisdom,” he said.

For his part Morrison talked about the mythical basis of the great superheroes but allowed as “The moment we start worshipping superheroes is when we know we’ve got it wrong.”

The two made allusions to a dinner they’d had the night before, and we bet that was a pretty interesting dinner.

However, the headline from the talk, as our pal Douglas Wolk put it, was “Virgin and Morrison: just good friends.” Morrison’s DC Exclusive last for a few years yet, so don’t look for him to be writing any Virgin Comics any time soon, although there was some talk of projects in other media that might be possible.

A zillion parties were spread out across the city last night: CBLDF/Image/Suicide Girls, Friends of Lulu, Conan, Hasbro/Marvel, Circle of Confusion, Scholastic, Del Rey, Heavy Metal, and probably a few we’re forgetting. DC had a private luau. We hit Del Rey where we got to meet Stephen Woodworth, Elizabeth Bear and George RR Martin. Then it was off to the Lulu Awards where we presented the Women of Distinction award to the very deserving Diana Schutz. Then it was back to the Hyatt for the Heavy Metal party. None of the parties we were at seemed unbearably crowded, probably because everyone was so busy party hopping.

Can we just say that the Hyatt SUCKS TENNIS BALLS. The staff is rude, and seems resentful that we are here in every way. We’re in the old wing of the hotel, and compared to the other places we’ve been staying lately, with relaxa-beds and so on, it’s shabby and uncomfortable. Truly the lack of competition is breeding a very smug attitude here. When that Hard Rock opens, we’re all moving there STAT. Unless, of course, the sign is accurate and it’s going to be nothing but $400-a-night suites.

It’s up.: