We’re staying home for the next three years, but you should go!

§ Wondering about WILSON, the new Dan Clowes GN? Well, here’s a little more info from The New Yorker, courtesy of the D&Q blog.

§ We SWEAR only one more day of San Diego links, unless it’s pants-peeing awesome. But, if like us, you are just now getting back to consistent internet access and want a quick refresher, Chris Marshall at Collected Comics Library has a nice news recap:
Zero, One, Two, Three, Four

§ Sean T. Collins linkblogs so we don’t have to.

§ Fantagraphics’ Jason Miles had a crappy time:

As a Comic Book Salesman at this year’s Comic-Con it was impossible not to feel the crushing presence of the latest and greatest bullshit Hollywood and beyond had to offer and I’m not sure why. Why did this year feel any different from last year, or the year before? Maybe I’ve gone to one-too-many Comic-Cons thus forcing me into a downward spiral of delusion and dread? Or maybe the mainstream acceptance sought by the comics industry at large is really a Trojan Horse? Regardless the cause, there were far too many injustices committed at this year’s Comic-Con and yes I will be pressing charges in future Flog posts.

§ Rob Bricken at Topless Robot sums up this year’s edition of press complaints/whining:

• The worst part of the con was covering the con. Mostly because of free wireless at the San Diego Convention Center, which never loaded a single kilobyte for me. I don’t really blame the con for this; I mean, no one can really prepare for 200,000 nerds suddenly trying to use the same wireless system at once. But it did means every time I wanted to post, I had to truck 10 blocks back to my hotel, furiously write, run back to the con, see some stuff, then run back again. Ugh.
• The other part of the problem was the press pass, which was worthless. Wait, let me correct myself — it was worth a four-day pass, and not a penny more. It let press people into the con for free, but didn’t allow them to get into panels or events — the press had to wait in line like everyone else. I understand a lot of the “press” at the show were knuckleknobs with blogs with a few thousand readers, and they didn’t deserve more access than the regular fans. But I’d much rather there be some kind of criteria that the press needed to meet to get a pass, which would also allow them access to cover the panels — even if I was excluded. The fact that Wired couldn’t get in to see the Iron Man 2 panel still astounds me.

§ Chris Butcher sums up that fact that…only Comic-con can do what Comic-Con does?

Something like SDCC but just for the entertainment industry? It doesn’t exist. The movie studios, the video game producers, the TV Shows and toys and Bud Bundy and all that, they’re coming to the comic book show. SDCC has got all the power, because nothing else like that event exists anywhere (Gareb Shamus tried and clearly failed; Reed is travelling the same road Shamus took). Imagine if SDCC really did take the ideological position of “how does what you do help comics?” with their exhibitors, and charged them accordingly? What if they used ideology as the wedge to expand the show into the parks, into the stadium, into the giant parking lot that’s as big as half the convention centre? Here I Drew A Map. Imagine the best possible things happened! Wouldn’t that be great? Why not work towards the best?

§ People who really had a SWELL time:

Christopher Moonlight

Richard Starkings con PHOTOS.

And who cannot catch the infection of excitement from Cecil Castellucci with a post she calls:Gosh I love you Comic Con! IS the love of a good woman enough to save the show? Tune in next year.

Underground pioneer Howard Cruse has just published a collection of his gay-themed comics, called From Headrack to Claude. It includes such things as “Gravy on Gay”, his never before reprinted first story from BAREFOOTZ #2. Ordering details in the link.

Just before CCI San Diego kicked off, we reported on a possible security breach at Travel Planners, the company that handles hotel bookings for Comic-Con. Although TP denied the problem, there is quite a bit of anecdotal evidence that suggests that credit cards that were used to book rooms in 2008 may have been hacked, as several people have reported foreign travel being booked on the credit cards they used to book their hotels for the ‘08 con.

Since then, we’ve received another email from a reputable source pointing out two stories about how hosting company Network Solutions servers had been hacked.

Is this in any way related to the Travel Planners mystery? A whois search reveals that TP is listed under Network Solutions.

However, a TP spokesperson contacted by our correspondent said that TP is not hosted by Network Solutions but by IBM.

Please note, we didn’t contact TP ourselves, so you can make of this what you will. Apparently, the matter is still being investigated. Now that Comic-con is over, perhaps someone can figure out just what is going on here.

If this is dumb, I don’t want to be smart.

Never a dull moment, as Publishers Weekly has gone up for sale:

Reed Business Information is putting Publishers Weekly and its affiliated publications, Library Journal and School Library Journal, up for sale. The sale of the group is part of RBI’s strategy to divest most of its trade magazines in the U.S. Last year, Reed Elsevier, parent company of RBI, tried to sell all of RBI but dropped the sale when it couldn’t get the price it wanted in a depressed market for media properties. In a related announcement, Tad Smith, CEO of RBI US, has resigned. John Poulin has been named acting CEO and he will head the sales process.

The sale is part of Reed-Elsevier’s attempt to divest itself of most of its trade magazines, according to Folio:

Among the magazines for sale are Broadcasting & Cable, Mutichannel News, Professional Builder, Publishers Weekly and Tradeshow Week.

Reed said it will retain its Reed Construction Data, RSMeans, Variety, MarketCast, LA411 and BuyerZone properties. The company put RBI on the block in February 2008.

Today’s must read: BODY WORLD’s Dash Shaw joins the Comics Comics blog and in his first outing examinesGroundwork of Evangelion: 1.0 , a sketchbook for an upcoming anime. He finds it a treasure trove of semiotic information:

They’re marked with little notes that I don’t understand. All of the Japanese I once knew is gone, and I don’t know filmmaking vocabulary anyway. Unlike comics, which have a widely-known “insider” language (“these bubbly shaped frames around the words mean the character is thinking- is that cool with everybody?” “yeah, okay”) this is a totally foreign “insider” language used by the people at the studio to communicate to each-other. They weren’t drawn to be published for a wide audience; but here they are, published, and I could go into Kinokuniya in NYC and buy a copy. Awesome.

Announcing:

ACT-I-VATE is proud to announce THE ACT-I-VATE PRIMER.

16 original stories by the premier webcomix collective, ACT-I-VATE, with a foreward by Warren Ellis, coming this October from IDW Publishing.

With its roster of renowned creators serializing webcomix for free since 2006, ACT-I-VATE, has reached a comicbook critical mass. Now this funnybook big bang has birthed The Act-i-vate Primer, the very first collection of stand alone, never-before-seen stories. This tome is a lot bigger than it seems. Each of these stories extend way beyond the boundaries of mere paper and cardboard out into ACT-I-VATE.com where you’ll already be initiated to the worlds greatest webcomix collective.

The Act-i-vate Primer boasts original art and stories by Roger Langridge, Mike Dawson, Nick Bertozzi, Tim Hamilton, Dean Haspiel, Simon Fraser, Molly Crabapple & John Leavitt, Joe infurnari Mike Cavallaro, Pedro Camargo, Jim Dougan & Hyeondo Park, Ulises Farinas, Michel Fiffe, Maurice Fontenot, Jennifer Hayden, and Leland Purvis.

“ACT-I-VATE makes comics better.”
–Warren Ellis [from the ACT-I-VATE PRIMER foreward].

Jeff Newelt was nice enough to pass along some photos from SD09’s PopCult party, which he helped organize, and I’m nice enough to post ‘em so here goes:

Paul Pope makes his DJ debut at Comic-Con

Pop Cult / Devil’s Due’s Josh Blaylock and Pop Cult / Kingdom Comic’s Christian Beranek

Jim Mahfood rocking the live art

Jim Mahfood [http://www.40ozcomics.com/] does live art on a live model

Comic-Con goers brought the ruckus to the PopCult party

(more…)

§ We’re tragically one plane ride away from the time to finish our own convention rant, so until then, here’s the new most linked to post about the con, courtesy of recently promoted all-around comics genius Eric Reynolds:

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all doom and gloom by any means; we did well despite the oddly slow Saturday, thanks in part to a surprisingly robust Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday. But amongst virtually all of the retail and publishing exhibitors I talked to, there were some remarkably consistent and potentially alarming trends that could carry over to future years. There were noticeably fewer back issues dealers this year, and many reduced presences from traditional con stalwarts like Bud Plant. Personally, this disappoints me and doesn’t bode well for the comics at Comicon. Many alternative cartoonists are passing over the show and focusing on events like MoCCA, SPX and APE, and it’s not hard to understand why; you have to get your ducks in a row so far in advance to even attend Comicon that it’s simply easier to focus on those other, smaller, more arts-friendly shows. They’re also considerably less expensive to attend.

Reynolds feels that this year, for the first time, all the media hoopla actively detracted from sales for Fantagraphics comics, and Saturday, usually a monster sales day, was just so-so.

§ One more post, from Tony Lee, and this one details the kind of heartbreaking capriciousness shown by the Elite security:

I then made my way to the Doctor Who panel, only to be told that I couldn’t enter with the ticket I had – I had to join the queue, the one that people had been queuing in since midnight the day before.

I was gutted, but then one of the security guys I’d met in the previous day’s Vampire panel caught me – he was a fan of my Doctor Who comic and I’d signed him a book the day before – and was confused as he’d seen my twittered photo and knew I had a ticket. I showed it to him. He marched me back to the door guy and screamed at him – apparently door guy didn’t realise that these were ’special’ tickets, and I was allowed in. As I entered, looking to sit at the back Rich Starkings phoned, he was holding a seat for me in the ’super special VIPs’ area. I slipped down to the front and walked across, getting a ‘Tony Lee!’ cheer from most of the second row (cheers guys) and a few IDW fans who recognised me.

Like we said, not actionable on its own, but very representative of the moans and complaining we heard during the show.

Some views and voices…we’re only gonna do this for a few days, don’t worry. We’ll be back at SBM on Friday am.

§ Brian Heater got to interview everyone from The Mighty Boosh to Seth to Stan Lee:

He’s genuinely funny and warm during our interview, and while he doesn’t seem to precisely grasp the intricacies of the Disney “electronic comic book” he helped to produced, he speaks of the project with a downright viral sense of enthusiasm. I ask him he reads comics and he answers, “no.” He just can’t find the time these days. He pulls out his cell phone. Says that one day he’ll learn how to send messages on the thing. Oh, and he bought himself an iPhone, too, but he doesn’t know how to use it. It’s perfect material for the PCMag name on my badge, which paid for me to come out to this coast. Before he’s finished talking about the alien gadget, I’ve got my headline “Stan Lee Has an iPhone.”

§ Our pal Jimmy Aquino also made copious use of press opportunities, and delivers a pretty comprehensive and typical look at CCI with the good, the bad and the ugly.

§ Elizabeth Rappe has The Hunks of Comic Con 2009!

§ American Originals’ Jeff Katz surveys the Hollywood scene

The view from the floor is as massive and jam-packed as ever. It’s clear that the economy and larger consolidation of the entertainment industry has put a damper on excess Hollywood spending in SD and it’s a fair bet that premieres and event parties will continue to be among the first and easiest trims on the studio bottom line. One of the important messages I’ve tried to convey since starting American Original is that the entertainment industry on the whole is looking at a 25 to 30% contraction over the next two to three years. This has a gigantic ripple effect on several symbiotic entertainment businesses we love – gaming, comics, wrestling, etc. – and we’re really only seeing the early stages of the larger change now. We’ve hit a perfect storm of economic crisis, rising marketing and production costs, digital piracy and distribution strategy that will play out for quite a while longer. I suspect we’ll see several more signs of this over the next several days at the Con.

§Did Twitter sputter at the con? Variety says yes, as a hoped for Twitter wave of fan buzz did not materialize:

Marketing mavens had thought fans would whip out their cell phones and use Twitter to spread the word instantly on what they thought about the movies Hollywood took to Comic-Con last week. But the number of tweets from San Diego fell short of expectations. Overall, buzz generated on Twitter from Comic-Con was so low that no movie generated enough tweets to account for 1% of the total messages sent during a given hour of the convention, according to data collected by Interpret, an entertainment, media and technology measurement and market research firm founded by former Nielsen exec Michael Dowling. By comparison, the latest installment of the “Harry Potter” franchise generated more tweets than Comic-Con or any of the pics featured during the show.

§ BUT Comics Alliance’s Caleb Goellner says Twitter was just fine:

While covering the convention most media folks were busy. Like really busy – too busy to keep up with their Twitter feeds busy. Standing in 1-3 hour lines for a panel might sound like plenty of time to update social networking statuses, but trust me — it wasn’t. Phone calls, E-mails and constant texts interrupted the most basic activities (eating, using the facilities, sleeping). Deadlines for panel reports and interview write-ups did not yield enough Tweet time for even the most savvy smart phone addicts to meet their usual sedentary office-based quotas.

We’d back up the idea that there was just too much chaos to Twitter, BUT we do have to point out that Variety was talking about FAN twitters, and Goellner is talking about WRITERS/REPORTERS…two different beasts.

Brigid Alverson talks to the new Girlamatic editor Diana McQueen< about the return of the girl-friendly webcomics site, with a new, free model, and lots of new and returning content.

But rumors of Girlamatic’s death were exaggerated, says editor-in-chief Diana McQueen. The comics have been updating regularly, and the entire site will get a facelift when it relaunches on July 31 with new content and a new business model: Subscription fees will be dropped, and bloggers and new creators will join the existing lineup.

[snip] She also holds out the possibility of a print edition. “I have a personal fantasy of being Shojo Beat, only without the epic failure at the end,” McQueen says. “We have the content now where we can design a really interesting, possibly quarterly, book, like Shojo Beat, where it has one chapter from each story and every time you buy it it accumulates, which we think is an interesting model for people who just want a flavor of everything. That would be subscription based. It’s a ways in the future. We are going to see how the launch goes and get our numbers back up, and then we are going to branch out. But I see print in our future.”

Much more on the webcomics economy in the piece.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether an internet feud is just an excuse to type or lot or a manifestation of an actual conflict. We’d kind of decided that the Con-vs-Twlight feud was halfway a work, but on the floor we heard enough anecdotal evidence and passing references to decide that the Twilighters are, in fact, the most recent invaders to the con, and since they are from a different demo group, they are being greeted with a bit of xenophobic dread.

This seems to be from one of those websites that’s trying to be bold and tough in the way of a Bill Maher-wannabe, so it definitely be a “work”, but the very fact that it’s touching on these issues shows that they have some juice:

This could be a clear iteration of fear of “the other” and general anxiety over female expression of their own interests and activities (though male-focused)…or it could be someone trying to get hits on the Internet.

What say you?

As only he can do it…

We would plug in to this idea! Call us nuts.

Okay, a very brief linkage of some of the points of interest we saw during yesterday’s recovery time:

§ Douglas Wolk reviewed >ASTERIOS POLYP for the NY Times, in a review Scott McCloud deemed “insightful.”

§ This Booth Babe business is pretty annoying.

§ Here’s that letter by Chuck Rozanski everyone is talking about.

§ i09 asks Who Won Comic Con’s Buzz Wars? and doesn’t mention a single comic book. However, this quote is worth parsing for its implications;

Look at last year — Comic Con 2008 had a clear winner (Watchmen) and a clear loser (The Spirit). And the bad exposure at Comic Con definitely hurt The Spirit, but it’s hard to argue the event helped Watchmen all that much. Meanwhile, Star Trek stayed away from Comic Con 2008, and did better than almost any movie that actually did panels there. (Looking back, Wolverine did a panel, and it grossed less than Trek domestically.)

§ ComicMix has a few #SDCC: Overheard at San Diego Comic type posts. We LOVE those!

§ Letterer extraordinare Todd Klein posts a series of >“What I did at the con” styles that make it very, very clear why going to the show IS still cool:

My last event of the con was a panel by writer/artist Bryan Talbot about his upcoming new graphic novel, Grandville. Here he is holding an advance copy, it will be out this fall. Of all the new projects I heard about at the con, I think this is the one I’m most looking forward to reading. As Bryan described it, imagine a detective along the lines of Sherlock Holmes, but in turn of the century France, and in a story that might have been directed by Quentin Tarantino, but with the lush, detailed art no one can do so well as Bryan. And, the characters are anthropomorphized animals. Bryan’s talk was on all the influences and similar approaches that inspired him, from 18th-century political broadsides to Beatrix Potter, to Rupert the Bear, and right up through Dave Sim’s Cerebus. Bryan’s work on the 98-page story is incredible, and I urge you not to miss it.

§ A nice round-up of con observations

§ This fan — who spent $50 on babysitting for a panel they would never get in to — had a pretty crap time at Comic-Con. Even allowing for post con bitching and moaning, this experience doesn’t sound like much fun:

have to have spent the ENTIRE day in one room if I wanted to see this panel. In essence I could have to have been there for SIX hours with no chance of doing anything else at the con. I know true fans will say that camping out is a tradition, and that I’m being a whiny baby. I say anyone paying fifty bucks for a single day ticket, and another fifty for daycare should be entitled to more than sore feet and lingering bitterness.

§ And yet…Keith Chow had a SWELL time!

When I did manage to navigate through hordes trying to get free swag and gawking at various booth babes and celebs, it was pretty maddening. (Quick tip: when trying to blow some steam off after being stressed out, walking the exhibit halls is not the way to go.) They’re not exaggerating about this place being packed to the gills. Making your way to, say, Artists’ Alley requires planning, preparation and patience. And blisters on your feet. Fortunately, being an exhibitor allowed me to gain access to the halls before the doors were open, and this was the best time to check out all the studios’ elaborate booths, though they were not open to offering their free (or even not free) swag until doors opened. Boo!

§ Perhaps Ming Doyle’s way is the best.

How much work did the Lost brain trust put into their (last?) Comic-Con panel presentation? A lot, according to an article in today’s NYT.

“Is it too late for when Carlton and I come out onstage for there to be giant towers of flames?” Mr. Lindelof said (mostly) facetiously.

Tip of the hat to Peter Sanderson, since we saw the story first from his Facebook link.

Posted by mark coale

Posted by Evie

Mile High Comics’ Chuck Rozanski appears to be the first out of the gate with the annual “where are the comics at Comic Con?” lament, and Val D’Orazio has a further discussion. My personal flash-assessment, having not been there this year but having gone in the past and following the news from the perspective of journalists, publishers and creators, is that the shape of this problem depends a lot on where your stake is. For smaller retailers who are losing money, it is perhaps epic. For others who are making the books, the convention is still very much about the comics. The idea that the TV/movie/video game/toy/big money contingent is taking over is, well, that discussion is very much in progress, as we know. One thing is for sure: Chuck Rozanski is not so fussed on Twitter.

It’s also interesting when reading a few of Wired’s Geek Dad’s “Top 10 Reasons I’m Not Sorry to be Missing Comic Con”*:

8. Why should I pay to fly across the country to see people like Bruce Campbell, Nathan Fillion, Neil Patrick Harris, and Eliza Dushku, when I can see them on TV and DVD for free?

7. I haven’t been into comic books since high school, and that’s all the convention’s really about, right? I mean, why else would they call it “Comic-Con?”

Now, I’m going to give Geek Dad Matt Blum credit for intending this subtle paradox, but let’s pretend for a second that he didn’t (and maybe he didn’t). Would it be so terrible if the two biggest reasons to go to Comic Con were that you a) loved comics AND b) wanted to get your picture taken with Nathan Fillion? The argument against the corporate media takeover of comic con always seems to imply that too many of the people who fill up the convention hall are there for the glitter and not for the paper. But almost everyone I personally know in the comics community get equally weak-kneed over both Asterios Polyp and Josh Holloway (or ok Megan Fox), and I would wager it’s these things together, rather than one or the other, that make your average attendee pony up.
*Thanks to Torsten for the link.

Via an unnamed correspondent, apparently the Becky Cloonan/Amy Reeder Hadley feud errupted in VIOLENCE over the weekend. Sad that comics have come to this.

We’ll have our big long meditation on Comic-Con and What It Means tomorrow or (more likely) Wednesday am, but in the meantime, Sunday wrapped up with FAR MORE crowded floors than Saturday, and reports of mixed sales, fewer costumes, and the same “It was brutal but it was great!” vibe from 97 percent of the folks we talked to. Most of the Hollywooders had decamped in the night, leaving only glitter and sparkle and the drying drops of Joss Whedon’s sweat on the the rooftop bars of San Diego. With Brigadoon moved on, it’s back being just another economically challenged, meteorologically superior average American city.

A few quick notes on the cabbies and service workers of San Diego. People around town were unequivocably more friendly than they had been in past years. We were told by several people that there had been both informal and formal meetings — including one at the Haytt! — devoted to telling the workers to “be nice to the Con people so they will keep coming back.”

At our traditional Sunday night dinner, our server couldn’t have been better or more solicitous. Hotel workers were cheerful and helpful, something that has not always happened in this town. According to Jackie Estrada, the Bayfront Hilton couldn’t have been any friendlier in helping get the Eisner Awards set up.

In addition, the locals were uniformly enthusiastic about a chance to get inside the big show. Many had been trying to get tickets for months. Others were wistful that time and access had not come through, but were hopeful about next year. While we’re not sure that wandering the strictly policed, security-rampant, giveaway-choked floors of the Convention Hall was all that fun in the abstract, it’s still one of the places to be.

Speaking of dinner, nothing was slaughtered before our eyes, and we enjoyed tapas, sangria, and talk with Ben McCool, Anina Bennett, Paul Guinan, Larry Marder, Todd Klein, Stuart Moore, Peter Gross, Kevin Cannon, Zander Cannon, and Steve Leialoha. Smarter, nicer dinner companions couldn’t be imagined, and it was as always a wonderful way to wrap up the show, followed by yet more chatter at the Dead Dog Party.

We’ll have more when we’ve had even more sleep and filed a few more deadline sensitive stories for tomorrow’s PW Comics Week.