Quote Of The Week
The only scapegoat and handy corporate employ among the signatures on the freelancer-dominated petition and the January 19 letter, Marv got the corporate boot up the ass." -- Steve Bissette
*****
today's cover is from the 1940s-1950s mainstream comics publisher Avon
Your Danish Cartoons Hangover Update
One story dominates today: in an attempt to avoid the death penalty, David Coleman Headley plead guilty yesterday to a series of federal terrorism charges. This included charges related to plotting against institutions and individuals related to the Danish Cartoons Controversy, as well as advance scouting on behalf of terrorists that executed 2008's terror attacks in Mumbai. At this time, US officials do not plan to extradite Headley to India. Headley DCC co-conspirator Tahawwur Rana still faces a number of the same charges regarding both series of activities. Details, such as the planned beheadings of the Danish Cartoons principals, should chill.
Your 2010 NCS Division Award Nominees -- Seth, Mazzucchelli and Small In Graphic Novel Category
The National Cartoonists Society has officially released its list of nominees for its Reuben Award and NCS Division Awards, which will be handed out in May in New York during the only awards ceremony related to comics requiring formal wear. The Reuben Award nominees had already been leaked/reported at an earlier date: a mighty trio of Stephen Pastis, Dan Piraro and Richard Thompson. All three are deservedly well-regarded. I think it feels like Pastis' year. Admittedly, I know very little about most things.
The Graphic Novels category features the 2009 works by esteemed cartoonists David Mazzucchelli (Asterios Polyp), Seth (George Sprott) and David Small (Stitches); a Comic Books category I don't remember seeing before will come down to Terry Moore (Echo), Paul Pope ("Strange Adventures" in Wednesday Comics) and JH Williams (Detective Comics. I think what's worth noting here is that none of those choices feel like NCS favorites that happen to work in those kinds of comics. It's also worth noting Steve Brodner's nomination in advertising illustration and a fairly loaded comic-strip division category.
THE REUBEN AWARD
* Stephen Pastis
* Dan Piraro
* Richard Thompson
NCS DIVISION AWARDS
Television Animation
* Kevin Deters -- Walt Disney Prep and Landing
* Mike Gray -- The Infinite Goliath
* Seth McFarlane -- Family Guy
*****
Feature Animation
* Ronnie del Carmen, Storyboard Artist -- Up
* Tomm Moore, Director -- The Secret of Kells
* Barry Reynolds, Character Designer -- The Secret of Kells
*****
Newspaper Illustration
* Bob Rich
* Tom Richmond
* Robert Sanchuk
*****
Gag Cartoons
* Glenn McCoy
* VG Myers
* Dave Whamond to be honest, I have no idea exactly what qualifies here; above is a Glenn McCoy editorial cartoon
Got A Good CCI Hotel Room = Happy; Didn't Get One = Unhappy Shocker
I don't want to spend a ton of time talking about the act of securing convention-discounted hotel rooms for Comic-Con International. I think it's a story -- I think it's one of the few times of direct interaction between the forces of growth of that convention and others like it and the impulse to go to that convention and others like it that's not the five-day event itself. At the same time, I'm wary about stories that involve the commercial activity of bunches of people, because I think that participation lends to a greater amount of time talking through things in a way that skews the story. I thought this true of the Amazon.com story, too.
Anyway, like most things in comics -- perhaps exemplified by the first NYCC when people with the ability to circumvent the system seemed to groove on the excitement and exclusivity conveyed through a collapsed registration system that was openly screwing people -- the tendency is to high-five when something works on your behalf and to wish apocalyptic damnation on anything that doesn't. I would suggest there are hits and misses. It's my understanding exhibitors were taken care of a while ago, at least in part -- that seems like a good idea to me. As far as remaining exhibitors and attendees, I can't imagine from a process standpoint anyone not preferring yesterday's in-and-out, fraternity bid system to the rage-inducing and lose-a-working-day access issues of years past. I'm also reminded that people were completely shut out under the old system -- I was last year -- so it's not like a similar result is new to 2010.
That said, I'm totally sympathetic to those that felt they were in and out of the new system really quickly and that they were not treated as they expected to be treated given that facility. You can read a metric ton of them here. I've also read and heard distressing stories about not receiving back any word at all (although here's a thought: could that maybe be browser incompatibility? that's been an issue in the past for TP). I would hate reserving rooms into a void with the white-hot fury of 10,000 suns aka "Frank Martin style." A lot of anecdotal evidence suggests weakness if not outright collapse or corruption in the timestamp system, and that should certainly be addressed along with the non-response type failure. Both should be part of the dialogue that press people and attendees have with the CCI team that employs Travel Planners, and the ability to process what's promised fairly should be a consideration in the long-term future of the show.
On the other hand, I think the idea of fairness only extends so far. It seems to me a lot of what people experience is too many folks wanting too few rooms -- especially those highly-desirable rooms either super close to the show itself or those six to eight blocks away that don't cost an arm and a leg (perhaps an arm and half a leg). Those rooms are indeed awesome. I love those rooms! The lack of such rooms and room generally sucks on the cosmic scale of things, and is another item of discussion about the long-term future of CCI's viability in San Diego. Still, it's hard to see this strictly as an issue of fairness as long as people see their experiences 1) in narrow terms, 2) something they're entitled to. Some people are shut out of rooms they thought they had a chance of getting, and some people just didn't get a cool hotel room; we can't treat those two complaints as the same thing.
I've stayed in Mission Valley; I've stayed 25 minutes by car past Mission Valley. I had a blast those years, too. The way people describe having a hotel out there, it's like they envision coming to the convention center in an all-terrain vehicle shared by Jan-Michael Vincent and George Peppard, dodging giant scorpions along the way. The year I stayed 35 minutes up the highway I made a choice to be there for my job, and doing my job didn't require me to have an awesome room 200 feet from the convention center. (I don't take anyone seriously that claims it does, and I know dozens of out-of-work journalists that would cover the show really, really well from the Holiday Inn in San Juan Capistrano.) Would it make things easier? Sure. But so would the con buying me a better class of notebook and comping my room.
As a longtime con-goer and someone who can get an awful lot of business done there, I wish CCI were as easy to attend as HeroesCon. But you know, I wish New York Comic-Con were a lot cheaper to attend, too, especially as someone getting too old to gracefully crash on a couch somewhere. Ditto Angouleme. Ditto Fumetto. (Okay, maybe especially Fumetto.) People in comics sometimes have a really hard time imagining an industry that exists without them, but such an industry is a truer reality now than it ever was before. Maybe you don't get to own all the comics you want, maybe you don't get to write Uncanny X-Men, and maybe you don't always get to stay at the Hilton and take a 45 second walk to Comic-Con. In the end, even the biggest funnybook show in North America is a funnybook show: you decide if it's worth it to go, and you make adjustments accordingly. The rest really is a lottery.
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* if you read only one piece of writing on a very busy Friday, make it Tim Kreider's review of Pim & Francie. If you have a bit more time, read Jog on thought balloons. If you're still looking for something to do, make me a sandwich. Seriously, though, those are two good articles.
* Shannon Smith has published an enjoyable, lengthy list of the mini-comics artists, webcomics cartoonists and anthologies that made 2009 a good one. The list includes:
+ Brad McGinty
+ Dustin Harbin
+ Ed Choy Moorman
+ Ghost Stories
+ James Kochalka
+ J. Chris Campbell
+ Josh Latta
+ Julia Wertz
+ Kate Beaton
+ Megan Rose Gedris
+ Michael Kupperman
+ Patrick Dean
+ Pinstriped Bloodbath
+ Rene Engstrom
+ Sally Bloodbath
+ side B: the music lover's comics anthology
+ Supergirl Cosmic Adventures in the Eight Grade
+ T. Avery
+ the 2009 Fluke Anthology
+ the 2D Cloud books
+ The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb
+ the DC Showcase Presents line
+ The Deadbeat
+ the Marvel Essential line
+ the occasional Archie digest
+ The Surogates: Flesh and Bone
+ the Winter 2009 volume of Mome
+ Wednesday Comics
The list is all over the place, but to be honest, so is the way most of us read comics. The write-ups are fun, too, so I hope you'll explore them through the link.
* finally, I wasn't going to run a link to this column by Clifford Meth until he e-mailed me a chillingly recent photo of my dog.
If You Have A CCI Room Story To Tell, I'd Like To Hear It And Exploit It
Today was the first day of Comic-Con International hotel rooms being offered at a discount through the convention. This has in the last few years been a day filled with a super-tense, one- to four-hour staring contest with the Travel Planners Web Site as it bottlenecks, followed by much disappointment as the seemingly tiny allotment of rooms quickly dissipates. As such, it's come to represent the rapid growth of CCI and conventions in general, and a potential schism between older fans used to doing things a certain way and newer fans who want in on the fun. This year Travel Planners instituted a time-stamp system whereby people submitted 12 choices and then heard back from TP as to which one they secured with a request to confirm through one day's deposit.
I'm a long-time Comic-Con attendee that uses the system every year. I was shut out of the hotels on this day last year and spent like five hours to learn that I was shut out. This year I spent exactly four minutes on-line and went to watch a basketball game and when I got back I had my fourth choice. So for me, this worked out great. However, I honestly don't care where I stay. I can't imagine there were too many people psyched to get their 12th choice, but for me the only requirement is I stay in at least one new hotel every year to learn what they're like. So my needs are different.
What about you? Did you like the new system? I'm particularly interested if anyone had problems that weren't simply related to more people wanting hotel rooms than were available. Because that's not changing any time soon, and certainly wasn't going to change with a lottery-type system.
Oh, and by the way: maybe check your spam if you never got an e-mail? That's how my program scanned the incoming Travel Planners missive.
IDW/DCD: IDW Becomes Premier IDW Publishing announced today via press release that it will become a premier publisher with Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. This would make IDW the first publisher to advance to that status with Diamond since the terms were implemented 14 years ago.
IDW recently broke into the top tier of comics publishers based on market share, a tier traditionally reserved for premier publishers. That achievement was a sign of the company's growing sales presence and indicates a generally positive partnership with Diamond -- also the company's book distributor through a separate arm of the company.
In addition to the status involved -- and don't discount the status involved: as I recall, not getting this status was a real blow to CrossGen once upon a time, although their candidacy was much less convincing than IDW's by a country mile -- IDW will move its listing to a reserved section at front of the catalog and will participate in the Final Order Cut-Off Program before the end of the year. Unlike Marvel and DC, IDW will retain a traditional buy/sell relationship with the distributor. I don't know if IDW will start designing its own catalog pages or if it was already doing so; a query to the publisher has as of this writing yet to be answered.
Although it's unclear just how great an advantage that premier publisher status brings almost 15 years since it was, indeed, a very big deal that helped shape today's market, it's difficult to deny that 1) IDW has achieved that status due to the original sales performance parameters in a much less fruitful economic climate, 2) any assistance in negotiating the Direct Sales Market is, one would imagine, more than welcome. So good for them.
* the writer and academic Charles Hatfield has another fine, lengthy event report, this time on 
IDW Publishing announced today via press release that it will become a premier publisher with Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. This would make IDW the first publisher to advance to that status with Diamond since the terms were implemented 14 years ago. 
