Notes From The 2010 CCI Floor



The following are notes and observations gathered on the floor of Comic-Con International 2010 in San Diego, California. For immediate reactions to what's going on from hundreds of people, I recommend an appropriate search or multiple such searches on Twitter. For mainstream comics and panel coverage in general -- this being a key event for publishing news announcements -- I recommend Comic Book Resources and then Newsarama. -- Tom Spurgeon

*****

* first, some personnel news that hasn’t made the sites: Jason T. Miles has a new position at Fantagraphics, moving over from a store liaison and inventory management role into editorial and production managing. Miles did assistant's work on the Humbug project Fantagraphics did in 2009, and shepherded the Jim Woodring FCBD effort through production as well.

* the comics area seemed really light traffic-wise to me, or, more to the point, it never seemed dangerously stuffed with people the way it had in past years at one time or another. That’s super-anecdotal, though, just my personal observation. I spoke with a small sampling of five publishers and four creators selling and six of them said they were doing pretty well sales wise. That’s going to vary wildly person to person, though.

* my new Comic-Con when you're over 40 mantra: "I'm not getting older, I'm getting weaker and less able to recover."

* Blake Bell sold his allotment of Bill Everett books today by the end of his signing period (Fantagraphics will have a few more on hand for the weekend) and had his photo taken at the Fantagraphics books with Lake Bell, who is disturbingly good-looking.

* only a couple of comics-related TV/Film deals pop to me, solely because of the implications for the publishing houses involved. Oni has signed a first look deal with CBS television studios, which seems to me the kind of thing that would benefit the comics partner if there's money involved and if talent looking to place work with the publisher wants to know their stuff will be looked at in that fashion. That latter consideration works in a much more open fashion at Image, where many of the creators can be nudged into admitting their projects make little to no money, so the success Chew has enjoyed as a surprise publishing hit and now soon-to-be television series has to be heartening for creators seeking to place work there.

* a couple of people asked me if I thought the security was any better. I think it's not so much a leap forward from last year as a gradual improvement over the last few. It's to be expected, too -- when the country experiences economic hardship, the quality improves in terms the people willing to work certain jobs. The comics industry has benefited from the disappearing editorial and art director jobs in the same way that I’m imagining security firms have a deeper talent panel from which to deploy event personnel.

* took in the last half-hour of the Jeff Smith panel, I'd say about 175-200 in attendance. Smith's always been great with his panels, and he was as laid-back and easy-going as ever. He predicted that next year Warner Brothers would have news concerning the Bone movie in development, and he had only seen a few seconds of animation amidst a number of character design sheets, all of which he liked. One person told me that watching Jeff Smith speak makes you wonder why anyone has ever been scared to speak before an audience, he's that confident.

* one thing that came out of the Smith panel that may make me reconsider Bone: I'd always stayed away from seeing Bone as having too many autobiographical elements; that just seemed too facile of an interpretation. But Smith actually described Kingdok as someone who gave himself over to "the system" in the form of the locusts. That makes me wonder if there's a vocational aspect of some sort throughout Bone.

* saw Brendan Burford on the floor of the show. I congratulated him on the strong launch for Dustin. I don't think he'd mind me passing along that the strip is in 150 papers now: a victory in any market and a miracle in this one (everything after the colon is me, not Burford). He called the artist Jeff Parker one of the hidden heroes of comic strips.

* Burford also talked up the Oh, Brother strip King Features is doing with Bob Weber, Jr. and Jay Stephens, an old alt-comics favorite for people near my age. What they're doing is apparently a devoted site launch for that strip, following the model of Wimpy Kid, which will feature the strip and a bunch of related games and activities. Anything with Stephens' visual imprimatur is bound to loo pretty great, and it's totally worth nothing that KFS is doing a kind of launch no other syndicate's ever done.

* had an interesting meeting with Jordan Verzar, the music promoter who helped put together this forthcoming event, and hopes to make it a continuing, yearly effort. We talked about comics a bit, and one thing he said I thought was fascinating was that as a group the Australian comics outlets have almost no back-issues stock; it's just not a part of the funnybook-buying experience down there as he's experienced it. So for him the west end of the con floor was a kind of pulpy nirvana even if it seems to some of us like an area in decline, and he admitted to buying a big stack of comics only a half day into the show.

* stopped by the Dumbrella panel, which was very well attended with what seemed like a number of hardcore fans. What came across to me from the five cartoonists on the panel is that there was very little overlap in terms of style, approach, or the business mechanisms by which they were trying to facilitate their comics. I think there's an assumption of a kind of monolithic standard for those cartoonists, like "they all sell t-shirts," and that just isn't true.

* caught a significant portion of the Tom Palmer panel. Mark Waid is an excellent panel moderator, but with his encyclopedic knowledge of comics and cartoonists like Tom Palmer, that makes sense. Palmer was an elegant-looking guy, like John Hurt with a fuller head of hair. None of his answers were rote answers. When he was questioned if he had any moral qualms about inking the violence in Kick-Ass he replied in a way that almost indicated that he couldn't have understood why anyone could have such an objection if the material were clearly marked and labeled and headed for an intended audience, which is not always what you get from guys who have worked in the American mainstream for as long as Palmer has. He also noted the camaraderie of people in the comic business, how there are easy relationships from people based on respect for the work being done and the shared experience of deadlines and creative pressures. Good, solid comics panel.

* the James Sturm panel was in the part of the convention that I hadn't been to since my backpack and all my stuff was stolen a few years back.

* James Sturm was surprised to win an Inkpot, the convention's award. That's a handsome little statue. I assured James of some of the big names who were given the award in years past and he lit up with surprise.

* Sturm is without surprise a really interesting speaker. He talked about getting back on-line recently after his off-line experiment for Slate Magazine, and how catching up with the vanity google searches for reaction to Market Day turned a kind of miserable everyday routine into 30 minutes of study and read, concentrated fun. Really great crowd, about twice the size I would have expected given the location of the room and the murderer's row of similar spotlights that same horror. Brendan Burford asked if Market Day and the Internet experiment indicated a distrust towards new technologies and how they discombobulate practicing artists, but Sturm stated that wasn't true at all.

* one thing Sturm said that intrigued me was that he was going to compress an old, failed graphic novel attempt about a year in the life of art students in to an effort for the NY Times Funny Pages when that was a going concern. He chose a Fall slot over a Spring one, and the feature was canceled in the Summer. Why I make note of that is that some folks assumed that they just ran their course in terms of cartoonists they wanted to work with, where it seems like it was much more of an overt cancellation, with work in the pipeline and everything.

* I don't have a link, but Marvel made its official Strange Tales Vol. 2 announcement. I'm glad all those cartoonists are getting a payday, and I hope they have a good time.

* the Best And Worst Of Manga 2010 panel was a blast, maybe more so because my moderating basically consisted of playing Vanna White with the powerpoint "next image" button. I've made a full post of their recommendations and please-avoids which will roll out on this site Monday. Very funny people and a very passionate audience -- I wish there were many more panels with as much excitement about the experience of reading comics as that one.

* I heard some complaints from fellow comics reporters that there wasn't more media coverage of comics from people at the show. I don't know, maybe this obnoxious to say out loud, but it seems to me if you're media and you don't think there's enough coverage of comics, maybe just do more coverage of comics? There are a few movie stories with a definite comics component, but a lot that aren't, and a story about a lack of coverage isn't the same thing as just doing some coverage. People like Chris Staros, Ross Richie, AnnaMaria White -- they're all dying to talk to you.

* finally, the OTBP recommendation of the day again comes from the Sparkplug row -- Livon Jihanian's mini-comic Danger Country Vol. 1, which fits nicely into the new school of fantasy comics that everyone's enthused about these days. Clean art, compellingly-paced cartooning, nice little character designs -- what more could you want in a convention mini?

*****

the show runs from July 22nd through July 25th


 
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