Notes and Observations About or Caused by Comic-Con International, Taking Place July 26-29 (With a July 25 Preview Night) in San Diego, California
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1. Eisner Awards results with winners in bold can be found directly underneath this list. Short form: Jonathan Ross, Brian Posehn and the guys from Reno 9-11 are funnier than most comics people. Ed Brubaker and Paul Pop each win two; Bill Willingham is the king of comics. Neil Gaiman blushes when he kisses. I'll write a full report next week.
2. In addition to the fans and pros out there, there are several writers with an interest in comics on the convention floor.
* RC Harvey says his original Milton Caniff manuscript was perhaps 40 percent longer than what made it into his new book. Since the book is a size of a small dog, this is terrifying.
* Ben Schwartz and Brian Doherty were on hand. Doherty, of Reason fame, was there to interview Joe Matt at a spotlight panel.
* I met Ron Goulart yesterday; he has a book on good girl art coming out and was carrying that manuscript around.
* I always enjoy catching up with Alex Chun, who has been editing a series of Fantagraphics pin-up books in addition to his LA Times work.
* Marc Mason is apparently adding an advice columnist to his comics site.
* I'm pretty certain I met Rich Watson briefly; he does the GLYPHS site. He seemed very nice. I was probably acting like an ass.
* I saw George Khoury on Thursday evening as he was anticipating his Image Founders panel that took place Friday.
3. Retailer Lee Hester notes that in the last several years he's done better with his Comic-Con presence by diversifying the material at his booth. In addition to his discount comics rack, where I picked up some early '70s Marvel reprints at $2 a pop, Hester offered an array of merchandise and was one of the few retailers carrying this week's comics in addition to his other items. Something I hadn't known is that when Hester started retailing 25 years ago, he did so with almost no capital build-up beforehand.
4. One notion that I discussed with several retailers (well, four), none of whom was Lee Hester, is that the ability of stores to profit off of the current boom period has a lot to do with how the store was uniquely set up to enter into this specific historical moment in the first place. For instance, any store that has had to build inventory or needs to continually ramp up its inventory to keep pace with growing product lines has likely down worse than a store that was already over-carrying product.
5. Best new con hotel: The Ivy. Best new hotspot: Eden Rooftop. Best new breakfast: Cafe Chloe.
6. Your 2007 Friends of Lulu awards winnners:
* Women Cartoonist's Hall of Fame: Colleen Doran
* Lulu of the Year: Abby Denson
* Kim Yale Award for Best New Female Talent: Rachel Nabors
* Women of Distinction Award: Jennifer De Guzman
* Volunteers of the Year: MK Reed and Robin Enrico
7. Lee Hester was among those with a kid on-hand: Lee Hester IV, who was working the booth and taking in cash. Eddie Campbell's son was at the show with his for the first time in several years.
8. Ellen Forney showed up at the show for the first time in a long while. She spoke glowingly of teaching comics as a way to reignite her own interest in the form. Forney noticed as many had that there was a much more sedate feel at the show. One of her students a few years back was current Fantagraphics employee Adam Grano. Forney's next comics project is Lust: Kinky Online Personal Ads, a 172-page hardbound collection from Fantagraphics coming out in early 2008.
9. One oddly affecting San Diego memory someone shared with me was from several years ago when a couple of small publisher employees climbed out on the fire escape in the middle of the night after an evening of big parties and watched skateboard kids ride up and down the city street from their vantage point high above.
10. One item of conversation has been how predictable and calcified the Direct Market has become, to the point that you can almost pinpoint performance for everything but the very top comics, and sometimes those as well. This was brought up to me in conversation twice by people with work at the opposite ends of that market.
11. Mark Waid will apparently become Editor-In-Chief at Boom! Studios, which seems to be an interesting and astute choice. Although he's best known as a writer, he has editorial experience as well, and I think I remember him doing some consulting work with the mainstream publishers, too.
12. Hooray for San Diego: both Eddie Campbell and Michael Martens lost important items for a period of time and both had them returned intact.
Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team * Mark Buckingham/Steve Leialoha, Fables (Vertigo/DC)
* Tony Harris/Tom Feister, Ex Machina (WildStorm/DC)
* Niko Henrichon, Pride of Baghdad (Vertigo/DC)
* Michael Lark/Stefano Gaudiano, Daredevil (Marvel)
* Sonny Liew, Wonderland (SLG)
* Steven McNiven/Dexter Vines, Civil War (Marvel)
Other Awards
Bill Finger Award: Gardner Fox, George Gladir
Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award: Neil Gaiman
Russ Manning Award: David Petersen
Will Eisner Spirit of Retailing Award: Earth-2
Honored During the Memorial Service: Will Eisner, Leah Adezio, Tom Artis, Jerry Bails, Joe Barbera, Don R. Christensen, Dave Cockrum, Arnold Drake, Daniel Robert Epstein, Joe Gill, Johnny Hart, Brant Parker, Drew Hayes, Jay Kennedy, Marty Nodell, Bob Oksner, and Marshall Rogers. I think.
