Notes From The 2013 Comic-Con International In San Diego Floor



By Tom Spurgeon

The following are notes and observations gathered on the floor of Comic-Con International 2013 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 ComicsAlliance and The Beat.

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* I'm going to move some of my observations about specific events that took place on Saturday during Comic-Con into the combined-weekend that will roll out tomorrow. It was a very busy day for a lot of people.

* the sheer size and crush of people on the floor and at the various outdoor checkpoints is still staggering to behold. I try to cross the length of the floor at least once depending during the weekend. It took me an incredibly long time to do this on Saturday. The main culprit was a bunch of TV people showing up at one of the bigger booths which meant that there were suddenly a hundred cameras pulled out of various pockets to document this important event.

* there were also some big costumes that took up a lot of space. I think at least in my crowd there was 100 percent certainty that costumes were down overall, but there were several good-looking ones. I was not prepared to see fewer costumes on the floor, although, come to think of it, I wasn't really prepared for this element of the show to explode as much as it did.

* I ate breakfast with IDW's Scott Dunbier Saturday morning. I don't really have anything to report there, but I wanted to frighten Dunbier for the 1.5 seconds it took him to figure out I wasn't going to say anything after he initially scanned and found his name. I think he's enjoyed the increased profile that's come with those successful Artist's Edition books IDW has been doing.

* also, standing with Scott across the street from the convention center and having traditional comics folks stop and chat reminded me again of the comics-as-an-island feeling I first sensed last year.

* I have a hunch that this has been a very successful show for the smaller, independent companies like BOOM! Or maybe it's just been good for BOOM! My thinking is there may be opportunities for some of these companies to combine selling books with a sort of meeting-con going on throughout the weekend. In fact, it seems the face-to-face opportunities at the show have stayed pretty vital. It's a good show to arrange some face time.

* spoke with Steven Weissman at some length about how people are reacting to Barack Hussein Obama in book form as opposed to the serial. Talked to Paul Hornschemeier about moving to Boston after a dozen years in Chicago.

* one of my standard pieces of advice, that you can wander East in the gaslamp and lose the crowds quickly, doesn't really apply anymore. There are people everywhere.

* I have to say, I have yet to see a glimmer of excitement behind any book discovered at the show. There's a ton of great material to be had, but none that people seem to be rallying behind.

* had a long talk with Steven Grant about his last comics columns and about San Diego more generally. We agree in general principle on a lot of the latter; it's a show we both enjoy.

* Johnny Craig is this year's great cartoonist that keeps coming up in a variety of conversations.

* saw Coop on the floor and spun around and headed the other direction for a while to talk with him. He's a get-in, get-out Comic-con attendee at this point, but he said he thought sales were quite good considering the minimal investment he makes in getting down here from LA. We agreed that disappointing young people is the quiet joy of the getting older crowd.

* there was a lot of affection on the floor from various folks for new Eisner Hall Of Fame member Trina Robbins.

* the Prism display looked humongous to me, but part of that just may have been their taking up a facing-aisle position instead of one bending around a corner. I enjoyed a brief conversation with Ed Luce.

* Andrew Farago told me Cartoon Art Museum was ahead of the game fundraising wise at this show.

* heard great things about an Eisner panel made up of various comics heavy-hitters of the late cartoonist's acquaintance. Gary Groth told me there were about 70 people in the room for the Fantagraphics/D+Q forthcoming comics presentation, which is way more than a similar panel last year. I do think that in general the attendance at comics panels is way up from a decade or 15 years ago, particularly for smaller publishers and the artists they serve.

* there was always great sadness in someone's voice when they told me they were going to be on any panel that started after 6 PM. Just saying.

* nothing like an ebullient RC Harvey standing on the street handing out multiple business cards when you ask for one.

* Saturday night provides the greatest range of comics-folk activities: a few comics-people parties, some invites to bigger-media sponsored social events, folks grabbing dinner and going to bed, and the afterparty-as-party hotel bar scene.

* I still don't detect the binding element to this year's show.

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