I have plenty of pictures up over here – go check them out. Report time…
Wednesday
I got into town at around noon. Robin and I took a cab to the Sofia Hotel. The Sofia
was remodeled In January 2007 and it’s now a nice and swanky spot only seven blocks from the convention center and three blocks from Ralph’s. We ran into James W. Powell and Jason Copland at the hotel – it’s odd that out of all of the hotels in San Diego I book one at the same place that my assistant editor (James) and frequent collaborator (Jason) are in. It's even weirder that none of us even realized we were in the same place and that we showed up at the exact same time. San Diego Comic-Con may have had 140,000 attendees this year but it’s still a small world over there.
After checking in Robin and I went to Sea World. I don’t care if you laugh, I love
Sea World. Love it. I can watch fish swim for hours (especially eels, barracudas, and sharks). I love how you can feed and touch the dolphins and the sting rays. I love how the park is owned by Anheuser-Busch and you can get free beers at the hospitality tent. You’re only allowed two per visit but you get around that by visiting the tent every hour or so.
After Sea World Robin went back to the hotel to take a nap and I went to the
convention center to check out preview night. I went straight to the Random House booth to see what kind of press they had out for us. They had a nice poster up at the Villard section, a preview copy of the book, and a flyer advertising the four signings we head set up. I can’t complain about that.
I walked around the hall for a while. I dropped some books off with Gia-Bao Tran and the Gigantic Graphic Novel guys (Rick Spears and Rob G) to sell at their respective tables.
After the show I went out to dinner with a couple of folks: my fiancée, Robin, Josh Fialkov and his lovely fiancée (and POSTCARDS II history-editor) Christina Rice, POSTCARDS artist Tony Fleecs, screenwriters Marc Wheaton (THE MESSENGERS) and Gary Dauberman (DEADMAN), and Sam Cooke artist Rob Guillory and his wife, April. We went to a nice little Italian place.
We were going to head over to the Hyatt afterwards but first I had to take Tony to his hotel in Gary’s car. I rented a POSTCARDS Crash Room for anyone that didn’t have a place to stay and wanted to make sure that Tony could check it into it since he was the first one to use it. It took us close to twenty minutes to get to the hotel, the only street that passed by it was a one-way street that seconded as the off-ramp to a
highway. By the time we returned Gary’s car it was already past eleven and we were about a half-mile from the Hyatt and tired. Robin, Tony, Gary, and I went out for some drinks closer to our hotels.
The first bar we went to was alright. We were attracted to the outdoor patio and then they closed it. Some Santana cover band was playing the wrong songs too loud inside the bar so we bolted. We went to some dive bar on Tony’s suggestion and it ended up being the greatest two hours of the convention by my recollection.
It was cheap, for starters. Two-dollar beers and well drinks all night, every night.
The bartender was hysterical. When we commented on how cheap the beers were she proceeded to tell us the price of every drink behind the bar. She
joked with us, made fun of us, took pictures with us. When someone came in with a big box of XL-or-larger restaurant shirts, she encouraged us to take them. Tony got it started, digging through the box and putting different shirts on. Eventually, everyone was wearing the free shirts. People would come through the door and we’d throw a shirt at them. Joshua Dysart comes in and I say, “Joshua! Where’s your shirt?” It was a drunken mess but a good mess.
Ralph’s, then hotel – Preview Night was over.
Thursday
I had breakfast with Josh Fialkov and Christina Rice. While Josh and I talked about our futures, Christina read POSTCARDS. No joke – she cried, in front of us, after reading Phil Hester’s story. Anyway, I think several decisions where made over breakfast that’ll be playing out over the next several months.
Afterwards I went to the Horton Plaza mall to get some new sunglasses and hat – I already had mild sunburn on my bald patch from the trip to Sea World. Robin’s friend, Julie, flew into town while we were shopping and the three of us went to Old Town together from some lunch. We had some decent Mexican food and caught up a bit before heading out to the convention.
I had my first meeting of the show with Paul Benjamin, one of the writers for
POSTCARDS II. I stacked most of them during Friday and Saturday (huge mistake – I’ll tell you why later). After the meeting I made my way to the
Villard panel. It went well; I’d say about 60 people showed up. Kazu was insightful, as always, and Josh and I cracked jokes, mainly. The audience seemed to be entertained and at least four people came up to me and bought a book during one of my signings, mentioning that they loved the panel. Sales!
After the panel Josh and I walked around a bit before heading out to the Random House dinner. Good conversation and good food – horrible service, though. We were there for three hours, which is fine, but a lot of that time was spent waiting for stuff. Like drinks. And forks. But, hey, I’m not one to complain about a free meal – especially if it’s good.
We headed over to the Circle of Confusion party after that and met up with Gary, Tony, Mark, Christina, Robin, and Julie. There were too many people there to recount each and every one but I did run into POSTCARDS contributors Stuart Moore and Michael Gaydos. It was a great party at any rate, and I took full advantage of the free booze and downed a combination of Red Bull-Vodkas, scotch, and beer before heading over to the Hyatt.
Being party night the Hyatt was kind of dead and I’m not going to complain about
that. We met up with James Powell, Jason Copland, Caleb Monroe, Drew Melbourne, and Elton Pruitt and listened to Tony Fleecs tell stories all night. Tony can keep an audience attentive for hours on end – it makes me wish he’ll hurry up and get to IN MY LIFETIME #2.
The bar closed and Robin, Julie, and I went back to the hotel (after a trip to Ralph’s, of course). I was pretty sick but luckily the need to pass out was greater than the need to notice that the room was spinning.
Friday
I started my Friday with breakfast at the Marriott with Josh Fialkov, Christina Rice, Tony Fleecs, Mark Wheaton, Rob Guillory and wife, April, Kody Chamberlain, Phil Hester, Colleen Coover, and Paul Tobin. I got to check out Paul and Colleen’s newest graphic novel and it’s gorgeous. I headed out to get to my 10AM meeting. The convention, however, opened at 10:30 – making me a half-hour late and setting the precedent for late, missed, or canceled meetings. It’s great that there’re 140,000 people attending Comic-Con but those people make it impossible to keep a schedule. It’s my fault, really, scheduling so many back-to-backs, but it was still annoying.
Luckily I had nothing solid planned after the first meeting – I was still able to catch some of the Image Founders Panel. It was fun but definitely didn’t have the drama I was hoping for. It did make me appreciate Jim Lee more, however. His move to Image really shook the comic industry up. I can’t think of a single person working today that could have a similar impact on the comic industry by simply moving to an upstart company.
I had a couple of short meetings before my Random House signing with Josh Fialkov. We sold a couple of books, signed them nice, and then went our separate ways. I had lunch with James Powell and Christina Rice at Dick’s Last Resort. We talked about POSTCARDS II – where we stood and the way forward. There’s work to be done, folks. Lots of it.
Lunch ended early and I had forty minutes of downtime. I sat in the convention lobby and started to read PULP HOPE. It’s not the kind of book you read while burnt out and in a noisy convention center so I just salivated over the gorgeous artwork.
After the quick break I went to Comic Relief for another POSTCARDS signing. We had
Tom Beland, Jason Copland, Micah Farritor, Antony Johnston, Ande Parks, Rick Spears, Rob G, Gia-Bao Tran, Matt Kindt, and Joseph Bergin III all signings books. A couple of folks bought some books, a couple of folks brought their
own, and I had the crew sign a box of books I’ll be using for promotion. There wasn’t as many people as I would have liked but it wasn’t horrible, at least.
After the signing I went out for a quiet dinner with Robin and Julie. We went back to the hotel and waited for my friend PJ to show up. PJ’s a college buddy, now in LA, working for DreamWorks Animation. The four of us went straight to the Hyatt where we drank all night. Tony told stories, again, and the whispered discussion amongst me
and several friends revolved around an interesting turn or events from the day before and what I should do about it. The answer was, essentially, “get paper” but everyone had a different idea as to how said paper would be getted.
I also introduced myself to Frank Miller that evening. Gary Dauberman and I walked up to Mr. Miller and his entourage…it seems like he has a bodyguard these days, by the way. Shook Frank’s hand – he smiled and said, “Nice to meet you.” When we started telling him what we did his eyes glassed over…I don’t know, you’d think the fact that Gary’s writing DEADMAN for Warner Brothers and working with Guillermo Del Toro would at least be interesting to him. I guess he’s just too Hollywood for us.
Ralph’s and then the hotel, as per usual.
Saturday
Breakfast with Josh Fialkov, Phil Hester, and some guys from Harris comics. After breakfast I went back to the hotel room and napped until 12:30, canceling two meetings because it just wasn’t worth trying to fight the crowd. The cancelled parties had no objections, and we agreed to chat at the Hyatt Saturday night. Comic-Con had already worn me down.
Signed at the Random House booth with Phil Hester for an hour. It went well; we sold
some books and met some cool folks. Robin and Julie came to the convention afterwards and the three of us walked around – this was my first and only time really taking it all in. I picked up THE HOMELESS CHANNEL, BLACK METAL, SUPER SPY, and the absolute best find of the show. Let me explain…
Matt Kindt made signed-and-numbered, limited-edition Super Spy mini-comics called THE TREASURE. The comic is 70-some-odd panels long and each panel is on a piece of paper and placed into a hand-made box. Also in the box is a treasure map that tells you how to position the panels so you can read the entire story. The box is tied up and Matt put a little sketch on the back. Ten bucks.
FANTASTIC.
If you didn’t buy it you really missed out.
At 2PM we had our second POSTCARDS signing at Comic Relief. This time is was Michael
Gaydos, Stuart Moore, Phil Hester, Matt Kindt, Josh Fialkov, Tom Beland, James Powell, and Tony Fleecs. Much better turn out this time and we helped Comic Relief go through a chunk of their stock. I also got to meet up with an editor at NPR and talk to her a bit about the book. She seemed interested so even if it doesn’t get on the radio it’s nice to know it had a chance.
We went to dinner with around 14 folks afterwards, the usual crew – Chinese food. The crispy duck was delicious. One final romp at the Hyatt and I only spent an hours there before making my rounds and saying goodbye to everyone. I became really good at goodbyes – you just need to get in there, shake the hand, and run off before they can stop you. Josh started an hour before me and I caught up to him in the corridor in-between the two bars. Twenty minutes later I finished up the second bar and then I was gone. Just the hotel – no Ralph’s. Robin and I had the room to ourselves Saturday night, after all.
Sunday
Breakfast, packing, cab to the airport, and a comfortable flight to Chicago that allowed me to finish Harry Potter and sleep – two great things. An hour delay in Chicago, thirty minutes on the tarmac in DC, half hour waiting for our luggage, and another twenty minutes waiting for a taxi, however, got me home a little past 2AM. So – a horrible ending to a great week.
In case you want to see what Robin’s signed copy of POSTCARDS looks like, here you go:
I know you wish you had one…luckily I have ten more just like it:
I’m going to start giving them out on this website every month-to-six weeks or so. First one this week sometime. Keep your eyes open for any upcoming promotions.
Labels: events, postcards
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