Comic-Con 2007: Reflections & Stuff

It's been a couple days since I got back from the San Diego Comic-Con, and I am still "decompressing." As many of you know, it was the biggest year ever for the con, having sold out on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Never happened before. The event is overwhelming and one can spend all day reading blogs like this trying to sort it all out.



I drove down early Friday morning (5AM!) with Don Hudson and leaped into the fray! Last year I did not attend the Con--I'd missed it for the first time in over a decade--but it was familiar enough. What stunned me were the thick crowds right when they opened the doors. Truly crazy! I quickly made my way to the TOKYOPOP booth to check my signing schedule, stopping to say hello to Richard Starkings at Active Images, who took the picture above.

This year, I didn't have much to do at the convention. In previous years, Comiculture had a booth of it's own, so I had a "base" in which to hide and keep my stuff. I also had a clear-cut "mission:" To sell copies of Comiculture and my Studio's other published works. I decided to make promoting my new TOKYOPOP Manga my main focus.

To that end, I sat on one in-booth panel for TOKYOPOP on Friday afternoon. It was about "Shōnen Manga." These are books created for a teen male audience, usually with a lot of action and featuring attractive female characters. Here's a photo swiped from the TOKYOPOP website where you can almost see me!




Anyway, we did a brief signing after the panel and I convinced at least one guy to pick up the book. It was interesting, and I wish I had an opportunity to do more panels because I feel I would have had more interesting stuff to say by Sunday!

I spent most of the rest of the weekend at the Convention, trying to do some networking which, hopefully, will help me find my next big project. There's an interesting thread on Don's blog today about that very subject. I added my 2 cents there--check it out, so I don't have to repeat myself here!

Actually, Don's blog has been very entertaining this week. He has some short video podcasts that he took in San Diego. Here's one now:



There are a couple more on his blog. They are Hilarious.

For more "traditional" reporting, I encourage you to watch Heidi MacDonald's podcasts on The Beat. There is also good coverage on The Pulse. In fact, I helped them out on Saturday by sitting in and reporting on the Remembering Milton Caniff & Steve Canyon panel. My good deed for Saturday!

I also took some video at the convention, but have been unable to do anything with it yet. Hopefully I can throw together a quick edit before the week is over and people start talking about the next big show.

Right now I'm working on a bunch of new stuff, but on the top of the list is still getting the word out about Battle of the Bands. Yesterday I was pleased to report that I received a nice review on EyeOnComics.com, though some people had trouble with the link for some reason. If you were one of those, and you are interested in reading the review, you can download a PDF by clicking here.

Or, you can copy & paste this link:

http://www.madsciencemedia.com/eyeoncomics.pdf

See how easy I make it for you?

When all is said and done, I had a really good time in San Diego. I reconnected with some old pals, made some new ones and had a few margaritas to boot. Can't complain.

Must stop writing now. Look for that video soon!