I’m back from the San Diego Con, with a brief sojourn up into Los Angeles for business and such.
I figure I’ll do a blow-by-blow in my column in the next CBG (about which I heard from a number of people, most of them saying the same thing: “Did it HAVE to go monthly?” Hey, wasn’t my call to make.) Overall, the con continues to be the marathon of conventions. There were exhibitors who looked like the walking wounded, and it was only Thursday.
I would say that, over the four days, I got to see maybe 50% of the dealer’s room, which is by this point easily the size of three football fields if not more. I was on several panels, and what was interesting to me was that they were not comics panels but fantasy lit panels. There’s something to be said for sharing space with the likes of Terry Brooks and Robert Jordan.
I attended, by invite, the very first screening for an audience of “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.” One hëll of a film, I gotta say, with Jude Law perfect as the movie serial-esque hero and Gwyneth Paltrow looking like she just stepped out of a 1930s film. I’m utterly convinced that this retro pastiche look is the way to go with the new “Superman” film. Just go ahead, make it look like a Fleischer studios cartoon. It’ll be great. High point of the film remains the attack of the giant robots, so masterfully convincing that you practically wanted to duck as they tromped through.
Attended parties thrown by both Marvel and DC, shot pool with Robert Kirkman, and pulled off a lucky trick shot that convinced everyone watching that my protests of being inept were just a cover for being a pool hustler. Accompanied a friend to an informal cocktail gathering at the Marriott where it turned out Stan Lee was, and the moment he spotted me, Stan called out, “It’s Peter David! The greatest comic book writer in the business!” whereupon everyone there suddenly wanted to get to know me.
And, yeah, in a passing remark that kind of got out of hand, I wound up getting a tat of Elfquest’s Leetah on my left arm. And let me stop discussion right now by saying that, no, as several people including my eldest daughter asked, I will NOT get my nipple pierced for another $1000 donation, or $10,000, or whatever amount. Wendy Pini, however, has volunteered to do body drawings that can then be tattooed over on anyone who wants to make a $1000 donation to the fund. My arm still stings just a bit, but it’s more like a sunburn than anything else. And I’ve pretty much got the hang of flexing my muscle so that it looks like her stomach is undulating.
PAD
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The Stan Lee comment had to be a high point!
The best I’ve ever gotten out of him is a very happy, “Hey Kid… How you been doing?”
Which is still a thrill.
As fot the “Sky Captain” film (which i am eagerly anticipating), in the trailer available online, i spotted at least two *direct* visual quotes from Fleischer Bros “Superman” cartoons…
Per the online blueprints for the SDCC, each of the 52 aisles in the Dealer/Exhibits area is 100 yards long. So, just to walk down the center of each aisle is a three mile walk.
And people were looking at me funny in the company gym the month before the con when I said I was using the eliptical trainer to train for a comic convention…
Sounds like you had a good time PAD and I’m glad you had a safe trip.
I would love to just see Stan Lee in person, let alone meet him. That guy could talk total B.S. and I’d be hooked on every word.
According to Rich Johnston, Joe Quesada hinted at PAD writing Hulk…very interesting. I hope it comes through.
See LitG, and a post at Newsarama for more info.
And let me stop discussion right now by saying that, no, as several people including my eldest daughter asked, I will NOT get my nipple pierced for another $1000 donation, or $10,000, or whatever amount.
Would you do it if I told you I had the solution to global warming?
A wolf tattoo by Wendy Pini….how cool would that be?
Welcome back, kind sir. I’m sure it’s good to be home.
Glad to see that “Sky Captain” is looking so cool — we saw the trailer a few months back and said “okay, this could be really cool if done right.” Sounds good so far.
And then, of course, The Tattoo:
And let me stop discussion right now by saying that, no, as several people including my eldest daughter asked, I will NOT get my nipple pierced for another $1000 donation, or $10,000, or whatever amount.
That’s probably a good thing. I’m really really trying not to think of where the conversation would go from there…
And I’ve pretty much got the hang of flexing my muscle so that it looks like her stomach is undulating.
A good first step. The important second step is doing it in tune to Vina’s dance music from “The Cage.” 🙂
TWL
Congratulations on getting tapped for the fantasy lit panels. (Spread that rep around!)
And it’s good to hear that you liked “Sky Captain”. The General Technics mailing list (which is full of SF fans) has been looking at the trailers and saying, “*Please* let it not suck!” Sounds like it doesn’t. 🙂
Congratulations, Mr. David, on a well-deserved semi-public compliment from The Man! 🙂 In the end, it doesn’t matter what Certain Other Persons say to disparage you, when you’ve got someone like Stan Lee bolstering your reputation.
Meanwhile, thank you muchly for the review of Sky Captain. My husband is looking forward to this movie so much that he might strai his patience before it’s all over.
(I have to admit, the very first time I saw the teaser trailer, I wasn’t all that impressed — until a certain cameo character walked onstage, and I said, “Honor Harrington?!?” The not-so-teaser trailer, though, THAT impressed me bunches.)
i don’t know if i was one of the walking wounded you saw, but i was the overall booth manager for marvel/activision. i planned on introducing myself at one point, but you happened to be present at the exact moment that our video feed was having issues, the backroom door broke and hooligans made off with my AV guy’s bag. it was chaotic there for a moment and then you were gone… next time i guess.
overall, i had a good time. i think we convinced marvel to have a bigger presence next year as the two tables really wasn’t cutting it.
anyway, i’m jonathan. hopefully, i’ll get the chance to say “hey” in the future.
Peter, it was great to finally meet you in San Diego. I had a great time, it sounds like you had a better one. 😉
But the really exciting part of this post for me is hearing that Lee Weeks is doing art on your Hulk mini. I thought his work on Bruce Jones’s stuff was phenomenal, I’ve been a fan of his work for a long time and he just seems to keep getting better. Looking forward to the two of you working together on the Hulk.
I’m one of those who is rather grumpy that Comics Buyer’s Guide went monthly. The first two issues haven’t helped a whole lot, as they’re chock-full of a whole bunch of things which mostly don’t interest me. Sigh.
Coincidentally, my current subscription will run out with (I believe) #605, which will be my 999th issue as a subscriber to CBG, and my 1000th issue overall (my first issue was #600, which I got free for voting in the CBG fan awards). I guess the next year will tell whether I decide to re-up. It’d be a little hard to put 20 years of subscription behind me, but the new CBG doesn’t seem to meet my needs as a reader. At least, that’s what the early returns say.
One problem with making an issue an ideal jumping-on point for new readers, is that it’s often also an ideal jumping-off point for old readers.
Sigh.