Like I said, I was looking for other women and didn’t find them. It’s good to know it was better than I remember, as I sure did enjoy it. SDCC was the highlight of my year until 2000. Good times.

Other female pros at the 1986 CCI included special guests Lynn Varley and Dale Messick. Also there were Carol Kalish, Karen Berger, Lee Marrs, Lynda Barry, Deni Loubert, Kate Worley, Diana Schutz, cat yronwode, Wendy Lee, and Joyce Brabner, just to mention a few. I’m sure I could remember a lot more if I dug into my photo files for that year. It may well be that Mary Wilshire, Lois Buholis, Louise Simonson, Christy Marx, Jan Duursema, and other female pros who regularly attended Comic-Con were there that year as well.

Jackie

Why would I spend all of that to go to something that sounds (to me personally) utterly horrible? Well, I know the answer to that: perhaps my only chance in life to meet some of the artists that I admire the most. I’m not one of those guys that gets a sketch from every artist and then puts them on eBay, rather I would pay/sacrifice almost any amount to have original artwork hanging on my wall from people like Aragones, or Sakai, or Smith, or Lee. That’s what would make it worth it.

However, the rest of it? Forget it. I don’t give a shit about whatever the Sci Fi Channel is pushing, for example. I couldn’t imagine wanting to go to one of these panels, let alone waiting in line for one. I realize that’s not everybody’s feeling, but it’s certainly mine on the issue. I went to DragonCon years and years ago when I was about 10. My brother took me to a Marvel panel and I don’t even remember who was there, but they played games and shit. They had a contest to mimic Galactus and see how many planets (represented by oversized marshmellows) one could eat (by fitting them in your mouth at the same time). There was a creators versus fans tug of war. Some game where we crawled along the floor between people’s legs (and there was much debate about who would get to crawl between the girl dressed up like Elektra was going to be). Stuff like that. I remember I won an autographed Jim Lee issue of Ghost Rider that I still treasure to this day. To me, that was what a panel should be: interaction. If they’re just gonna talk at a table, no thanks. I’ll read the summary on Newsarama or watch the footage on YouTube if I’m REALLY interested (like the Image reunion panel). So why the fuck would I wait any amount of time, let alone 3 or 4 goddamned hours, to get into one of these things???

Why would I want to fight the sweaty/smelly herds? Why would I want to dodge the punishing gauntlet of things I don’t care about? I know that there are many many more people that do care about those things, enjoy that stuff, and so forth, but for me? Not worth it. I’ll wait for my first time in about 7 years when the studios have left the scene (don’t lie, you all know it’s gonna happen!).

Same girl as the LA Times, but this is a better picture.

I’d still love to hear from or about any reporters locked out of panels in their specific area of coverage.

I’d edit my previous, but, obviously I can’t!

I saw a young lady take one of those SMALLVILLE bags and make it into a (very) cute (on her) cocktail dress.

Bill, I didn’t see her myself, but I saw a picture of her on an LA Times blog post.

I did, however, see a woman who had converted hers into an apron, and a man who was wearing his like a barrel (both posted here).

I recall that last year or the year before you had said an actress was never a guest at SDCC/CCI. June Foray is most definitely an actress, as is Majel Barrett. Anyway.

I said,
“‘And by ‘woman pro,’ I mean ‘woman working professionally in the comics business.’”
Which Trina most definitely was in 1975.”

Which means (by my definition, which includes ALL women doing sequential art), that Dale Messick was the first female guest.
First are tricky things, are they not?

That’s interesting that so many women were there in 1980. I wish I could’ve seen that. In 1986 (or was it ‘87?), my first year at the then-SDCC, I could count the female pros, including myself in the number, on much less than two hands.
Jill Thompson, Vicki Wyman, Trina Robbins, Wendy Pini, Heidi MacDonald, and myself. John Byrne’s best colorist, Petra Scotese, was there but walking around enjoying herself. If there were any other female pros in that comparatively small room, I sure didn’t find ‘em, and I was looking.

Interesting that of these seven early adopters, five of us are still in the business. Not bad.

Lea:
In the early years of Comic-Con most of the female guests came from the sf/fantasy field: Leigh Brackett (1971), Katherine Kurtz (1972), D. C. Fontana (1973), Majel Barrett (1974), along with perenniel guest June Foray (the first woman to receive an Inkpot). In Dale Messick and Maggie Thompson were guests. Trina was the first female comic book creator to be a guest, in 1977. The next year Shary Fleniken and Wendy Pini were guests, but numerous female underground artists were there, including Trina, Melinda Gebbie, and Lee Marrs, as part of an underground comix theme, and the program book (which I edited) had an article about women in “comix.” The year 1980 was also big for female cartoonists, since nearly all the National Lampoon comics creators were on hand; including Flenniken and M. K. Brown. Wendy Pini got her Inkpot that year.

Pshaw, say I.

Heidi, reading this makes me gladder than ever I have stayed home for two years. If YOU can’t hummingbird around, it’s not just big, it’s miserably, pointlessly, uselessly big.

Sometimes more is just more.

Lea,
Hoping she is in the same unsecret opinion class as Trina. Word.

I’ve seen calls elsewhere for Wednesday to be noon to six, rather than later. Barring the rebirth of a trade show and making it just about mandatory for exhibitiors, this would be problematic for smaller exhibitors, many of whom drive or fly in on Wednesday and need those hours to get set up.

Have there been any complaints about access from reporters that are actually covering the events they had problems getting into? I mean, I would totally love a special pass into the Hollywood panels and I would abuse it like crazy, but it seems sort of odd anyone from PW would complain about not getting on-site access into panels about things not, you know, published.

Not to mention that now I feel stupid for waiting to get into Darwyn Cooke’s panel and not minding.

That’s a serious question, by the way. I’m working on a piece and I’d love a link to someone fitting those criteria that had access problems.

A lifetime pass for Inkpotters is a fantastic idea, btw.

* Prohibitively expensive (and simply exhausting) for exhibitors. Many merchants would not be interested in exhibiting during trade-only days (no customers, no sales) and the infrastructure within a convention center does not exist to let booths be set up after a show has started (no freight on the floors once the carpets get rolled out)
* Convention centers need 1-2 days on either end of an event to clear out the old event and set up for the following weekend’s show.

Yes it was insane, and I didn’t get into the Heroes panel, but really, is that so important? I took the two hours sitting outside that ballroom to relax, take photos and destress before going back to the madness.

I can’t wait ’til next year.

I saw on someone’s FLKR page last week someone being stuffed into a Smallville bag and carried around.