Sick but alive
Sorry, all. The Con crap hit B.L.A.R.D. hard this morning and it was all we could do to get to the Dave Stevens memorial. After that, we chatted with various folks and started uploading our Flickr photos here.
Big news today, Gaiman on Batman, Humanoids at Devils Due, and big sales EVERYWHERE. Despite the increasing Hollywoodization of Con, comics continue to do very, very well. COMIC BOOK TATTOO was one of the big hits of the show, selling out in 20 hours. D&Q reported their biggest sales ever; UMBRELLA ACADEMY is sold out everywhere, and in general, comics did quite well.
We’ll have more photos, reports and linkage when we’re not quite so under the weather.
07/28/08 at 7:44 am
That’s interesting because it runs contrary to an article I read this morning saying that the economy made this a bad con. It also talked a lot about how comics have been sidelined for Hollywood. The article was on MSNBC, sorry, I don’t have the link.
07/28/08 at 9:21 am
This Reuters article (http://www.reuters.com/article/industryNews/idUSN2449407320080728?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true ) is probably the same as the MSNBC article. A number of comics fans are feeling marginalized.
SRS
07/28/08 at 5:26 pm
Unbelievable. UNBELIEVABLE. We spent more time in the aisles with indy comics than ever before, and my wife and I spent a considerable amount of money on stuff we’d never heard of. Great, great stuff, and not all of it geared towards selling it to Hollywood! I didn’t feel comics were marginalized at all. You could almost argue that half of the convention center (the right half going in) was comics, comics and more comics. I just don’t get it. You can successfully avoid the madness of the Warner Bros. booth all weekend if you want to. You just have to try, not grumble about it.
07/28/08 at 10:17 pm
Normally, I just read the comments page without responded, but I have to agree with austin. I knew that the middle section of the expo floor was going to be crazy. I wanted to just walk around the far ends of the floor to find interesting stuff. I talked to so many of the indy writers/artists. I picked up a lot of great stuff! The rest of my summer will be reading new and interesting stories I’ve never have heard of before. I think I had a better experience at this year’s con knowing that the middle area was something that I wanted to avoid. Meeting people who have a love of comics that you share was more rewarding than fighting off greedy strangers for a oversized bag that I would never use.
07/29/08 at 3:36 pm
The reason that Comic Book Tattoo sold out is that most of the books never made it to the show! One shipment got lost somewhere along the way and an emergency shipment of them did finally make it to the show on Saturday, but it wasn’t nearly enough. The tickets for the autographing weren’t there, so you got your badge signed by the editor. People waited in line for almost two hours on Preview night to buy it and then found out they didn’t have any.
As it is, with the signing limited to one item (so even if you bought the print and the book, you could only get one item signed), I opted to get my hardback Death book signed by Tori (which completed the signatures on it) and sold my Comic Book Tattoo hardback to a Tori Amos fan who was not able to get a book.
It is a neat book and worth getting, though. I do feel for the book’s editor, Rantz Hoseley,who wanted to make its debut at the con a special event, but it mainly turned into a fiasco.
07/29/08 at 6:47 pm
In your opinion Heidi, Did Comic Book Tattoo sell out faster than the actual yearly Comic Con souvenir t-shirt that’s usually gone by the second day of the con?
~
Coat
07/29/08 at 7:01 pm
I would disagree the Comic Book Tattoo was a fiasco. Not when Rantz accommodated fans, made sure there was a way for the fans who qualified to prove their place in line, and gave away prints.
People wanting the book would pay $30. for a print, and could return with the print as proof of purchase and get a softcover, or pay $20. more for a hardcover.
It was the best that could be done given that a shipment of 300 books that WERE there grew legs between a dock and our table. I worked the table a number of hours I was not signing, and spent time talking to and helping stressed-out fans.
07/29/08 at 7:04 pm
Hit send too soon. And did my best to make sure those fans went away happy. I saw Rantz knock himself out doing the same.
07/29/08 at 7:52 pm
“The reason that Comic Book Tattoo sold out is that most of the books never made it to the show!”
Actually–and I’m sure Rantz will correct me if I have this wrong, which I don’t think I do–the emergency shipment that sold out was the same quantity that was supposed to have been there in the first place. Since those books didn’t show up until mid-morning Friday (not Saturday) and were gone by mid-morning Saturday, that means the entire Comicon allotment sold in about 24 hours. Judging from the traffic at the booth, had the missing original shipment ever turned up, it would probably have sold out too. Hard to see how that’s a fiasco.
07/30/08 at 3:45 am
Derek and Lea are (mostly) correct. The replacement shipment was actually LARGER than the original shipment (400 books, instead of 300) and I was kinda hoping the ‘misplaced’ shipment would show up Saturday, because I know, based on how many people we had to sadly turn away, that we would have sold all of those as well.
Were the shipping issues a fiasco? Oh hell yes. Was the book’s reception and performance at SDCC a fiasco? If that’s a fiasco, I’ll gladly take it on ANY book I work on!
07/30/08 at 4:27 pm
hmm.. usefull info
07/30/08 at 7:21 pm
[…] Collective Memory: CCI 2008 Links to stories, eyewitness accounts and resources concerning Comic-Con International, held July 24-27 with a July 23 Preview Night at the convention center in San Diego, California. This entry will continue to be updated for as long as people ***** Institutional Convention Physical Location Host City Blog Entries Blog@Newsarama Notes 01 Blog@Newsarama on Darwyn Cooke Buzz Bags Chebutykin Collected Comics Library 00 Collected Comics Library 01 Collected Comics Library 02 Collected Comics Library 03 Collected Comics Library 04 Collected Comics Library 05 Dave Ferraro D&Q 01 D&Q 02 D&Q 03 D&Q 04 D&Q 05 D&Q 06 Good Comics For Kids 01 Good Comics For Kids 02 Good Comics For Kids 03 Good Comics For Kids 04 Good Comics For Kids 05 Ian Brill Irene Gallo 01 Jarret Kobek Jim Emerson Kelly Kilmer Major Spoilers on Moving The Show Matt Silady MetroMix Los Angeles Randy Lander 00 Randy Lander 01 Randy Lander 02 Randy Lander 03 Randy Lander 04 Randy Reynaldo Rick Marshall Rick Marshall on Joss Whedon Rick Marshall on Rick Geary Scott Edelman: Thursday Quickie Scott Edelman: Thursday Scott Edelman: Friday Quickie Scott Edelman: Friday Scott Edelman: An Encounter With James Owen Scott Edelman: Moo Scott Edelman: Sci-Fi Saturday Night Sean T. Collins Suvudu.com 01 Suvudu.com 02 The Beat 01 The Beat 02 The Beat 03 The Beat 04 The Beat 05 The Beat 06 The Beat 07 The Beat 08 The Beat 09 The Beat 10 The Beat 11 The Beat 12 The Beat 13 The Beat 14 The Beat 15 The Beat 16 The Beat 17 The Beat 18 The Beat 19 The Beat 20 The Beat 21 The Beat 22 The Beat 23 The Beat 24 The Smart Set Todd Klein on Wednesday Todd Klein on Saturday Todd Klein on Sunday Todd Klein on Thursday Todd Klein on Friday 01 Todd Klein on Friday 02 Tom Neely Valerie D’Orazio Zander Cannon Message Boards and Chat Rooms News Stories and Columns Big Shiny Robot! Index ComicMix CBR: David Glanzer CBR: David Glanzer 02 CBR: Matt Furie CBR: Fabio Moon, Gabriel Ba, Becky Cloonan Cinematical Hub Greg Burgas Haaretz.com ICv2.com Summary ICv2.com: David Glanzer Interviewed LA Times General Article NPR PopCultureGeek Preview PW PW 02 PW 03 Reuters THR on Preview Night USA Today Audio TwoMorrows Preview Podcast Photos Blog@Newsarama Preview Night Chris Butcher ComicMix Coming Soon Jarret Kobek Kevin Church Rick Marshall Scott Edelman Miscellaneous 5 Reasons To Be Glad You Didn’t Go 50 Jewish Reasons to Attend CCI Article on Comics Movie Influential Folks Barry Windsor-Smith’s Eisner Hall of Fame Acceptance Speech Cliff Chiang’s SDCC Sketches Guide to CCI Jokers Kevin Church Comedic Commentary Pop Candy Giveaway Pre-CCI Hype Round-Up Remember 1971 Seuling Con In Light Of ‘08 CCI Variety Re-Run (?) on Moving the Con Videos Ali Kokmen Rallies The Trops Kevin Smith Vs. Comic-Con Virgin ***** ***** ***** […]
08/1/08 at 2:25 pm
Comic con is obviously an established institution at this point, wouldnt limiting the amount of press people at the con be a good thing at this point?