OUR GLAMOUROUS SAN DIEGO: The Beat, Ian Brill, Laurel Maury and Calvin Reid hard at work on tomorrow’s edition of PW Comics Week.

Sitting outside the press room. The cast of HEROES is awfully attractive. Tim Sale tells us he’s ghosting the artwork for the painter character on the show.

The ladies room here smells worse than any ladies room I’ve ever smelled.

Just walked into the press room to get power. David Boreanaz being interviewed about BONES over the way.

Need coffee.

We missed the first part of this due to a scheduling mix-up, but the part we saw was probably the most intellectually trippy panel in San Diego History. “When conscioussness starts opening up, it terrifies people!” exclaimed one questioner excitedly.

Chopra spoke about the transformation of the caterpillar to the butterfly through the “imaginal cells” which mysteriously change the nature of the caterpillar. He compared the people at the convention to “imaginal cells of culture.”

“After the Age of Information comes the Age of Knowledge, then comes the Age of Wisdom,” he said.

For his part Morrison talked about the mythical basis of the great superheroes but allowed as “The moment we start worshipping superheroes is when we know we’ve got it wrong.”

The two made allusions to a dinner they’d had the night before, and we bet that was a pretty interesting dinner.

However, the headline from the talk, as our pal Douglas Wolk put it, was “Virgin and Morrison: just good friends.” Morrison’s DC Exclusive last for a few years yet, so don’t look for him to be writing any Virgin Comics any time soon, although there was some talk of projects in other media that might be possible.

A zillion parties were spread out across the city last night: CBLDF/Image/Suicide Girls, Friends of Lulu, Conan, Hasbro/Marvel, Circle of Confusion, Scholastic, Del Rey, Heavy Metal, and probably a few we’re forgetting. DC had a private luau. We hit Del Rey where we got to meet Stephen Woodworth, Elizabeth Bear and George RR Martin. Then it was off to the Lulu Awards where we presented the Women of Distinction award to the very deserving Diana Schutz. Then it was back to the Hyatt for the Heavy Metal party. None of the parties we were at seemed unbearably crowded, probably because everyone was so busy party hopping.

Can we just say that the Hyatt SUCKS TENNIS BALLS. The staff is rude, and seems resentful that we are here in every way. We’re in the old wing of the hotel, and compared to the other places we’ve been staying lately, with relaxa-beds and so on, it’s shabby and uncomfortable. Truly the lack of competition is breeding a very smug attitude here. When that Hard Rock opens, we’re all moving there STAT. Unless, of course, the sign is accurate and it’s going to be nothing but $400-a-night suites.

It’s big. Look at the size of that thing.

That’s what every con virgin says when asked what they think of the show. We are in a scheduling rush right now, a few hours of free time spent talking to old friends like Scott Shaw! and Katie Merritt and John Layman and oh a whole bunch of folks we don’t even remember. You people playing along at home can follow what’s going better than those of us trapped within the perfect storm.

There didn’t seem to be any real big news rippling across the floor. A second Avengers title? Cool.Random House picked up rights to the first two Flight anthologies. The crowds at the vidgame/movie/manga end of the floor were almost impassable. By contrast back in the small press area it was busy but manageable. San Diego’s intellectual trickle down is in full effect: over at the Global Hobo/Spark Plug end of the show is was quiet, with only a few people hanging around,. Those few people, however, were an agent and a book editor, who will basically ensure that someday the IP based on actual cartoonists are disseminated to the busy end of the room.

Everyone is pretty much in lockdown necessity mode, taking all the meetings, and getting all the promotional stuff done that has to get done. No time for idle chit chat — there’s work to be done.

The crowds were enormous and mostly young. Were they here for comics? Probably not primarily.

More Later.

We took pathetically few pictures yesterday because we were busy Video blogging, and the ones we did are just…lame. But anyway…

Stan Sakai has 20 volumes of USAGI YOJIMBO in print — the first book alone is in its 10th printing. How many other American cartoonists have produced such a consistent body of work?

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Registration was NOT the nightmare everyone had feared. It took us literally 15 seconds to get our badge with our bar coded press letter. Now, there were lines for ProReg, but the wait of 20-30 minutes seemed pretty reasonable. If you hadn’t pre-registered, there were definitely problems, however, and we also heard a lot of complaints about the ProReg people being very very unresponsive to communication over the last few months. So that stuff is not good, and needs to be worked on, but in general, we’d have to say the new system has the potential to be completely painless when properly used.

We don’t know how things were going up on member registration, but we’ll keep our ears and eyes peeled.

[Photo by Christopher]
Okay can we just say, we now officially hate the Hyatt? WE HATES IT WE HATES IT FOREVER. We have various reasons for this but catch us in person and we’ll go down our bitching and whining list.

Anyway, an early flight and lack of REM sleep made yesterday kind of shiny and blurry. We walked around the floor with our DiVX Crew, Bruce and Michelle and got interviews with folks like Bob Burden and Kyle Baker. We’ll see how all that goes, but we should have video tomorrow. Walking around Comic-Con video blogging is surprisingly tiring!

Anyway, we saw a few things. Top Shelf brought tons of LOST GIRLS. The parody book KRAMER’S EGO (available at Global Hobo) is hilarious. Sci-Fi Channel brought their big shiny object again. DC’s booth was huge. Wow, these are not very revealing anecdotes are they?

One of the things we’ve been tracking is the uneasy relationship between the city and the con. Now we’re no strangers ourselves to being a grumpy local — ask us about St. Patrick’s Day in our neighborhood: yuck — and it’s understand that seeing battalions of Darth Vaders roaming around Ralphs can be annoying. However, city planners’ ambivalence towards the show is becoming more and more inappropriate. When we got off the plane yesterday morning the airport was PACKED, and it was obvious that everyone was coming in for Comic-Con — and it wasn’t just geeks and freaks, it was execs, and dignified looking Japanese folks, and Euros and everyone else. It’s all well and good to bemoan the lost days of San Diego the city, but to say that this weekend doesn’t have a MAJOR economic impact on the city is ridiculous.

DAY 0 PEOPLE AND PLACES: The 8:30 JetBlue flight from JFK to SD was a little bit less that Comic-Con express than in year’s past when everyone seemed to be on it. We did spot B&N’[s Jim Killen, Kyle Baker, Charlie Kochman and others. We sat in the terminal — which was, tragically really only a trailer, and not the luxurious WiFi enabled JetBlue terminal we were counting on — with Lauren Weinstein and Bongo Inker Phyllis Novin, and listened to these two incredibly talented curly haired ladies talk about their dual careers as cartoonists/musicians. Good stuff.

Once at the show we ran into EVERYONE. So…Saw rapidly shrinking Mark Evanier, who is looking fantastic after his GBP surgery…saw the traveling, blogging McCloud clan for a second or two. Chatted with Melinda Gebbie briefly as well as Dancing Shane McCarthy…there sure are a lot of Pirate-y things at the show.

A lot of artists hadn’t shown up yet for Artist’s Alley.

DO NOT EAT AT THE SEAFOOD RESTAURANT IN THE EMBASSY SUITES, because it has no food. We went there for some chow with Len Wein, Christine Valada, Maggie Thompson and our ever-suffering CBG editor Brent Frankenhoff, and the restaurant seems to somehow have become surprised by the fact that the hotel is completely booked solid, and people want to eat food there. Mark Evanier was supposed to join us, but he didn’t which, was sad, because he isn’t really eating now, and this restaurant would have been perfect for him. The Beat had a big tummy ache and just wanted a bit of soup, which took 90 minutes to bring and was served with a TEASPOON. We asked two separate waitstaffers if they had soup spoons and both got a funny look on their face and said “No, we don’t have any soup spoons.”

So there you have it — A RESTAURANT THAT SERVES CHOWDER THAT DOES NOT HAVE SOUP SPOONS. The chowder was way too salty, as well. So ixnay on that.

If you wonder why Comic-con has become a Hollywood go-to fest, articles like this are part of the reason. Profiling Tim Sale, Marc Silvestri, bookseller Stuart Ng and artist Sue Katowich, the subtext of the article suggests that be attending Comic-Con, you learn something about life, struggle and art. Since these things are not really part of a typical studio execs existence, Comic-Con becomes an important venue to get in touch with such matters. You think we’re kidding, but we’re not.

The LA Times—very nuch an opinion leader for So-Cal— has even started a BLOG for Comic-Con by Jevon Phillips. Good luck, kid. This isn’t for the faint of heart.

Sporadic and anecdotal reports thus far are that registration is moving smoothly. More as it develops.

Kelly Sue started it.
Flickr: The SDCC 2006: San Diego Comic Con International Pool.

Post your own!

While a big announcement on the identity of the director for the long-planned SPIRIT movie had been teased for San Diego, The Hollywood Reporter has let the cat out of the bag: It’s Frank Miller:

More than four decades after Will Eisner created him, “The Spirit” — one of the most influential comics of all time — is coming to the big screen. The movie will be adapted and directed by Frank Miller, who will be on hand for the public announcement of the project Saturday at Comic-Con International in San Diego. Odd Lot Entertainment’s Deborah Del Prete and Gigi Pritzker will co-finance and produce “The Spirit.” Also producing is Batfilm Prods.’ Michael Uslan. Batfilm co-founder Benjamin Melniker will executive produce. Odd Lot’s Linda McDonough and Batfilm’s FJ DeSanto will co-produce. Uslan said Miller was the ideal choice for the project. “What makes Frank’s involvement with ‘The Spirit’ particularly poignant was his special relationship with Will Eisner, captured last year in the book ‘Eisner-Miller,’ ” he said. “You have two of the medium’s greatest storytellers of sequential art and cinematic comics discussing the compelling and controversial art form.”

In words of a single syllable: whoa.

Miller, of course, was the co-director his the well-received SIN CITY, based on his graphic novel series. THE SPIRIT has long been in development–Michael Uslan has been connected with it for years and years — and was already the subject of a tv movie in 1987 starring Sam Jones.

“I intend to be extremely faithful to the heart and soul of the material, but it won’t be nostalgic. It will be much scarier than people expect,” Miller told Variety.

Miller said he’s putting together a treatment that consists in large part of panels from the “Spirit” strip. Shooting is expected to start in late spring.

San Diego’s SPIRIT panel will be held Saturday at 2:45 in Hall H.

This local San Diego site requires you to pay $100 to read their online content. Foo that, but from the looks of the free lede, the city is only grudgingingly beginning to accept the Comic-con’s economic impact:

Comic-Con gives city ‘enormous economic shot in the arm’
Event expected to bring in major tax revenue<
To the casual observer, the annual comic book and pop culture extravaganza known as Comic-Con may be little more than an opportunity for grown men with serious Peter Pan complexes to indulge their love of fantasy and penchant for Star Wars costumes. This is, after all, an event that includes discussion panels about television shows and autograph sessions with graphic novelists. But for San Diego, the convention is far more than an oddball attraction; it’s a cash cow in nerd’s clothing.

What’s the matter anyway? Isn’t a nerd’s dollar worth as much as anyone elses?

Variety previews SDCC with a boffo headline:

H’w'd courts nerd herd
Nets hope to capture fan fervor at confab

However, the story goes on to point out for that this year’s show, studios are stressing their TV offerings:

All the major networks have significant plans for the confab, along with cable stalwarts like Sci Fi Channel, USA, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon.

“In the last few years, TV’s participation has stepped up a notch,” Comic-Con marketing director David Glanzer said. “There’s a lot more sci-fi and supernatural — ‘genre product’ — on TV right now.”

NBC is planning a push for its superhero skein “Heroes,” while CBS/Paramount will screen its new series “Jericho.”

Sci Fi will tout competition show “Who Wants to Be a Superhero?,” on which it’s collaborating with Stan Lee, as well as breakout hit “Battlestar Galactica.”

feeling a xanax high give does

Today mobile payments ranging from mobile banking to mobile credit cards to mobile commerce are very widely used in Asia and Africa, and in selected European markets.

Allen Spiegel Fine Arts is the booth where you find some of the most amazing artists at the comvention, this year including Thom Ang, August Hall, Dave McKean, Scott Morse, Jon J Muth, Bonnie To Yee de Muth, Greg Ruth and Kent Williams. They’ll have three new books, including the group sketchbook 108 DRAWINGS. Contributors and more in the jump.

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Looks, here’s all the stuff we just didn’t have time to write up in its own items. It’s a big sloppy mess:
A woman is auctioning off ad space on her…forehead. How horrid.

Atomic Comics is tooling around San Diego with a van full of cartoonists.

Alex Ross!

Scott Morse

Jen Wang

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If you’re hoping to nab that elusive Chester Brown page, check out the Beguiling’s booth, which is selling original art by many indie superstars:
Looking for original art at Comic-Con in San Diego? The Beguiling Books & Art, Canada’s finest comics and graphic novel retailer will be attending the San Diego Comic Con this week, representing the original art sales of over two dozen of the best art-comix and alternative cartoonists. Operating from the Drawn & Quarterly booth, booth #1529 in Hall C, The Beguiling will have a massive selection of comic art and illustration on-hand from comics luminaries including Seth, Paul Pope, Kevin Huizenga, Chester Brown, Anders Nilsen, Jessica Abel, Jason, David Heatley, Farel Dalrymple, Kim Deitch, Becky Cloonan, and many more!

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We’re in sic transit gloria mundi to Comic-con as you read this. Hopefully we’ll be back before the cock’s crow tomorrow with pictures and all that.

Speaking of all that, if all goes well we will be video-blogging from the show, courtesy of DivX and their tech crews. The find folks at DivX are big supporters of blogging, having enabled bloggers to post video material at Sundance and E3. We’re delighted that they’ve chosen to support The Beat in this way, and look forward to seeing what emerges. At worst, the internet will have a record of The Beat singing selections from JESUS CHRIST, SUPERSTAR. At best…well, we dare not think that way, but perhaps it will be The Beat singing the COMPLETE score to JESUS CHRIST, SUPERSTAR.

Bob Fingerman makes a rare San Diego appearance to promote his new book RECESS PIECES. He’ll be appearing at the Dark Horse and Fantag booths.

Good news, too: Dark Horse tells me *some copies of RECESS PIECES will be available at their exhibition area, so come on by and get your copy one month before everyone else! Ill also be handing out RECESS PIECES buttons to anyone who stops by and signing special RECESS PIECES signing cards made exclusively by Dark Horse for the con.

My signing schedule is as follows:

Fantagraphics:
Thursday: 4 to 5
Friday: 12 to 1
Saturday: 5 to 6
Sunday: 12 to 1

Dark Horse:
Thursday: 12 to 1
Sunday: 3 to 4
But if you miss me at any of those, chances are Ill be in the vicinity. Please stop by and say howdy!

Kyle Baker will be set up at San Diego selling cool books of edifying cartoons and bringing glee to to the populace. Schedule below.

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There will be a few dribs and drabs of info here for the next 24 hours or so, but we’ve got all our last minute stuff to do from here on out. We took a quick look at our LJ friends page this morning, and every post, across the nation, from SF to NYC, started out complaining about how hot it was. It is fun watching the effects of global warming unfold in our lifetimes, isn’t it? WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN US, AL GORE!!!

However, setting aside the fate of the planet, the big question today is REGISTRATION.

The CCI: San Diego has a new registration system in place. In theory you register online, get a letter with a barcode, go to the show, get your barcode scanned and get a badge. In theory.

It might all work perfectly well. Honest.

However, every single person we’ve talked to has anxiety about this. The Beat received THREE letters, two for press and one for being a “pro”. All that and we still can’t get into the Attendee section of the website. If anyone can, can you email us a copy of the Programming Grid pdfs? We would give our remaining eye tooth for those.

Tom interviewed David Glanzerabout all the resgistration issues:

SPURGEON: I personally think the con has probably lost tens of thousands of dollars over the year though registrations abuse. Is this a concern that has fueled the changes?

GLANZER: Honestly, no. The reason for online registration is an attempt to provide quicker registration for all of our attendees. Again, this is relatively new for us, but the idea is to have people register in advance which allows us both an opportunity to see the potential flow of attendees during the run of the show, and will also allow attendees to enter all their registration information early, have a bar code printed and then simply scan that barcode at the show. We’re hoping this will dramatically reduce the amount of time people have to wait in registration lines.

It really does sounds so simple doesn’t it? Then why is everyone in such a dither? We’ve heard of phone calls unreturned, some people unregistered after numerous attempts, others denied pro access after 25 years in the biz…of course with 100,000 attendees there cold be a 1% problem rate and that would still be 1000 people.

We do wonder about one thing, however: according to the website, badge pickup is open from 3:00 pm to 8:30 pm on Wednesday. Now, we don’t know how many people actually go into Preview Night but it is thousands and thousands, and in all honesty, three hours to get everyone who wants to get into Preview Night a badge sounds like just not enough time. We stood in line about an hour last year and the year before we couldn’t even get in until Preview Night was almost over due to various snafus. And we got off lucky, from the other stories we heard.

This could all be needless fretting. It could all be a breeze, a wonderful cooling breeze. Or it could be legendary. Developing.

We’ve been a little slack posting manga info but luckily Mangacast has an awesome round-up of information. You should deifnitley go there for panel schedules and so on. We’re reprinting their list of manga booth numbers for reference.

Broccoli Books (Booth #2229)
Dark Horse (Booth #2615)
DC Comics (Booth #1915)
Del Rey Books (Booth #1228)
Digital Manga (Booth #2649)
Drawn & Quarterly (Booth #1529)
DrMaster (Booth #5319)
Fantagraphics (Booth #1716)
ICE Kunion (Booth #2543)
Kinokuniya (Booth #5475)
Last Gasp (Booth #1614)
Media Blasters (Booth #126)
NETCOMICS (Booth #3851)
Seven Seas (Booth #830)
TOKYOPOP (Booth #3529)
Viz Media (Booth #4013)

Remember we told you about the booth to make a beeline for? Well, if you want the real buzz book at the show, we suggest you run over to the Top Shelf booth to get a copy of the legendary Lost Girls. Artist Melinda Gebbie (whose visualization of Alan Moore’s script for the book is has been severely underrated) will be on hand to autograph, and you aren’t likely to see that very often. This book is HOT! HOT! HOT! And also…adults…ONLY. For younger readers: OWLY PLUSH TOY! More details in cut:
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Drawn & Quarterly is always a highlight of the con and this year they have TATSUMI!

D+Q has its largest lineup ever of attending artists including Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Adrian Tomine, Kevin Huzienga, Anders Nilsen, Ron Rege Jr, Sammy Harkham, James Sturm, Dan Zettwoch and Martin Cendreda. We will have specials on most of stock including our new books! Attending from D+Q is Marketing & Publicity Director Peggy Burns, Production Designer Tom Devlin, Studio Coordinator Jamie Quail and Production Coordinator Rebecca Rosen

Signing schedue below:
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Everyone who’s anyone at at the Fantagraphics booth this year. How we wish we could just hang out there and beg for pirate sketches: Tony Millionaire, Los Gros Hernandez, Linda Medley, Ted Stearn, Daniel Clowes…you name it, they will be there. Get there early — new books are sure to sell out! The entire epic line-up in the jump.

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Skribbl at Story Boredom presents a lovely field guide to the types you’ll see at Comic-con, with their habits noted.

Look out for this one near any bathroom entrance or waste recepticle. Instead of waiting to get home to read their latest purchase, they plop themselves down at the highest traffic walkway intersection and begin reading.

The curiously androdgynous Table Toad can be found around the noon hour, eating, reading or sleeping at one of the scarcely available tables near the food court. They haul their morning purchases to the table and set up their base camp leaving only to add relish/mustard/sauerkraut to their eight dollar hot dogs. Trying to communicate with this beast in hopes of sharing the table will only lead to frustration as they only reply in a series of mumbles, raspy breaths, eye rolls and the occasional bodily function. Approach at your own risk.