This show has been super well Flickr’d and all, but here are ours! Above, C.F. talks with Dan Nadel.
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Day 1 of SPX dawned with what sounded like healthy line to get in. This year’s show is marked by a fabulous guest list — Matt Wagner, Kim Deitch, Gilbert Hernandez, Jeff Smith, Bill Griffith and Rutu Modan — and there was a pretty good crowd all day. Were they buying anything? That we still don’t know. No real real breakout buzz books yet, but people were talking about The Blot by Tom Neely, Jeff Lemire’s Ghost Stories and the Special Edition of Palestine.

Dean Mullaney, the editor of IDW’s Terry and the Pirates collections, was at the show, his first comics related event in 12 years.

Mostly, it was a night of catching up and chatting. That’s what SPX is all about.

A few pictures in the jump. Above, Rutu Modan giving her slideshow/spotlight.

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§ Colleen Doran digs up old photos from the 80s. Shown: Doran and Jack Kirby with Dave Sim nearby. 1996 photos here.

§ Do you remember San Diego 2007? It seems like only a couple of months ago, hard to believe it was actually FIVE YEARS! Anyway, MySpace is still digging some good stuff out of their archives, including this video interview with Rosario Dawson and Ed Brubaker:
MySpace @ ComicCon 2007 2: Rosario Dawson, Ed Brubaker, & more!

§ Leigh Walton becomes “The Fourth Man” at Top Shelf.

§ Marvel is having a costume contest! Details here.

§ What ever became of the EL MUERTE film? It was renamed THE DEAD ONE.

§ Director Kelly admits SOUTHLAND TALES graphic novels key to his vision

The film is broken into three chapters, IV, V and VI. The first three chapters came out as graphic novels after Cannes, and Kelly admits they were the key, even for himself, for getting a handle on what was happening to the characters on screen. “I couldn’t get to a place, emotionally, as an artist, where I really felt I could finish this movie properly until I had the books done,” he said. “I was a nervous wreck and I was depressed. I tried to do too much, and I failed. I felt I wasn’t going to fulfill this movie, how great I had it in my mind. But once I finished the books, a big monkey was lifted off my back. I could really figure out how to solve the puzzle of the film. When we went to Cannes I hadn’t finished with the books yet.”

§ “Fun” new blog! Your Webcomic is Bad and You Should Feel Bad.

Last week’s INFINITE CANVAS opening of webcomics art display at MoCCA continues to be one of the best covered comics events this side of a Cup O’ Joe panel, proving that these webcomics people are pretty web savvy. Dean has the photo parade:

Ryan Roman pix Links:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Tim Hamilton pix links:
Part 1
Part 2

Wizard’s Brian Warmouth interviews curator Jennifer Babcock:

“I pitched the idea back in March,” explained Babcock, a Los Angeles native who specializes in Egyptian artwork. Babcock, who publishes her own webcomic C’est la Vie, joined with MoCCA to plan and assemble the exhibit, titled “Infinite Canvas: The Art of Webcomics.”

Organizing the exhibit, which according to Babcock is the first museum exhibit of its kind and scale focusing specifically on webcomics, demanded a great deal more strategy and inventive presentation than most MoCCA floor shows. In addition to the original penciled and inked examples, Babcock needed to accommodate comics that are entirely digitally produced and stretch them out to sizes beyond what conventional printers are capable of handling.

Nikki Cook - shares photos from the PARADE WITH FIREWORKS party AND the INFINITE CANVAS opening at MoCCA> THe latter was a rip-roaring success, with many cool people including the Zuda Crew and other local webcomics luminaries. Scott McCloud was on hand and dropped by for a bit at the beginning and end — the middle was interrupted by a wild rush to rescue his beloved Cintiq from savage cannibals or something — we didn’t quite get the whole story.

Above: Elizabeth Genco and Nikki Cook.

UPDATE: The webcomics world reacts to the show, via Gary Tyrell at Fleen:

Last night, the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art in New York City opened its latest exhibit, and for the first time webcomics made it into the world of culture and connoisseurs. I don’t get to too many museum exhibition openings, but I do know one thing — when the room is packed wall-to-wall and the air conditioning is insufficient to cool the air from all the people, it’s not because of the snacks or the booze. It’s because people want to see the pretty stuff on the walls. By that criterion alone, the opening of Infinite Canvas: The Art of Webcomics would have to be judged an enormous success.

Man, these pictures look like the greatest two days in comics history or something. Bummer we have to wait two years to go. Doug Wright Awards admin Brad McKay shares two photo sets.

And a few comments:
Hope Larson

Awesome, awesome, awesome. TCAF was by far the best time I’ve ever had at a con, and that’s sayin’ something.

Bryan Lee O’Malley
The Torontoist
Jim Zubkavich
SPECIAL BONUS! Cameron Stewart was kind enough to send us a few photos to show how bustling the place was. More in jump!

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Photo ©2007 Alan Light

Everyone always complains about how big Comic-Con has gotten. Now thanks to a recently unearthed series of photos by former CBG publishers Alan Light we can relive the 1982 San Diego Comic Con. Light gives permission on Flickr to show the photos — we’ve picked a handful just to give you a taste, but you MUST go to the website to see them all and bigger! IT IS A MUST!

Above: yes this is really what it looked like walking in. (We first went to San Diego only two years later and it hadn’t changed very much.)

Photo ©2007 Alan Light
A classic “Women in Comics” panel of yore. We can spot Carol Kalish, Trina Robbins, Cat Yronwode and Carol Lay.

Photo ©2007 Alan Light

While there weren’t that many “pros” in these photos, what there was was cherce and you could see them eating banquet food if you were lucky. Above, Will Eisner, Jack Kirby and Roz Kirby at what must almost surely have been the old Inkpot ceremony.

Link via Mark Evanier, who has this to say:

Boy, are some of you going to love this. Alan Light was the founder of what is now the Comics Buyer’s Guide and he used to be all over every comic book convention with his camera. He recently came across a huge stash of photos that he took at the 1982 San Diego Comic Con, back in the days before it was called the Comic-Con International. I’ve helped him identify a number of people in the photos and there are still more whose names escape us at the moment. If you can identify anyone who is presently anonymous, drop Alan a note at this address.

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SUNDAY! And we’re outta here… Above, some times the wrong side of photos are the best.

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Just a few more…we’ve made it all the way to Saturday and we’re still alive! Here are two of the many Blade Runner characters running around the show. Apparently they were hired by WB home video to promote the new DVD set which we are getting the second it comes out.

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Yet more very late photos. This was …. Friday? Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray sign THE HILLS HAVE EYES: THE BEGINNING at the Fox Atomic booth.
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Pathetically late, we know, but we earned that vacation. Above, Charles Vess and one of his gorgeous sculptures. More in the jump.
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A few photos from the panoply of Day 0. Above, Andrew Pepoy, a gentleman whose name we did not write down, The Beat, Lee Nordling (The Pack) and Disney Legend Floyd Norman.
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The thrills, the spills…the forgotten names that we didn’t write down! Do you see how most everyone is SMILING? BTW, we know we are getting some of the names wrong but are just too tuckered out to dig around for business cards.

Above, the Royal Flush Gang, who explained that distributor woes had prevented the magazine from coming out for several years.

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It was an absolutely perfect day out, but that didn’t stop a crowd from showing up at the Puck Building. It was another smashing success at the MoCCA Art Festival, as a stunning array of cartoonists from around the world showed their wares. Someone compared MoCCA to the Sundance of comics, and with people from all levels of the NYC art scene perusing the indie offerings, it was a great place to see and be seen. And now a few photos… We had kind of a busy day but here’s some of what unfolded.

The phenom — Alexa Kitchen and mom Stacey.
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Did we mention it’s 300 week here? IESB has a wide ranging photo gallery of the premiere last night and it seems everyone was there! Rosario Dawson (who we saw running around on 4th Avenue the other day) Hellboy, Mr. Fantastic, Faramir, Two-Face etc etc. We were particularly happy to see creator Frank Miller up and around (although with a cane) after having been sidelined with a broken hip recently. UPDATE: Miller is accompanied by his gal pal.

And of course dear, dear Gerard Butler was happy to show his Leonidas face:

Djimon Hounsou isn’t really a midget, supposedly. Here’s another one which shows why women love Gerry’s devil may care spirit:

And we’d LOVE to know what these two scamps were talking about in this one!

[Unbelievably, in all the rush these photos were supposed to be posted on Saturday, and they weren’t. Oh well.]

Not much chance to take pictures on Friday alas, so these are even more random than usual.

Looking out from the rear of Artist’s Alley, through Podcaster’s Alley.

Molly Crabapple and friend.

We spotted Scott Lobdell and Rob Liefeld. Rob is one of the Beat’s biggest fans and we always appreciate his kind words.

System of a Down guy’s drum kit!

At MoCCA, Stan is interviewed.

Several cast members from WHO WANTS TO BE A SUPERHERO showed up at the Stan Lee opening. Here’s Jim Salicrup, Fat Mama, and MoCCA President Ken Wong.

Crowds, sunlight and stormtroopers. What more could you want to create that eaux-de-comic-con? More pictures in the jump.
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Just a few to whet your appetite.

Calvin Reid (Publishers Weekly), Larry Gonick (Cartoon History of the Universe), Marisa Acocella Marchetto (Cancer Vixen), Thomas LeBien (Hill + Wang) and George O’Connor (Journey into Mohawk Country) at the non fiction panel. We got the chance to meet Gonick afterwards and he is quite the personality.

O’Connor, Rivkah and Calvin yukking it up at the Transcontinental Blue Martini reception after the conference.

We snuck upstairs and snapped a few pics of the hall before it opened. The area is MUCH larger than last year. Here’s the Marvel booth which spotlights FF2.

Many shall remember what befell beneath the ass of Pokémon!

The hall is clean.

As you can see the aisles are wider than last year.

This is where it will all go down…REGISTRATION! Seriously, the area is much bigger than last year, and plans for dealing with lines are already in place so everyone hopes there will be no repeat of Nerdpocalypse.

Another part of the registration area, and a MySpace banner.

Posted verbatim from Senator Barack Obama’s website. Apparently, if you are launching an exploratory committee, x-ray vision comes in mighty handy!

Meanwhile, back in the present day, modern day cartooners hung around bars. We snapped a few pics from Nikki Cook’s birthday party this weekend, at which many members of Act-I-vate and associates cavorted.

“The wind began to switch - the house to pitch!” Simon Fraser talks, Dean Haspiel, Mike Fiffe, Kat Roberts and Jen Tong listen.

Fiffe, bithrday girl Cook and Tong.

Fiffe, Pedro Camargo and Haspiel.

The National, a comics show here in NYC, was like it always was: a very very old school show that includes low ceilings and lots of long boxes. Val Kilmer felt poorly and went home early so we didn’t get to get a picture with him. We ran into Richard Howell and chatted with him about Claypool Comics impending move to a webcomic model. DEADBEATS, which Howell writes and draws will be the only title actually making the move, but he expects to put out collections of the comic from time to time. He’s looking forwrad to the change, but also admitted that he isn’t quite in sync with today’s instant-access business model. “I remember when you got to look forward to things,” he said. “The Fantastic Four came out once a month!”

We snapped a couple of pics, too.

Legendary cartoonist Shary Flenniken, whose “Trots and Bonnie” was a highlight of NATIONAL LAMPOON. She’s still busy writing a novel and pursuing other projects.

Two people we never get to spend enough time with: Cully Hamner and Steve Leialoha. Steve hadn’t been to New York in 20 years!

Later on, we caught the end of the “Saturday Morning Cartoons” opening at MoCCA.

Speaking of Halloween wrap-up, many pictures of Portland, OR comics notable in costume at the page for the annual Anina Bennett/Paul Guinan Halloween bash. Up at the Big Red Hair website are more photos of Stumptown, Wonder Woman Appreciation Day, and a report on Anina’s taping part of a documentary on Wonder Woman fans. That was indeed a busy weekend!

There are about 8 gajillion SPX photo sets up on the web, but we wanted to spotlight the first time exhibitors. We usually go around taking pictures of our pals, but this time we took pictures of perfect strangers — with the result that we don’t know who half of these photos are! We got business card for everyone, but lost half of them (ert!) so we enlist the group mind in Id’ing the culprits.

Jillian Tamaki’s GILDED LILLIES got some buzz going. Jillian is best known as an illustrator for places like THE NEW YORKER, but she’s getting an increasing amount of comics work.
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Just a few photos — we have many more to post when we have time, but these should give you an idea of what the new joint is like.

Random view inside showing yesterday’s crowd.

Another view.

Swanky snacks for some OTHER conference. Soon, my brothers…

Inside the Whitehall Auditorium where panels are being held. REAL WOOD. Mult-ihued curtains

Jules Feiffer interviewed by Tim Kreider. We had never before had the chance to hear Feiffer speak and it was a very rewarding experience.

At night a special downstairs bar was set up, and everyone seemed to be having a good time.

Comic Book Resources has red carpet photos of comics personalities and other slebs from the Scream Awards, many shot at an ungodly close range. CELEBRITIES ARE NOT MEANT TO BE SEEN CLOSE UP! I mean it was supposed to be a horror fest but…shudder.

[Link via Tom, incredibly.]