Oh we promised no more San Diego links, but this little film Paul Dini and Misty Lee made of a sock puppet going around befuddling people is one of the best San Diego films we’ve ever seen.

Yes yes, we know this is yesterday’s news and Chicago is where it’s at now, but a few last links before we sail into the sunset. Chuck Rozanzki sends out a daily report from the show, and they’re all gathered in one place. Rozanski is a smart guy and always has interesting observations, and we’re not just saying that because he’s one of our sponsors, honest!

There is always one sad, bleak post about a con that must be read as a counterpoint to the shiny happy reports. That post is from Rikki Simons who looks back on 20 years of con going, from drinking Thunderbird with hobos (!) to this year’s oddness and weird conversations with ex-Marine bus drivers who like Pokémon:

It doesn’t surprise me that some people had to hide their convention passes when riding the trolly to keep from being refused entry. It doesn’t surprise me that I should hear the local “alternative� radio station blaze forth the message that, while trying to give away free tickets to the convention, you would not lose your manhood in the presence of so many awful comics since Samuel Jackson was to make an appearance. “I’ve never picked up a comic in my life and it’s a crime to call this convention a comic convention,� bleated the thoughtless jock on the radio, “This is a pop culture event. It’s got movie stars and TV shows and rock stars!� And as painful a stab as that was, I have to admit that the very presence of Mace Windu and the force of his Hollywood clout was enough to get us parking at a trolly station that probably would have otherwise been closed to comic con nerdery.

Rikki also points us to a very interesting post on E3 — we should stress that while E3 will no longer be a multi media extravaganza, it will go on as a smaller, more intimate show, and
Arstechnica has what seems to be a sharp analysis:

Sources say that two major factors have led to the decision to transition the show to a more “closed-door” event. Both, coincidentally, were major reasons for COMDEX shutting down: cost and access. If you’ve never been to E3, let me describe it like this: long lines, truckloads of people, video games everywhere, and really fancy “booths” (where booth sometimes means basketball court-sized display area). As with COMDEX, the major players are reportedly tired of how much it costs to put on the dog and pony show. Turns out it costs millions of dollars to put the sparkle into an E3 blingfest.

Now in theory, these shows are primarily geared towards connecting businesspeople. To that end, E3 was (again, in theory) only open to industry folks and journalists. In recent years, however, the number of people attending have skyrocketed, in part because E3 registration was a moderately open process. The show was getting huge, and just as with COMDEX, the show-within-a-show was born. What I mean by that is that it was no longer enough to go to the show. To talk to someone who actually knew what they were talking about, you’d need an appointment. To see something really special, really worth writing about, you’d need to meet behind closed doors. To find out anything of interest about something that wasn’t on a placard, you needed to get in with the right people. With COMDEX the practice started to get ridiculous; major players officially skipped the show but set up camp in Vegas hotels and had their sideshows for a fraction of the cost.

The parallels with SDCC are obvious, and it’s interesting to speculate if San Diego may someday become this kind of closed door, appointment only show, like Toy Fair and now E3. It’s highly unlikely since the Comic-con is run by a non-profit organization and NOT an industry group, like E3 and Toy Fair, or even ShoWest. Movie and TV companies like getting consumers into the mix now, but if they could throw a smaller, cheaper show, like ShoWest, and just make appointments with all their favorite internet journos, they probably would, down the line. Just food for thought for now, but its all part of the big picture.

The San Diego Comic-con now exists as a means to disseminate press releases to the internet. Sitting in the press room on the Friday of the show, on deadline, a group of reporters were interrupted by a press conference for an upcoming TV show. When the reporters went outside to work without distraction, a steady stream of publicists kept asking them very very nicely if didn’t they want to come in for the press conference?

Wasn’t it possible that someone didn’t want to quiz some actor or other on their upcoming geek friendly role? Well no, as the above photo shows. We’ll get back to dear, dear Gerard Butler in a moment or two, but this San Diego was notable, from my standpoint anyway, as the year I finally dealt with the “new� San Diego, a world where speakers had to leave VIP tickets just so their friends could get into panels, where all press lists were controlled by movie studios, and the town was taken over by a series of exclusive Hollywood parties of the kind you might see at Sundance or Cannes, a world of mini junkets and press conferences, and endless, endless meetings.
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One last video.

Or as Walt Whitman wrote,
Now finale to the shore.
Now, land and life, finale, and farewell!
Now Voyager depart! (much, much for thee is yet in store;)

Well it seems video blogging is the new pink, as Tim Leong at Comics Foundry was maing his own vids guerilla style.

Here he captues the con in all its glory including rare, precious footage of Spurge and The Beat sniping at each other on a panel!

Here, always dapper Tim kicks it up a notch more, capturing the glamour and panoply of the Eisner arrivals.

It seems video blogging is here to stay, just like html and flash before it. It’s too protean a leap for everyone not to take advantage of it.

We took a lot fewer pictures because we were … well, it’s hard to remember what we were doing. Watching panels, editing stories and taping vidblog pieces, actually. We avoided the main floor on Saturday, because it is usually the hottest, stinkiest day of the con, and this year was all that and a bag of pork rinds. Every time we hit the floor, it was a seething mass of tired, cranky humanity. People were just flopped down on the floor, resting or waiting for Jennifer Love Hewitt. The crowds were OFF THE HOOK.

We shot a few pics on the floor and at the Hyatt bachannal however and…here they are

Frank Miller and new best pal Gerard Butler at the 300 panel. BTW, the preview footage looks dark, violent, lusty and savage. NOT for the faint of heart.

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Between the Panels recounts the Talkback panel where folks get things off their chests, attended by 15-20 people. Now bear in mind, 20 people out of 120,000 is a pretty low percentage, and the geek-o-sphere is particularly given over to anal nitpickers who can never be happy, so take the following with a grain of salt:

The Elite security staff was ripped. The recurring theme was that there was no communication and nobody seemed to know…anything. Where to go, who to talk to, or how to enforce order. The latter was of special importance as the rudeness of the red shirt–clad clan was called into question numerous times. Yelling and even physical contact were reported by various con-goers.

Another complaint was the treatment of the handicapped. One lady had the room silent as she almost tearfully recounted her troubled con experience. Her multiple-handicapped son was not given preferential seating, had to endure long lines, and even had to calm his mother down when the experience became too distressing for her. Her car was also towed and was there no tram service at her hotel when she was told there would be. All in all, a bad trip.

Besides the staff and the handicapped, the programming (too many similar events or big events scheduled at around the same time), the crowds (it’s getting too big — “San Diego is not New York or Tokyo or L.A. so they should scale back” was the sentiment), and the parking were other big concerns. In responding to the “too big” complaints, the brass said they were considering making Saturday a registration-only day to cut down on the crowds. It would reduce the throngs, but the programming problem would remain.

One suggestion I thought was good, though it was brushed aside, was the idea of bringing music to the show. A pop culture celebration is not complete without music. A logistical nightmare? Yes. An impossible task in their current space? For the most part, yes. But, it’s a necessary and popular element and it’s missing.

The former comics editor at EW has some pointed observations:

7. Some parents should just be ashamed of themselves. Adam and I crashed the giant ballroom a little early for the Snakes on a Plane panel, and caught the tail end of the Lucasfilm presentation. Needless to say, the 6,000 seat Hall H was filled with every stripe of Star Wars character. We grabbed two seats on the aisle, and happened to be next to this knockout of a girl, dressed as slave-girl Princess Leia. I mean, really, really beautiful this girl was, and not wearing much of anything. Then, she started talking to the 40-something guy sitting next to her. Turns out he was her dad. And she was 14 years old. Now, as awkwardly revolting as it is to realize that you were, innocently and inadvertently, lusting for a minor, that’s nothing compared to the fact that this girl’s father not only allowed her out of the house dressed like an astro-whore, but took her to a place—first among many—where she’d be eyeball-schtupped by men 4 times her age who wouldn’t think she was sad or silly for dressing like that, they’d feel entitled. And, as a father, you’re not supposed to put your kid in situations like that. You’re not supposed to chum the water with your own offspring.

Maxwell covers a day of ups and downs, including the fabled blogging panel in a post he likes to call A Sudden Sense of Bleakness - Friday:

Butcher was passionate about his assertions regarding the independence of bloggers and the necessity of them facing down the big companies and calling their bluffs about media blackouts and the like. Of course, this led to a conversation about comics journalism as a whole, and frankly I’m not sure that most bloggers fall into the category of journalists uncovering stories. I may get back to this topic at another time, but there’s a number of things preventing these folks from acting as “real� journalists, some of which have to do with their actual jobs and that blogging is only half of what they do, resources needed to do these jobs, etc. We were once in the wild west phase of blogging, but now we’re being settled down, barbed wire fences now marking out territories and things are changing. Perhaps we’ll get to the point where a site like Newsarama will become an entity that’s able to fund real journalism (contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t just spring into the world via spontaneous generation.) Until then, it’ll be folks who are passionate and driven by that.

At SDCC movie panels, directors owned up to falling behind schedule because of having . to invent SFX along the way:

Directors also apologized for slipped movie release dates, pointing to difficult visual effects for the delay. “We had to come up with a whole new program to create the fire, and to be honest with you, that’s the reason it’s been taking so long to finish the film,” Mark Steven Johnson, the director of “Ghost Riders,” told the crowd on Saturday. “A lot of the Sony Pictures Imageworks effects were groundbreaking. Sony Pictures unveiled at Comic-Con first-time footage of “Ghost Rider,” an adaptation of Marvel Comics hero Johnny Blaze who sells his soul to the devil to save his father. The event brought out Johnson, along with producers Michael De Luca and Avi Arad and stars Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes. More than 6,500 fans packed into Hall H, the convention center’s biggest room, to see the fiery visual effects.

Johnson said Cage, who plays lead character Johnny Blaze, wore a green neoprene hood over his head with interactive lights to mark the spots that fire should appear. “We’d get his expressions and movement, then digitally remove his head and put the flaming skull in its place,” he explained.

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We’ll be going into radio silence in a couple of days, but until then we’re rounding up some of the more interesting links to stuff we’ve read, a not at all even remotely broad ranging account of crap that went down at this year’s Nerd Prom. We have more photos to post, maybe a few more video blogs, and then a couple of nearly actual vacation days before flying back to the ranch for real life.

We’ll be skipping Chicago this year, not an easy decision as we always have a blast there, but physically we just can’t do it this year. Three weekends in a row away from home is just too much. We’ll miss all our drinking buds, lobby soccer and Al Snow, but that’s how the cookie crumbles.

A word about our video blogging. We didn’t make a big deal of this before hand because we weren’t exactly sure how it was going to work out. It seems to have worked out very well indeed. The blogging is sponsored by DivX, as they provided the crew and equipment, and the videos are hosted and linked to on their site, but are posted first here on The Beat. The DivX folks were incredibly helpful and cool peeps, and getting to run around and make videos at the con was a great experience.

That said, what does the group mind think of such things as video blogging? Is it worth the time? The Beat isn’t really a YouTube surfer, but knows many are.

In the meantime, we’d like to thank Scott Hinze and Oliver Tull of Fanboy Radio for having us on their panel at the show AND giving us a super nifty Fanboy Radio goodie bag which, with its plethora of pockets and so on, has become our new favorite thing in the world.

We’d also like to thank the following people: Zena, Ben, Frank, Josh; Bruce Lidl and the DivX gang, who were super awesome the whole week; Dan and Jah Furry from the home crew; Faye Desmond, David Glanzer and Gary Sassaman from the San Diego Con; Bob Chapman; Katie Merritt and Shannon Crane; Len Wong; Ed Douglas; Paul and Anina; Jimmy and Amanda; Jackie and Bat; Ryan, Kendra and Sharon; Stuart, Greg and Gus; The Mighty PWCW crew: Calvin, Douglas, Ian, Kai Ming, Peter, Chris, Laurel and Tom; The Blogosphere Assmbled; Scott, Ivy, Sky and Winter for the ride to LA; and all the fine people we’re forgetting. Wasn’t it a time?

We’re just sitting here, for the first time in days surfing the web unimpeded by any of the following: presenting an award; people sitting around your hotel room drinking Jack Daniels; moderating a panel; racing to an editorial meeting; hooking up with a camera crew; sitting around waiting for a proof; trying to find out where some party is; having 25 text messages to answer in 5 minutes; desperately trying to find food; or the need for anything really except to drink some water and make sure the bunnies are cool.

Speaking as someone who was at the San Diego Con, we think everyone watching at home probably had a better idea of what went on than anyone who was there. Of course, sitting around at home surfing the internet is hardly as much fun as running around the San Diego Comic-con — for, make no mistake, a few unpleasant encounters, mental confusion and aching limbs aside, it IS still fun — but we won’t spend the next few days endlessly linking to con reports, because whose report you want to read really depends on who you like. Do you want to know about Bob Fingerman’s con or Comics Unlimited’s con? Or any of a thousand other people. Technorati shows over 6000 links for the words “San Diego” and Comics. Not all of them are con reports, to be sure, but there are too many for any one human who isn’t working on a thesis to read.

Anyway, we’ll soon be repairing to a nice cool Starbucks with WiFi where we can use our own laptop (we’re on a friend’s computer without any of our usual tools) and will post pictures and perhaps some closing thoughts as Con-mageddon sinks into the Sea of Collective Conscious. Remember, when people begin to understand consciousness, it FRIGHTENS THEM.

The Hollywood Reporter Risky Business blog has all the actual happenings at San Diego – a world of parties far too cool for comic book people to attend.

Sci-Fi Channel threw a cool rooftop party at the Hotel Solamar attended by not only the channel’s “Battlestar Galacticaâ€? cast members, and Colin Ferguson from its breakout hit “Eureka,â€? but also director Jon Favreau, Stan Lee, Marvel Studios’ gang including Michael Helfant, Ari Arad, Jeremy Latcham and Stephen Broussard, plus comics writer Geoff Johns and producer Adrian Askarieh. At that party producer Daniel Alter called the Con, and its growing party scene, “Sundance, but with cooler movies.â€?

Many segued from Sci-Fi to the Rogue Pictures gathering, which was kicking it back at Stingaree, a slick restaurant-bar a block away that was also the scene of a private Picturehouse dinner for Guillermo del Toro and his “Pan’s Labyrinth” people Thursday night.

Friday night saw DC Comics’ throw down its second annual bash at Tesoro Restaurant. The party had the comics crowd - Johns, Grant Morrison, Marc Andreyko, Mark Waid, Howard Chaykin, Dan DiDio, Paul Levitz - and the film crowd - Mike Dougherty, JC Spink, Mason Noveck, Eric Olsen, David Goyer, Josh Olson, Tom DeSanto - but it also drew actors, including “Galactica’s� Edward James Olmos and James Callis.

Kyle Newman and Adam Goldberg were on hand for a celebration of their ode to geeks “Fanboysâ€? (it’s about four friends who journey to Skywalker Ranch to see a screening of “Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menaceâ€?) at club Confidential. “The Grudge”co-producer Shin Shimosawa spun tunes that people actually liked while wrestler Diamond Dallas Page tried to get filmmaker Darren Aronofsky to do some of his yoga moves.

Graeme McMillan explains what its like to try and see the con in five hours.

Anyway, it was just after half past one in the afternoon, and I still had five hours or so to explore the San Diego Comic-Con for the first time in my life before catching a plane back to San Francisco and my visiting family. Five hours, I thought to myself, would be more than enough time to see the sights and say hello to everyone that I wanted to say hello to.

That sound you hear? That’s the laughter of everyone who’s ever been to San Diego, mocking my innocence and lack of time-planning.

Yes, this is the moment we have been waiting for, and you have too, whether you knew it or not.

The greatest moment in Beat history.

A few updates — the convention was never actually shut down by fire marshals, although online AND onsite registration were both stopped on Saturday. No attendance figures, although the early guestimate of 125,000 felt plausible.

The convention was, by any stretch of the imagination, a monstrous and unqualified success. Publishers and artists had record sales, movies and TV shows were given endless internet inches, autographs were collected, rare comics and art were purchased, drinks were consumed at movie studio parties, podcasts were recorded, life sized statues of Ray Harryhausen were presented to him, movie stars gave quotes about loving comic books, anime costumes were remarked upon, Klingon was spoken, and so on. But now, it’s all over.

Stormtrooper Elvis has left the building.

At some point today or yesterday this showed up on the San Diego website.

While the official numbers aren’t in yet, attendance is definitely WAY up from last year. So much so that last evening we needed to close online registration (which remains closed today), and as of 12:30pm today, have had to close ONSITE registration as well. We expect online registration to resume this evening and onsite registration will be available tomorrow.

We heard a lot of reports today about the fire marshals showing up and not letting anyone in for an hour or two but do not have this confirmed. Whatever happened, this was the most crowded, most sweaty, most overwhelmingly busy SDCC anyone ever saw. By mid-afternoon, the halls were littered with exhausted congoers, perhaps tired of fighting the crowds. The parade of stars from comics, TV, film and elsewhere was so huge that an unannounced appearance by Brandon “Superman” Routh to sign at the DC booth seemed almost normal; the surprise appearance of the entire cast of SPIDER-MAN 3 went almost unremarked on the floor, swallowed up by the tsunami of announcements, booths and previews.

Pretty much everyone survived, however.

James Kochalka sings!

A few photos, and no time to write captions except for one…

SAN DIEGO ‘06 — MAKE WAY FOR DUCKLINGS!

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Video Blog #3: Geof Darrow

Video Blog #4: VIZ Media

Unfortunately we can’t link the players to the front page here. But we can link to them!

Today we have very limited online time, due to our other schedules. so we won’t have much of an update. It is very very very crowded here. Despite that, everyone is kind of calm and collected, perhaps in a shell shocked way. In a way it is hard to report on the show from the show — you people out there probably know more about what is going on than we do. There’s a ton of news out there from David Arquette forgetting the tape of his movie, to a new Dick Tracy reprint.

On the floor, its been getting pretty hot and sweaty in spots. Most observers feel this is simply because of the sheer number of people on the floor. Every day has been like Saturday. Shell shocked indeed.

We shoot the breeze with celebrity Kyle Baker!

Arrival, registration and booty.

The 2006 Eisner Awards were presented tonight at the San Diego Comic-Con. In addition, several other industry awards were presented. Multiple award winners including the anthology SOLO, which won three awards, Kyle Baker, and Chris Ware.

Russ Manning Award:
R Kikuo Johnson

Bill Finger Award:
Alvin Schwartz and Harvey Kurtzman

Will Eisner Spirit of Retailing Award:
Zeus Comics

Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award;
Calvin Reid, Publishers Weekly

The complete list of Eisner Award winners.

Best Digital Comic
* PVP, by Scott Kurtz, www.pvponline.com

Best Publication for a Younger Audience
* Owly: Flying Lessons, by Andy Runton (Top Shelf)

Best Anthology
* Solo, edited by Mark Chiarello (DC)

Best Coloring
* Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #16 (ACME Novelty)

Best Lettering
* Todd Klein, Wonder Woman, Justice, Seven Soldiers #0 (DC); Desolation Jones (WildStorm/DC); Promethea, Top Ten: The Forty-Niners, Tomorrow Stories Special (ABC); Fables (Vertigo); 1602: New World (Marvel)

Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition
* Aaron Renier (Spiral-Bound)

Best Reality-Based Work
* Nat Turner, by Kyle Baker (Kyle Baker Publishing)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Strips
* The Complete Calvin & Hobbes, by Bill Watterson (Andrews McMeel)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Books
* Absolute Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (DC)

Best Penciller/Inker
* John Cassaday, Astonishing X-Men (Marvel); Planetary (WildStorm/DC)

Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art)
* Ladronn, Hip Flask: Mystery City (Active Images)

Best Cover Artist
* James Jean, Fables (Vertigo/DC); Runaways (Marvel)

Best Comics-Related Periodical
* Comic Book Artist, edited by Jon Cooke (Top Shelf)

Best Comics-Related Book
* Eisner/Miller, edited by Charles Brownstein and Diana Schutz (Dark Horse Books)

Best Publication Design (TIE)
* Acme Novelty Library Annual Report to Shareholders, designed by Chris Ware (Pantheon)
* Little Nemo in Slumberland, designed by Philippe Ghuilemetti (Sunday Press Books)

Best Penciller/Inker
* John Cassaday, Astonishing X-Men (Marvel); Planetary (WildStorm/DC)

Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art)
* Ladronn, Hip Flask: Mystery City (Active Images)

Best Cover Artist
* James Jean, Fables (Vertigo/DC); Runaways (Marvel)

Best Comics-Related Periodical
* Comic Book Artist, edited by Jon Cooke (Top Shelf)

Best Comics-Related Book
* Eisner/Miller, edited by Charles Brownstein and Diana Schutz (Dark Horse Books)

Best Publication Design (TIE)
* Acme Novelty Library Annual Report to Shareholders, designed by Chris Ware (Pantheon)
* Little Nemo in Slumberland, designed by Philippe Ghuilemetti (Sunday Press Books)

Best Graphic Album—New
* Top Ten: The Forty-Niners, by Alan Moore and Gene Ha (ABC)

Best Graphic Album—Reprint
* Black Hole, by Charles Burns (Pantheon)

Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material
* The Rabbi’s Cat, by Joann Sfar (Pantheon)

Best Writer
* Alan Moore, Promethea, Top Ten: The Forty-Niners (ABC)

Best Writer/Artist
* Geof Darrow, Shaolin Cowboy (Burlyman)

Best Writer/Artist—Humor
* Kyle Baker, Plastic Man (DC); The Bakers (Kyle Baker Publishing)

Best Limited Series
* Seven Soldiers, by Grant Morrison and various artists (DC)

Best New Series
* All Star Superman, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (DC)

Best Short Story
* “Teenage Sidekick,� by Paul Pope, in Solo #3 (DC)

Best Single Issue (or One-Shot)
* Solo #5, by Darwyn Cooke (DC)

Best Serialized Story
* Fables #36-38, 40-41: “Return to the Homelands,� by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, and Steve Leialoha (Vertigo/DC)

Best Continuing Series
* Astonishing X-Men, by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday (Marvel)

Hall of Fame
Judges’ Choices: Floyd Gottfredson, William Moulton Marston
* Vaughn Bode
* Ramona Fradon
* Russ Manning
* Jim Steranko