We’ve linked to articles by San Diego local Don Bauder before — he’s a definite gadfly who doesn’t accept the status quo, and he has a lot of questions about the proposed expansion of the San Diego convention center and the task force report. Although we’re in FAVOR of the San Diego con staying in San Diego, were we locals we would be very cautious in a community that has already seen major fraud and instability from the local government. A convention center expansion is a project rife for kickbacks and questions should be asked.

Heywood Sanders, professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio, and the ranking national authority on convention centers, has read the draft report by the mayor’s task force purportedly studying convention center expansion, and concludes is it full of dubious statements based on distorted statistics. He says that the heralded growth of convention center business is based almost entirely on the growth of Comic-Con. In fact, the Rock and Roll Marathon and Comic-Con account for one-fourth of attendance, he says. San Diego may dump money into a convention center expansion just to keep Comic-Con. But the decision on where Comic-Con will go is up to Comic-Con, not San Diego, Sanders points out.

This is a healthy piece to read for its skepticism…BUT, it repeats the canard that San Diego has a lot of locals who don’t spend money. That may PARTIALLY be true…but then WHY ARE HOTEL ROOMS SOLD OUT ALL THE WAY TO CARLSBAD? Can’t there be some happy medium between fiscal responsibility AND admitting that Comic-Con is a huge event that spends tons of money in the local economy?

Okay I read this a bit more closely, and thanks to this link in the comments, I’ve found the transcript of Prof. Sanders’ — characterized as a “Whack job” by one Convention Center employee — remarks to the task force, and it does appear that he was misquoted. and he uncoveres–as have several before him–the mystery of San Diego’s hotel room situation, which I’ll quote with some context.

These are the figures for primary event attendance and total hotel room night generation by year provided to me by the SDCC. What is intriguing about these to me is after the expansion, how the primary attendance number rises very rapidly, but the hotel room night number does not show much of an increase from the peak years in the 1990s. This has for me, for a very long time presented an intriguing kind of analytical conundrum. Part of the reason, obviously, and this is taken from the PricewaterhouseCoopers report is that several large events, notably Comic-Con, the two ASR trade expos and the Rock N’ Roll marathon, generate large attendance volumes without necessarily generating very many hotel room nights. Indeed Comic-Con, for all its size, appears to generate the hotel room night demand, according to the convention center’s numbers, of about a 7,000 attendee medical event. If I pull those numbers out of the attendance numbers, that Steve Johnson of the Center was kind enough to give me, but the Center could only generate after 2000. You’ll see what the expansions impact actually looks like on that black line labeled adjusted attendance. Then we have some information on the attendance and room night generation for a number of large recent events. I didn’t highlight the Comic-Con numbers there but I think you can see these numbers are rounded. They are from the PricewaterhouseCoopers report. They are slightly different from the Center’s numbers because they rounded them. Comic-Con at 123,000 attendees with 20,300 hotel room nights. And then you’ll see right above it the American College of OBGYNs, 7,000 attendees at 21,000 room nights.

Well, that is indeed a “conundrum.”

Reading the comments, it seems thatthe entire CC expansion is caught up in a lot of local politicking (SHOCK!) and the kind of stadium mall and facility building that consultants always want to approve whether the people need them or not. And in the middle, one of the biggest events of the year, Comic-Con.

San Diego The Southland really needs to come to terms with its nerd needs–who needs who more, the city or the Con?

• Robot 6 reports that Ray Harryhausen has chosen to terminate his deal with Bluewater.:

• If you’ve been following along with the Saga of the San Diego Con, you will LOVE this transcript of a radio show that ran during the show. Basically, it shows locals arguing the merits of the convention center expansion, and sort of quantifies the attitude towards Nerd Prom as seen by local media and businesspeople.

PENNER: Okay. Tom, your comment on – Comic-Con is celebrated as almost an event of mythic proportions by a lot of people. Is it celebrated in the same way by downtown business interests?

YORK: I think they love the mythology of it because it translates into dollars. I would say one thing about an expansion of the convention center. Maybe it’s time for the city to look at specializing, coming into a niche rather than trying to go for every convention of a certain size, maybe go for certain niches. Maybe the limit is 126,000.

• We didn’t really follow along with the happenings at this weekend’s FAn Expo in Toronto, but by all accounts it was HUGE and busy. Did anyone reading this attend? Jamie Coville? Report in!

KPBS.org reports that the task force assigned to determine the future of a planned expansion of the San Diego Convention Center, has approved the expansion. They decided that the $750 million project was feasible and would have a positive impact on the region. How to pay for the project?

The task force presents several options for paying for the expansion including an increase in city or county sales taxes, an increase in the taxes charged for hotel rooms and creating a special taxing district around the convention center. Critics of the project call it too expensive and say expansions rarely live up to expectations. The task force will meet on Monday to issue its official recommendation.

You can read more of the task force’s decision here. Kevin Melrose rounds up other germane links here.

The expansion is, of course, VITAL to the future of the San Diego Comic-Con, as other cities were vying for its business, and the show had maxed out on space, leaving revenues and attendance flat despite the ever-increasing demand for its marketing platform. While the bigger con center is good news, the idea of an even BIGGER San Diego is daunting, to say the least, and just thinking about it, we’ve run out to purchase a flare gun, orthopedic shoes, a backpack full of MREs and some Depends.

Developing.

UPDATE: We’ve begun going through the 78 page draft report and it’s the Dead Sea Scrolls for all convention center Kremlinology, with charts, graphs, and a strong repudiation of the idea that Comic-Con doesn’t sell out every hotel room within a few hours travel. (An anti-expansion consultant mentions this canard.) The entire report online mentions Comic-Con once, in that regard, painting the expansion as something that would benefit the community in adding opportunities for other shows across the board, not just the nerds. Probably a good idea as far as selling it to the locals goes.

But the problem remains…PAYING FOR IT. It’s up to the mayor to figure that one out, and SD taxpayers aren’t likely to be eager to foot the bill.

(The second part of a series on how not to spend Comic-Con week at Comic-Con)

After spending most of the week in San Diego, but only one day at the actual con itself, it was off to the Bay Area for the previously-discussed Miyazaki festivities at Berkeley. But before seeing the director, the previous day was spent making the trip from San Francisco Airport to Santa Rosa to visit the Charles M. Schulz Museum.

(For the super-nerds: Not only did I want to go to Santa Rosa to see the Schulz Museum, but wanted to drive around town, since it was the setting for my favorite and perhaps the most underrated of all the Hitchcock movies, SHADOW OF A DOUBT.)

It’s fair to say that anyone coming to California for Comic-Con really should make a detour to the Schulz Museum, as it’s one big love affair to Schulz and all the lovable characters (and Lucy) that populate the world of PEANUTS.

Obviously, it goes without saying there is tons of Schulz artwork in and around the museum, from the giant mural in the lobby to comic stripped tiles in the restroom (bathroom reading has never been so appealing).

While I was there in late July, there were two featured exhibits in the museum. The one that was nearing its run featured a number of strips and memorabilia commemorating the 65th anniversary of D-Day. The exhibit had both PEANUTS strips done by Schulz over the years related to the anniversary, as well as personal artifacts from Schulz’s time in the army during World War II.

The other exhibit, which had just opened the day I was at the museum, was the second of three under the heading “The Language of Lines.” This one is called “How Cartoonists Create Characters” and is filled with original art from the Golden Age up until the present. Sure, it was great to see a BARNEY GOOGLE strip from the 1930s or a page of PRINCE VALIANT art, but, given my age, nothing was cooler to see than an original CALVIN AND HOBBES strip.

The neatest thing among the permanent exhibits may be a re-creation of Schulz’s studio, complete with his longtime drawing board. Eagle-eyed visitors will want to be on the lookout for the NHL’s Lester Patrick Award, which Schulz was given in 1981 for his contributions to hockey, as well a Peabody Award, given for A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS.

Any visitor to the museum will also want to venture across the street and have lunch at the Warm Puppy Café, which is part of Snoopy’s Home Ice, the ice rink Schulz had built in 1969 and was opened by a skate by Olympic darling Peggy Fleming.

Although the museum was set up at Comic-Con (you could have easily missed them, like everything else that wasn’t a movie booth), it’s certainly no substitute for a visit to the real thing.

Posted by Mark Coale

Sorry…it’s just staggering on, and I wanted to link to a couple of reactions to my novella yesterday.

§ Don McPherson talks to the SD police to find out what REALLY happened during the con. It turns out we are a peaceful, law abiding folk after all.

Monica Munoz, media services manager with the SDPD, said there were few incident reports related to the comics and pop-culture convention last week. She said there was only one arrest at Comic-Con this year, which was for shoving an officer on duty just outside the event. The police department only recorded a single Comic-Con-related arrest in 2008 as well, and that was for being drunk in public, she said.

“This year, we had four kids who were separated from their parents, but they were all reunited with family,” Munoz said. “Other than that it was a successful event, as it is every year.”

As those limited, minor incidents suggest, the San Diego Police Department doesn’t experience a spike in criminal activity or disturbances during the convention, Munoz said, even though tens of thousands of attendees descend upon the city for a few days.

§ This blogger wonders about movie comics and why folks don’t like them:

So here are a few questions, not meant with any snark at all; I honestly don’t understand, and am curious to know. What makes a comic seem more like a movie pitch or “media property” than a “proper” comic? And why is that a problem? I don’t understand how the goal of making a comic that’s a good movie pitch or media property is inconsistent with or divergent from the goal of making a good comic, period.

§ Mark Evanier liked most of my con report, but chides me a bit for not giving more attention to the pioneers who got us here:

The place was crawling with comic book folks, past and present, and there was plenty of interest in them. They just get ignored in the fan press because, I guess, it’s more interesting to cover Robert Downey Jr than it is to cover anyone who ever drew Iron Man. I got Stan Freberg, who is kind of a legend in animation, down to the convention and he was mobbed and we turned away hundreds of folks at the Freberg panel…but that’s received nary a sentence in the convention coverage. We had a Golden Age Panel that has gone largely uncovered. I did a panel with comic creators from the seventies that has been noted on one website so far, and a particularly historic panel — the first-ever reunion of the three main “Bob Kane” ghost artists on Batman — that I’ve yet to see mentioned anywhere online…

Not to be morbid, but in the lifetimes of many of you, Geoff Johns and Bendis will be sitting on an old-timers panel, God willing, talking about what Steve Wacker was really like. We really do need to treasure the past more in the present.

§ ALSO…thanks to all for the kind notes and comments on my essay. I’m impressed that anyone got through it, and please know each was very much appreciated.

Before I get into this, let me state unequivocally that San Diego Comic-Con is a fantastic experience, and despite any kvetching that follows, it’s an incredible, inspiring event and I remain amazed by the organization and efficiency with which it is run. For better or worse, Comic-Con wouldn’t be the mega media event that it has become if the infrastructure to make it so weren’t there. I think in all our suggestions and observations we forget that there is only a small crew of fulltime people who put this on, and as a non-profit, they have a lot of goals to juggle. So let’s give Faye Desmond, David Glanzer, Eddie Ibrahim, and everyone else involved a big hand. They did a phenomenal job and I know I’ll be back.

Another caveat, what I’m going to talk about isn’t about comics and the quality thereof. Comics are swell, and we all know that. I’m more interested in examining the social construct and how it has evolved at the place men call Con.

With that in mind…

There are two things that everyone in our line of work talks about after Comic-Con. “Is it too big?” and “Is there any room for comics at Comic-Con any more?” Let’s start with the crowd issue.

1: Take me out of this Hell Hall   

First, it must be admitted that getting around, getting into panels and, at times, even standing still were all problematic in the Convention Center this year. 2008 saw a big spike in moaning about security, and this year was even worse. Red shirts — Elite Security forces — and orange and green shirts — other security companies contracted by the show — were everywhere and necessary.

With so many people attending, safety is paramount and preventing small children from being trampled should be the main goal for everyone involved in the show. That’s understood. (One rumor going around was that a child had been injured on Thursday, leading to the increased security.) As long as 125,000+ people are trying to get a free bag, this is the way it’s going to be. Indeed, the present structure of the show has evolved around crowd control. The reason the programming is so incredible and jam-packed is to keep people off the floor and moving around. (Former 15 minute breaks between panels have also been eliminated to increase the number of panels and keep people in panel rooms.)

Likewise, security’s evolution means zero tolerance for straying outside the lines, both to keep people moving safely and to create the mood of obedience that keeps a crowd docile.

Bearing in mind that my expertise is in being part of a crowd, not crowd control, some of the new practices (or newly noticed by me practices) seem to be more for psychological than logistical reasons. There’s no winner in the war between freedom and safety. The plan to keep people in a subdued, law-abiding state certainly succeeded. My own personal reaction to this was a state of demoralization and surrender, which did not enhance my enjoyment of the show, and I’m sure others felt as I did.

To give a little context, on Saturday at the PopCult party, I was standing outside with a G&T in my hand for about 20 minutes before a bouncer told me to go inside. Standing outside with an open alcoholic drink is illegal and not allowed in a single club in the land. It was also 15 minutes longer than I went at the convention center without being told I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to be doing.
(more…)

Jamie Coville has now uploaded a ton of panels from Comic-Con, including many of our must-sees which we didn’t:

Secret Origins of Comic-Con. (61.8mb, 67:32)
Participants of the first and early San Diego Comic cons tell their stories of how it all began. Panelist include Richard Alf, Greg Bear, Dave Clark, Ken Krueger, Mike Towry, Scott Shaw!, Barry Alfonso, Roger Freedman, Ken Krueger, and moderated by William R. Lund. This panel gets cut off before it ends, due to a dead battery.

Indie Comics Marketing 101. (41.7mb, 45:33)
How to market your comics if you are not a big publisher. BOOM! Marketing director Chip Mosher, The Beat’s Heidi McDonald, and filling in for Shanon Wheeler is popular blogger and creator Kevin Church. Chip goes through the mindset and some rules on marketing yourself, Heidi and Kevin go through some do’s and don’ts on the press end. The panel is moderated by the former manager of development and content at MySpace, Sam Humphries.

Spotlight on Jerry Robinson. (41.8mb, 45:43)
Moderator Mark Waid interviews Jerry Robinson about his career in comics, particularly focusing on his early Batman days and his latest work as a guest curator for an exhibition on Superhero comic art.

Golden and Silver Age of Comics. (69.1mb, 75:31) Panelists include Murphy Anderson, Gene Colan, Ramona Fradon, Russ Heath, Jack Katz, Jerry Robinson and Leonard Starr. The group tells stories about their time in comics. The panel is moderated by Mark Evanier.

COMICSPRO: Selling More Comics and Graphic Novels: A Forum for Publishers. (54.9mb, 60:01)
Joe Field (ComicsPro President and Flying Colours owner), Phil Boyle (Coliseum of Comics chain owner) and Judd D’Angelo (Earth 2 chain co-owner) give instructions to publishers and creators on how to sell more comics.

Spotlight on Dwayne McDuffie. (45.8mb, 50:02)
Dwayne McDuffie receives an Inkpot Award and just does a straight Q&A with the audience. He answers questions about writing comics and animation. In particular, about Fantastic Four, Damage Control, Static Shock and the Milestone Universe, Justice League, Teen Titans and Ben 10.

2009 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. (154mb, 169:17)

The Black Panel. (74.1mb, 81:00)
Moderated by Michael Davis. This laugh out loud funny panel’s participants include Ludacris, Michael Jai White, Kel Mitchell, Prodigal Sunn, Jimmy Diggs, Reggie Hudlin, Denys Cowan, and surprise guest Nichelle Nichols. There was also a performance by singer Asia Lee, Queen of Cali. Artist Ken Lashley was in the crowd and stood up to participate towards the end. There was much promoting of upcoming projects and some Q&A from the audience.

Spotlight on Sheldon Moldoff. (42.4mb, 46:22)
Mark Waid interviews Sheldon Moldoff about his career, in particular about his time working on Batman. Moldoff also talks about the time he sued DC and won (but still continued to work for them) and his very bad experience with Bill Gaines. I should note I missed about the first 5 minutes of the panel.

Spotlight on Denis Kitchen. (94.5mb, 54:04)
Kevin Dooley gave a very long introduction to Denis Kitchen and also ran a quick moving power point showing lots of Kitchen’s underground art. They talked a bit about his career, what he’s doing now and took questions from the audience.

Comic-Con: El Cortez Memories. (45.6mb, 49:51) Moderated by David Scroggy, this panel includes many early comic con goers and they tell funny stories about the old El Cortez hotel the comic con used to be held in. On the panel was Sergio Aragonés, Mike Friedrich, George Clayton Johnston, Jack Katz, Lee Marrs, Mike Royer, William Stout, and Mark Evanier.

Harvey Kurtzman Tribute. (46.9mb, 51:14)
Panelists include Paul Levitz, Denis Kitchen, William Stout, Charles Kochman and Harvey’s daughter Nellie Kurtzman. Panel is moderated by Mark Evanier. The group talk about Harvey, his strengths and his career path in an open and honest way.

The Annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel. (51.9mb, 56:42)
Mark Evanier is the moderator. On the panel is Bill Mumy, Mike Royer, Steve Saffel, and the inspiration for the 5 String Mob from Jimmy Olsen comics, Barry Alfonso, Roger Freedman, William R. Lund, Scott Shaw! and Mike Towry. The panel talks about Jack, point out that several of the audience members also have Jack Kirby connections as well.

Coville’s pictures are also online.

Posted by Mark Coale

During our high-powered breakfast (maybe brunch by the time Ace and FMB got there), The Beat requested that I try and write more for the site. So, here’s the first article about the non-SDCC portion of my travels recently.

I had always planned on only doing one day of San Diego, but for a while, wasn’t sure what to do for the weekend before coming back to the muggy Mid-Atlantic states. There were many possibilities: baseball games, futbol matches, even going to see Monument Valley. The deal was sealed when I found out that the legendary Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki was going to be in Berkeley doing a Q&A in conjunction with receiving an award from Cal’s Center for Japanese Studies.

When I told friends at the Con that I was only staying for a day (plus Preview Night), most were dumbfounded that I would make the trip for so brief a trip. But when I said that I was going to see Miyazaki, almost everyone immediately said, “Oh, that’s understandable” or “I wish I could go.” One unnamed Eisner winner said they were jealous and wondered how they could pull strings to maybe meet Miyazaki while he was briefly at the Con Friday.

It was certainly worth the trip. I haven’t watched his SDCC panel with Pixar’s John Lassiter, but I presume it didn’t have the coziness of his Berkeley talk. It was not in a small room, but a 1000-seat auditorium on a college campus likely beats trying to watch a cramped and sweaty panel in Room 20 or Hall H at the Con. And there was thankfully no one dressed as Ashitaka or Kiki. The closest we got was a number of people carrying Totoros in with them to the talk.

It’s always interesting to go to a panel where a translator is involved, because often, Miyazaki would make a joke and about a quarter of the room would laugh and the rest of us would have to wait for the translation to understand what was so funny. And Miyazaki made plenty of jokes during his 90 or so minutes on stage.

Miyazaki, prompted by moderator Roland Kelts, talked in a mostly-playful manner about some of the elements most associated with his films, such as nature vs technology and the use of female protagonists. He expressed dismay for how disasters are seen as “evil,” even though they are just part of nature and often have a cleansing aspect to them.

When asked about good and bad characters, Miyazaki said he often doesn’t have true villains in his pictures, since he did not like to make his animators draw evil people.

There was also discussion about Studio Ghibli’s animation practices and Miyazaki’s desire to continue making traditional animation films done with cels and not CGI, even though it was like “being in a raft in a sea full of speed boats.”

The Q&A session, both the moderator’s inquiries and the audience question portion, quickly sped by and Miyazaki was soon off the stage and a very satisfied audience poured out of the building, with a lot less pushing and shoving than one probably found in San Diego.

Considering this was likely a once-in-a-lifetime event (how often does Miyazaki appear in public in the US, now, if ever), it was certainly worth skipping out on SDCC.

Jeff Newelt was nice enough to pass along some photos from SD09’s PopCult party, which he helped organize, and I’m nice enough to post ‘em so here goes:

Paul Pope makes his DJ debut at Comic-Con

Pop Cult / Devil’s Due’s Josh Blaylock and Pop Cult / Kingdom Comic’s Christian Beranek

Jim Mahfood rocking the live art

Jim Mahfood [http://www.40ozcomics.com/] does live art on a live model

Comic-Con goers brought the ruckus to the PopCult party

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§ We’re tragically one plane ride away from the time to finish our own convention rant, so until then, here’s the new most linked to post about the con, courtesy of recently promoted all-around comics genius Eric Reynolds:

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t all doom and gloom by any means; we did well despite the oddly slow Saturday, thanks in part to a surprisingly robust Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday. But amongst virtually all of the retail and publishing exhibitors I talked to, there were some remarkably consistent and potentially alarming trends that could carry over to future years. There were noticeably fewer back issues dealers this year, and many reduced presences from traditional con stalwarts like Bud Plant. Personally, this disappoints me and doesn’t bode well for the comics at Comicon. Many alternative cartoonists are passing over the show and focusing on events like MoCCA, SPX and APE, and it’s not hard to understand why; you have to get your ducks in a row so far in advance to even attend Comicon that it’s simply easier to focus on those other, smaller, more arts-friendly shows. They’re also considerably less expensive to attend.

Reynolds feels that this year, for the first time, all the media hoopla actively detracted from sales for Fantagraphics comics, and Saturday, usually a monster sales day, was just so-so.

§ One more post, from Tony Lee, and this one details the kind of heartbreaking capriciousness shown by the Elite security:

I then made my way to the Doctor Who panel, only to be told that I couldn’t enter with the ticket I had - I had to join the queue, the one that people had been queuing in since midnight the day before.

I was gutted, but then one of the security guys I’d met in the previous day’s Vampire panel caught me - he was a fan of my Doctor Who comic and I’d signed him a book the day before - and was confused as he’d seen my twittered photo and knew I had a ticket. I showed it to him. He marched me back to the door guy and screamed at him - apparently door guy didn’t realise that these were ’special’ tickets, and I was allowed in. As I entered, looking to sit at the back Rich Starkings phoned, he was holding a seat for me in the ’super special VIPs’ area. I slipped down to the front and walked across, getting a ‘Tony Lee!’ cheer from most of the second row (cheers guys) and a few IDW fans who recognised me.

Like we said, not actionable on its own, but very representative of the moans and complaining we heard during the show.

Some views and voices…we’re only gonna do this for a few days, don’t worry. We’ll be back at SBM on Friday am.

§ Brian Heater got to interview everyone from The Mighty Boosh to Seth to Stan Lee:

He’s genuinely funny and warm during our interview, and while he doesn’t seem to precisely grasp the intricacies of the Disney “electronic comic book” he helped to produced, he speaks of the project with a downright viral sense of enthusiasm. I ask him he reads comics and he answers, “no.” He just can’t find the time these days. He pulls out his cell phone. Says that one day he’ll learn how to send messages on the thing. Oh, and he bought himself an iPhone, too, but he doesn’t know how to use it. It’s perfect material for the PCMag name on my badge, which paid for me to come out to this coast. Before he’s finished talking about the alien gadget, I’ve got my headline “Stan Lee Has an iPhone.”

§ Our pal Jimmy Aquino also made copious use of press opportunities, and delivers a pretty comprehensive and typical look at CCI with the good, the bad and the ugly.

§ Elizabeth Rappe has The Hunks of Comic Con 2009!

§ American Originals’ Jeff Katz surveys the Hollywood scene

The view from the floor is as massive and jam-packed as ever. It’s clear that the economy and larger consolidation of the entertainment industry has put a damper on excess Hollywood spending in SD and it’s a fair bet that premieres and event parties will continue to be among the first and easiest trims on the studio bottom line. One of the important messages I’ve tried to convey since starting American Original is that the entertainment industry on the whole is looking at a 25 to 30% contraction over the next two to three years. This has a gigantic ripple effect on several symbiotic entertainment businesses we love - gaming, comics, wrestling, etc. - and we’re really only seeing the early stages of the larger change now. We’ve hit a perfect storm of economic crisis, rising marketing and production costs, digital piracy and distribution strategy that will play out for quite a while longer. I suspect we’ll see several more signs of this over the next several days at the Con.

§Did Twitter sputter at the con? Variety says yes, as a hoped for Twitter wave of fan buzz did not materialize:

Marketing mavens had thought fans would whip out their cell phones and use Twitter to spread the word instantly on what they thought about the movies Hollywood took to Comic-Con last week. But the number of tweets from San Diego fell short of expectations. Overall, buzz generated on Twitter from Comic-Con was so low that no movie generated enough tweets to account for 1% of the total messages sent during a given hour of the convention, according to data collected by Interpret, an entertainment, media and technology measurement and market research firm founded by former Nielsen exec Michael Dowling. By comparison, the latest installment of the “Harry Potter” franchise generated more tweets than Comic-Con or any of the pics featured during the show.

§ BUT Comics Alliance’s Caleb Goellner says Twitter was just fine:

While covering the convention most media folks were busy. Like really busy - too busy to keep up with their Twitter feeds busy. Standing in 1-3 hour lines for a panel might sound like plenty of time to update social networking statuses, but trust me — it wasn’t. Phone calls, E-mails and constant texts interrupted the most basic activities (eating, using the facilities, sleeping). Deadlines for panel reports and interview write-ups did not yield enough Tweet time for even the most savvy smart phone addicts to meet their usual sedentary office-based quotas.

We’d back up the idea that there was just too much chaos to Twitter, BUT we do have to point out that Variety was talking about FAN twitters, and Goellner is talking about WRITERS/REPORTERS…two different beasts.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether an internet feud is just an excuse to type or lot or a manifestation of an actual conflict. We’d kind of decided that the Con-vs-Twlight feud was halfway a work, but on the floor we heard enough anecdotal evidence and passing references to decide that the Twilighters are, in fact, the most recent invaders to the con, and since they are from a different demo group, they are being greeted with a bit of xenophobic dread.

This seems to be from one of those websites that’s trying to be bold and tough in the way of a Bill Maher-wannabe, so it definitely be a “work”, but the very fact that it’s touching on these issues shows that they have some juice:

This could be a clear iteration of fear of “the other” and general anxiety over female expression of their own interests and activities (though male-focused)…or it could be someone trying to get hits on the Internet.

What say you?

We would plug in to this idea! Call us nuts.

Okay, a very brief linkage of some of the points of interest we saw during yesterday’s recovery time:

§ Douglas Wolk reviewed >ASTERIOS POLYP for the NY Times, in a review Scott McCloud deemed “insightful.”

§ This Booth Babe business is pretty annoying.

§ Here’s that letter by Chuck Rozanski everyone is talking about.

§ i09 asks Who Won Comic Con’s Buzz Wars? and doesn’t mention a single comic book. However, this quote is worth parsing for its implications;

Look at last year — Comic Con 2008 had a clear winner (Watchmen) and a clear loser (The Spirit). And the bad exposure at Comic Con definitely hurt The Spirit, but it’s hard to argue the event helped Watchmen all that much. Meanwhile, Star Trek stayed away from Comic Con 2008, and did better than almost any movie that actually did panels there. (Looking back, Wolverine did a panel, and it grossed less than Trek domestically.)

§ ComicMix has a few #SDCC: Overheard at San Diego Comic type posts. We LOVE those!

§ Letterer extraordinare Todd Klein posts a series of >“What I did at the con” styles that make it very, very clear why going to the show IS still cool:

My last event of the con was a panel by writer/artist Bryan Talbot about his upcoming new graphic novel, Grandville. Here he is holding an advance copy, it will be out this fall. Of all the new projects I heard about at the con, I think this is the one I’m most looking forward to reading. As Bryan described it, imagine a detective along the lines of Sherlock Holmes, but in turn of the century France, and in a story that might have been directed by Quentin Tarantino, but with the lush, detailed art no one can do so well as Bryan. And, the characters are anthropomorphized animals. Bryan’s talk was on all the influences and similar approaches that inspired him, from 18th-century political broadsides to Beatrix Potter, to Rupert the Bear, and right up through Dave Sim’s Cerebus. Bryan’s work on the 98-page story is incredible, and I urge you not to miss it.

§ A nice round-up of con observations

§ This fan — who spent $50 on babysitting for a panel they would never get in to — had a pretty crap time at Comic-Con. Even allowing for post con bitching and moaning, this experience doesn’t sound like much fun:

have to have spent the ENTIRE day in one room if I wanted to see this panel. In essence I could have to have been there for SIX hours with no chance of doing anything else at the con. I know true fans will say that camping out is a tradition, and that I’m being a whiny baby. I say anyone paying fifty bucks for a single day ticket, and another fifty for daycare should be entitled to more than sore feet and lingering bitterness.

§ And yet…Keith Chow had a SWELL time!

When I did manage to navigate through hordes trying to get free swag and gawking at various booth babes and celebs, it was pretty maddening. (Quick tip: when trying to blow some steam off after being stressed out, walking the exhibit halls is not the way to go.) They’re not exaggerating about this place being packed to the gills. Making your way to, say, Artists’ Alley requires planning, preparation and patience. And blisters on your feet. Fortunately, being an exhibitor allowed me to gain access to the halls before the doors were open, and this was the best time to check out all the studios’ elaborate booths, though they were not open to offering their free (or even not free) swag until doors opened. Boo!

§ Perhaps Ming Doyle’s way is the best.

How much work did the Lost brain trust put into their (last?) Comic-Con panel presentation? A lot, according to an article in today’s NYT.

“Is it too late for when Carlton and I come out onstage for there to be giant towers of flames?” Mr. Lindelof said (mostly) facetiously.

Tip of the hat to Peter Sanderson, since we saw the story first from his Facebook link.

Posted by mark coale

Posted by Evie

Mile High Comics’ Chuck Rozanski appears to be the first out of the gate with the annual “where are the comics at Comic Con?” lament, and Val D’Orazio has a further discussion. My personal flash-assessment, having not been there this year but having gone in the past and following the news from the perspective of journalists, publishers and creators, is that the shape of this problem depends a lot on where your stake is. For smaller retailers who are losing money, it is perhaps epic. For others who are making the books, the convention is still very much about the comics. The idea that the TV/movie/video game/toy/big money contingent is taking over is, well, that discussion is very much in progress, as we know. One thing is for sure: Chuck Rozanski is not so fussed on Twitter.

It’s also interesting when reading a few of Wired’s Geek Dad’s “Top 10 Reasons I’m Not Sorry to be Missing Comic Con”*:

8. Why should I pay to fly across the country to see people like Bruce Campbell, Nathan Fillion, Neil Patrick Harris, and Eliza Dushku, when I can see them on TV and DVD for free?

7. I haven’t been into comic books since high school, and that’s all the convention’s really about, right? I mean, why else would they call it “Comic-Con?”

Now, I’m going to give Geek Dad Matt Blum credit for intending this subtle paradox, but let’s pretend for a second that he didn’t (and maybe he didn’t). Would it be so terrible if the two biggest reasons to go to Comic Con were that you a) loved comics AND b) wanted to get your picture taken with Nathan Fillion? The argument against the corporate media takeover of comic con always seems to imply that too many of the people who fill up the convention hall are there for the glitter and not for the paper. But almost everyone I personally know in the comics community get equally weak-kneed over both Asterios Polyp and Josh Holloway (or ok Megan Fox), and I would wager it’s these things together, rather than one or the other, that make your average attendee pony up.
*Thanks to Torsten for the link.

Via an unnamed correspondent, apparently the Becky Cloonan/Amy Reeder Hadley feud errupted in VIOLENCE over the weekend. Sad that comics have come to this.

We’ll have our big long meditation on Comic-Con and What It Means tomorrow or (more likely) Wednesday am, but in the meantime, Sunday wrapped up with FAR MORE crowded floors than Saturday, and reports of mixed sales, fewer costumes, and the same “It was brutal but it was great!” vibe from 97 percent of the folks we talked to. Most of the Hollywooders had decamped in the night, leaving only glitter and sparkle and the drying drops of Joss Whedon’s sweat on the the rooftop bars of San Diego. With Brigadoon moved on, it’s back being just another economically challenged, meteorologically superior average American city.

A few quick notes on the cabbies and service workers of San Diego. People around town were unequivocably more friendly than they had been in past years. We were told by several people that there had been both informal and formal meetings — including one at the Haytt! — devoted to telling the workers to “be nice to the Con people so they will keep coming back.”

At our traditional Sunday night dinner, our server couldn’t have been better or more solicitous. Hotel workers were cheerful and helpful, something that has not always happened in this town. According to Jackie Estrada, the Bayfront Hilton couldn’t have been any friendlier in helping get the Eisner Awards set up.

In addition, the locals were uniformly enthusiastic about a chance to get inside the big show. Many had been trying to get tickets for months. Others were wistful that time and access had not come through, but were hopeful about next year. While we’re not sure that wandering the strictly policed, security-rampant, giveaway-choked floors of the Convention Hall was all that fun in the abstract, it’s still one of the places to be.

Speaking of dinner, nothing was slaughtered before our eyes, and we enjoyed tapas, sangria, and talk with Ben McCool, Anina Bennett, Paul Guinan, Larry Marder, Todd Klein, Stuart Moore, Peter Gross, Kevin Cannon, Zander Cannon, and Steve Leialoha. Smarter, nicer dinner companions couldn’t be imagined, and it was as always a wonderful way to wrap up the show, followed by yet more chatter at the Dead Dog Party.

We’ll have more when we’ve had even more sleep and filed a few more deadline sensitive stories for tomorrow’s PW Comics Week.

Briefly back on the grid, following a mass exodus from the Bayfront Hilton. Rorschach, your car is waiting! We’re drinking some refreshing fluids, and gearing up for finding out what actually happened over the last week. Check out Calvin Reid’s report in PW on the broad strokes. More after lunch.

As usual, as the show wears on, our obligations pile up, leaving less and less time for blogging, which is totally lame. Saturday, long dreaded as the ultimate Con-Mageddon, was instead a lovable pussy cat. For whatever reason — Twilighter defection, massed lines outside Hall H, Ballroom 20 AND the Indigo Ballroom at the Bayfront Hilton, people huddled in fear at home — everyone we mentioned it to agreed the floor was less crowded and had more open space than any other day.

In fact, everyone agreed that Preview night has become the much dreaded “Saturday” of the con, with no programming to keep people off the floor.

Most folks also noted fewer costumes on the floor. Coupled with the smaller displays in the movie section, it does seem that the real economy has slowed the fantasy economy a bit.

In comics news, Jim Shooter is back at Dark Horse, reinventing the Gold Key Universe. Bill Willingham is at IDW, writing ANGEL and a new series with Gene Ha for IDW.

We spent a long time talking to Dean Mullaney on a non-Marvelman/Miracleman related matter, but he told us his version of what the contracts say — Marvel’s new Marvelman stuff is based on the original Mick Anglo stuff, apparently, hence it being called MARVELMan. We’ll have more on this when we can devote the time to it that it deserves. The short version of our own takeaway is that the legal web is so complex and all-encompassing that reprinting all those old MIRACLEMAN would almost be an anticlimax at this point.

In the social scene, we hit the Pop Candy meet-up and drank amazing comics-themed cocktails with some swell folks. We were thwarted in attempts to order room service, so ended up very, very late at an awesome sushi place that unfortunately decided to kill some of the sushi right in front of us. Hooray for Beef Jerky!

After that, it was the fab PopKult party with a kabillion peeps and then a final wind-up at the Hyatt where the other kabillion folks were hanging out. We reunited with some old friends, made a new one or two and then called it a night, hoarse and baggy-eyed. Yet another Comic-Con. Since these reports have been so lame, here’s some piccies.

This “Walking” statue may well be the emblem of Comic-Con.

(more…)

A special report by Zena Metal

Lost, Lost, Lost, Lost, mother’effen Lost! Arguably one of the greatest—and most heavily expounded upon—TV shows of the last millennium held its annual panel at San Diego Comic-Con, and being that the forthcoming season will also be the series’ last, both stars and creators upped the ante with lots of free giveaways and a ton of surprises.

- Actors Josh Holloway, Jorge Garcia, Michael Emerson, Nestor Carbonell, Dominic Monaghan, plus creators Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse all graced the dais while ducking questions about Season 6.

- Comedian Paul Scheer presented the Lost creators with a painting of the pair with a polar bear. Wanna see? There’s a Web site, of course.

- You can also enroll at Lost University.

- Folks were also buzzing about the V remake, starring Lost’s Elizabeth Mitchell.

Non-Lost Highlights:

- Some fresh dirt from the True Blood panel.

- My Chemical Romance frontman and UMBRELLA ACADEMY creator, Gerard Way, was out and about. Here’s some news he announced at the Dark Horse panel.

- The IRON MAN 2 panel was a star-studded affair, featuring leads Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle, Sam Rockwell, and Scarlett Johansson. For more details on the film footage shown, check out this post.

- Proving that he truly is the nicest guy in comics, Jim Lee gave out cookies at the WildStorm panel.

4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 34

That is all for me, thank you and goodnight.

Photo courtesy of Jimmy Aquino

Will everyone stop moaning about how bad Saturday will be? EVERY DAY of the con has been sold out thus far and from the folks we talked to, Preview Night was actually the most crowded time on the floor.

Last night’s Eisners at the new Hilton venue were more a tighter show — the elimination of several categories and a bit brisker format had the show come in 20 minutes shorter than last year. This still left time for a lot of amazing speeches, including MAD writer Frank Jacob’s memories of Bill Gaines, Sergio’s Antonio Prohias tales, and Mike Royer recalling Russ Manning’s brisk manner.

Big ups to ALL the winners, but a special shout out to Rantz Hoseley for the COMIC BOOK TATTOO win and Jonah Weiland for CBR. While all the contenders in the Best Comics Journalism presentation are great, Weiland has been at it a long time, and his win was definitely a popular one.

The after party was better, as well, although most people still split quickly to get to the various industry/agency bashes. There were, by all accounts, a bunch of fabulous, star-studded parties but we ended up staying at the Hilton for the duration, talking of Russ Manning, Alex Toth and Frank Frazetta with the likes of Steve Leialoha, Mark Buckingham, Paul Power and the aforementioned Royer. We also got the REAL story of those Michael Jackson & family photos from Sharon Liebowitz of the Golden Apple. We finally got to meet Gerard Way, and it turned out we had been at DC at the same time, which was kind of funny. Other fabulous folks chatted at/learned from: G. Willow Wilson, Jacq Cohen, the 5 crew of Cloonan, Bá, Moon and Lolos, Rick Parker, J.C. Vaughan, Chip Mosher, Jim Pascoe and of course hostess Jackie Estrada.

Elsewhere, it was a fantastic night of faboo parties, with wrestling, the Mighty Boosh, PetCo Park, and the casts of just about every TV show at the con wandering around one rooftop or another. We had many entreaties to go to the Hyatt scramble, but sensibility compelled us to stay put at our own hotel.

Before that, it was the usual scrum. On the way back to the hotel for the Eisners, we couldn’t resists popping into the line-less Hall H for the Peter Jackson/James Cameron conversation. Both these visionary gentleman occasionally lapsed into tech talk — with one punch line about a 16-millimeter camera going kinda flat to the crowd. Even more disturbingly, the panel was interrupted when some yahoo jumped on stage and poured himself a glass of water and drank it! Video here. At first it seemed that this could be, say, Steven Spielberg or George Lucas or Jerry Lewis in costume for a surprise visit, but apparently it was a real goober. (We haven’t googled everything, however, so it is possible that it was really Ashton Kutcher or some other Punked type stunt.)

It struck us as more than a little ironic that this came after we (and everyone else) had spent the day being prodded and poked and “move along now”-ed by security. It seems that there are only three things you can do at Comic-Con:

* stand in line
* wander dispiritedly to another line, guided at each step by security
* sit glumly on the floor in a state of exhaustion

If you are an industry professional, there is a fourth activity:

* stand around yapping about how many people are waiting in line, walking around and sitting on the floor.

Of course, all the security is for the safety of the huge crowd, and it’s an absolute necessity. However, while law abiding citizens are being hassled about standing in one place for more than 10 seconds, a complete gonzo was able to breach the stage of Hall H while two of the greatest directors in history were talking. Nobody’s perfect.

UPDATE: Apparently the crasher was Keith Apicary, some kind of professional crasher. Whoop te fucking do.

A special report by Zena Metal

Day Two of San Diego Comic-Con 2009 was a star-studded affair as dozens of Hollywood elites came down to pander their wares. A-list actors like Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Cameron Diaz, Megan Fox, Josh Brolin, and Robert Downey Jr. were among the bigger names making appearances whilst promoting a variety of films, including SHERLOCK HOLMES, DISTRICT 9, THE BOX, JONAH HEX and THE BOOK OF ELI.

- Folks seemed to have embraced the trailer for the NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET reboot, which features WATCHMEN’s Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy Krueger.

- Other talent making the rounds on Twitpic include Felicia Day, Zoe Bell, Eliza Dushku, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Dominic Monaghan, Emily Deschanel, Kiefer Sutherland, and the ubiquitous Bruce Campbell. And sometimes, it just pays to be Eric Wareheim.

- The oddly titled HOT TUB TIME MACHINE, starring John Cusack, also debuted this red band trailer at SDCC.

- Daft Punk are scoring the forthcoming TRON movie and are considering touring to support the soundtrack.

- My girl crush on Diablo Cody continues. For video footage of her latest pixyish ‘do, check out this press clip for JENNIFER’S BODY.

- Peter Jackson got punked at the Entertainment Weekly panel. According to EW Pop Watch’s Marc Bernardin: “EW’s panel just got punked by a crazy thirsty guy who came on stage and drank Peter Jackson’s water. Security prevailed.” Anybody have video?

- Pop Culture Geeks have uploaded a great collection of photos from the Con, giving special attention to action figures. Meanwhile, Parka Blogs focuses in on cosplayers.

- The big talk of last night’s party scene was the free Gwar concert sponsored by Vice. According to Zuda Comics’ Andy Belanger, it was “arguably the greatest metal show of all time… Walked out covered head to toe in fake blood, gross!”

Wonder how it’ll compare to tomorrow night’s Robot Chicken Skate Party. Tonight’s entertainment: Daughtry. Really.

- One of the big revelations at today’s Dollhouse panel was that revered comic artist John Cassaday will be directing an episode of the show’s second season. For more Dollhouse dirt, check out this recap. Spoiler alerts abound for this one.

- Everyone was abuzz about The Mighty Boosh panel. Have you seen this exclusive T-shirt?

- On the media gearhead tip, I’m happy that the hashtag [#sdcc] has finally taken off… far more elegant than the “Comic-Con” that’s been trending.

OK, time to drown my sorrows in a tall boy of Sapporo.

*Photo courtesy of Jimmy Palmiotti (who else?)

OH YEAH! Finally found a spot in the Indigo Ballroom where I could get Wi-Fi! It’s on!

Here’s where we stand ….winners in BOLD!

Best Publication for Kids

* Amulet, Book 1: The Stonekeeper, by Kazu Kibuishi (Scholastic Graphix)
* Cowa! by Akira Toriyama (Viz)
* Princess at Midnight, by Andi Watson (Image)
* Stinky, by Eleanor Davis (RAW Junior)
* Tiny Titans, by Art Baltazar and Franco (DC)

Best Publication for Teens/Tweens

* Coraline, by Neil Gaiman, adapted by P. Craig Russell (HarperCollins Children’s Books)
* Crogan’s Vengeance, by Chris Schweizer (Oni)
* The Good Neighbors, Book 1: Kin, by Holly Black and Ted Naifeh (Scholastic Graphix)
* Rapunzel’s Revenge, by Shannon and Dean Hale and Nathan Hale (Bloomsbury Children’s Books)
* Skim, by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki (Groundwood Books)

Best Coloring

* Steve Hamaker, Bone: Ghost Circles, Bone: Treasure Hunters (Scholastic Graphix)
* Trish Mulvihill, Joker (DC), 100 Bullets (Vertigo/DC)
* Val Staples, Criminal, Incognito (Marvel Icon)
* Dave Stewart, Abe Sapien: The Drowning, BPRD, The Goon, Hellboy, Solomon Kane, The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse); Body Bags (Image); Captain America: White (Marvel)
* Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #19 (Acme)

Best Lettering

* Farel Dalrymple, Omega: The Unknown (Marvel)
* Jimmy Gownley, Amelia Rules! (Renaissance)
* Scott Morse, Tiger! Tiger! Tiger! (Red Window)
* Nate Powell, Swallow Me Whole (Top Shelf)
* Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #19 (Acme)

Best Digital Comic

* Bodyworld, by Dash Shaw,
www.dashshaw.com
* Finder, by Carla Speed McNeil,
www.shadowlinecomics.com/webcomics/#/finder/
* The Lady’s Murder, by Eliza Frye,
www.theladysmurder.elizafrye.com
* Speak No Evil, by Elan Trinidad,
www.theoryofeverythingcomics.com/SNE/ | Mirror Site
* Vs. by Alexis Sottile & Joe Infurnari,
www.smithmag.net/nextdoorneighbor/2008/12/08/story-18/

Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team

* Gabriel Bá, The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse)
* Mark Buckingham/Steve Leialoha, Fables (Vertigo/DC)
* Olivier Coipel/Mark Morales, Thor (Marvel)
* Guy Davis, BPRD (Dark Horse)
* Amy Reeder Hadley/Richard Friend, Madame Xanadu (Vertigo/DC)
* Jillian Tamaki, Skim (Groundwood Books)

Best Painter/Multimedia Artist

* Lynda Barry, What It Is (Drawn & Quarterly)
* Eddie Campbell, The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard (First Second)
* Enrico Casarosa, The Venice Chronicles (Ateliér Fio/AdHouse)
* Scott Morse, Tiger! Tiger! Tiger! (Red Window)
* Jill Thompson, Magic Trixie, Magic Trixie Sleeps Over (HarperCollins Children’s Books)

Spirit of retailing award winner: Tate’s Comics Ft. Lauderdale, Fl.

Best Cover Artist

* Gabriel Bá, Casanova (Image); The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse)
* Jo Chen, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Serenity (Dark Horse); Runaways (Marvel)
* Amy Reeder Hadley, Madame Xanadu (Vertigo/DC)
* James Jean, Fables (Vertigo/DC); The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse)
* Matt Wagner, Zorro (Dynamite); Grendel: Behold the Devil (Dark Horse)

Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism

* Comic Book Resources, produced by Jonah Weiland (www.comicbookresources.com)
* The Comics Journal, edited by Gary Groth, Michael Dean, and Kristy Valenti (Fantagraphics)
* The Comics Reporter, produced by Tom Spurgeon and Jordan Raphael (www.comicsreporter.com)
* Comics Comics, edited by Timothy Hodler and Dan Nadel (www.comicscomicsmag.com) (PictureBox)

Best Comics-Related Book

* Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front, by Todd DePastino (Norton)
* Brush with Passion: The Art and Life of Dave Stevens, edited by Arnie and Cathy Fenner (Underwood)
* Drawing Words and Writing Pictures, by Jessica Abel and Matt Madden (First Second)
* Kirby: King of Comics, by Mark Evanier (Abrams)
* The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America, by David Hajdu (Picador/Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Best Publication Design

* Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*! designed by Art Spiegelman (Pantheon)
* Comic Book Tattoo, designed by Tom Muller, art direction by Rantz Hoseley (Image)
* Hellboy Library Editions, designed by Cary Grazzini and Mike Mignola (Dark Horse)
* What It Is, designed by Lynda Barry (Drawn & Quarterly)
* Willie and Joe, designed by Jacob Covey (Fantagraphics)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Strips

* The Complete Little Orphan Annie, by Harold Gray (IDW)
* Explainers, by Jules Feiffer (Fantagraphics)
* Little Nemo in Slumberland, Many More Splendid Sundays, by Winsor McCay (Sunday Press Books)
* Scorchy Smith and the Art of Noel Sickles, (IDW)
* Willie & Joe, by Bill Mauldin (Fantagraphics)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Books

* Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*! by Art Spiegelman (Pantheon)
* Creepy Archives, by various (Dark Horse)
* Elektra Omnibus, by Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz (Marvel)
* Good-Bye, by Yoshihiro Tatsumi (Drawn & Quarterly)
* Herbie Archives, by “Shane O’Shea” (Richard E. Hughes) and Ogden Whitney (Dark Horse)

Best Humor Publication

* Arsenic Lullaby Pulp Edition No. Zero, by Douglas Paszkiewicz (Arsenic Lullaby)
* Chumble Spuzz, by Ethan Nicolle (SLG)
* Herbie Archives, by “Shane O’Shea” (Richard E. Hughes) and Ogden Whitney (Dark Horse)
* Petey and Pussy, by John Kerschbaum (Fantagraphics)
* Wondermark: Beards of Our Forefathers, by David Malki (Dark Horse)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material

* Alan’s War, by Emmanuel Guibert (First Second)
* Gus and His Gang, by Chris Blain (First Second)
* The Last Musketeer, by Jason (Fantagraphics)
* The Rabbi’s Cat 2, by Joann Sfar (Pantheon)
* Tamara Drewe, by Posy Simmonds (Mariner/Houghton Mifflin)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Japan

* Cat Eyed Boy, by Kazuo Umezu (Viz)
* Dororo, by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical)
* Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, by Naoki Urasawa (Viz)
* The Quest for the Missing Girl, by Jiro Taniguchi (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)
* Solanin, by Inio Asano (Viz)

RUSS MANNING AWARD WINNER:
Eleanor Davis!

Hall of Fame:

Harold Gray
Graham Ingels
Matt Baker
Reed Crandall
Russ Heath

Best Writer

* Joe Hill, Lock & Key (IDW)
* J. Michael Straczynski, Thor, The Twelve (Marvel)
* Mariko Tamaki, Skim (Groundwood Books)
* Matt Wagner, Zorro (Dynamite); Madame Xanadu (Vertigo/DC)
* Bill Willingham, Fables, House of Mystery (Vertigo/DC)

Best Writer/Artist

* Ricky Geary, A Treasury of XXth Century Murder: The Lindbergh Child (NBM); J. Edgar Hoover (Hill & Wang)
* Emmanuel Guibert, Alan’s War (First Second)
* Jason Lutes, Berlin (Drawn & Quarterly)
* Cyril Pedrosa, Three Shadows (First Second)
* Nate Powell, Swallow Me Whole (Top Shelf)
* Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library (Acme)

Best New Series

* Air, by. G. Willow Wilson and M. K. Perker (Vertigo/DC)
* Echo, by Terry Moore (Abstract Studio)
* Invincible Iron Man, by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca (Marvel)
* Madame Xanadu, by Matt Wagner, Amy Reeder Hadley, and Richard Friend (Vertigo/DC)
* Unknown Soldier, by Joshua Dysart and Alberto Ponticelli (Vertigo/DC)

Best Limited Series

* Groo: Hell on Earth, by Sergio Aragonés and Mark Evanier (Dark Horse)
* Hellboy: The Crooked Man, by Mike Mignola and Richard Corben (Dark Horse)
* Locke & Key, by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez (IDW)
* Omega the Unknown, by Jonathan Lethem, Karl Rusnak, and Farel Dalrymple (Marvel)
* The Twelve, by J. Michael Straczynski and Chris Weston (Marvel)

Best Continuing Series

* All Star Superman. by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely (DC)
* Fables, by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha, Niko Henrichon, Andrew Pepoy, and Peter Gross (Vertigo/DC)
* Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, by Naoki Urasawa (Viz)
* Thor, by J. Michael Straczynski, Olivier Coipel, Mark Morales, and various (Marvel)
* Usagi Yojimbo, by Stan Sakai (Dark Horse)

Best Short Story

* “Actual Size” by Chris Ware, in Kramers Ergot 7 (Buenaventura Press)
* “Chechen War, Chechen Women,” by Joe Sacco, in I Live Here (Pantheon)
* “Freaks,” by Laura Park, in Superior Showcase #3 (AdHouse)
* “Glenn Ganges in ‘Pulverize,’” by Kevin Huizenga, in Ganges #2 (Fantagraphics)
* “Murder He Wrote,” by Ian Boothby, Nina Matsumoto, and Andrew Pepoy, in The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror #14 (Bongo)

Best Anthology

* An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories, vol. 2, edited by Ivan Brunetti (Yale University Press)
* Best American Comics 2008, edited by Lynda Barry (Houghton Mifflin)
* Comic Book Tattoo: Narrative Art Inspired by the Lyrics and Music of Tori Amos, edited by Rantz Hoseley (Image)
* Kramers Ergot 7, edited by Sammy Harkham (Buenaventura Press)
* MySpace Dark Horse Presents, edited by Scott Allie and Sierra Hahn (Dark Horse)

Best Reality-Based Work

* Alan’s War, by Emmanuel Guibert (First Second)
* Blue Pills: A Positive Love Story, by Frederik Peeters (Houghton Mifflin)
* Fishtown, by Kevin Colden (IDW)
* A Treasury of XXth Century Murder: The Lindbergh Child, by Rick Geary (NBM)
* What It Is, by Lynda Barry (Drawn & Quarterly)

Best Graphic Album—Reprint

* Berlin Book 2: City of Smoke, by Jason Lutes (Drawn & Quarterly)
* Hellboy Library Edition, vols. 1 and 2, by Mike Mignola (Dark Horse)
* Sam & Max Surfin’ the Highway anniversary edition HC, by Steve Purcell (Telltale Games)
* Skyscrapers of the Midwest, by Joshua W. Cotter (AdHouse)
* The Umbrella Academy, vol. 1: Apocalypse Suite deluxe edition, by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá (Dark Horse)

Best Graphic Album—New

* Alan’s War, by Emmanuel Guibert (First Second)
* Paul Goes Fishing, by Michel Rabagliati (Drawn & Quarterly)
* Skim, by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki (Groundwood Books)
* Swallow Me Whole, by Nate Powell (Top Shelf)
* Three Shadows, by Cyril Pedrosa (First Second)

That’s all she wrote…pics later!

Joe Quesada made a big announcement at his Cup o’ Joe panel, marking the return of one of the most contended characters in comics history: Marvelman. Ironically, the venerable Brit character was called Miracleman in its Alan Moore/Gary Leach incarnation because Marvel made Eclipse change the title back in the day — an act that so angered Moore that he vowed to never work for Marvel.

The character has since been in a rights battle between Todd McFarlane (who purchased Eclipse’s assets), Neil Gaiman, and the original character creator, Mick Anglo. While the Marvel announcement makes it sounds like the rights matter has been cleared up, there was amazement on the show floor that this had actually happened, the event being roughly analogous to ice cubes freezing in Satan’s back yard. Developing, but PR below:

The biggest news of Comic Con International in San Diego was revealed moments ago and jaws are still on the floor—the world-renowned super hero Marvelman is now part of the Marvel Comics family! Marvel Comics has purchased the rights to Marvelman from creator Mick Anglo and his representatives, finding a home for one of the most sought after heroes in graphic fiction!“It is an honor to work with Mick Anglo to bring his creation to a larger audience than ever before,” said Dan Buckley, CEO & Publisher, Print, Animation & Digital Media, Marvel Entertainment Inc. “Fans are in for something special as they discover just what makes Marvelman such an important character in comic book history.”

Originally created in 1954 by Mick Anglo and appearing in some of the most celebrated comic stories of all time, Marvelman is Micky Moran, a young reporter gifted with the power to save the world by simply uttering the word “kimota”!

“I did not think it would ever happen,” said Mick Anglo. “It’s a wonderful thing to see my creation finally back.”

Marvelman is back and he’s found a new home at Marvel Comics! What’s next for Mick Anglo’s legendary creation? Stay tuned to Marvel.Com (http://www.marvel.com/news/comicstories.8869) for all the news on Marvelman and this exciting new addition to the Marvel family!

And to join in the celebration, visit the Marvel Shop (http://shop.marvel.com) to purchase limited edition Marvelman t-shirts! Plus, this September, don’t miss the Marvelman by Quesada Poster exclusively at comic shops everywhere!