SDCC2K7 Day Zero
Returning to San Diego is a little weird. Everything's a little cooler, muggier (Hibbs was right about that much), and somehow distant. Feels like I haven't been away, but that's not the case anymore. I'm just another tourist in a downtown full of tourists. The Chamber of Commerce looks down its nose at us, but giggles a little more with every swipe of the debit or credit card, with every palm that finds itself in posession of a bunch of sweaty greenbacks.
The con in two words? White noise. Three words? Anxious White Noise. My friend Marc (of the Comics Waiting Room) was saying that Wednesday felt like the calm before the storm, but I didn't quite feel that. There seemed to be a lot of breath-holding. A lot of "when's the hammer gonna fall?" permeating the air. See, I think (and I'm not quite alone in this), that this is as big as SDCC is going to get. For one thing, the Convention Center simply can't hold any more. For another thing, making an announcement at SDCC is the equivalent of trying to pass a message by smoke signal during a gale force wind. Any information you're wanting to get out there is just going to be blown to tatters by the wind before it can be read.
Lots of publishers are promising announcements that will shake the halls of the convention center to their foundations, but when you have a lead-in like that, how are you possibly going to deliver?
Somehow, I've got the feeling that it's pointless for comics publishers to announce big stories at the show now, unlike years past where they could save up for either Chicago (Marvel) or SDCC (DC). Feels to me that if you're keeping your powder dry for when it's gonna be most useful, SDCC isn't the place to do it. Besides, with Newsarama and the like, anytime's a good time to try and grab a little thunder, but when you have Zeus-sized entities like Disney and Lucasfilm stomping around, you're going to be hard-pressed to shout over them.
I'd hope that this would mark some kind of splitting of the shows into (mostly) comics and (mostly) pop culture. The thing is, how many people would show up for a primarly-comics-show and how many thousands of more will come to the Megashow? However, E3, which was formerly a fifteen-ring circus, managed to shrink itself and doesn't seem to have lost its mystique (though I bet the businesses around Staples Center felt the pinch this year.)
Anyways, back to the show. Preview Night was plenty busy. I took the opportunity to hit the places that I remembered had show exclusives that I was wanting to get my hands on. First on the list was AdHouse and their double hit of Paul Pope goodness. Then I got the news that First Second was not only putting out Pope's BATTLING BOY (sort of announced last year), but they're going to be re-issuing Pope's THB in a four-volume set. That's music to my ears (particularly since those THB comics are about the only ones I really, really miss from my collection after part of it was stolen during a break-in at my home in 1996.)
I also swung by the Image booth to pick up the 5 minicomic by the likes of Becky Cloonan, the brothers Moon/Bá and a couple other artists I didn't know by name. By the way, they're not free, should you find yourself before their table. Pay them some money; they all came a long way to get here.
The biggest problem for me is that since I don't live right next to a comic store any longer, I miss a lot of stuff. Therefore a *whole damn lotta* stuff at the show looks all bright and shiny and ends up near the top of the "gotta have" list. Like that new Jeff Smith book that I have no idea how I'm going to get back home (it's tabloid size and not so very sturdy by the looks of it.) Ah, to have such heady and important problems to solve.
Made a trek over to the Artist's Alley. Which was mostly deserted, 'cept for the most professional man I know in comics, one Steven Lieber. No really. He's a machine. A very friendly, genial, approachable and talented machine, but when it comes to the convention, he's there to do business (even if that business is a firm handshake and a quick chat.) I expect there to be more artists today, as there could hardly be fewer.
Cut my visit short for a meet-up with friends (my real reason for flying down some 500 miles and shelling out for a hotel room.) Had a quick bite and some muscular discussion of What's Wrong With Comics and The Show Is Too Damn Big before retiring to the Hyatt bar for some bourbon and further discussion of WWWC and TSITDB. Waited on the longest freight train ever to pass through downtown San Diego, caught the second to last trolley of the night and then walked up the last six or so blocks to my place of fitful sleeping. The moist dark quiet was broken only by the clatter of bike pedals and the profanity-laden arguments of Young Love Gone Bad.
Ah, San Diego. I kinda missed ya.
Oh, and normally I'd be posting pics (like of the lobster man hentai love clutch) but I screwed up and grabbed the wrong cables. No pics until I get home. Bah.