Reporting From Comic-Con: The End is Near
by Doug TenNapelAnother great day of selling books, meeting fans, I sold out of my posters and blah blah blah. Tonight I’m officially burnt. Don’t worry, that’s part of the Con too. Sundays are notorious for hosting crowds of The Living Dead staggering around on fumes from media overload. At least tonight I’ll be in bed by 11, which will give me just enough sleep to push me through the final day.
I got a boost when half way through the day Jon Heder and Dan Heder came by my booth. Jon was wearing a Dan costume and Dan came as Jon. I loaded them up with books and Jon told me about his new series he’ll be doing for Comedy Central and Dan is doing CG pre-viz work on a Gore Verbinsky project.
I keep bumping into one of my favorite artists, Eric Powell, who is a great artist and a good family man. He’s living the dream with his “Goon” comic book being developed into a CG animated feature by David Fincher.
The rest of the day is too similar to the previous days so I’ll shift to my dinner party I host each year for my forum buddies. We had a surprise guest, Gunnery Sgt. Nick “Pop” Popaditch! In case you haven’t seen his story on TV, he’s the Gunnery Sergeant that took a rocket in the face while battling in Fallujah. I met his family and gave him a copy of my graphic novel Monster Zoo, which was dedicated to our troops. He gave me a signed copy of his autobiography, Once a Marine. He has a bunch of different bitchin’ false eyes he swaps out. Tonight’s featured an image of a tank with cross-hairs.
I ended the night by having a cigar with my pals on the bay as a fireworks show launched from the Del Coronado Bridge. My voice is gone. I miss my kids since I leave for the convention before they wake and come home after they’re already asleep. One more day, one more post, then it’s a wrap.
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46 Comments
For once, middle-aged, out of shape fanboys have the perfect body type for the characters they're cosplaying. Heh.
I'd love to go to to San Diego one of these years. Thanks for the reports.
And Capt Midnite lags behind…
That photo is the best summation I've seen yet. It should be next year's poster.
Great coverage Doug.
Fox and Friends did a piece on COMIC CON this morning.. and it was very, VERY good….. Doug, I wish I was out there. I was at DEX CON in NJ last year and that was a ton of fun!!!!
That's Doctor Mid-Nite to you!
I'm sorry bit when old people dress up like old people then it's no longer cool.
It's Doctor Min-Nite, not Captain Midnight. That's a completely different character and company. Since I corrected someone on the identity of a Golden Age superhero I guess that officially makes me pathetic.
Ah, don't worry. An encyclopedic knowledge of useless facts is one of the main symptoms of fandom.
Chris beat me to it. Comic Con, where short, fat guys go to be super heroes, jk. ha ha …. lol. Great coverage Doug, sounds like it was a blast!!
Wait… old people dressing like old people is no longer cool? Crap. I'll have to tell my mother in law to break out the tube top.
I recognize Hour Man and Jay Garrick's Earth-2 Flash, and see the top of Doctor Mid-Nite's head in the back, but who is the hero in the middle?
I believe it's the Golden Age Atom.
That picture is just too darn cute!! Bless their hearts for going and having fun.
(Of course, I'm not related to, married to, or ever acquainted with any of them, so I can say that!)
Maybe it's just a bad camera angle, but if I were that guy in the middle I'd be sporting an extra pair of strategically placed gym socks.
Has it been unseasonably cool in San Diego?
She could probably get by with just pulling the elastic top of her stretch pants up a couple of inches.
Oh man. I'm already sorry I said that and I haven't even posted it yet…
That's a promo for the upcoming film " Heath Care Reformers." A trio of out-of-shape superheros rob millionaires to pay for the health care of the poor and lazy. They take their orders from a mysterious figure who lives in a big white house. Their primary directive— "don't act stupidly."
Oh, jeez, why did you use that picture and continue with the tired old stereotyping? Why not use some pics of the GOOD cosplayers? There were tons of them. I saw an Urd from "Oh My Goddess" that left me at the verge of heart failure…in a good way. There was a group playing the Watchmen and every one of them was excellent–Dr Manhattan was ripped.
Just sayin'.
I miss the good old days when all self respecting superheroes wore a nice codpiece with their tights.
These are the old, Golden Age, World War Two-era superheroes who are the biggest drain on health care and will be denied the treatment they'll need after defeating the hippie menace.
But, at least Hourman won't have to pay for his Miraclo pills.
I certainly hope Dr. Manhattan was better-dressed than his comic book counterpart.
actually, he's Hourman. After he takes his Miracl-o pill, he gets 60 minutes of superpowers. A member of The Justice Society Of America!
You are correct.
Depends on his…assets!
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Because people aren't going to recognize something from an moderately obscure anime like Oh My Goddess as much as they'll recognize DC or Marvel characters. And out-of-shape people dressed as superheros are funny.
Boo-yah!
Dr. Mid-Nite directly behind the Atom but almost completely blocked. You can only see the crescent moon on his forehead.
Since Bush is just another citizen like us(except the ex-prez and really rich part), why care if anyone bashes him? Do you worship Bush? Anyhow, great post Doug. Sorry I didn't get a chance to see you at the Con.
The Goon is one of the best comics out there, and it's never even occurred to me to look for any politics in it. I'm just having too much fun following stories with giant robots fighting giant zombie chimps, fey vampires getting their butts kicked, cannibal hobos, and, of course, Frankie's "Knife to the eye!"
I have to admit, though, that I've never seen Satan's Sodomy Baby; I've heard of it, I've looked for it, but I've never found it.
Oh, missed that. My eyes aren't as good as they used to be.
I don't even like Bush. But, when someone asks Larsen about the ending of the Spider-Marriage and he can find a way to work in a Bush bash, screw him. That and putting Obama on his covers and whining when Marvel does the same. If an entertainer is a liberal, fine. But, if he's like Larsen or Springsteen and can't STFU about it, then I'm not going to be in the audience.
I understand Eric Powell is virulently liberal. My cursory understanding of Satan's Sodomy Baby is that it is a vicious attack on conservatives. Not that that would prevent him from being a favorite artist of yours, of course. I'm sure most of the artists and entertainers I enjoy are leftists. I just know I've been reluctant to check out the Goon because of it. And, Savage Dragon is going to have an exclusive Kirkman lead-in to Image United, I believe, but I won't buy Erik Larsen. Besides worshipping Obama, I don't think there's a subject that he can't use to bash Bush.
Doug! Loved "The Neverhood"! When's "Catscratch" getting its own DVD boxset?
Anti-Bush hatespeech is rampant in the comics community. Check this:
http://www.icv2.com/articles/talk_back/15357.html
"…Is Dark Reign Marvel's attempt at trying to get the accumulated poison of the last eight years out, a metaphor for everything we didn't know or didn't want to know about how the war on terror was being waged."
This worm should stick to selling comic books and STFU.
We should also be as charitable as Erik Larsen and Eric Powell. Sure, they're political opponents, but it didn't stop Powell from doing a pin-up for one of my books or Larsen from giving me my big break at Image. If they treated me with the same kind of boycotting over my personal Conservative politics, I wouldn't be the benefactor of their talents.
Besides, if I'm going to cut liberals out of my reading library I'm going to have a pretty scrawny library.
It's anecdotal third-hand info, I admit, and I hope that I can avoid violating any non-disclosure agreements by leaving names secret, but my brother tells me that Larsen has in fact put a hold on a piece he (my brother, not Larsen) was pencilling because the writer refused to tone down the conservative-bashing, apparently realising in a moment of lucidity that drenching 50+% of your potential customers with invective may not be the wisest move in the current economy. I doubt that it's indicative of any long-term trends or reversals of position, but seems significant evidence to support the idea that Larsen can be even-handed when necessary.
You mean SOME Black folks.
I've never understand why calling yourself a racial slur is a compliment.
Yeah, Steve Bennett is a better commentator of comics than politics.
Still, I think he has a point that, like liberal comedians, the liberal powers that be at Marvel miss having Bush to kick around. This may explain why good stories from Marvel and DC are so few and far between.
Norman Osborn is adored by the media and his predecessor, Tony Stark, is vilified. It seems Dark Reign better represents the Obama Administration.
Big Hollywood’s ComiCon updates…
Update: TenNapel enters another post, and says that many comic creators dreaded the movie/game industry’s moving in on the convention…
You're right Fred, I stand corrected. I still stand by my comments about the legs though.
Well, I do like a lot of Image. I won't buy a Larsen book, which is fine since his work doesn't interest me anyway. But, his company's books? Yeah. I find myself buying more and more Image all the time. All the Kirkman books, all the Hester books, Hawaiian Dick, Proof, the list goes on. I hate to admit right to you that I haven't encountered your books yet, but it looks like yours mainly get released in the more expensive graphic novel form? I only really hit up the new release comic racks. I'll have to seek yours out.
Above, I meant to say that, yeah, we can't check everyone's politics or we can just check out of entertainment. I just can't get into it if someone is outspoken and puts their politics in everything they do, which is how I see Larsen. Other than SSB, maybe that doesn't apply to Powell.
In the recent American Son arc of Amazing Spider-Man, Joe Kelly injected his politics directly into the story by having Wolverine compare Bush to Norman Osborn, followed by him and Spider-Man sharing a "terrorist fist bump." Throughout the rest of the issue, the normally apolitical Peter started throwing around the word "fascist" and started comparing JJJ to Hitler. It was all completely out of character and was pure Joe Kelly. He did the same basic thing in his previous arc, which saw Peter working at an openly liberal newspaper and telling a kid to "f— off." It's very annoying to read, but the way I look at it, that's not Spider-Man and that's not Wolverine. It's a selfish writer coopting characters that don't belong to him to use as a vehicle for his personal views.
Nerds rule! Having said that the gentleman with the "pasty white boy" legs should have worn tights like his buddy on the right!
Oh and it's okay to call comic-con goers nerds as I'm one too. It's kind of like when black folks call each other the n word.
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