San Diego Comic-Con 2010 Diary, Day One

By Christian Lipski

Wednesday night was a long night of travel, so we didn’t get to sleep until 1 a.m. Upon rising at seven, I cursed the medium of the sequential image as we struggled to get ready.

We go to the parking garage at 10:30, and walked the mile to the Convention Center. You know you’re getting close when you see the TRON banner start to appear on lampposts, and even a replica of Flynn’s arcade from the movie. The amount of people in costume increased, and so did the amount of people handing out flyers and laminated cards and magazines. These last items tended to create a kind of carpet on the sidewalks that led to the doors of San Diego Comic-Con.

Photo of the light rail signs by the convention center.
They are in Klingon.

The guard at one of the entrances opined that “those Spartans need to come back around here,” further explaining that some cosplayers representing ancient Greece had some impressive washboard abs, and would be welcomed were they to return. Inside the doors we saw no Spartans, but so many flavors of costumes, including the Ghostbusters and other film favorites.

The first panel we attended was for Portland-based Oni Press, where we heard from the creators of titles such as The Sixth Gun, Mondo Urbano, Spontaneous, and Hopeless Savages. It was a lively panel, with free copies of Frenemy of the State being given out (described as “What if Paris Hilton were a CIA agent?”)

We ventured down to the convention floor, which may have been the size of a small country, and marvelled (no pun intended) at the flashing lights and pretty displays. Far from being just about comics, the convention is for all walks of outsider culture: science fiction, video games, and role playing; just about anything that you can get beat up for in middle school is placed on a pedestal, and the mix of people with their different interests was a really heartwarming sight.

I saw my friend Darick Robertson signing at the WildStorm booth and gave him a quick hug before leaving him to his business. We ventured out to the Small Press area to greet fellow Portlanders Dylan Meconis and Erika Moen and browse their neighbor’s wares. The floor was busy, but only really jammed around the video game area, where G4 filming and a Corey Feldman signing (?) caused much snarling of traffic.

Showtime had a panel dedicated to their “Anti-Heroes” from their shows Dexter, Weeds, Californication, and Nurse Jackie which sounded interesting, so we got in a line which looked a bit long. It wasn’t until the line had started moving that we rounded a corner to see that the line continued to serpentine the length of the building and then returned to the original location before entering the ballroom. We were in line so long I wasn’t sure what day it was going to be when we arrived, much less what panel. We did get to see the last half of the Q&A, where people asked some of the most ignorant and poorly worded questions, which illustrated the actors’ art of deflecting such questions.

I realize now that we survived the entire day on just a few energy bars and a small tin of pasta salad, which should show how entrancing the whole scene was. The fact that every few feet there was a completely new idea or product went a long way toward distracting us from petty issues like hunger or fatigue.

Our final panel was for DC’s Vertigo imprint, which editor Karen Berger moderated, and which had a large number of female fans who discovered the label through their series Fables. The creators of Sweet Tooth, The Unwritten, American Vampire, and I, Zombie were there to talk about their new series, hopefully dubbed “The New Classics.”

We learned that American Vampire is moving into a new story arc which will explore new vampire species and the mythology of their world; that The Unwritten #17 will be a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure; that I, Zombie will discuss the presence of a talking chimpanzee who is the roommate of Spot the were-terrier; and that Sweet Tooth #13 will launch a new arc involving “animal armies.”

Peter Gross of The Unwritten explained that having a definite end to a book (#75 for him) makes the journey more enjoyable; that there are known story “beats” that will be defined, but that the rest of the story is always in flux. I, Zombie‘s writer Chris Roberson revealed that he is a nine-year-old girl inside, and Sweet Tooth‘s Jeff Lemire revealed that artist Rafael Albuquerque will be the cover artist for his run of Superboy.

I’m glad that I’ll be here for all four days, as there’s so much to experience at Comic-Con, but I also want to make sure I don’t burn out too soon. Here’s hoping I survive.