San Diego Comic-Con Diary, Day Four

By Christian Lipski

Read:
Day One’s Diary
Day Two’s Diary
Day Three’s Diary

And then there was the last day. We eventually got up and packed our bags for checkout, and made our way to the convention floor for our last visit. Since it’s the last day and exhibitors want to ship as little as possible back home, there are rampant sales and many attendees only buy Sunday tickets.

Mile High Comics put their entire stock on sale for 50% off, for example. Independent publishers were willing to make deals, for the most part.The show closes at 5 p.m. as well, so the action in the convention center was tinged with both sadness and anxiety.
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Best Of 2009—Cities: By Shannon Wheeler

Image from Smaddy

1. New York

The city gets better with every visit. Art, food, parks, architecture. . . the city is amazing. The subways are a wonder; that I can go out and drink beer until 4 a.m. and take a subway home insures this city the number one spot in my book. The best and brightest people gravitate to New York to test their merit and make their mark and my nightly excursions give me some of the best conversations I’ve had. And the more I visit the city the more people I befriend. It’s a plus to travel to places where you know people—it’s an event when you arrive and party while you’re there.
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From The Daily Cal To The New Yorker: Q&A With Shannon Wheeler of Too Much Coffee Man

Interviewed by Christian Lipski

I first encountered Shannon Wheeler’s work when we were undergraduates at UC Berkeley and he drew a strip called Tooth & Justice in the school paper, The Daily Californian. He’s best known now for the character Too Much Coffee Man, who became Wheeler’s voice for social commentary and satire.

The TMCM comic series earned an Eisner award in 1995. Wheeler’s current home, Portland Oregon, saw the premiere of the Too Much Coffee Man opera in 2006 (and its extended “refill” in 2008). Wheeler also created Postage Stamp Funnies for The Onion’s print edition, and is publishing his cartoons in The New Yorker.
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