Jul 14, 2015 San Diego Comic Con 2015 outside Hall H
I went to San Diego Comic Con and didn’t step into Hall H even once. No Walking Dead panel, no Deadpool preview, no Star Wars sightings. But I had a great time, saw a ton of old friends and amazing artists, and sat in on a number of panels without having to wait in a single line.
Getting to see William Shatner read passages from David Goodman’s soon-to-be-published The Autobiography of James T. Kirk was a pure moment of big-time fandom that could have happened before Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Twilight turned the pop culture fest into a mainstream media event. I’d gush about the legendary presence, humor, and ego of the Starfleet captain, but am better off posting a link to the entire session for you to check out before it gets taken down…
After Shatner’s panel, my brother and I ran over to see a spotlight on Lalo Alcaraz. The cartoonist is best known for his daily strip, La Cucuracha, but he also talked about his online social commentary and previewed the new Bordertown cartoon that he’s been working on with Ask a Mexican‘s Gustavo Arello. I’m a big fan of how both of he and Gustavo stick up for La Raza and underdogs in general, and the clips we saw were a crackup. It’s going to offend a lot of squares and I love it.
That afternoon, we attended a panel centered on England’s 2000 AD comics, featuring the artist known as Jock (who created Ava in Ex Machina) as well as Judge Dredd co-creator Carlos Ezquerra. Dredd is a post punk institution and the latter is a living legend, so I made sure to visit the 2000 AD booth the next day to have Ezquerra sign an anthology for me. How often will he come all the way from England to the U.S.? Would I ever get to meet him again? Thank you, Comic Con.
It wasn’t until my brother and I were hanging out with friends at the Drawn & Quarterly booth that we found out how awesome the Thursday afternoon Teen Angst panel would be. Because our teen years are well behind us, we didn’t give the listing a second look when browsing the schedule. Turns out it included an all-star assortment of D&Q artists Gilbert Hernandez (Love & Rockets), Jillian Tamaki (Skim), and Peter Bagge (Hate). Wow! And the panelist I wasn’t familiar with, Raina Telgemeier, is probably the most successful of all of them… Holy cow, and Tamaki and Telgemeier would go on to win Eisner Awards a couple of nights later.
On Friday, I attended a panel by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) The nonprofit group provides resources and information for libraries, schools, booksellers, and others who are challenged to take comics off the shelves. They talked about some of the previous year’s most challenged works by some of comics’ biggest names (Hernandez, Saptrani, Tamaki, Telgemeier, Smith…) and the task they have cut out for them. The CBLDF do great work, I always try to buy something from them at the Con, and you can find out how to support the cause at their excellent site.
Afterward, I met up with friends at the Archie panel. I hadn’t really kept up with the old-school publisher (or even got into them when I was a kid) but holy cow, they are doing a lot of interesting stuff and had one the most cranked-up crowds I’ve ever seen in San Diego. While other comic publishers are rebooting their lines and retconning their characters now and then to boost sales, the Archie world splits off different universes all the time and often in the very same issues: Archie marries Betty, Archie marries Veronica, the gang is attacked by zombies. Why not? My head is going to explode and I’m super intrigued by the horror titles (Sabrina!) and think having a new CW series (which they announced at the panel) makes perfect sense.
I attended a final panel on Sunday. Designer Chip Kidd and Creative Director at Charles M. Schulz Creative Associates (and accomplished indie cartoonist on her own) Paige Braddock talked about the upcoming book Only What’s Necessary: Charles M. Schulz and the Art of Peanuts. With the CG Peanuts movie coming up along with all the commercial promotion that will accompany it, the Schulz family wanted to do something that’s simply based on the comic. Unpublished art, strips, and other material from the archives will surprise even the hardest core fans of Snoopy, Charlie Brown, and the gang. So amazing, and Paige is one of the nicest people.
Did I mention that I bought some comics, too? Below, top row: Insufficient Direction is the memoir by Moyoko Anno, a manga artist and full-on otaku who is married to the creator of Evangelion. Her book was translated and released by Vertical last year and is packed with inside jokes and references to the Eva saga and the industry, too. DMFAO Tree is the new self-published sketchbook from high-end illustrator Geof Darrow (Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, Hard Boiled). Drawn & Quarterly’s 25 Years is a thick, scholarly, and awesome, heavy book that I lugged around to get autographs from the likes of Peter Bagge, Marc Bell, Michael DeForge, Gilbert Hernandez, and Jiliian Tamaki as well as the staff. My shoulders are still sore. I bought the Judge Dredd collection for Carlos Ezquerra to sign. He drew a picture, too!
Below, bottom row: March Book Two is the middle installment of John Lewis’s autobiographical trilogy recounting his recollections of the Civil Rights movement. When I spotted the much-respected Congressman turned award-winning graphic novelist at the Top Shelf booth, I flagged him down and took a picture with him and my wife and seven-year-old daughter. We’re going to put that photo in the book for Eloise to discover down the road. Prison Pit is Johnny Ryan’s incredibly harsh, filthy, stark, and funny tribute to over-the-top science fiction, fantasy, and manga and I gladly picked up the fifth book. I don’t know I missed Yeah! when DC published the comics in 1999 or when Fantagraphic collected the story in 2o11. Writer Peter Bagge and illustrator Gilbert Hernandez are two of my favorites and this book is about a girl band that is broke and struggling but famous in outer space. Rad! I had each of them sign it, and Beto’s daughter had a zine that I purchased, too.
There’s a lot of random goodies in my bag, too. Swag from the upcoming Peanuts Movie, Adventure Time patches courtesy of Cartoon Network and Mimoco, and all sorts of reading material for Eloise. I don’t mind all the Hollywood stuff (and totally wish I could have been around on Saturday to see my friend Daniel in the Into the Badlands and Warcraft panels) but to me Comic Con is still about comic books. Can’t wait to get more of them and meet more creators next year.
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