SDCC08 Saturday

Got moving a little late, slept in a bit. Got to the convention, hit the floor some more.

After a bit, headed to the Dave Gibbons Watchmen panel. I wasn't sure to expect, I'd always a majority of Watchmen's success to Alan Moore. He's just attracted so much more hype than Gibbons. I was wrong. Dave Gibbons is a bloody savant. He's promoting a "making of" book called Watching the Watchmen, and it is freaking gold. It's packed with his old sketches, thumbnails, and notes related to the book. He kept everything. It's all there, and it is astounding. I think it's out in October. Christmas present for Daddy.

Howard Chaykin panel: two great thoughts that I recorded:
"Don't take the praise or the blame seriously, it leads to an easier life."
"As technology arrives, embrace it and use it."
Those nuggets of wisdom were stuffed in the package, and a horde of F-bombs served as the styrofoam peanuts. There was no gift wrap.

Will Eisner Tribute Panel - Paul Levitz, Denis Kitchen, Michael Uslan, and Carl Gropper. The driest panel I attended. You've got the frickin' president of DC in there, how can you be dry? Memories of Eisner, which all seemed to revolve around food. Breakfast at SDCC, steaks, dinners. Maybe they were hungry. But Kitchen was the only one kicking out any decent anecdotes. People are remembered by the stories told about them. It degraded into a hype session for the Spirit movie, with reassurances that Frank Miller wasn't going to screw it up. I coughed, covering my mouth with my fist. I looked at my hand and it was covered in chalk dust.

Lettering panel - You know how boring the last panel was? This was the complete opposite. Todd FRICKIN' Klein, Tom HOLY CRAP Orzechowski, Jared Fletcher, and John Roshell, with Doug Wolk moderating. A bunch of guys at the top of their game talking comics. Fonts, sound effects, logo designs. Script problems. Proofreading. As boring as it sounds, this panel was fascinating. If you weren't there for this, you missed out, it was an intro college course for making your comics look right. So glad I didn't miss this.

Back to the floor.

Oni panel - Started late. Actually not too big of a problem, because very few people were there. There seemed to be more people working for Oni present than fans. They gave a rundown on all their new books coming out, and opened for questions. Nothing major really popped up on my radar, they've got some solid books, but nothing I'm really itching for. Wasteland and Scott Pilgrim are the only Oni books I'm really following. The panel ended on time, even having started 20 minutes late. Blame the lateness on Attack of the Show. G4 douchebags.

Writing Panel - Peter David, Colleen Doran, Maggie Thompson, Orson Scott Card, Brian Miller. Pretty close to a similar panel last year. Card had some more extremely valuable general writing advice. Colleen seemed even more agitated than before. Peter had some great anecdotes. Worth seeing, but not a grand-slam.

Don and I grabbed our same spot as last year to watch the Masquerade procession. Very few noteworthy costumes this year. Only took a couple photos. Mostly enjoyable for the euphoric surreality derived from watching a tidal wave of fans marching in unison, as far as the eye can see. It's disturbing and fun all at the same time. Don had to write up some articles for Gamespot, so I went the anime room. Watched one episode of Death Note, and was thoroughly disoriented. It was unintelligible. I think it's supposed to have a story, but I have no clue what it is. Anime fanboys and girls can send me your hatemail. Perhaps the manga is better.

Ate food. Slept. Drove home the next morning. Was happy to be home.