Headphone Store And PC Gaming

Models for all of your need from Top Brands like Monster,Soul and many more. Get special price here

Cheap Laptop and Computer System

There are various model and type that you can adjust them. Special discount only this week

Clothings And Accesories

Chic label and style inspiration. Just special day with them. Get special discount here

Patio, Lawn And Garden

Special price for Weber,Strathwood with many choice for your life

Motorcycle Accesories

Get special discount for limited motorcycle accesories on current day with special adjustment

Indoor Voice plus Con Report




While the rest of you are still bemoaning the fact that you haven't downloaded your Comic-con photos, Jillian has done up and drawn a con report. In your face, slackers. Also, she has a new book, a little book if you will, of drawings and sketches and doodles and comics. Check out her blog for all the info. {Later you can catch her DJ set at Sweet-ups!}




{The DJ set is not true.}

Ye Olde Con 2010: The Photo Parade

Aww yes, due to birthin' babies and what not, I haven't been to San Diego in 4 years, when I escorted Tatsumi in 2006. Perhaps, I may be considered lucky, but despite all the craziness and sometimes utterly depressing fall of humanity-esque atmosphere that is witnessed, I like San Diego. I like comics. I like seeing friends. I like meeting new ones. I like meeting our fans. I like meeting the artists. I like the panels. I like the Eisners. I like the people who put on San Diego. While the floor did seem emptier than usual on Saturday and it would be great for the convention to figure out way to not sell every single pass six months beforehand, and perhaps stagger some releases of badges so that the casual fan of comics or someone who reads the press the convention generates, has at least a chance in hell to attend, we made our {modest} goal and enjoyed our time. So let's get going.


So CCI has this program that is you arrive during your check in time and meet your stock, they waive the fee Freeman charges for getting stock to your booth, a considerable amount, and one of the unsung reasons that makes the staff of Comicon AWESOME. Booking my flight for 4 PM on Monday, and having my check in time at 12 PM on Tuesday I thought I was in the clear, but leave it to Delta to have me do an Amazing Race style chase from Montreal to Detroit to San Diego to sign in with 6 minutes to spare.


So, yes this our skid of books. Unexciting, but so satisfying to see it after months of prep.


The convention hall is kind of great before a show. It reminds me of the doozers from Fraggle Rock. Here's Chris Staros, the first friendly face I recognized. (Not counting Kevin Eastman)


So with apologies to Adrian, we retired our Optic Nerve posters and opted to print these snazzy booth posters designed by Jessica and Rebecca, who were the best booth mates I could ask for.


This year was almost all ladies at the D+Q booth. What does this mean? Well, mostly no pee jars, Ditko or Kirby talk. All the way to the right of this photo is Mimi Pond, whose memoir we announced that we are publishing during the convention. It is called Over Easy and will be a massive 400-600 page book.


Who's this? It's Tom Neeley, perhaps the one booth neighbor that we had something in common with. He shared a booth with Sparkplug and my new favorite convention friend Dylan Williams. HE IS THE NICEST. So nice I didn't get a photo.


Now everyone knows just HOW MUCH Chip Kidd likes comics. He may have been the first person to be by our table on Wednesday night. It is always fun to see Chip.


Eisner nominated Brendan Burford and Sunday Comics Pete Maresca, who strangely was not on our comics reprint panel that I had on Saturday. If you attended this panel, you would have witnessed a debate between Gary Groth and Craig Yoe over whether people read introductions to reprint series. Guess who said yes, guess who said no. Classic, what comicons are made of.


Jeffrey Brown came over to say hi. And yes, there is money in cat comics.


And that's it for preview night, as soon as the whistle blew, Peter Birkemoe of the world famous Beguiling and I were back at the hotel with fellow pals Jordan Crane, Johnny Ryan and Tom Spurgeon.


I was lucky enough to be in the same hotel as the Spurge! (Classic publicist move, I know, all you can do is learn from me people.)


This is Jordan shocked that Tom has figured out a way to make money off the web.


OK back to the con. This is the man behind the SDCC curtain Gary Sassaman. He is a great guy, and here he is with John Stanley fan Carla Speed McNeil.


I told Gary how it was my goal to meet everyone I have worked with over the past ten years (YUP DID I MENTION 2010 IS MY TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF BEING IN COMICS?) in the flesh. He made sure I met floor manager Justin Dutta above, as well as Fae Desmond, who graciously took time out of her busy Thursday to chat with me for a second. Comicon may be, oh you know, a tad insane. But it is a well oiled machine that works very well and very smoothly. And it is due to these fine people who work all year long to make sure it happens. And yes, I can assure you that if Fae Desmond is talking to me on Thursday of Comicon and Justin takes time to stop by my booth. COMIC-CON LIKES COMICS. And, no, I did not ask them if they will stay in San Diego.


Well, lookeehere. It's the finest Jameses from the Green State of Vermont.


Do you know not know who this is? It is Tyler, my favorite and #1 San Diego customer.


Yes, this is an inside joke. An inside the booth joke. We will make it every year and it will never get old. To us.


Fans quickly lined up to see Jillian and Gabrielle. The first person in line was a sweet woman named Sonette who bought all of our new books and attended all of our panels.


Vanessa signing and talking to Levon Jihanian. Levon overheard that we were $50 from our goal on Sunday and bought $50 worth of books. Whatta sweetie!


I don't really know who this is, other than he is Wilson buying WILSON. Kind of love that. Hope he likes it.


How do you surprise the man who has done everything? Give him a shiny trophy. James receiving his Inkpot.


It is NOT a San Diego, without seeing a Los Bros. Here is Gilbert who I worked with a long time ago during my DC days on his amazing graphic novel Grip--a modern masterpiece! {But really, what Los Bros is not a masterpiece?}


Speaking of DC, I caught up with two former coworkers. My "besty" from the days of 1700 Broadway was Will Dennis (the tight panted Andy Travis of Vertigo) and...


Paul Levitz! He stopped by and we had a great chat about what you can get done when not working 60 hours a week.


This is Jillian Tamaki who wowed everyone at her first Comicon and her husband Sam, who luckily for us, really enjoyed the show, so hopefully she'll be back someday (with a new graphic novel perhaps!)


Jillian was a special guest which means she had a spotlight panel. She presented a great slideshow on her career of illustration and comics, and then conversed with our favorite friend in publishing Eric Nakamura of Giant Robot. They both did a great job, as evident here in its Publishers Weekly write up.


Matt Groening came by booth to show his annual support and bought all of our new books. Perhaps this was the year of celebrities? Melissa Auf De Maur came by on Wednesday night and beelined for our artbook The Selves. (Also spotted Alia Shawkat and Matthew Gray Gubler--you know who they are!) And of course, there were the Eisners.


Ok folks, this show has changed and then it hasn't changed at all. But man did they lay on the celebrities. The whole cast of Scott Pilgrim was there. And here are my grainy paparazzi shots to prove it.


James and Jillian had the unenviable task of presenting awards after the cast did. They soldiered through.


And then who was next? Only WILSON fan Thomas Jane. Alas, I was not lucky enough to be able to embrace Mr. Jane for Tatsumi's first big win of the night for Best Graphic Novel- Asian, nor lucky to have the presenter after me, Sergio Aragones. My presenter was Chris Claremont, who let's be honest, even though he was reading the international category took no time to learn how to say the names and then awarded the trophy to "A Different Life" This may fall in the "things that do not change" category.


This shot is for Adrian. It's an honor just to be nominated.


And what's this? Tom Spurgeon RIGHTFULLY won in the best comics criticism category. His coverage of the industry is daily, thorough, engaging and fair reporting, so it shouldn't come as a surprise, but this is comics, so it does. "things that change" category.


but I shan't complain the evening was great, and I stayed around after this win to hang out with my buddies Tom Spurgeon and Eric Reynolds, when lo and behold, Tatsumi won his second trophy, for Best Reality Based Graphic Novel. I was really floored and couldn't believe it. Tatsumi won the Tezuka Award last year and now this. It was touching and sweet to accept the awards on behalf of Tatsumi knowing just how humble and gracious he would be to hear the news. We sent him this picture the next day! It was the first time a Japanese title had won two awards. Maybe the first time for any international book?


After the awards I stumbled upon Bill Morrison catching up with Gary Groth.


And then I pretty much stalked Carol Tyler.


As did my coworkers. She was the highlight of the show for us. She told us the story of her awesome gold dress. Talking about dresses? things that change category.


I have two new secrets about San Diego. I found a LOVELY restaurant that sat 12 of us at 8 PM on Saturday night with ease. Yes! This is Gabrielle and Vanessa listening to Tom Spurgeon.


This is Woody White, Mimi's son. He has the coolest Mom ever. And coolest Dad, go look it up. This kid is going to be famous.


Second secret--And a new bar with cheap beer that was completely empty on Saturday night. Gabrielle and Tony. Tony is "on" as always.


This bar's jukebox not only had the Cramps and the Buzzcocks but Destiny's Child and Madonna. Be still my beating heart! This is "everyone-is-wishing-he-was-their-convention-boyfriend-Brian Ralph", doing his best Fonzie.


No, this photo is not a mistake, this is it folks, this is what we had left over at ye olde con 2010. One Box! Sent off on it's lonely little way back to our NJ warehouse. Again, unexciting, but so fulfilling.

What's this, you ask, AN ENTIRE LONG ENGROSSING blog post about San Diego and no *funny* costume shots? Well, I'll leave the cosplay report to Jessica but I leave you with this. I'm impressed with myself that I was able to get my camera to do video (that's Tom's deal) and, yes, that is me audibly groaning in the middle. I call this shot "Mrs. Kevin Eastman getting sexy with R2D2" Tom told me the official term of what is going on in this video, but I can't bring myself to repeat it.

R2D2 D-based from Tom Devlin on Vimeo.


Until 2011!

“There’s a five-dollar bill in my left shirt pocket, get me a short case.”

I haven't seen this come up anywhere but on Mike Lynch's site probably because so many of the comics press is suffering from Comic-Con fatigue but a particularly hilarious cartoonist, John Callahan, died this weekend. It's been years since I've read his work but the title of this post is still one of the funniest and despairing things I've ever read (it's a line from his "I think I Was an Alcoholic."--animated version below.) Do seek out the story; it's really great. If you don't know anything about John, I urge you to read the obit link above. His is a fascinating story and especially compelling because he kept such a great sense of humor his whole life when his situation was clearly so much worse than anything most of us will ever know ourselves.



{Mike Lynch mentions this John Callahan Primer that links to two excellent JC profiles but it bears repeating here.}

D+Q to Publish Shigeru Mizuki's Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths and NonNonBa

Drawn & Quarterly has acquired North American English rights to two graphic novel memoirs,Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths and NonNonBā, by one of Japan's most acclaimed and legendary manga-kas, Shigeru Mizuki, it was announced today by Chris Oliveros, Editor-in-Chief, Acquiring Editor and Publisher of Drawn & Quarterly.

(c) MIZUKI PRO

"It is a great honor for D+Q to be publishing Japan’s most famous manga-ka, Shigeru Mizuki, one of the greatest living cartoonists in the world," said Oliveros. "Mizuki has been the major figure in Japanese comics for decades and we are pleased that two of his best known works will be finally published in English. Mizuki's art is vivid, detailed, and enthralling and he possesses a remarkable range as a storyteller, conveying the ruthlessness and brutality of war in one book, and the poignancy and wonder of childhood in the other.”

(c) MIZUKI PRO

Mizuki is known in Japan as the preeminent figure of gekiga/manga. The first book to be published, Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, is a semi-autobiographical account of the desperate final weeks of a Japanese infantry unit at the end of WW2. The soldiers are instructed that they must go into battle and die for the honor of their country, with certain execution facing them if they return alive. Mizuki was a soldier himself (he was severely injured and lost an arm) and uses his experiences to convey the devastating consequences and moral depravity of the war. In NonNonBā, Mizuki looks back to his childhood at the beginning of the 1930s when all the kids in his neighbourhood played at war. Although Mizuki joins in the battles, he spends the rest of his time dreaming of and drawing the world of superstition and monsters, a world an old neighbour woman, NonNonBa, helps him create.

(c) MIZUKI PRO

Born March 8, 1922 in Sakaiminato, Tottori, Mizuki is a specialist in stories of yōkai and is considered a master of the genre. He is a member of The Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology, and have travelled to over 60 countries in the world to engage in fieldwork of the yōkai and spirits of different cultures. Currently in Japan, the life of Mizuki and his wife has been made in an extremely popular television drama that airs daily. Mizuki is the recipient of many awards including Best Album award for NonNonBā and Heritage Essential award for Operation Mort, at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Special Award, Kyokujitsu Shō Decoration, Shiju Hōshō Decoration and the Kodansha Manga Award. His hometown of Sakaiminato honored him with the Shigeru Mizuki Road, a street in his town decorated with bronze statues of his Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro characters and the Shigeru Mizuki International Cultural Center. The works of Mizuki have been published in Japan, South Korea, France, Spain, Taiwan, and Italy.

TATSUMI!!




It would seem that Tatsumi-san won twice last night at the Eisners. Hurray for Tatsumi!! Is there a better story than a hard-working artist receiving accolades late in life? Here's what Heidi at The Beat has to say about last night's wins:

As night follows day, Best U.S. Edition of International Material--Asia follows. Claremont is not doing well with any of these Japanese names. Even Tezuka. OH BOY. The winner is Tatsumi's A Drifting Life. I am sad my beloved Urasawa didn’t win, but you can’t argue with the great great Tatsumi. Peggy Burn comes up to accept and delivers the bext speech of the night so far . She talks about how excited Tatsumi was to come to the show in 2006 and his biggest observations was that he had never even signed a book for a woman in Japan. She says over 60,000 books of Tatsumi's have been sold in North America. He has had the sales and acclaim he has never had in Japan, although it is beginning to come.

and...

Best Reality-Based Work goes to A Drifting Life, by Yoshihiro Tatsumi. Big win on a stacked category. Peggy thanks Tatsumi-sensei the most humble generous man. "He really is the embodiment of everything that is great with comics. He went to the drawing board every single day and drew what he believed in."

I buy my own diamonds and I buy my own rings

{Left-Right: Peggy Burns, Jessica Campbell, Rebecca Rosen, Vanessa Davis, Gabrielle Bell, Jillian Tamaki and Mimi Pond}

Palookaville 20 and Make Me A Woman In The House!



Vote now for James Sturm's dad!!

It would seem that one "Milton Sturm" is listed in the cartoon caption contest this week in the New Yorker. Vote! Hasn't he suffered enough? Give him this one thing.

Also...who did that cover?

Share

Twitter Delicious Facebook Digg Stumbleupon Favorites More