You’ll Have That

SDCC 2008 . . .

Another Comic Con has come and gone, and I’m already getting nostalgic about the events of the past week. It wasn’t a very good year as far as building YHT’s readership, but I was able to meet a few existing fans and hang out with some old friends which made the con entirely worthwhile for me. On top of all that, besides being mentally and physically exhausted, I came away from the con with my creative juices totally recharged! On the plane ride home I plotted out an entire graphic novel along with full character descriptions! I’m hoping I can ride this wave for a few months and get some new material out there for you guys to see!

Without further ado, here’s a quick con recap (view pics from the weekend here!):

Wednesday - My plane landed in San Diego at 4:45 PM, so I grabbed a cab and went straight to the convention center to stand in line for Preview Night. On my way to the con, Scott Zirkel called me and told me he’d run an exhibitor badge out to me so I could get in without waiting in line. Exhibitor badges are the Golden Tickets of Comic Con. They allow you to enter early and leave late without being hounded by the security personnel.

I took my luggage with me into the con and greeted all my buddies at the Viper booth. Josh Howard told me that the sleeping arrangement was going to be pretty crazy because 6 people would be sharing a room with one bed and a pull-out couch. I spent the rest of Preview Night feeling anxious about the sleeping accomodations, but things worked themselves out and the sleeping arrangement was too bad - even with 6 people crowded in a room.

After the con ended on Wednesday, I tossed my luggage in the van that Viper rented and made my way to Hennesy’s with Josh Howard, Dale Mettam, Pat Bussey, and Scott Zirkel. Hennesy’s is an awesome restaurant with great food, and it’s far enough from the Gaslamp District that it’s never too crowded. We ate there several times over the course of the weekend.

Thursday - Thursday was the first full day of the con. I signed a few books and met a few peeps. Did a lot of walking around and bought a lot of books. We were supposed to go out to dinner with some of Josh Howard’s fans, but there was some confusion and we ended up going to Hennesy’s again with the gang from the night before plus Tony Garza, Jim Resnowski, and Guy Lemay. The waitress was very flirty.

Over the course of dinner, Pat Bussey and I both traded graphic novel ideas with the table. That night at the hotel, Pat drew some of the characters from his novel, and I drew one of the characters from my novel idea at the con the next day.

Friday - On Friday I received an invitation to a party thrown by the William Morris Agency at the Hard Rock Hotel. I didn’t go, but I thought it was cool that I received an invitation. I’m sure a ton of people got these invites, but I still took a little bit of pride knowing that the invite was addressed to me personally.

We went out to dinner at Hennesy’s (yet again - the place is awesome) with Otis Frampton and his wife, Leigh. It was awesome to sit with out small group and talk shop for a little while. After our meal, we walked outside to see hundreds of bicyclists flooding the Gaslamp District and stopping all traffic. It was pretty wild.

The best part of Friday was the awesome conversation with James Burks at the Viper booth before the con opened up in the morning. We talked about the death of comic strips and formats for graphic novels. The conversation really fueled some of the creative ideas I’ve been playing with recently, and I really appreciated James for his frank discussion.

Saturday - My last day at the convention was Saturday, so there was kind of a bittersweet vibe about the day. I had pretty much purchased all the stuff I wanted to buy on the first two days of the convention, so I spent Saturday walking around the entire convention floor with Scott Zirkel, Josh Howard, and Pat Bussey.

Javier Grillo-Marxuach, creator of The Middleman, was signing books at the ABC Family booth and he got us in to meet Natalie Morales. Natalie stars as Wendy Watson on The Middleman TV show, and all the Viper guys had school-boy crushes on her. She was very nice and very tiny.

After the con, we all went to dinner with a couple of Josh Howard’s readers. Tim Morell, Josh Howard’s number-one fan, bought all our dinners at Joe’s Crab Shack. Thanks, Tim!

That night, Josh, Pat, Scott and I went back to the hotel to draw and talk. I packed my bags for my flight on Sunday and went through all the free crap I didn’t want. There was a nice stack of free books, magazines, comics, and flyers that hit the cutting room floor for the housekeepers to pitch.

All in all, it was a great weekend at the convention! I desperately needed the time to hang with like-minded people to talk shop and recharge the creative batteries. I’m looking forward to the Mid-Ohio Con in October, now!

- Wes

This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2008 at 2:15 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.