The New York Times has a story on how Comic-Con has become a venue to market to — gasp! — girls, with lots of info on various toy and clothing lines, including gymnast Nastia Liukin’s Supergirl line of clothing.

And marketers, including publishers, toy manufacturers and Hollywood’s entertainment giants, used Comic-Con 2010 last month to promote products for girls and to build anticipation for new ones. Mattel, for example, used Comic-Con to promote several toy lines for girls, offering an exclusive set of its Polly Pocket dolls dressed as superheroes and promoting Monster High.

I was actually interviewed for the piece by author Gregory Schmidt, who was very smart and nice and did a fine job on the story, but everything I said got cut out in editing. I was nonplussed by this, not so much because I didn’t get my name in the NY Times again, but because it leaves the article with just men quoted about selling to girls.

So yet again it’s a story about girls and women and what they like without a single woman expressing an opinion on the matter. Thanks, guys! We’ll just keep shelling out the money — no need to actually listen to us.

And Gabrielle Bell — this one is an EPIC.

We could have SWORN there was a third…but can’t find it now. Readers?

Has all the Comic-Con hype actually TURNED OFF some moviegoers? That’s what a chart over at THR seems to show, Jay Fernandez reports:

Flixster provides data for the Bullseye over at Risky Business each week, and occasionally the company tacks on some other random information. This week, Flixster included this graphic, which measured how online activity around featured films was affected by Comic Con.

Do you notice anything about this? Yes, other than “Scott Pilgrim” and “Sucker Punch,” of which little had then yet been seen, everything else went down. DreamWorks Animation’s “Megamind,” Disney’s “Tron” reboot, the whole mess of Marvel movies, etc., all had interest in them drop post-Con.

Now, this may mean nothing, of course. We’re still a long way from the release of most of these, and probably most of the fans who would have been swirling around these projects suddenly gorged and had to rest for a few days. But it does support the theory that Comic-Con isn’t really drumming up business outside of the true believers who were going to see these movies anyway. Had those not already attuned to this material gotten fired up by the Con parade, those activity percentages would have gone up.

There’s some dissension in the comments and competing charts which seem to show an opposite effect. And really…who the hell knows what this chart means. It’s iPhone users searching for info based on trailers. And you know, a good trailer is still a good trailer, no matter where it’s shown.

But probably somewhere some studio head saw this info and peed his/her pants, just like Batman.

Tangential — we can’t wait for SUCKER PUNCH, aka Zack Snyder does Tarantino.

Lesson #1 of San Diego Comic-Con 2010: You can’t live on breakfast from the Embassy Suites.

Or if you do, you will pay a frightful price.

It was Thursday morning at Comic-Con, the morning after Preview night and the day when things blast into high gear with a roar of thunder and a crack of ozone. It was my second morning at the Embassy Suites, the “family hotel” of the Inner Circle. With a free breakfast buffet and “manager’s receptions”—aka FREE BOOZE—every evening, not to mention giant suites that sleep 6 comfortably, the Embassy Suites is the best bargain at the con for those, like this year’s Beat, on a budget.

By only the second day in, the low-grade bacon and baked-by-Methuselah bagels were already setting off a protest march in my stomach. That left nothing but small portions of yogurt and plates of rubbery melon to set me up for a day of rugged expeditioneering over the crevasses and screes of Under the Sails and the Hilton Bayfront. According to lore, a hearty morning helping of proteins and potatoes is the only thing to help you through this endurance test.

But you need good quality rations.

This is going to be one of those “I didn’t get enough to eat,” con reports. I’m sorry. My flight was delayed on Tuesday night, and the three-hour setback was enough to throw the whole schedule off because it meant I never got to go to Ralphs and every problem I had at the con could have been solved with a trip to Ralphs. But it never happened.

By Saturday, my body had toughened up, and adjusted to this new, no-food regime. But I wasn’t alone. Oh no. Everyone was reduced to a hungry zombie state, roaming a hostile landscape, storming media lounges for bits of sustenance.

I know you all think I’m being dramatic. But by Saturday, as I waited in the lobby of the Omni to conduct an interview with director Adam Egypt Mortimer, I ran into these two fellows – let’s call them Tom and Jerry — who were there making a documentary about a well known Comics Figure. Adam arrived a bit late, apologizing for the delay, explaining that he had abandoned his lunch halfway through, and brandishing a styrofoam container full of cold French fries and a few morsels of cut-up steak. He then generously offered the three of his his leftovers…and since none of us had eaten all day we started devouring the French fries like zombies who just caught up with a red shirt.

“I can’t believe we’re eating scraps!” Jerry exclaimed.

While enjoying the bounty, Tom was more worried about their cameraman who was sitting weak and pallid on a divan. “Maybe we should give this steak to Bill. He was really complaining about being hungry,” he suggested. Indeed, their mercy mission to offer Bill the left over steak scraps was successful. I offered to share the bag of peanuts that I had been living off of since the Eisner Awards, but they bravely declined.

The bizarre fact that this reenactment of the rescue of the Donner party was taking place in the lobby of a well-stocked and civilized hotel — nearby, Erik Estrada mugged for autograph hunters, Charisma Carpenter and Lou Ferrigno wandered by, and mere yards away, comics creators hobnobbed with producers, pitching movies — was not lost on us.

As the week progressed, it was increasingly clear that comics are now living off the scraps of the Comic-Con media monster, whether it was waiting for the leftover dollars of vacationing families, or living on the trickle down of the studio system. This particular eco-system isn’t the way the whole comics industry works — some companies that just publish books are doing just fine — but in San Diego, it was unavoidable.

Lesson #2: Always remember to sample the charms of Old Con.

Have you been over to Old Con? It’s so quaint and timeless with its antique longboxes and Pow! Splat! décor. If you ever wonder what “the olden days” were like at Comic-Con, just go to halls A and B because you can find the old tribes still living in their primitive Mylar huts, almost untouched by time.

But the people who live in Old Con might just be endangered by the high-rise booths at the other end of the hall. The constant refrain among comics publishers was that sales were flat or down. The reason most often cited was that the 126K attendees had bought their tickets six months previously and weren’t interested in anything that wasn’t a big media presentation. The convention has had to spread out over the adjoining hotels to thin the crowds, and this has also thinned the number of people who want to go to Old Con to buy comics.

While no one we talked to had an out and out shit show -– and indie pacemakers Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly reported strong sales and sellouts -– as it becomes more and more expensive to travel and exhibit, it becomes harder and harder to recoup all that money. Every year, people throw down their hat and cry out in disgust, “That tears it! I’m never coming back to San Diego!” only to be seen partying at the Hyatt like a rock star 12 months later. But it’s safe to say that everyone questions their involvement every year more and more, and the questioning is getting more and more serious.

One thing we did notice –- a few publishers we talked to had disappointing sales, but most artists in Artists Alley we checked in with seemed to do very well. For instance, Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett had sold out of their copies of Boilerplate by Saturday afternoon. It’s the added value of an autograph and a conversation that seems to seal the deal in AA.

Also, it’s not entirely certain what effect the absence of Comic Relief and diminished presence of Bud Plant had on the show. Both retailers formerly offered giant booths where you could buy all kinds of cool comics and books. Comic Relief gave up their primo spot, and for reasons that weren’t explained to us, Bud Plant was much smaller. It made it far harder to make an impulse buy on some comic you’d heard about on a panel.

Also unclear is just how the continuing bad economy affected the fantasy economy — a lot, we’d guess. Nearly two years into the Great Recession, it’s possible people are just beginning to question those nerd purchases. It’s certainly why some bloggers were economizing by eating other people’s leftovers.

Finally, it’s just not clear how to keep the comic in Comic-Con any more. This is the year we all just Gave Up. While everyone was proud that THE WALKING DEAD and SCOTT PILGRIM, two creator-owned properties, were the hottest things at SD10, getting attention without covering a hotel with a banner, making over elevators into vampire-themed make-out rooms, or flooding the air around hotels with floating bubble people was much harder.

Lesson #3: The “heart” of Comic-con is now the entrance to the Gaslamp, although “heart” may not be the proper body part.

The piazza at the confluence of the Hard Rock, the Omni, the Tin Fish, the Gaslamp Hilton, the trolley and the Gaslamp district is now the heart of Comic-Con where ninjas, masked wrestlers, Con Girls, alien resistance fighters, indie rockers, religious nuts and everyone else stands around and flogs their products. By Saturday, the ground was a disgusting litter of flyers, as the tight butts of the Green Hornet girls wiggled on one side by the Black Beauty, and the Scott Pilgrim Experience handed out garlic bread on the other.

Two fellows dressed as characters designed by Dean Haspiel handed out comics drawn by Dean Haspiel, and he wasn’t even there to enjoy it. Just crossing the street was an ordeal like walking around the Pyramids or the Taj Mahal, as huckster marketers swamped every hapless tourist– only instead of begging for a few American dollars, they were giving you disposable shit – candy, tattoos, stickers, whatever. Most of it was garbage.

Outside the swirl of hucksters, it was nonstop Zombie Gras as lines of professional autograph hunters camped out by the Hard Rock, pedicabs zipped around and “media types” headed over to various swanky sponsored press rooms. Someone who seemed to be knowledgeable suggested to me that the actual number of people in town for Comic-Con was closer to 160,000 – a full 35,000 people over the number of folks with actual badges. After spending a few moments at Zombie Gras, this number seemed modest. It seems that many, many folks now come to Comic-Con just to make the scene and snap up the off-site swag — there was a lot of stuff you could get without a badge.

The net effect of all the shilling was probably gross and definitely crass. Next year the pedestrian bridge over Harbor Drive will be completed and the human traffic pattern may change a bit, but the Marketing Town Square will probably still be high on my “places to avoid” list.

LESSON #4: Douchebags ruined Comic-Con.

SERIOUSLY. If I hear one more person slam Twilight for ruining Comic-Con, I will stab someone in the eye. The horrors of this douche spill -– pumping out over 100 millions gallons per day of Prada cologne and bullshit — are just being recognized. Over 100 acres a day of comics wetlands are being lost to this tragic spill, and if we don’t do something the entire coast will be eroded.

If the riot gear level security was the big complaint last year, this year the problem was the all-pervasive stink of Hollywood. All of my studio moles confirmed that this is the year that San Diego became Park City. Sure there were signs before – Kardashians, endless agency parties. But this year no one even pretended that comics were important.

I’ve already recounted how almost no one from Image could get into the AMC/Circle of Confusion party on Thursday, despite the fact that the theme was The Walking Dead, a comic they publish. I heard lots of stories like this about Hollywood’s increasing disdain for comics – Hollywood in general hates writers and people who create things, and comics have joined this tradition of disrespect, even as the fear of “the internerd” makes publicists coach their clients on how to pretend to be “geek savvy” and dress in the proper T-shirts. Helen Mirren’s Harvey Pekar moment was hilarious but it was about as genuine as the racks on those Green Hornet girls.

Comic-Con is becoming comics’ very own Barton Fink Moment.

The Douche Spill is mostly lemmings….it isn’t really FOR anything. NO ONE really thinks that the crowd of 6000 people who are dedicated enough to sleep out and get into Hall H are the ones who are going to make or break any movie. Comic-Con is for entertainment fans, not that mythical “geek” and the fact that Hollywood automatically equates people who like their products with social undesirables tells you a lot about Hollywood marketing people.

Along those lines, there isn’t a single person I talked to who thinks that SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD is going to be a huge blockbuster because it had the biggest presence at Comic-Con of anything ever. Everyone is very happy for Edgar Wright and Bryan Lee O’Malley, those pesky CREATORS, and what is by all accounts a charming, quirky movie. The giant hotel banner, multiple screenings and fucking theme park was a very innovative way to promote the film, but we’ll have to wait and see who goes to see it in a few weeks.

Studios are increasingly playing one-upmanship with Comic-Con and the “nerd herd” – whatever the fuck that is. “Peeks for geeks” trumpeted a headline in Variety. Once again, I can’t jibe the Orange County teenagers and families pushing strollers and folks dressed as the Scarlet Witch with tastemakers who will tell all their friends about this great postcard they got at Comic-Con. All the lists of “winners and losers” don’t mention the real people with things at stake: studio marketing planners who want to impress their bosses. Comic-Con is just another pissing contest for studio heads, a blank canvas on which to paint more and bigger banners, posters, room keys, lounges, yachts and sky-writing.

It’s been my experience —and surely that of some of you reading this – that far from being tastemakers, when one of those “geek nerd herd” folks starts waving a postcard at you and telling you how great this or that fantasy zombie direct-to-DVD movie is, your general reaction is to run away in fear and turn up the sounds on 30 Rock.

Unquestionably, there are more nerds and geeks than ever before because it is socially acceptable now, but by and large Comic-Con’s marketing efforts for big name movies come down to preaching to the converted. Did Angelina Jolie showing up at Comic-Con help SALT beat INCEPTION? No. Did it enable the people who marketed Salt to say “See, we were at Comic-Con!”? Yes.

Todd VenDeWerff at the A.V. Club has an excellent post that covers whether media people even NEED TO BE AT CON ANY MORE. Certainly it’s easier to sit at home and write about what’s happening than it is to be there and write about it. The increasingly controlled and staged events that are trotted out are another factor:

I’m not trying to argue myself out of a job or anything, but I do wonder if the amount of ink spilled on Comic-Con is truly necessary. This is an event created to specifically keep people from saying, “Oh, hey, maybe this won’t be good, huh?” Aside from all of the big, obvious problems – the long lines, the inability to stop thinking like a small convention when this is one of the biggest conventions out there, the ridiculously overpriced concessions, the fact that the whole thing may move to Anaheim, LA, or Vegas — no one really talks about whether news organizations should even be sending people like me to cover this stuff. Comic-Con started out for the fans, and then Hollywood got involved and tried to make all of the attendees fans of everything it could possibly get them to consume. And now, the event is such a big deal within the entertainment media that it sometimes seems as though the studios are using it to sneak a virus out to the public at large, just another bit of marketing in the long march toward a big opening weekend, but a form of marketing that we haven’t yet built up a resistance to, like billboards or TV commercials.

So much that happens at SDCC is obviously canned. After the show a few people told us that the kid who asked Ryan Reynolds to recite the Green Lantern oath (above) was a plant — a notion supported by all the videos of the event staying up on YouTube.
Lesson #5: If you came for a spectacle, you came to the right place.

Everyone was talking about the throne in the Marvel booth, the actual Odin’s Throne set from the upcoming Thor movie. It was Disney-esque in so many ways – from its forced perspective, to the way they only opened the doors behind it at certain times—kinda like the way the Pope only opens the holy doors at the Basilica once every 25 years, for Jubilee. (Why the Pope is an X-Men fan is not clear, but it probably had something to do with Milo Manara’s X-women.) It created great spectacle and interest as people tried to sit in it, and brought the razzle dazzle of moviemaking right into the comics booth. (Marvel did something like it last year with the Iron Man armor, but this was way bigger.)

On the other hand, the movie prop associated with a DC movie – the corpse of proto Green Lantern Abin Sur in a glass case – was located in the Warner Bros. booth, not at DC. Given the level of traffic at the DC booth, adding movie props to the scrum is probably not a great idea, but what with moving to Burbank and all, it’s getting more and more likely.

Lesson #6: Protect yourself at all times

A few told me that this was a “jumping the shark” year for Comic-Con, and cited the “Hall H Stabber” as the defining moment of shark jumping. While it made for some excited tweeting, and excellent cosplay, the actual incident – as opposed to the blogging speculation about it – seems to have been quite minor, and the details have effectively been hushed up. Both the Stabber and the Stabbee must be the ONLY two people at Comic-Con who don’t have blogs, Facebook or Twitter accounts, and their identities – and even the extent of the injury that left the Stabber with a big splash of blood on his Harry Potter T-shirt – have not, to my knowledge, been expanded upon from initial police reports. As the police were eager to point out, Comic-Con remains a peace-loving, law-abiding creature, despite the crowds and tumult.

BUt you know, there is still much fun to be had, even if the purpose and execution of a successful Comic-Con evolve. DQ’s Peggy Burns for the defense:

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.

Lesson #7: Always go to Ralphs.

ALWAYS. Crawl on bloody stumps if you must, but get yourself to Ralphs. Carrots for day, Jack Daniels for night. Motrin for the morning. So simple.

******

The conflicted feelings over which way to take Con — and whether it has “ruined Fandom” — is very much evident in other writings about the show. Here’s a gallery of views and voices:

Veteran retailer Chuck Rozanski is always worth reading. This year he apparently was featured in the Morgan Spurlock documentary, along with his assistant Ashley, and makes some interesting observations:

…everyone is walking around with cameras. At first blush that might not seem important, but an epiphany that struck me as I was walking through the media section (which was, once again, insanely crowded), was that the real motivation for many people to come to Comic-Con these days is to be able to post breaking news and photos to their personal social networking sites. I later confirmed my hypotheses by asking people what they were going to do with their snapshots and video streams. The irony is almost palpable when you realize that for a great many people who are in this building right now that their elevation is social status is no longer derived from actually owning cool items, but rather from being the first to be able to report that they’ve seen something cool. The media moguls seem well aware of this trend, so they are doing their very best to try and motivate fans to take as many photos as possible of their new projects, in the hope at they will then go viral on the Internet. As crazy as it may sound, this sharing of information (and the bragging rights to being able to be the first to report to their peer group) has become more important to many people than scoring free stuff.

First timer Van Jensen had a bit of Con-pocalypse:

Tangentially: Comic-Con clearly isn’t a comics show anymore, and it’s a little saddening to think that I never experienced it in that form. Now it’s an insanely crowded typhoon of promotion, with pretty well every media entity exhaling every piece of nerdery they can. And the bulk of those trapped in the typhoon are those who want to see celebrities, who want to sit on a prop Odin’s throne, who want to stab someone in the eye over the right to watch Harrison Ford talk about whatever Harrison Ford talks about nowadays.

As far as comics goes, the show is increasingly not the great sales event it once was (just ask any retailer or publisher). And it’s not a great opportunity for promotion unless you have a movie coming out (just ask me). With the show’s organizers pondering the next stage of Comic-Con’s evolution (to L.A.?), I would hope they sit down and simply ask what they want the show to be. And if they want it to remain in some significant way a comics show, they need to figure out how to make it worthwhile for the smaller publishers to handle the ever-rising cost associated with attending.

Mark Evanier marvels, as we so often do at just how well it all works:

I continue to be amazed at how little goes wrong at these conventions. I’ve been going to cons, good and bad, for four decades now and I think I know a little about how difficult they are to organize and how many disasters can occur. Even when things go wrong at Comic-Con International, the crew knows what to do, how to do it, how to keep things running smoothly. That was one thing that was often on my mind this year. Another was a new (to me) way of looking at the attendees…

BTW it’s time once again to recognize the fact that the Comic-Con staff does a fantastic job making sure everything runs smoothly every year. This time security did their job with a minimum of fuss and hassle, and just being on the floor wasn’t a struggle against a totalitarian society.

Equanimous Eric Reynolds also had a good time despite it all and even managed to find a whole steak:

That said, I kept telling folks all weekend that even though it’s in my nature to complain, I had almost nothing to complain about in regard to this year’s show (which I realize makes for a boring con postmortem). Yes, I find it weirdly condescending and annoying that every retail worker in downtown San Diego now seems to wear some generic comics-related t-shirts or capes for five days straight (especially when you know they’re being forced to do it and probably resent it every bit as much). But so be it. When I go to a nice restaurant downtown, I can promise you that I’m not so hungry to relive my day on the floor that I need Green Lantern-themed cocktails or steaks named after the wild creatures of Pandora. But I will be famished enough to forgive it.

Warren Ellis had a few thoughts on the side of Hall H that most will never see.

I’ve already linked to the Videogum guy’s moaning about how shit Comic-con is; of course, I’m secretly happy that the whiny hipsters who just started coming had a crap time, doused with the stench of entitlement. But I think they also caught onto the baffling mystery behind the whole enterprise:

Perhaps I’m not the intended audience for Comic-Con, and that’s fine, but my question, then, would be WHO IS?! I certainly understand feelings of alienation, and the thrill of finding a place where people accept you as you are, but that doesn’t really seem to be what this is about. What this is about is shoving endless promotional materials for uninspired and/or unnecessary nonsense into increasingly large branded gift bags. If you would like to know how it feels to be at Comic-Con it feels like you are a door, and people won’t stop shoving fliers under you. A door saddled with oversized garbage bags.

Sean T. Collins has a “when they came for Trina Robbins I said nothing!” type epiphany right on the interweb:

I guess what I’m saying is that in retrospect, I should have stuck a big fat caveat lector atop my dismissal of the post-show pique that flares up after each year’s Con. Don’t get me wrong, I do think a lot of that stuff really is just pique (and pandering for hits). And in fairness to myself, whenever I talk to people who haven’t been to the show, I warn them that there are lots of people who are just not constitutionally suited to that level of crowd and media and visual overload, so it’s not like I’m totally head-in-the-clouds about the inhospitability of the show for some people. But I’ve been far too willing to ignore the fact that there are people with perfectly reasonable and even noble expectations for the show for whom those expectations are now going unmet.

Even movie people — like this writer from Slash/film — were disgusted by the marketing:

That Comic-Con is quickly become a marketing maelstrom is news to no one, but this year the marketing flaks were even more aggressive than usual. It was especially bad at the 5th Avenue streetcar crossing that separates the Convention Center from downtown San Diego. Perhaps because it’s such a bottleneck for foot traffic, many TV and movie marketing teams decided to camp out right at the crossing and try everything in their power to make con-goers notice them.

They would usually just hand out a small piece of marketing fluff, but more than once they continued to badger me and others even after we declined their crap. The marketers also had the bad habit of jumping right in your way as you moved back and forth from the convention center, making the already-packed crossing even more tortuous.

In the wake of this year’s marketing-fest, the very nature of nerd-dom is being debated. This fine piece in New York magazine lays out the terrain: How Fanboy Obsessions Became the Pop-Culture Norm. Over at Techland, Lev Grossman, Wil Wheaton and Douglas Wolk also argue the nature of fandom. Is Comic-Con Really Hurting Nerd Culture? asks Wheaton before concluding “No!”

Grossman, on the other hand, had a crap time:

Comic-Con is hurting nerd culture, in a broad and systemic and probably permanent way. Nerd culture is a counter-culture, and counter-cultures can die; in fact if there’s one thing late-stage capitalism is good at, it’s co-opting and killing counter-cultures. Viz. punk, the 60’s, etc.

Douglas sensibly splits the needle and suggests that everyone have a place to sit down.

My own convention was middling. I had some great moments of serendipity, got to see a few old friends, fleetingly, met a few of my idols, had some good meals towards the end of the show. Kate and Torsten did a fantastic job manning ground control, but I had a lot of on-site tech issues that left me more frustrated than anything with my own coverage. The days when one person could cover Comic-con are long gone. I mean, I can cover MY Comic-Con, but isn’t that what Twitter is for?

I have some more observations and suggestions but even though this already took a week and no one cares any more, those will have to come out tomorrow.

[Bloody Eye logo by Nathan Schreiber. Hall H stabber perp photo by Frank Patz.]

Last week I said I’d turn in a late True Blood Recap after I got back from Comic Con. Last week I hadn’t actually gone to Comic Con yet.   Going to Comic Con this year was not unlike attending The Fall of Saigon. It was a crowded combat zone littered with hundreds of thousands of nerds elbowing each other out of the way so they could get their pop culture freak on until one of them got stabbed in the face with a pen!

I’m not saying it wasn’t fun. I had a blast! But after all that madness, chaos and immersive viral marketing I just don’t have it in me to properly recap the sixth episode of Season Three: I Got A Right To Sing The Blues. Sorry to not live up to my commitments to you, the fang faithful, but I’ve been to war and back and I’m going to save my recapping jujitsu for episode seven on Sunday. What I can do now is tell you a little war story.

It started off on the 2^nd day (for me) of the con. On Friday morning, I waited in line for an ungodly amount of time to get into Ballroom 20 to see, among others, the True Blood panel. I was not alone. I was there with hearty individuals like my new friend, Jennifer, who kindly held my place in line while I got a coke and a grody overpriced bagel dog. She was good peeps. And she had her peeps (who’d waited in line since 8:00 AM just to see the cast and creators of True Blood) save me a seat on the inside.

Jennifer (left) and her friends waiting for the SDCC 2010 True Blood panel to start after waiting in lines for hours to get in

The panel itself turned out to be well worth waiting for. Series creator, Alan Ball, was there along with Charlaine Harris, writer of the Sookie Stackhouse series, and cast members Nelsan Ellis (Lafeyette!), Sam Trammell (Sam Merlotte), Rutina Wesley (Tara Thornton), Deborah Ann Woll (Jessica Hamby), Kristin Bauer van Straten (Pam), Denis O’Hare (Russell Edington), Joe Manganiello (Alcide), Stephen Moyer (Bill Compton), and Anna Paquin (Sookie Stackhouse). Bauer Van Straten immediately lightened the mood up, showing how she makes the character of Pam such a fan favorite by saying, “Hello, Daddy,” when Paquin and Moyer dragged out a cardboard cutout of Alexander Skarsgard.

Sookie and Bill place a cardboard cutout of Eric next to Alcide and Sookie Stackhouse Series Charlaine Harris

You could tell the cast had an easy familiarity with each other. They all seemed to be having an easy going, good time together. Except for Nelsan Ellis, who seemed a little tired and recalcitrant, but, good god, Comic Con could do that to anyone and he must’ve had people up on his jock left and right during their ubiquitous Con PR blitz.

Pam (left) was sassy, Jessica was lovely, while Lafayette seemed tired but dutiful

(WARNING SPOILER ALERT: If you have not read the Sookie Stackhouse Series by Charlaine Harris and want to stay surprised, you might not want to read the following paragraph)Other highlights included revelations by Harris and Ball of where the story’s going, although they didn’t reveal much and panel attendees had to read between the lines. Most interesting was how Harris said that True Blood and the Sookie Stackhouse books are “two different entertainment experiences” and that “things won’t wind up the same way in Alan’s world” as in her’s. Although both let slip that Season Four will be following the plot line of book number four of the Sookie Stackhouse books, Dead to the World, when Eric gets a bout of wicked spell induced amnesia and Sookie nurses him back to health without even a sexy nurse’s costume on. They also said True Blood will be picking up a lot of the witchy poo storylines from the books – which I think will be done a good turn by Alan Ball and company.

It’s interesting to think of True Blood as a massive scale fan fic take on the Sookie Stackhouse series though. Another juicy revelation from Ball and Harris concerned Sookie’s love life, although ultimately either said they would reveal NOTHING about how either story winds up. Harris would say only that Sookie never becomes a vampire in her series but she wouldn’t breathe a word about who steals Sookie’s heart in the end. Although I haven’t read the latest Sookie Stackhouse book yet (I’m waiting till this season of True Blood ends and I need a good fix), I think the writings on the wall for her and Eric.

Author Charlaine Harris (right) looks over at hot hunk of werewolf Alcide

As far as who winds up with Sookie on the show, Ball dropped major hints when he said that he believes Sookie and Bill are “soulmates” and that he’s “rooting for things to work out with them.” He went on to say that “the Sookie and Bill of the show are very different than the Sookie and Bill of the books.” Ball also talked about my own personal VILF, Franklin Mott’s, character evolution on the show (although given last week’s episode, had I not heard this, I’d have major questions about his immortality). He said that Franklin’s “a psychopath” and that the writers were going to “luxuriously luxuriate in the nature of his psychopathology” going forward.

Sookie and Bill, soulmates IRL, and according to Alan Ball, on the show as well

Ball, Harris and the cast sure did have a lot of fun with the audience question portion of the panel. Some intriguing tidbits that came out during the Q & A were that Manganiello’s Alcide has just become an official series’ regular. Apparently, Manganiello just inked the deal with Ball et al right before Comic Con. Also interesting was when a fan asked if Harris’ popular Bubba character from the books would appear on True Blood. Ball at first said that there’s no one who could convincingly play the character who, as readers of the series know, is Elvis Presley after being bitten and turned into a vamp but then Trammel chimed in and noted that Bruce Campbell would be good casting (to rapturous applause from the audience). But one of the best fan questions was, “what vampire stories do you guys like?” Both Ball and Ellis said they loved Let the Right One In and to my pleasant surprise, Ball said that he loved the movie Near Dark. I’ve always thought the show was quite similar to that movie and was happy to hear it’s an influence on the series after noting numerous similarities. Ball also touchingly revealed in answer to the question of why he writes so many stories about death is that he suspects it’s because he lived through the AIDS epidemic of the gay community in the late eighties and early nineties. Also touching, was when Ball thanked a humble and sweet-natured Harris for creating the series and giving him his “favorite job ever” at the close of the panel.

That was nowhere near the end of my True Blood experience at Comic Con however. Look who I saw right outside Ballroom 20!

Mein Godric

Godric Lives!

I also heard it on good authority that at least one True Blood cast member was running around Comic Con engaging in cosplay to keep from getting recognized. Word had it that it did them no good and as they were soon mobbed by fans and recognized and had to flee the scene. The show was beyond everywhere at SDCC so I can’t imagine that any of them were able to go anywhere except under cover of armed guard. I did however, have this interesting sighting when I was over the Top Shelf booth on Saturday picking up a copy of Ax Volume 1, the alternative Japanese Manga anthology edited by the imminently charming Sean Michael Wilson.

Michael McMillian as Pastor Steve Newlin in True Blood's Season Two episode, Timebomb

McMillian penned the Archaia comics mini series, Lucid, which previewed at the Con (and will be coming to a comic book store near you in August). Chris hinted that McMillian will be coming back as Newlin for later episodes which should come as no surprise to anyone since he was awesome on the show and Newlin appears later in the Sookie Stackhouse books. I’m sure Ball will continue to have all kinds of fun with that character.

Later I went with Andy Ristaino, sometime financial news journalist and full time animator and cartoonist to the Wired Lounge. Andy has been working on the popular new series, Adventure Time, for Cartoon Network and was signing copies of his new book, Escape From Dullsville, at the Slave Labor booth. Unfortunately, we weren’t there to see the True Blood cast in action serving up (what else) True Blood themed drinks. Apparently, they were there on Friday working the Merlotte’s themed bar.

A fangbanging waitress at the Merlotte's themed bar in the Wired Lounge

We got served by Merlotte’s fangbanging waitresses ourselves and generally had a good time there until we road down in the elevators. Andy has always been gripped by claustrophobic fear in elevators. It’s as if he’s being stalked..

And it turned his fears were not unfounded as it looked like he was about to be killed by Eric and possibly also by basically good werewolf, Alcide! I managed to get him out in the nick of time though before he was bitten.

Escaping the Omni's True Blood themed elevators in the nick of time

So as you can see from this rundown of just the True Blood portion of what I did at Comic Con, it was quite exhausting but definitely fun times. War can sometimes be like that, man, and then afterwards you have to recover as far away from civilization and loud noises as possible. Which is exactly what I’m doing right now, so this Sunday I’ll be able to recap like a fucking champ.

As far as last week’s episode went, I liked it quite a bit and am again sorry (for me and you) that I just didn’t have it in me to get all recappy on it this week. In particular I loved Talbot going off on Russell, I loved Eric getting gay on Russell and Talbot as a political strategy, I loved Bill and Lorena’s freaky scene in the barn, I loved Sookie and Tara escaping from the King’s manse and loved, loved, loved Lafayette and Jesus kicking the Hot Shot gaybashers asses. I even started liking the shapeshifter wacky family storyline a bit. But who knows if I’ll be giving them the same goodwill in episode seven. I’m eager to find out though. Talk at you then.

Available in September from Journeys, the line will feature five different designs based on the iconic Chuck Taylor All Star Hi-Top.

Journeys also offers an All Star shoe with a generic comics design.

For those who prefer a more light-hearted, youthful design, Converse has partnered with Dr. Seuss Enterprises and offers Seuss-inspired designs for both children and adults!

Visit the websites for more information and multiple viewpoints.

These are some of my favorites, and some I could remember.  The list is not comprehensive, merely a distraction while we wait for Heidi to return.

So first, Wired. It’s one of my favorites, as I know every day there will be one or two articles which will catch my interest. It is the Comic-Con of websites, offering geeky goodness as well as serious reportage. There’s a variety of blogs and topics covered, even an automotive blog!  However, Wired’s search engine is useless.  You would be better off using Google to search their site.

Underwire

GeekDad

(That’s an actual Darth Vader mask, sold at CCI:SD`09 to raise funds for the Susan G. Komen Foundation.)

Game Life

Comic Book Resources was out in force at Comic-Con, and did an incredible job of reporting on all stuff comics!  (Although even they missed the DC Writers panel on Thursday.)

Comic Book Resources main page

Robot 6

Spinoff Online
(No tag for CCI:SD, but their posts are preceded by “CCI: ”)

Newsarama was also there!

As well as traditional media!

Associated Press Images (lots of great photos, mostly of celebrities in Hall H, but some excellent cosplay photos as well, like the one at left. Remember, it’s fun until somebody loses an eyeball, then it’s funny. And if you’re a hip comics fan, you’ll use a fulchau.)

Associated Press News

Reuters

USA Today has an easy-to-use Comic-Con banner which breaks coverage down by day, but I can’t link to it. Try either link below, it will probably show up.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/livefrom/index
http://www.usatoday.com/life/comics/default.htm

The New York Times

CNN

Bleeding Cool, which really took the piss out of everyone else with some great reportage, covering the stuff others were too squeamish or scared to cover!

One rumor: MTV will soon start a comics site. Until then, go check out:

MTV Movies Blog, a general wrap-up, and, of course, MTV Splash Page (which has no CCI tag).

Salon

Speakeasy, at the Wall Street Journal

Local paper San Diego Union-Tribune

The LA Weekly reports on the Hall H experience, which includes what I’m calling “The Bic Stick Incident”.

And, of course, Publishers Weekly.  They don’t have a CCI tag, but they do cover comics all year long, not like those johnny-come-latelys who just discovered how cool comics are. They even sent a romance writer to blog her experiences!

While we’re gathering our thoughts, hydrating, and moving to a new secured location, Newsarama’s Lucas Siegel has all the bullet points news from Marvel and DC at the show. Discuss. We’ll wait.

Probably the biggest “classic comics” announcement at SD10 was a new series of reprints of Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse comic strip. Disney is partnering with Fantagraphics for the reprints, which will begin in 2011.

Gottfredson’s Mickey was far from the benign company spokesman we all know and love. Rather he was a bold, dynamic adventurer, fighting real bad guys like the Phantom Blot and Peg-Leg Pete. According to this piece by Douglas Wolk, the deal was cemented at Comic-Con. Jacob Covey will design the series. Like much entertainment of the era, the strip has some racial overtones that are very unfortunate, which have never been reprinted, but according to Gary Groth , this will be unexpurgated:

I think I’ve persuaded them to allow us to reprint it in its original form. There’s some sensitive material–material that would be considered racist today, and should have been but wasn’t considered racist then. My plan and my hope is to reprint it exactly as it was, with some explanatory text for a modern audience. I want to keep it intact.

David Gerstein has a fuller account of the strip’s history and importance here.

Image Comics and Concept Art House announced plans to release a series of Daomu comics based on one of China’s best-selling novel series. This will be Daomu’s debut in the U.S., following a successful graphic novel launch in China earlier this year. The upcoming comic book series is the first of several Daomu releases planned to include games, an animated series, and a feature film.

 Daomu, which translates to “tomb raider,” explores an underground world that has been active in China for thousands of years. After witnessing his father’s violent murder, Sean Liu discovers that his family belongs to a secret society of tomb raiders. Led by his uncle, Sean joins an elite team of Daomu to go deep underground in search of answers. Who are they? Who—or what—killed Sean’s father? And what horrors await beneath the earth’s surface? With a distinctive digital art style and high-energy adventures steeped in Chinese tradition and superstition, the comic series will follow Sean’s coming of age as a modern-day tomb raider and his quest to uncover the truth behind his father’s death.
 
The Daomu Bi Ji or “tomb raider’s journal” novel series on which the comics are based has become a sensation in China since its debut in 2007, reaching well over 20 million fans. Concept Art House, a leading digital art and entertainment company with a focus on transmedia storytelling, is responsible for the popular novel’s conversion to graphic format. Their first Daomu graphic novel released in Asia in early 2010 and quickly secured the #2 spot on Dangdang.com, China’s leading ecommerce website. Though Western audiences have long embraced Japanese comics and cartoons, Daomu’s arrival in the U.S. is a first for a high-profile Chinese entertainment property.
 
“The quality of comics in China is exceptional,” says Image Comics Publisher Eric Stephenson. “Daomu is no exception. Daomu has exemplary digital art and an outstanding story. We’re excited to be bringing this amazing graphic novel to the United States for its first English translation.”
 
“American comics are extremely popular among Chinese comic book fans due to their great stories and amazing artwork. We believe the American audience will love Daomu for the same reasons,” says James Zhang, Concept Art House’s CEO. “Image is a great partner, not only because they understand quality art and story, but also because they truly respect the creator’s vision. We’re thrilled to be working with Image to introduce Daomu to the U.S.”
 
Intended for readers ages 13 and up, the first Daomu comic book will release this winter. To learn more, visit Image Comics at http://www.imagecomics.com.

For a show that gets “bigger and bigger” every year, no publishers we talked to were experiencing bigger and bigger sales. That’s the real problem.

Odin’s throne at the Marvel booth was a real hit, however. The actual prop taken from the film, the great doors opened to reveal the Destroyer armor behind it. The display was so popular that even the Teamsters and convention personnel who were quickly breaking down the hall wouldn’t let the throne get taken down until they all had their picture taken with it. It was a new benchmark for a comics publishing booth at Comic-Con — in an environment that is one big theme park, it’s getting to be the only way to stand out.

More later from the road. BIG, BIG ups to Kate and Torsten for manning the home internet.

The Green Lantern movie logo

The Avengers movie logo

DC

Peter David will be writing episodes of the upcoming cartoon Young Justice,which is based on the comic of the same name that he wrote for an almost five-year run.

Also in comics to screen news, Geoff Johns will be writing an episode of the live action TV series Smallville, featuring Booster Gold and Blue Beetle. Meanwhile, the other way around, the popular Smallville character Chloe Sullivan will enter the DCU as a character in the new Jimmy Olsen backup series in ACTION COMICS, starting in #893.

DC brought the prop corpse of the alien Green Lantern Abin Sur from the upcoming GREEN LANTERN movie to Comic-Com and put it on display at the show. Pictures are available here.  By the way, DC has unveiled the new GREEN LANTERN movie logo.

Marvel

Not to be outdone, Marvel has unveiled the first look at the movie logo on its new THE AVENGERS site.

Four anime series produced by Mad House and based on Marvel comics titles will come out on G4TV next year. The Iron Man, X-Men, Wolverine and Blade anime series were announced last year at Comic-Con, but this is the first time that anyone has learned which American television channel would be airing the cartoons. Iron Man will appear in Japan on October 1.

It was announced Sunday that Joss Whedon’s THE AVENGERS movie has added Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk and The Hurt Locker’s Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye to its cast of superheroes. In other movie news, Marvel also announced they have regained the film rights to their comic THE PUNISHER.

COWBOYS & ALIENS

Jon Favreau announced that this upcoming movie will be filmed and shown entirely in 2-D, despite being based on a comic! A revelation, I know. Are they even allowed to do that?

Dark Horse

Hot on the heels of its successful Conan, Kull and Solomon Kane comics, Dark Horse has announced a new title of works from the same author: ROBERT E. HOWARD’S SAVAGE SWORD, featuring Howard heroes such as Dark Agnes, El Borak, Sailor Steve Costigan, and Bran Mak Morn. Launching in December, each part will be 80 pages in length and perfect bound.

IDW

IDW announced (on Saturday) that they will be reprinting John Byrne’s NEXT MEN comics series, which ran during the early ’90s. The series ran for thirty issues and a prequel.

Avatar

Avatar has announced that its series CROSSED, which premiered as two miniseries, will now become an ongoing series entitled CROSSED: BADLANDS. The first story arc will be written by Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows. The second story arc will be written by Jamie Delano. There will also be a CROSSED 3D graphic novel created by David Lapham and Gianluca Paliarini. CROSSED is set in a future in which a disease renders its victims utterly immoral, and also marks their faces with a distinctive red cross.

Kate Fitzsimons writes for Publishers Weekly, Publishers Weekly Comics Week, and her personal comics and geek culture blog geekiferous.com.

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