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WSJ’s Jamin Brophy-Warren says that despite the uncertainty of the market comic fans can’t be separated from their beloved super heroes at ComicCon this year. There’s even a comic book featuring Barack Obama.

The creation of one Takashi “Bob” Okazaki, an illustrator & visual designer by trade and hip-hop nerd by pleasure, Afro Samurai began as a series of dōjinshi (amateur manga) and toys centered around a big-haired swordfighter wandering around a fantastical sci-fi Japan/America/Everywhere Else setting; things really took off after an animated promo reel was commissioned, which piqued the interest of Samuel L. Jackson. A five-episode television anime was completed in 2007, budgeted at a handsome one million or so dollars per episode; Jackson starred, RZA scored, Spike TV aired, blood spilled, East met West, and it was forever sealed in stone that Gonzo actually could produce a consistent-looking series, given a small dump truck of cash parked in the lobby.

That’s not enough to demolish my excitement at the opportunity to meet and talk with young artists who open a beaten art binder to show me the art and the pitch script for the comic they are off to show to the various publishers hankering for new material. My irritation is immediately squashed when the writer of a gorgeous-looking new Image graphic novel called Heathentown tells me that her day job is “zookeeper.” All the good stuff outweighs the bad, and all the things I might believe I’m missing are certainly not enough to call the overall experience a negative one.

But I looked at that empty booth for the organizing system and I thought about me, and I thought about business, and the economy—I thought about what works and what doesn’t. I wonder with some of these vendors, these artists, these companies–are they really asking themselves ‘what problem does this solve?’ I wonder if I went further down this line of thought if we’ll find out why some people/companies/ideas are more successful than others in comic book land.