Conventions

by Mike Scigliano

-- A guest list and the expenses associated with it, like everything else involved in producing a comicon, come out of your overall budget.  You've got to balance the books to make the show work.  Hotel rooms and airfare add up quickly and spending all your cash on guests but next to nothing on marketing or programming needs, for instance, could lead to a train wreck pretty quickly.

by AK Benjamin

-- [AK Benjamin is the husband of previous Beat contributor Meridith Jensen-Benjamin. Here's his view of the con, with some great advice.]

Seriously. I feel like it is New Year's Day again now that you-know-what is over. I can clean the closets, file things away, start NEW projects and just get on with life. BONUS: Comic-Con was so early this year that I actually have five weeks of summer left!

Fun photos from San Diego Comic-Con! I'm no 'virgin' to cons but this was my first time at the BIG SHOW and working at a publisher (Fantagraphics) instead being a freelance cartoonist. Still, I managed to sneak in some photos during my bathroom breaks. More fun below:

Courtesy of Jamie Coville, here are 16 of the top panels from Comic-Con 2012. It's almost as good as being there and if you don't like crowds, it's better. Many thanks to Jamie for providing this service. Jamie's photos can be seen here.

by Merideth Jenson-Benjamin

In what has become an annual pilgrimage for the Benjamin family, last week we packed our Febreeze and granola bars, and headed out to San Diego Comic-Con. Once we got home, I had a post-mortem with my ten year old daughter about the experience. Our conversation follows:

Note: My notes for the next two days were increasingly less and less. Saturday and Sunday really were one HUGE day broken up by about 5 hours of sleep, but lets dive in!

On Sunday at Comic Con panel dedicated to Darwyn Cooke's Parker series of graphic novels, Darwyn Cooke and editor Scott Dunbier announced that a fourthParker adaptation would be published in late 2013 and that it would be based on Donald Westlake's Parker novel, The Handle.

Anyone who has been to the San Diego Comic Con can tell you that a large number of the attendees require a little extra help moving around, as there is a small but significant portion of disabled con-goers.  And as demonstrated by the recent Comic Con Talk-Back panel, working to ensure that disabled patrons can enjoy their Con experience as the able-bodied can be a big challenge for organizers, even with the best intentions.

By Henry Barajas-- IDW was kind enough to invite me to a see a magic show at their booth at the San Diego Comic Convention as if there wasn’t enough magic in comic con. I have to admit I was a bit leary about attending a magic show. I’m very ignorant of the whole thing. I was afraid they were going to saw me in half and separate me from my nicely shaved legs. I got to the booth and I was greeted by the creators of Smoke and Mirrors, Mike Costa and Jon Armstrong. Jon is an award winning magician that has been performing internationally for over twenty years. Before we started the interview Jon was kind enough to do some card tricks.

by Alexander Añé -- One of the hot topics in the comics industry is the movement into the digital medium, and of course the biggest question in that migration is, "what's it going to cost?" Sunday afternoon at San Diego Comic-Con, the leading voices in this debate came together to discuss this topic: Mark Waid representing Thrillbent, Scott Kurtz the creator of PvP, IDW Publishing's ePublishing director Jeff Webber, Chris Ross attending as Top Shelf's director of digital publications, and moderating the panel is comiXology's Chip Mosher.

By Matthew Petz -- I knew the trip was going to be all that and a bag of chips when my flight had the Comedian (Jeffery Dean Morgan) and real live penguins! Seriously, the penguins had been on the Today show and were going back to the San Diego Zoo. Mid flight the handlers brought them through the cabin to a 100 camera phones clicking away. Mine included.