It’s big. Look at the size of that thing.

That’s what every con virgin says when asked what they think of the show. We are in a scheduling rush right now, a few hours of free time spent talking to old friends like Scott Shaw! and Katie Merritt and John Layman and oh a whole bunch of folks we don’t even remember. You people playing along at home can follow what’s going better than those of us trapped within the perfect storm.

There didn’t seem to be any real big news rippling across the floor. A second Avengers title? Cool.Random House picked up rights to the first two Flight anthologies. The crowds at the vidgame/movie/manga end of the floor were almost impassable. By contrast back in the small press area it was busy but manageable. San Diego’s intellectual trickle down is in full effect: over at the Global Hobo/Spark Plug end of the show is was quiet, with only a few people hanging around,. Those few people, however, were an agent and a book editor, who will basically ensure that someday the IP based on actual cartoonists are disseminated to the busy end of the room.

Everyone is pretty much in lockdown necessity mode, taking all the meetings, and getting all the promotional stuff done that has to get done. No time for idle chit chat — there’s work to be done.

The crowds were enormous and mostly young. Were they here for comics? Probably not primarily.

More Later.