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Hm, well…not really sure what happened Thursday or whether Robert Pattinson was dreamy or not…our day began with a fine breakfast with Jeff Smith and FMB. Then we raced off to our only panel of the show, the Marketing Indie Comics Panel. Shannon Wheeler’s plane has been delayed, so Beaucoup Kevin took over for him. Chip Mosher and Sam Humphries filled out the panel. Much to The Beat‘s surprise, the panel was standing room only. The discussion was lively and much frank advice about marketing and moxie was dispensed. The panel featured Mosher’s Three Rules, which were

Be Shameless
Be Aggressive

…and he never got around to #3, but I’m sure he’ll chime in soon.

After that, we caught up with some peeps, found a quiet spot behind a tray of gravy to charge our phone, and discovered that the Wi-Fi in the hall is completely jammed, just like everything else. Our World War game is going to shit!

Then we hit a few booths for some interviews, grabbed some snacks where possible, and soaked it all in. Highlight of the day, as usual, was catching up with animation legend Floyd Norman, whose wisdom on all things is boundless. Norman mentioned that the worst thing in the world is working with a wimpy director. “I’d rather work with a tyrant who knows what they want. When a director isn’t in charge, it’s a disaster.”

A couple of people today suggested that the crowd looked dispirited. Nikki Finke’s blog suggests that buzz is down, and it’s definitely true that the big Studio City booths are less spectacular this year — no giant Disney pirate ship or Owlship or Spirit blasting snow this year. The SciFi’s shiny thing is gone (we heard it was structurally unstable) and has been replaced by a very authentic SyFy Cafe out on Fifth Street which we hope to check out later.

Has the air gone out of the hall? We know our 6 pm walk from the IDW booth to Hall G was the smoothest yet…the Twilighters leaving the hall seems to have taken a lot of the crowd with it. And that’s not so bad. It’s a lot more fun when everything isn’t ruled by crowd control.

The evening progressed to the Circle of Confusion/IDW party, followed by an evening at the Hyatt where the people who create your fantasies were milling about. We spotted everyone from Stan Lee to Jill Thompson to the Hurricane, and everyone in between. At one point we wondered if there was another spot on Earth where you could see so many cool people in one spot. The answer may well be “no” and that is why Comic-Con is still the bomb.

BTW, the job that the folks running the San Diego Comic-Con have done of keeping 125,000 people moving and fed and safe is nothing short of incredible. We have had some run-ins with security that were unpleasant and unnecessary, but that an event of this size DOES run so smoothly is amazing and a testament to the amount of planning that goes into it.

1 COMMENT

  1. Some discontent noted and voiced over the Twilighters and the Twilight panel:

    Added to that craziness was the fact that today was when the Twilight panel was. I have to say, from what I heard from lots of people just walking around there today, most people did not want them there. For some time now Comic Con regulars have not liked that Hollywood has started taking over, but they reluctantly welcomed them as they got to get glimpses of movies that were geared toward them. [. . .]

    Problem, ‘Twilight’ panel was right before and there was no way they were getting all of them out of Hall H in time to let people in on time for ‘AVATAR’. And that’s exactly what happened. While there were tons of empty seats, they closed the doors because it started. This did not bode well for the nerds outside.