From: [d t homas] at [best.com] (Dave Thomas)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: CON:SDCC Report Day 1 (Edited)
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 00:37:29 GMT

The following is a report on the SDCC. It has been edited from the
complete article available on my web site (basically most of the
non-comics content has been removed). The full article is available at
the sight in my signature at the end. Enjoy.

So here are my thoughts on four days in San Diego at the largest comic
related gathering in the world (or so it is
claimed). I took no notes during the show, so all of this is from
recollection. If there are any errors here, let me
know and I'll do my best to correct them. 

Thursday, July 4

Actually, I suppose our Con related experiences started on Tuesday,
when Kim and I joined Tyg, Michael Ellis,
Bill May and Tyg's friend Amanda (I think that was her name) for
dinner at Faultline, a local
micro-brewery/restaurant. It was a fun evening, the conversation
mostly consisting of B5 and comics talk. We are
relative newcomers to the SF area, so it's always fun to encounter
like-minded individuals 

Thursday started at 4:30 AM, when a horde of raccoons attempted to
dismantle our house. Actually, I'm not sure
how many raccoons there were, or what their exact plans were, but it
did sound like they were using heavy
construction equipment in our back yard. Our three cats did an
excellent job of staring at the back door, and the
racket ended just in time for the alarm to go off at 5:00 AM. After an
uneventful trip to the airport, an
unremarkable flight and the usual nonsense at the rental car counter
(reserve a sub-compact, get a car that will
seat 10 comfortably), we make our way to the SD Convention Center and
arrive around 9:30. We already had our
badges, so it was just a matter of getting lined up for badge holders,
and then making our way upstairs where we
had to wait until 10 to get into the Convention. 

We roamed around about half the dealer/exhibition area, not really
looking for anything in particular at the
moment. Kim did inquire about Babylon 5 cards at any card dealer, only
to find that either the complete sets they
had were already sold out, or were being sold at rather ridiculous
prices ($50 and up, without holograms). Kim
also found the Wizards Of The Coast booth and was soon engrossed in a
game of NetRunner, so I was free to
wander around for awhile. I went past the Friends Of Lulu booth and
introduced myself to Elayne, who actually
recognized my name from my rather infrequent postings to the various
RAC groups. I also managed to say hello
to Johanna while I was there, who probably had no idea who I was but
was still polite to me anyway. I filled out
one of their surveys, though I ran into trouble when it asked me my
five favorite current series (I had not bought
a comic since moving to SF last October, plus I tend not to catch up
with stuff until after it's been out for awhile).
I had to think about that question for awhile, but managed to come up
with some answers. Some more wandering
around and chatting with various individuals, and it was time for the
first panel we wanted to attend: Byron Preiss
Mutimedia Marvel Novels, with Chris Golden, Keith R. DeCandido (whom
I've known via Genie for years) and
Peter David. I at this point had not read any of the material put out
by this company, but figured the panel
participants would make this very entertaining. We were not
disappointed. 

Peter David started the panel by saying that a few years back at the
Chicago Con they scheduled him for a panel
around Noon, which was usually lunchtime for everyone, so he bought
pizza for the audience. Since then, it
seems that he always gets scheduled for a panel at that time, and he
wanted to bring pizza, but you can't have it
delivered to the SD Con Center. After the groans from the audience
died down, he pulls out a large pack and said
"Unless you sneak it in." He proceeds to pull out a variety of
sandwiches, chips and a package of Double-Stuff
Oreos for dessert. He even brought plates and napkins so we wouldn't
make too much of a mess. While we ate,
we were treated to stories from the panel about the trials and
tribulations of putting out novels based on Marvel
characters, and the odd approval process that must sometimes be dealt
with. PAD talked about his Hulk novel,
CG talked about his X-Men trilogy, and Keith talked about all the
stuff that's coming up in the next year or so
from the publisher. Chris also talked about the X-Men film script
that's currently planned to be filmed. If you're an
X-Men fan, pray to whatever gods you worship that this thing doesn't
get made, as it sounds like just about one
of the worst things ever written (among the bigger dumb moments:
Magneto captures Storm, and takes her away
in a helicopter. A character that can fly takes away a character that
can control weather in a helicopter. Riiight).
Even if we had no food, this would have been damn entertaining, and
one of the highlights of the show. 

We then adjourned to walk the other half of the dealer's area. I
noticed that Preacher is the new not-so-old comic
to rip off people with (I bought the TPB at 50% off from one dealer
and just finished reading it. It's damn
entertaining, though I wouldn't pay the inflated back issue prices). I
also saw absolutely insane prices on X-Files
comics, particularly #1, which has been reprinted and collected twice,
and is not that great of a comic, even if you
are a fan of the show. Had I known this was in such high demand, I
would have brought mine with me and traded
it for stuff. I did manage to find some .50 and $1 comics to fill in
holes in my collection. Since I used to be a
"comics retailer" I've developed a pretty cynical attitude towards the
comics market, and so I don't like to spend
more than $1 or so on back issues, especially anything post-1990 from
even a semi-major publisher. There was
plenty of overstock to look at, though I'm not much for crawling
around on the floor, so some booths were
skipped. The exhibit area seemed to be about 50% publisher/company
exhibits and 50% retailers of some type of
collectable or other. Prices varied from average to insane,
particularly on laser discs (if the prices are higher than
what I can pay at the Virgin Megastore, I'll pass, thank you). I
didn't even really look at any of the Silver Age or
past stuff, as I wasn't there to buy any of it, though I made my usual
notice that if you were looking for any
particular "key" Marvel Silver Age book and didn't demand Mint, you
could buy it (which fits into my contention
that these comics are not as rare as price guides and dealers make
them out to be. Notice I said Marvel, not DC,
where I think finding key Silver Age books in decent shape is quite a
bit harder). 

After walking around for awhile, we became aware of one of the things
that had changed from previous years. It
used to be that you couldn't walk down an aisle without running into
an autograph line for a scantily clad porn
star promoting some product or another, or a near-naked woman serving
as a "mascot" for an exhibitor. There
was almost none of this kind of stuff this year (though I did notice
one signing in the autograph area), as well as
there being very little "risqué" art on display (one booth had placed
post-its over strategic areas of the paintings
on display). Was this due to the backlash from last year (where I
heard a lot of people complaining) or new
convention rules? I am curious to find out. 

The next panel we attended was a speech by ACLU president Nadine
Strausman (whose name I'm not sure I
spelled correctly, so I apologize in advance). Her speech was
sponsored by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund,
and consisted of a talk about censorship and comics, including some
information about current ongoing and
recently settled cases. Good speech, though as I follow this topic
pretty closely, there was not much here I wasn't
already aware of. Still, this is an extremely important topic, and one
that every comics fan should be interested in.
I hope the collection the CBLDF took up raised them a good chunk of
change. 

After leaving the Con for the day, we head to our hotel. We always
stay outside of town, as it's cheaper. We
head to the hotel we stayed at last year (and I thought we were
staying at this year), when Kim announces
"That's not where I made the reservation." It turns out that she made
reservations at one down the street. Visions
of sleeping in the car flow through my head, but it turns out OK, even
though we can't check in until later, as
there's been a power failure. Instead of waiting, we head to
McDonald's for a fine meal (well, as fine a meal as
you're going to get at one of these places). After a trip to Virtual
World (see the Web Site for details) and was back to the room for too
little sleep.


DT - MPix
"Just think of all the money you'll make down the road" - actual ex-employer quote
[d t homas] at [best.com]
http://www.best.com/~dthomas/