San Diego Comic Con Options

[Eric Adams]

Anyone here going to San Diego Comic Con? It's my first time setting up there. Kind of exciting and terrifying.

Check out my SDCC exclusive though: LACKLUSTER WORLD BOX SETS! Limited Edition of 10.



Details: http://ericadams.net/2012/07/09/lackluster...comic-con-2012/

[ChuckMoore]

Threadless at San Diego Comic Con



Threadless has got a booth at Comic-Con this weekend!! They're selling different batches of comic tees and regular tees each day + they’ll also have some other fun prizes and SWAG! Make sure to go high five Lance & Tristan at the Threadless booth (1617)! Follow #SDCC for updates on what tees we’re selling each day.

[ChuckMoore]

Ape Entertainment Schedule for the Weekend

[Gonzogoose]

DISNEY PUBLISHING WORLDWIDE AT COMIC-CON 2012

Disney Publishing Worldwide (DPW) kicks off Comic-Con 2012 with a panel featuring internationally bestselling author Eoin Colfer and his blockbuster Artemis Fowl series; an exciting sneak peek of the upcoming Disney Epic Mickey graphic novel; and a book signing with rising YA author Victoria Schwab.

For media images, interviews, show appointments, and exclusive story opportunities, please contact Jennifer Corcoran: jennifer.corcoran@disney.com


PANELS & SIGNINGS

Sunday, July 15

1:00pm – 2:00pm
Artemis Fowl: 8 in 8 with Eoin Colfer
Location: 7AB
In celebration of The Last Guardian—final book in the bestselling Artemis Fowl series—Eoin Colfer will tour the US with this unique show which portrays all 8 Artemis Fowl books (including the finale) in 8 minutes! With the help of some
lucky audience members cast as Artemis Fowl and Holly Short, Eoin will go back to where it all began and perform the books live. Don’t miss this hilarious look at the beloved series about the teenage criminal mastermind.

1:00pm – 2:00pm
Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power Of Two
Location: 25ABC
Warren Spector, Marv Wolfman, and Peter David discuss the highly anticipated "Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two" video game set for release November 18, 2012. The panel will explore how the team mapped
out the story for this innovative new title as well as unveil the first details surrounding the "Disney Epic Mickey 2" graphic novel, releasing exclusively in Europe in conjunction with the game's arrival in stores. Legendary
comic writer and New York Times best-selling author Peter David will discuss and unveil images from the upcoming book. This graphic novel collection brings all of the Disney Epic Mickey comics together for the first
time, retelling the wonderful and magical journey of Mickey Mouse through Cartoon Wasteland.

1:30pm – 2:30pm
What’s Hot in YA Fiction, Victoria Schwab Signing
Location: AA09
Victoria Schwab will be signing copies of The Near Witch, a spellbinding debut novel—part love story, part fairy tale—from an exciting new voice in YA literature.

[ChuckMoore]

Visit Red 5 Comics at the San Diego Comic-Con 2012

Red 5 Comics will be at San Diego Comic Con again this year! Come by and visit us at Booth #2006 in the Independent Press section. (This is the same location as last year if you saw us then.) We will have all of our back issues and current issues for sale. Get those Atomic Robo TPBs that you’ve been missing or those rare older issues you need to complete your collection. Plus you can meet creators from Neozoic, Dead or Alive, Drone, Afterburn, Abyss, Abyss 2, Box 13, Midknight, and more! We’ll also be handing out thousands of free comics, so stop by and say HI!

Red 5 Comics will also be at the Eisner Awards. Atomic Robo and the Ghost of Station X is competing for Best Limited Series. Wish Team Robo luck!

[ChuckMoore]

Daytime pop culture, nighttime parties

The San Francisco Chronicle (via AP) shares some tidbits from Comic Con after hours...


A general view of the crowd celebrating at the Fear Net and Resident Evil Party at
Voyeur Nightclub for Comic-Con weekend on Friday July 13, 2012, in San Diego.

Comic-Con isn't just a daytime affair.

After the convention center closes for the night, the streets of downtown San Diego come alive with parties galore — dozens of events over the four-day fan festival.

"The Con is for the fans," said comic artist Eric J as he navigated between party destinations. "For the professionals and exhibitors, it's also for networking and making contacts, and that happens at the parties. Even though everyone's having a great time, more business gets done after hours. And it's not just business. There are friendships made at the convention and at the parties that last a lifetime."

The festivities began on the eve of Comic-Con with Wednesday's gathering for "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2," which drew crowds to the Hard Rock Hotel's rooftop bar. The next night, it hosted a party for "The Expendables 2," where Arnold Schwarzenegger made an appearance, and Microsoft's Xbox 360 gathering, where guests previewed games like "Dance Central 3," ''Deadlight" and "Halo 4."

Partygoers also played around at Ubisoft's soiree inside a sprawling suite overlooking Petco Park stadium. Celebrants such as "Hart of Dixie" and "Friday Night Lights" star Scott Porter tried out games like "Assassin's Creed III" and "ZombiU" as they nibbled on cheese puff-crusted fish sandwiches.

The stadium itself was home to a massive party Thursday: VH1's "Dawn of the Con," which was open to all Comic-Con pass holders and hosted by rocker Rob Zombie.

The Wired Cafe atop the Omni Hotel held a celebration for TV's "Dexter," where guests sipped "killer cosmos" and "dark defenders" while chowing down on pasta next to a wall-sized portrait of the lovable serial killer and his sister made entirely of different kinds of knives. Yvonne Strahovski, who is guest-starring in the upcoming sixth season, kept court in a corner booth with her former "Chuck" co-star Vik Sahay.

Friday brought another round of networking and partying opportunities, including Creative Arts Agency's joint event with Samsung at the Hard Rock Hotel, which inspired a spontaneous vampire gathering: Alexander Skarsgard and Deborah Ann Woll of "True Blood," and Nina Dobrev and Ian Somerhalder of "The Vampire Diaries" were among the revelers.

The Hard Rock also held events Friday for Warner Bros. Television, "Halo 4" and Spike TV.

Maxim magazine and Fox at Home took over the rooftop of the nearby Andaz Hotel, recreating Paddy's Pub from the comedy series "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." Cast members snacked on hot dogs and sliders, while Christopher Mintz-Plasse was engrossed in conversation with a DJ spinning hip-hop.

Saturday's soirees include Entertainment Weekly's annual poolside party, and a Playboy and "True Blood" event that promises to recreate the restaurants and landmarks from the popular HBO show.

Comic-Con continues through Sunday.

Original story - http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/articl...ies-3707007.php

[ChuckMoore]

Friday: Argh, Lines!



An interesting read on the actual experience that sometimes is Comic Con....

Alternatively titled, “I’ve made a terrible mistake.” As fun as standing 5.5 hours (10 am – 3:45 pm) in line in 85 degree weather may seem, it is most certainly not. It’s especially horrible when you miss The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones.

When I did eventually get in this god forsaken hall, I found out that there’s a gigantic metal bar in front of the press pit which wouldn’t be so bad if I had a longer lens and the other people taking photos weren’t standing on f**king stools. So no pictures of the panels because they look terrible.

Read the full story titled "Friday: Argh, Lines!" here via The Blemish.

[ChuckMoore]

The Joy of Speed Dating at Comic Con
Though the geeky convention is dominated by men, it’s actually a haven for women.

Another interesting story, this time from Slate.


Yes, you can find love at Comic Con - AFP/Getty Images.

The people who attend conventions catering to geeks—like the bustling celebration of video games, graphic novels, and anime that was last month’s New York Comic Con—don’t have the best reputations in the wider culture. Straight male devotees are generally portrayed as awkward, socially inept, and pervy, a strange hybrid of The Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy and a subway flasher. The female geeks (if they are shown at all) don’t come off as much better, seen either as weird, freaky, or awkward—think Charlyne Yi in Knocked Up and Zooey Deschanel in New Girl—or as overly sexualized cosplayers, like the perennially popular Slave Leia.

None of these stereotypes are completely false (e.g. the anime convention that attracted a sex offender)—but they aren’t completely true, either. In fact, New York Comic Con (NYCC) and other fan specific spaces also do a tremendous job of inverting many carefully crafted social norms.
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Nowhere was this more apparent than at New York Comic Con’s speed dating event. Prejudices that plague the wider dating market are checked at the door: Asian men—who don’t fare well by OkCupid’s metrics—are a highly sought after commodity, possibly due to anime and Japanese dramas finally showing Asian male characters as objects of desire rather than derision. Spending three minutes talking about Gundam collectibles is more likely to excite a prospect instead of making their eyes glaze over. Guys won’t be mocked in front of the entire Internet for being awesome at Magic the Gathering. And, unlike traditional dating circles that try to encourage women to forgo feminist ideas in order to win true love—never call a man! Play by “The Rules”!—at NYCC speed dating, the women call the shots. This is even more poignant considering the comics and their fan worlds are heavily dominated by male artists and creators who seem to think that women are strongest when they forget to wear clothing. To carve out a space where women set the tone for engagement is nothing less than amazing.

Continue reading here.

[ChuckMoore]

10 Things I Learned About Joss Whedon At Comic Con 2012



From CinemaBlend:

10 - Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along-Blog 2
9 - Much Ado About Nothing Is Done
8 - "If You Can Write It And You Can Make It…There’s Nothing You Can’t Do"
7 - Hitting Broadway
6 - On Crafting Likable Villains
5 - Assembling The Avengers
4 - Big Bad Corporations
3 - Female Power
2 - Who Is Kevin?
1 - "My life is one endless geek moment"

If any of these topics intrigue you, get all the details via...
http://www.cinemablend.com/new/10-Things-I...2012-31906.html

[ChuckMoore]

Back to Slate for a New Series of Interesting Articles



Meeting Our Cultural Overlords at Comic-Con
Entry 1: How comics came to rule the pop landscape

My comic books origin story is spotty and uninspiring. In third grade, I'd giggle through Mad magazine from cover to cover, as all precocious third-graders should. I indulged a brief flirtation with the Punisher in middle school—but even my 12-year-old self blanched a little at the empty violence.
I had a close friend in high school who was a full-on comic book geek, forever flipping through copies of Groo and Mai the Psychic Girl. I never caught the bug. Instead, I slaked my thirst for narrative by reading fiction and fed my need for light escapism by following pro sports.

As an adult, a few graphic novels have crossed my transom. I loved Pyongyang, about life as an expat in North Korea. I adored Watchmen, a brilliant meta-dissection of our superhero fascination. I enjoyed Y: The Last Man, a high-concept action comedy that posited a world where dudes all die off and women rule the wreckage.

But, like many grown-ups I know, I feel lost when I attempt to comprehend our current, comics-saturated pop culture moment. Consider that, once the box-office tallies are all notched, the biggest movies of this summer will no doubt include The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, and The Dark Knight. That's a towering, teetering stack of comic book provenance looming over the multiplex. And TV offers no respite: The Walking Dead—an AMC zombiepocalypse show based on a hit comic book series—is among the most-watched dramas in the history of basic cable.

At this point, if called upon, I could recite the key facts: whence Iron Man derives his power, which realm Thor hails from, why Batman is doomed to haunt the night. But not because I've ever read (or had any emotional connection to) those comic books. I've been indoctrinated, along with everybody else who lives in this era. Comics have won. We can assimilate, or we can lock ourselves out of the dominant cultural conversation.

Read the rest of the story:
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/dispatc...overlords_.html

Meeting Our Cultural Overlords at Comic-Con
Entry 2: Why do we love superheroes?

I understand the allure of comic books. Stunning artwork. Twisting plots. Serial cliffhangery.

What I've never been clear on is why this visual and narrative approach is so pressed into the service of stories about people who wear capes and fly through the air. How did it come to be that comic books—and comic-book-inspired movies, and the fans who adore those movies, and the culture at large—are all deeply obsessed with the notion of the superhero?

Thursday afternoon at Comic-Con, I attended a panel that I hoped might shed some light on the matter. A group of academics had convened in a medium-size conference room to explore the past and the future of superhero studies. What flavor of seminar was this? Let us note that when the projector clicked on, the first slide was a photo of Carl Jung.

Read the rest of the story:
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/dispatc...right_now_.html

Meeting Our Cultural Overlords at Comic-Con
Entry 3: How to flirt in a Stormtrooper costume

Thursday afternoon's Comic-Con panel on the sociology of cosplay began with several bits of useful advice. ("Don't go for Optimus Prime as your first costume. You'll never nail it." "Be nice to each other, because everybody else always treats us like freaks.") But it soon morphed into a very large group therapy session.

"It's really hard to run in armor," a man dressed as some sort of outerspace soldier lamented with a sigh. "It's impossible for me to get anywhere in a hurry." The crowd murmured in assent.

"People forget that we're human beings," said a woman dressed as something decidedly un-human. "They keep wanting to take photos of us no matter what. They hover over us while we're eating. They think we don't need to go to the bathroom."

Read the rest of the story:
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/dispatc...perheroes_.html

[ChuckMoore]

Comic-Con 2012: The Zombie Apocalypse Is Nigh
From SPIN Magazine



AS WE ALL KNOW, POPULAR CULTURE ROTATES THROUGH EPOCHS BELONGING TO ROBOTS, PIRATES AND ZOMBIES. ACCORDING TO THE PREVAILING VIBE OF THIS YEAR'S COMIC-CON, WHICH ARE WE IN RIGHT NOW?

Zombies. No two ways about it. The Walking Dead mania has reached new heights — San Diego's baseball stadium Petco Park has been taken over by a Walking Dead-themed attraction called "Escape," in which "survivors" who pay $75 for the experience attempt to make it through an obstacle course in the stadium while being pursued by zombies. (If they touch you — well, that's it.) The Walking Dead #100 came out this week, and is apparently going to be this month's best-selling comic book by far; AMC debuted a trailer for The Walking Dead's third season at a panel today. On top of that, there was an unaffiliated Zombie Walk today — several hundred people in homemade zombie outfits shambling amok in the Gaslamp Quarter- — ulminating in a Resident Evil-themed party called "Con of the Dead."

Read the rest of the story here.

[ChuckMoore]

Fantagraphics Books appears to be having a great time at Comic Con. They've also been doing photo updates following each day of the show. Saturday has yet to go live, but you might want to check out all the fun from Thursday and Friday. Here are the links...

Thursday...
http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?opt...&Itemid=113

Friday...
http://www.fantagraphics.com/index.php?opt...&Itemid=113