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Tuesday, July 27, 2004
Comic-Con Fan Report part 5
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
I’m I up to five already? I guess so.
Before I start with the memoirs I want to tell you about an e-mail I got. I received an e-mail from Gary Sassamn, Director of Programming of the San Diego Comic-Con saying how much he enjoys my reports (I thanked him for putting on a great Con). Tom Collins (yes, that’s his real name) said he’s enjoyed the reports as well and is jealous of all the fun I had. If HaloScan didn’t erase all the Blogger comments you’d already know this. I even got link to by Mark Evanier (and the man I’m convinced is his little brother Mike Sterling). I’m not saying this to feed my ego; I just want to thank those individuals and all the others who have been enjoying my reports. I sometimes feel like I’m writing in a vacuum and this feedback makes me feel really good about what I do. I thank you all.
Also, according to Milo George, my squirrel name is Lord or Lady Nibbles his Nuts II. My only question is…how did they know? Alright, back to our regular scheduled programs:
More of Fri.
After three straight panels it was time for one last trip to that exhibit floor. The Kirby panel got out at a little before 4:00 p.m. and the Hernandez Bros were signing at the Fantagraphics table right at 4:00. Tony Millionaire was still doing some signing so I decided to get the latest Maakies collection autographed by him. This marked the fourth time I made my way to an appearance of this great artist. I thanked him for an e-mail he sent me recently thanking me for saying nice things about his Star Wars Tales story on The Comics Journal message board. We exchanged pleasantries and I’ve got another great collection of his strip with a sketch of Drinky Crow in it. Peter Bagge was also there but he was packing up. I love Hate and a lot of other stuff by him (I think I might be the only person who bought all six issues of Sweatshop) but I’d feel about bothering him for a signature and a sketch while he’s making his way out. I’m looking forward to his book that was announced at the Dark Horse panel.
By this time Jaime Hernandez showed. I mentioned that we shop at the same comic book store, which he thought was cool. We both agreed how lucky we were to have a store to shop at that had such a great back stock. I gave him Love & Rockets #11 to sign and he flipped through it. Seems this was the first time he’d seen the book in print. He even asked me if it was ok if he looked through it. Of course! It’s quite a feeling to hand one of the greatest cartoonist their latest work hot off the presses. I told him I’m really looking forward to the Locas book, he said he is too.
I moved over to the right to get a signing and a sketch from Jaime’s brother Gilbert. I mentioned that I was at the Vertigo panel and I’m looking forward to Sloth. He was nice enough to pull out some pages of the book that have been all but lettered. I noticed that a page had lemons raining down from the sky. When I asked him about them he said “The Godfather had oranges, I have lemons.” Beto also had a mini and a videotape companion that he was selling. I picked both, no questions asked (well, that’s not true, I asked how much). The mini, titled The Naked Cosmos, is Beto doing a superhero story as only he can. Imagine if 60’s Marvel didn’t have to deal with the Comics Code Authority and you’ll start to get the idea. I haven’t seen the video yet but when I do (and when I figure out how to get vidcaps on this site) I’ll post a review of both the mini and the tape.
After that coolness I went over to the Dark Horse book. They were in a tie with Fantagraphics for best signings at a booth. Will Eisner, Frank Miller, Howard Chaykin, Michael Chabon, Mike Mignola, Kurt Busiek, Joe Casey, Stan Sakai, Dean Haspeil and more were there. Unfortunately my schedule prevented me from showing up to any of those. Ladies and gentleman, no matter if you’re on the floor or going to panels, the name of the game is plan it out.
I did end up walking behind Patton Oswalt and Brian Posehn. I didn’t want to bother them or anything, but it was cool to see that they were there. Man, I need to pick up that Oswalt CD.
6:00 p.m. rolled around and it was time for Spothlight on Aaron McGruder, the cartoonist behind Boondocks. The room was pretty well attended, second to only the Kirby panel for most populated comics-related panel I went to. McGruder was up on the stage all by his lonesome talking about his career. He started talking about how he was first inspired by the early-90’s Image and Milestone comic lines, no doubt the only cartoonist you can find in the newspaper comics page who can say that. When he attended the ChicagoCon and Milestone co-founder Mike Davis (who later made his way to the panel himself) made a speech about being persistent in the comics biz, McGruder knew what he had to do to get his name out. Eventually he got his stuff to Universal Press Syndicate and he’s been with them ever since.
McGruder shared a funny anecdote about his first time meeting with UPS head. McGruder described him as a “white man so white, you feel good that there’s a guy that white around. I mean, he looked like Santa Claus.” McGruder expected to be asked to change something but the only input he got was “I think there should be more angry black children in your comic.” Ever since then, McGruder said, he’s gotten along just fine with UPS.
Now, there was rumor that got posted on Newsarama that a fight broke out on the panel. There probably wasn’t. At the very least, if there was a fight it was diffused pretty quickly and didn’t disrupt anything because nobody else in the room, certainly not our speaker, noticed anything. There was, though, one questioner who sounded pretty confrontational towards McGruder, although the fact that he was all the way in the back and had to raise his voice to be heard probably contributed to that. Still, he tried to paint McGruder as a hypocrite for working for, as the questioner put it, “whitey” while criticizing Colin Powell and Condaleeza Rice for the same thing. McGruder clarified his position by saying he didn’t criticized those two for working for a rich white man; he criticized them for working for a man who started an illegal war. Overall, this was a room filled with liberal college kids who just absorbed and applauded pretty much every word McGruder said, myself included.
McGruder said that an animated pilot for Boondocks has already been made and is directed by comic book artist and another Milestone co-founder, Denys Cowan. We can expect that next year. A computer animation 3-D movie is also in the works, but that won’t be out for a long time.
Overall, this might be my favorite panel I went to at the Con. McGruder is such a smart and engaging speaker; if you have the chance to see him lecture I encourage you to check it out. Absolutely wonderful.
I decided to give the Eisners their own post, so that’ll be up soon. After that we’ve got Saturday with the Simpsons and Sin City panels. Then I’m done and we’ll be back to more Brill Building goodness. Until then, have a good night, folks
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