56 Things I May End Up Remembering From Comic-Con 2012

San Diego! Land of perpetual 73-degree weather and $12 mixed drinks!

Like fellow blog bros Ben and Kevin, I made it out to Comic-Con International this year for work. I know that the general consensus from average fans or their moms is "Wow! That must be a lot of fun!" Conversely, the people in the industry I talk to's Twitter feeds are all, "And now I will lead this march into the jaws of hell!!!!!" In actuality, I think the show has some "crap I've got to do" to it, but that's totally drowned out by awesome adventures of drunken love of the artform revelry wrapped in absurd Hollywood promo materials and cosplay.

In other words, I had a great time. Maybe the best show for me in five years of flying out as a pro.
Here's everything I can recall of vague importance that would appeal to the CKT's readership of "People I hung out with at the show who are probably vanity Googling themselves right now." Let's do it!

* Randomly before the show, I got contacted by my hometown paper The Flint Journal, and they did a story about me going to the show. That was INSANE.

* Let this be the last time I tell this story with a twinge of stress in my heart: Comic-Con was already 45-times crazier for me this year since its early weekend meant it crossed over with one of my twice-annual, ten day graduate school retreats. I can't miss these retreats and still graduate on time, so I'm eternally thankful to my program head at Hamline University Mary Rockcastle for just being like "You should just fly out four days early! It's cool!" even though she probably should have busted my chops for it. Could not have survived the past two weeks without that.

* It was a super comics-y week at Hamline aside from the impending con. Not only have my job and proclivity to just say "Batman" as often as possible earned me the "comic book guy" label at school, but cartoonist Gene Yang was also at the residency for the first time as a full on professor. When I saw him, he was all, "Kiel...I heard you get to go to Comic-Con. No one told me there was a special dispensation, dude!" Apparently this is Gene's first miss in over a decade, but he was a rock star on campus all week, so I think it turned out.

* Of course, the night before I left it was my roommate's birthday part at a bar called The Happy Gnome. Of course, my flight to San Diego was at 7:00 AM. Of course, they didn't turn off the cabin lights the entire time we were in they sky. Of course, I was working ten minutes after checking into my hotel at 9:45 local time. Woof.

* On the up side, my father and younger brother Clint were at the show. 12 years ago, dad took me to Comic-Con for the first time as a high school graduation present, and this year, Clint wanted to do the same before he heads out to MSU. It was nice having them around on the CBR Boat and going out to eat at some weird British fish & chips place instead of hanging in the Gaslamp on Friday.

* It strikes me how much the con has changed even in my brief time coming when I think about how dad and I's trip in 2000 involved the Hollywood aspect where we saw a Kevin Smith panel and heard via a waitress the Angelina had bailed on a panel, but this year when I asked dad how his first day was, he said, "Great! We saw Anthony Bourdain AND McLovin!"

* Work went well. Despite my being at school in the whole runup to the show, the CBR staff was way on top of stories ahead of an at the con, which meant less freak out phone calls during the weekend and more partying. Props in particular to Jonah Weiland and Stephen Gerding – neither of whom made it into the show and onto the floor.

* But you know, when not making the show floor means you're on the boat all day, that ain't bad neither.

* My roommate Steve Sunu also did the all-star job of the Millennium covering for me and covering the show in general. You have to, have to, have to, have to, HAVE TO watch this first person video of Steve running the "Walking Dead" zombie course at Petco Park.

* Speaking of which, I found the above photo of Steve shaking Kirkman's hand at said event on the Facebook page for Geek Magazine, which I thought kinda funny.

* So happy I got to hit the comics blogging panel Thursday night hosted by Douglas Wolk with Heidi MacDonald, Andy Khouri, Rich Johnston and Tom Spurgeon. Sat amidst a packed room with Caleb Goellner and David Uzumeri. Perhaps the best parts were when Tom asked the crowd who there actually read their sites, and us and Brigid Alverson made up 50% of the respondents.
* But serial, at one point Heidi said she's stayed in comics this long because it has the nicest people, and the rows around shushed me for laughing too loudly.

* No but super serial, I thought it was really interesting how the default answer to Douglas' "Who do you write for?" question was "myself." I do a lot of writing for myself, but almost none of that involves my work writing. Maybe in selection of topic to cover do I get closer to writing for myself. But I always view my comics writing on CBR to be for consumers, retailers and creators...probably not necessarily in that order. (Okay, and I write for other journo-types a way higher percentage of the time than I'd care to admit). Not saying one is better than the other, but it was weird to feel in the minority there.

* If you're interested, here's a smattering of panels I reported live over the weekend: DC's Batman panel where I picked up one of the few giveaways I didn't lose – a Snyder/Capullo Court of Owls mask! Then there was the Ultimate Marvel panel and this Legendary Comics one and this DC graphic novel one and...oh hell, you get the idea. I've got to say that the panels for the big two came off as kind of rote this year. Part of that was a lack of big announcements outside of one or two things like new Sandman or Quentin Tarantino comics, but it's also because I just kind of felt like a lot of the standard bearers of these panels were a little off their crowd pumping game. No surprises even for the diehards, you know?

* That said, the fact that Marvel and DC have so many panels can kind of drown out the noise from something like the Image panel Saturday that seemed to carry a lot of energy and announcement weight. I suppose that the same can be said of how many books the big two release and how much of that sites like CBR cover what comes out, but I kind of feel like the pace that spaces out things in a regular news cycle fights against the wash of panels at CCI.

* So what I'm saying is, read that Image panel report.

* Okay, one more panel note: the DC Young Justice panel really gave you the feeling that between Scott Lobdell, Bobbie Chase and non-attendees like Tom Defalco, Bob Harras has just put his favorite lineup from his '90s Marvel band together on the Teen Titans comics like they never broke up. I imagine the readers of those books have at least a few genes in common with people who go to Credence Clearwater Revisited to hear "Down On The Corner" or whatever.

* I've always been a bit flummoxed by the costume people, but I can't admit that it's kind of fun to see what they pull out, and each year I seem to chat up at least one cosplayer who's terribly nice. This year, it was this girl dressed as Poison Ivy who sat next to me at the Batman panel. Every nerdy college student within five seats was trying to pick her up, and she dealt with it with aplomb.

* I was only on the floor of the show for 12 seconds on Friday, but I was happy that those 12 seconds were spent talking to Joe Keatinge. If you didn't already know, Joe is maybe the most ENTHUSIASTIC comics maker in the business right now. He's just so pumped about every project he picks up, and spoke to me in beaming fashion about his upcoming Thanos mini series at Marvel, calling the character one of his all-time favorites. I believed him. Also: Joe's Image series Hell Yeah! is severely underrated right now for how it riffs on comics history in a total non-obtrusive way, but that's going to have to be the subject of its own post at a later date.

* Also important: Joe knows everyone who's ever done a book for Image Comics ever, so if you meet him at a show, look around the group of people he's with and say "Who are your friends, Joe?" Then you get to meet Emi Lenox!

* One more observation from the floor: when you're a fan walking around San Diego and you see people in the biz chatting each other up, you may wonder what they're talking about. Maybe they're talking about the proliferation of comics culture in the world? Maybe they're talking about the profits and perils of digital comics? Maybe they're talking about some rad new series you won't see for another six months? No, I'm just messing with you. What they're talking about is "how much the other publishers booths suck balls compared to theirs, because you think our booth is the best one of the floor this year, right?" Booth envy. IT'S ACTUALLY A THING.

* Saw my friend and my O.G. comics industry mentor Ivan Cohen at the show too briefly (always too briefly). If you didn't know, he's writing issues of DC's Green Lantern: The Animated Series comic now. Sounds like some FUN stuff coming up there.

* Met new ComicsAlliance E-i-C Joe Hughes, who I instantly recognized from cons past even though we were never introduced. That seems like the best kind of person to be running a site like CA. Bumped into Joe maybe 45 more times over the course of the weekend. Excited to see what he does over there.

* Speaking of CA and Caleb as I was a moment ago, he's had some pages from what I think may still be a kind of secret comics thing on his iPhone that were so cool they made my eyeballs bleed. And THEN he told me the final would be in full color.

* Thursday night, I hit the CBLDF party, which has become a kind of annual tradition. On my way there, Sam Humphries sidled up on me like some kind of ninja, and it was the first of many times we laughed a lot that night. Sam and I talked about how Comic-Con has gotten to feel like summer camp – i.e. you kind of know where you're going in downtown San Diego after having to walk around that crazy mall on 2nd to get to the Westgate one night each year. It's like remembering where the old canoe launch is.

* Speaking of Sam, I can never tell how many of the core readers of big superhero books are blog savvy enough to be caught up on things like "Our Love Is Real," but anyone who didn't know him before the Ultimate Marvel panel probably wanted to buy his shit after. He speaks with a lot of knowledge and enthusiasm for his stuff in front of a crowd.

* Ditto Nathan Edmundson on that front, actually.

* Anyway, back to the party: it produced the above photo with myself, Douglas Wolk, Tom Spurgeon and the rad ladies of Fantagraphics: Jen Vaughn and Jacq Cohen. It was worth it for that alone.

 * Let me be the 12,000th person to mention online that Spurge is looking GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD. I wish I got to talk to him in normal human ways more often.

 * Highly Important: Finally met Tom's brother Whit – Comics Reporter super photographer. After flipping through his iPhone, I really get the feel Whit takes more pictures of CCI than both the ladies we had working for CBR combined. He also slides wonderfully into this hilarious, Jackie Mason-esque character schtick without ever overdoing it.

* The 35 minutes I spend with John Layman at any given CCI party rank amongst my most anticipated events at the show each year.

 * Spent a lot of time talking to Chris Roberson and his wife Allison Baker over the weekend. Hot damn if those two aren't as smart and savvy as any people you've ever met in comics or elsewhere. The launch of their Monkeybrain Comics imprint has finally gelled a bunch of my opinions on digital comics together. Namely that I'm not sure the app model is the so-called "new newsstand" so many keep proclaiming it to be. Apps are still too specific and impermanent to be successful as general public sales platform like that. But they sure as hell fill the gap left by the modern direct market's inability to sell high end genre serials not published by the few standing players. In other words, Monkeybrain is to the 2010s what First and Pacific were to the 1980s.

* Comics writer, toy industry pitch man and A+ Wizard alumn Justin Aclin was my guide through Thursday night, and I couldn't have asked for a better one. He's got big things coming, this guy.

* Friday night was the super secret "Bros of Wizard" enclave where we plotted our imminent takeover of the entire industry (haha) while hopping from bar-to-bar. Attendees included Aclin, Diamond Select Toys' Zach Oat, Marvel TV's Todd Casey (and his lovely friend Mel), Archaia PR man and lovely friend Mel Caylo, Topless Robot's Rob Bricken, Kevin, Steve Sunu, Dark Horse Editor Jim Gibbons and...damn, I'm sure I'm missing someone. There are a lot of us! I love them all like brothers. No bullshit.

 * Ended our night at the Marvel party where we collided with Ryan Penagos, and I somehow missed Ben while I was doing shots with Rosario Dawson (not really but kind of).

* Also got some real hangtime with my girl Josie Campbell at the show. Realized after many nights of balcony chit-chat that her boyfriend Marly runs the "JoJo" Remembered Heroes Tumblr, and now I have a crush on him.

* I don't know what was happening at this particular point in my Jeph Loeb video interview on the boat, but I'm pretty damn sure he and I were having a GREAT time.

* Surprise CBR Boat guest of the year: Jock. He is an extremely sweet man. Like, Stan Sakai levels of sweetness even.

* That aside, my favorite boat interview for the year was a toss up between fellow Michigan State Spartan and all around thoughtful dude JT Krul and unexpected guest "Foxtrot" creator Bill Amend. Watch for those!

* I used to do these goofy celebrity sightings posts from the show, but this year my Hollywood overlap was ridiculously low in the best way. So here's my randomly short bus list on that front:

* I met everyone in the above photo on the boat except Elija Wood, who I only ever see at Comic-Con at the bar late at night. They seemed like fine folks.

* At one point, a gaggle of Hollywood types came onto the boat, like they do. You can always tell who the PR folks are by their blazers and their six bags and their constant texting. And you can tell the talent because they're the pretty ladies in the tight green dress and the high heels. This time out, the pretty lady was this woman – who I'd never heard of before she left and I said, "Who was that?" But she talked to CBR Producer Remy Minnick for like 20 minutes about the business of DVR. I guess that's what Comic-Con is for some people too.

* The Marvel booth is always totally crazy at the show, but sometimes it's that crazy because your buddy Ryan is talking to Don Cheadle on camera while Robert Downey, Jr. re-embodies the role of Tony Stark amongst 45 little Iron Mans.

 * My #1 celebrity moment came before I interview Joss Whedon in a little plywood room hidden in the middle of the Dark Horse booth. As a nice young lady from another website was finishing up before me, John Landis appeared out of nowhere looking for Mike Richardson (whom he referred to as "the basketball player"). Richardson was AWOL, so Landis just burst into the little room to shake Whedon's hand and tell him how much he loved "The Avengers." It was pretty funny to see a guy who causes nerds to freak out when they talk to him at the show freak out like a nerd because John Landis was talking to him at the show, let me tell you.

* On Saturday night, Ben and I embarked on the world's nerdiest, boringest episode of "The Amazing Race" ever when we tried to go out to eat with about a dozen Marvel staffers. 1.5 hours and seven restaurants later, we ended up eating alone in a diner with My Little Pony on the walls. Oddly, the only time I saw Bryan Lee O'Malley all show was when he was dashing through that diner towards the exit. Overall, best meal of the show. Thanks, Benny.

* Later, had the first ever event on the CBR Boat that I will qualify as a real, legit party. I mean, there's like a staff party early in the week, but those aren't ridic enough, you know?

* Somewhat related: MTV Blogs Editor Josh Wigler is a golden god. All that b.s. up there about me traveling at 5:00 AM? Chump change to how hard duder was going all weekend. * Talked to BOOM! Editor-in-Chief Matt Gagnon for a while. Really sharp in terms of how that company and their books function creatively and in the market. Example: he sees "Adventure Time" as both the kind of paying gig that can fill a comics-shaped hole in their commission work (a la the late "Nickelodeon Magazine") and also as a way to expose younger and more traditional comics readers to their other work.

* Best Eisner story I heard: upon winning the award for "Best Anthology" for Dark Horse Presents, Mike Richardson gave one of the three statues he got to his Assistant Editor (and my boy) Jim Gibbons. Not only is that a very cool thing to do, it also allowed us to declare "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, EISNER WINNER JIM GIBBOOOOOOOOOOONS!" all night long.

* Over the weekend, Chris Roberson made a great case for never going to the Hyatt and instead hitting the Hilton Bayfront that was equal parts "The Bayfront supports unionized employees" and "Aw, fuck the Hyatt, man!"

* That said, was at the Hyatt for 15 minutes late Saturday. Spent no money, though.

* First time I ever heard someone refer to it as "The Riot At The Hyatt." How have I been missing that joke?!?!

* For some reason, I only end up catching up with Kyle Higgins in the wee hours of the morning when the bar is closed and we're both crosseyed tired. But I'm sure he's just as much fun when I'm sober/well-rested.

* People I barely missed over the weekend: saw Allison Bechdel walking through the lobby of a hotel, but she has no idea who I am, so I let her be. Saw Archaia's Stephen Christy by the pool, but he was on his cell phone. Saw Darwyn Cooke on the street, but I was on my cell phone.

* Sunday, my version of kids day involved a lap on the floor catching up with some of the folks making kids comics for the traditional print markets: * NBM's Papercutz has a new PR guy who's very helpful. Jesse Post in the hizzouse! Fans kept stopping by their booth to get some kind of Power Rangers stamp that combined with others for a free t-shirt. Power Rangers fans kind of fascinate me.

* Spoke with a few bros at Capstone Books – the Minneapolis-based publisher that did those rad Art Baltazar "Super-Pets" books. They've got a number of kids comics coming out this year and were excited both for their offerings and because it turns out two of them go to the same university as me.

* Ape Entertainment has had a TON of Richie Rich product hitting over the past few weeks. Between that and the app they've been pushing, I hope they're finding the audience for that material. New Ernie Colon/Sid Jacobson stories, y'all!!

 * Spent a while at that booth talking up Brent Erwin, Dave Hedgecock and Aaron Sparrow. They're stated ethos for publishing so many kids comics is "If we don't do it, who will?" I think that's a kind of a valid point, which is a little sad when you think about it too much. Still, they've gone from publishing creator-owned all-ages books like Scratch 9 to having a nice newsstand-distributed magazine dedicated to comics stories featuring one of the biggest animation studios in the world in a few short years without dropping much of anything along the way, so maybe not many others are meant to do it.

 * Wrapped my show getting an autograph on my copy of Love & Rockets: New Stories Vol. 5 from Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez. They said they barely had time to do anything fun at the show until that day either because they were so busy. As it should be.

* I'm sure I forgot to mention someone awesome I spoke to at this year's show. Tell me I'm a jerk in the comments, gang! And thanks for the memories!

Ben's San Diego Comic-Con Photo Parade

In past years, myself and the other members of this blog have put together elaborate recollections of our wild times at San Diego Comic-Con telling daring tales of after hours shenanigans and inspirational stories of professionalism by day.

You may have noticed a dearth of such posts this year.

Now don't by any means take this lack of reporting to mean we have slowed down our crazy nights (I mean, no more so than usual given my scaled down approach to "partying"; I'm no Kiel Phegley) or that we're any less heroes of journalism (not that Kevin, Rickey or have ever been such, since we work for "The Man" and "The Other Man"; man, Kiel really is the best of us). While I can't speak for my fellows, I can say the reason for my lack of San Diego share-age was simply that the whole thing was kind of a blur.

Seriously, I had a lot of fun, but the whole five day affair felt like it got compressed into 48 hours or so. Much of that was because of the time spent getting Marvel Live up and running then maintaining it throughout the week, which somewhat threw my con into overdrive, but in general, it just felt like time flew. The good times were there in spades, but I wasn't able to stop and mentally catalog them as thoroughly as I may have in the past.

At this stage at the game I'm also past racing to every party or trying to score face time with every single person I haven't seen (though, again, I was never really that guy). Honestly, my fondest memories of San Diego aside from the crazy moments tend to be getting to have a nice dinner with the friends I don't get to see more than once or twice a year or even getting to steal ten minutes with Phil Jimenez or Jamal Igle in between Live segments. Younger men can have the Hyatt Bar (all yours, K-Smooth), I'm content to get grilled calamari at Tin Fish with my crew.

But as I said, my inherent lameness aside, I still happened upon some cool and memorable stuff out in San Diego, such as...

-Scouring the streets of the Gaslamp for a liquor store open past 10 pm with the Marvel.com video team and Harry Go then settling for CVS five minutes before it closed.

-Eating the most awesome Mexican food to ever make me fell really sick and then rallying the same night to debate the definition of a beach with Kiel and Laura Hudson on the deck of the Hilton.

-Bringing the guys from Impact Wrestling into the Marvel party around midnight and watching a hush fall over the room as it looked like I'd left and brought back a well-groomed biker gang; subsequently watching Christopher Daniels and Peter David try to out enthusiastically hand gesture each other in a spirited conversation while Eric Young struggle to figure out how to operate my free drinks bracelet (my only regret is turning down an invite for a Kurt Angle-hosted nightcap at the House of Blues, but I had to work the next day).

-Reversing that adventure by accompanying Todd and Dawn Nauck to their first ever live wrestling show hosted by Impact Wrestling at a local club (sadly we arrived too late for the matches, but still got to mooch off the free food and see the ring get taken down).

-And, of course, Megan's favorite story wherein at the brink of exhaustion (I had just asked my pal Jesse Falcon if I ever gave him the stick of gum I had given him 30 seconds earlier) I was way too enthusiastic to meet Mel Caylo's buddy Scott Porter (give me a break, I *just* finished Friday Night Lights).

But of course they say a picture tells a thousand words, so enough typing for me...

Here's myself and my capable co-hosts "Agent M" Ryan Penagos and Grace Randolph as we're preparing to kick off a day of Marvel Live. I'm pretty sure Hunter Lydon photographed this one, as he was always encouraging me to bust out Blue Steel. I haven't looked this boy band-ready in years. And check out those mint Avengers t-shirts that we were giving away exclusively at the show.

As you likely gleamed from above, San Diego has become, for me, in addition to a place to indulge my love of the comics medium, an event where I can celebrate my fandom for professional wrestling and where I've gotten to meet and get to know some really cool folks who work in that industry. This year was no exception as Mike Kingston's Headlocked booth provides a great hub for the SDCC wrestling contingent, and where I got to catch up with Ring of Honor producer Dave Lagana as well as Wrestling Revolution founder Jeff Katz, plus snap this pic with Eric Young after I defeated him for the Impact Wrestling Television title; it's long been a little dream of mine to pose with a championship belt, so thank you again, Eric, and you can have your rematch next time you're in Jersey.

At the conclusion of either Preview Night or the Thursday, we spotted a dude in Khal Drogo cosplay gear a few booths over from Marvel. Our new Social Media Director Janna O'Shea and I were particularly enthused and implored our intern, Ashley McCollum, to solicit the guy pretty out of nowhere to come take a picture with us; to her credit--or foolishness--she actually did it with minimal protest, forever earning a place in my heart as the girl who tapped the half naked guy with the scythe on the shoulder and said her bosses wanted a photo with him. As you can see here, Ryan and our boss John Cerilli also joined the fun.

I interviewed the Impact Wrestling guys on Friday to promote their live event Saturday and afterwards got this pic of what would be no doubt be a stable to be reckoned with: Eric Young, me, Christopher Daniels, Ryan Penagos and Kazarian. From what I understand, Beer Money are terrified we'll be taking their spots in Fortune.

I've met Stan Lee a couple times, have gotten my picture with him, interviewed him and even received kind wishes from him on my wedding day (Kiel had done a phoner with him on the way to the ceremony and recorded him saying congrats after letting him know where he was headed), but it's a thrill every time. Here, I was off to the side while Ryan and Grace interviewed Stan and witnessed two memorable moments: First was Stan saying he was parched the whole shoot and then totally swiping the half-consumed bottled water I had left on the table and second us urging him to take the stairs off the stage and him instead making a Spider-Man like leap three feet to the floor. Stan Lee is amazing (he still owes me a water).

We had another Impact Wrestling guest on Marvel Live later Friday, and it was none other than Rob Van Dam, who was super nice and extremely on the ball when it comes to comics (no surprise, he did used to own his own store). Had a great chat with RVD about his own efforts to self-publish a comic and his favorite character, Ghost Rider (he was a bit wary of a female GR, but I think I sold him). After we finished interview, Janna, who has never said word one about wrestling, grabbed me and said "Is that Rob Van Dam?! He's awesome!" hence the picture above.

After recovering from my Scott Porter debacle, I got back on the horse and dusted myself off to team with Grace and interview Clark Gregg, aka S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Phil Coulson from the Marvel movies. Judy Stephens (I'm pretty sure) got a nice action shot here (as "action" as comic book "journalism" gets) and I certainly look like I'm working hard. Truthfully, Clark made it easy, as he was friendly, easygoing, and crazy revved up for somebody who had been working the show and the crowd all day. To my credit, I think I got some insightful questions in, none of which I can remember. My favorite bit was definitely at the end when I said to the camera "Clark Gregg, everybody!" and he shot back with "Grace and Ben, everybody!" Good people.

A couple months ago, I noted that Chris Daniels was selling an old pair of wrestling tights on eBay and joked I needed them for Comic-Con. A gent noticed this, challenged me to back up my words and said he'd put my kids (who don't exist) through college if I followed through. Chris said he'd bring the tights. I thought he was joking. He was not. Thus I spent part of Saturday morning sporting Fallen Angel gear over my khakis and pitching my and Chris' mixed tag team to compete against duos that included midgets. Here, I'm poised to tact my erstwhile and unsuspecting partner.

Me on Saturday night with two of my dearest friends in comics, artist Todd Nauck and his lovely wife Dawn. I end up spending most of my after hours time at SDCC with them as they're genuinely fantastic people and we never stop laughing. When Todd's on the East coast for a show, Megan and I hang with him and have an excellent time as well. Amazingly, Megan and Dawn have never met, as neither has made the trip to the other side of the country in some time, but I can't wait until all four of us can finally get together. Todd and Dawn make me smile.

One last hurrah with my wrestling pals as I play the role of a thin, pale A.J. Styles with Daniels and Kazarian. As an aside, I thought I had grabbed two of the Defenders shirts we were giving out at the show--a small for Megan and medium for me--as I needed Marvel gear for every day I was on camera; Sunday morning I woke up, threw my shirt on and realized all I had was Megan's, and it did not look so hot on me. I did a last minute raid of the booth and found this kick ass Thor "Wing Man" shirt which I will now cherish.

As cool and unique way to end my Comic-Con experience, I got to, along with Grace, interview the entrants in the Ultimate Marvel Cake contests, the winning entry of which is shown above. I love cooking shows and am fascinated by how truly great food comes together and the art of it all, so interviewing these skilled pastry chefs was really neat, although having not had breakfast, the smell was like sweet torture.

Hey, looks like I had a pretty packed Comic-Con after all! Go me!

Off to San Diego (2011 edition)!

Sorry for the lack of posting of late, but we've all been busy preparing as the monolithic comics brouhaha known as Comic-Con International, she does approach. I myself am headed out west bright and early tomorrow morning, so this is likely the last you shall hear from me on this blog until at least next week.

HOWEVER!

You can follow my live streaming adventures all week long with Marvel.com Live, providing full coverage of Comic-Con with great guests, up to the minute news, yada yada yada. I'll also be liveblogging and posting stories at Marvel.com Classic.

Kiel will be doing his thing as well over at Comic Book Resources, so swing by there as well.

See you in seven!

San Diego 2010 Novarama Sketchfest

Once again the sketch gods smiled upon me again at this year's San Diego Comic-Con. I already showed off the new additions to Megan's Miss Martian collection, so now here's the dynamic duo I was fortunate enough to snag for my Nova Sketchbook.

In addition to being the son of the legendary Neal Adams, Josh Adams is a dang fine artist in his own right and a swell dude as well. I met him at a Ring of Honor show a couple months ago via our mutual friend Christopher Daniels and I gingerly mentioned I'd be tracking him down sooner rather than later for a sketch. At San Diego, neither of us forgot this pact and Josh was more than happy to take some time and do this neat piece for me. Josh went the Magneto helmet route on Nova's headgear, but not in a way that renders him unrecognizable, so I actually dig that his sketch stands out in that way. I also always love when somebody throws in an extra touch like lettering or a gag, and Josh did both; I may not totally understand the Dr. Seuss allusions because I'm, y'know, uncultured, but I certainly appreciate it nonetheless.

For my second piece of the con, I was wandering Artist's Alley and got super-psyched when I saw that Jacob Chabot was in the house. I first got to see Jacob's work when Rickey recommended Skullboy my way and then flipped my lid when he did X-Babies and drew every friggin' X-Men character ever as a baby (it was a thing of beauty)! I worked with Jacob a few times on Marvel.com to promote X-Babies and in fact a series of sketches he did for us ended up being variant covers for the series. I had a nice talk with Jacob and his buddy and X-Babies collaborator Gregg Schigiel about the book and other stuff and was of course overjoyed to get a sketch in the bargain. This sucker is everything I love about Chabot's style, particularly his ability to find the fun in a super hero piece without making it goofy; that's a Nova who knows how to party but is also ready to kick some ass. Factor in an awesome pose and great background and you've got one of my favorite sketches I've gotten in some time.

Thanks guys!

Kevin's Excellent San Diego Adventure

Man oh man, I have been a bad blogger. But I'm here now, ready to blog--hopefully on a more regular basis--and for this particular entry, I'm taking a cue from my fellow Cool Kids and talking about my personal Comic-Con experiences. Now, I've worked a number of conventions before, but this one really took the cake for a number of reasons, a few of which I will list below. So come join me as I go back in time to my weekend at Comic-Con International in San Diego!

CELEBRITY SIGHTINGS
Part of the whole San Diego experience is running into celebrities. As a reporter, it's hard not to geek out when I talk to someone that I really adore or who influenced my childhood in some way, shape or form. For example, I recently interviewed Lisa Henson, the daughter of Jim Henson, and it took all my energy and composure to not suddenly shout out, "I totally love the Muppets and everything your dad did totally rocked my entire childhood life! I still own a Muppets blanket and I'm going to see the theme to Muppet Babies right now!" At conventions, it becomes a little easier to geek out a bit because I'm usually lost in a crowd as they take the stage. But with a convention like San Diego, you're just as likely to see a celebrity on stage as you are standing around the hotel lobby--as evidenced by Kiel's post where he was lucky enough to run into Charlie and the Waitress... that bastard. I kid. Kiel's awesome.

Anyway, so here are some of my cool celeb moments. Thursday was officially my day of the con. That day, after doing my usual comic panels, I made my way into Hall H. I got there early, so I was able to get into the RED panel and get a good seat up front. For those who don't know, RED is an upcoming movie based on the graphic novel by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner. The movie stars Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, Mary-Louise Parker, Karl Urban, John Malkovich and Morgan Freeman. Willis, Mirren, Parker and Urban were on the panel and let me tell you, it was glorious. Helen Mirren is the Queen, so what more can I say there? Urban is a new guy to the field, but I've loved him in everything he's been in, especially his recent role as Doctor "Bones" McCoy in Star Trek. Mary-Louise Parker, I mean, how can I not have a crush on her? She is stunningly beautiful and looked just as amazing in person. However, the real cream of the crop for me was Bruce Willis. Die Hard was the first Rated-R movie I ever saw, sneakily viewing even though my parents told me to go to my room as they watched it downstairs. Willis was extremely cool and laid back on stage. He definitely seemed like an awesome guy, which made me happy.

After that came the Expendables panel, another joy for this little blogger as on the stage was Terry Crews, Steve Austin, Stallone, Dolf Lundgren and Randy Couture. I'm a huge fan of Terry Crews--as his roles are always completely insane and hilarious. Thankfully, he's apparently just like that in real life. He walked out onto the stage, opened his shirt, got up onto the table and started making his pecs dance. It was exactly something you'd expect him to do. The best part of this panel though was seeing Stallone work. I'm a huge fan of his and watch Rocky pretty much religiously. Heck, the Rocky theme is on my iPod for when I go to the gym. Besides seeming like a totally nice dude, Stallone was HILARIOUS. He cracked a lot of jokes and got along really well with the guys on stage. I really wish I could have met him in person, but I feel like that would be one of those moments where I'd lose my cool and start gushing. Then he's probably punch me out. But then I could tell everyone Sylvester Stallone shattered my jaw. Hmm... Note to self, fight Sylvester Stallone the next time I see him.

Alright, so back to reality. Right after the Expendables panel came the panel I was probably most excited for: Scott Pilgrim vs the World. Now, this got me crazed with excitement for a number of reasons. First of all, I love Scott Pilgrim. It's probably one of my favorite comics ever... EVER. Secondly, Edgar Wright. I love his films and love his friendship with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. I always felt those guys go everywhere together and this panel sort of proved me right. More on that in a bit. Finally, I probably have the biggest crushes ever on Anna Kendrick and Mary Elizabeth Winstead--and BOTH of them would be on stage for this panel. It's literally more than I could ever ask for from one panel. So, yeah. The panel was filled with a number of guests, pretty much the entire cast came out. However, at one point when introducing the panelists, Wright--in his awesomely British accent--said that Simon Pegg and Nick Frost would also be in this movie. Sure enough, Pegg and Frost walked out. It was a very, very awesome moment. And while I later found out they were here to promote "Paul," I still like to believe that they'd have come to San Diego anyway just to chill with Wright. Anyway, Wright corrected him and said that they were also not in the movie, and the two walked back off stage dejectedly. As for one last note, Brandon Routh is a giant, giant man. I know that he played Superman and Superman is a big dude, but Routh TOWERED over the rest of the cast. It was pretty ridiculous. They looked like children next to him.

That was it for Thursday as far as celebs go. Over the rest of the weekend I saw one or two here and there. On Friday, I was standing outside my hotel and noticed a huge crowd next to me. I look over and literally right next to my shoulder is Ian Somerhalder. I was like, "Is that freaking Boone??" Ends up it was the cast of Vampire Diaries just hanging outside the hotel, taking pictures with fans. Later that day, I was walking toward the elevators with my buddy Jim Gibbons and he was like, "Hey, it's Guillermo Del Toro." I moseyed on over and debated running up and saying something to him, but I ended up chickening out. For those wondering, I probably would have sounded something like this: "Holy crap, dude! Hellboy! Pan's Labyrinth! The Orphanage! Those movies rocked! And now Haunted Mansion?! My friend Amanda freaking LOVES that ride since she was a kid and she officially pooped herself in excitement when she found out!" It probably wouldn't have gone over well. Saturday, I experienced a sexy sighting as the show floor began to shut down. I had sneaked my way over to the Marvel booth to say hello to Ben, but there on the giant golden throne of Asgard was Adrianne Curry dressed as Leeloo from the Fifth Element. That lady loves to pose to pictures, let me tell you. Sadly, I did not have my camera on me, but the fifty other gentlemen around me did. Lastly, on Saturday night, I was chilling at the Hyatt bar drinking with my buddies when someone bumps into me. I turn around and I see walking away Joel McHale from the Soup. I was a little sad he didn't apologize for bumping into me, but then again, I'm glad he did because now I can tell that story. Also, he is a very tall and lanky man.

Well, that's it for celebrity stuff. It was pretty awesome to be able to see a lot of people that I'm very big fans of and one day, hopefully I'll be famous enough to hang out with them--especially Anna Kendrick and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. They're adorable. In part two of my San Diego memories, to come very soon, I'll hit on more Scott Pilgrim and my own personal favorite aspect of Comic Conventions.

Ben's SDCC 2010 After Hours Adventures pt. 2

FRIDAY, JULY 23
Freaky Friday is when things got equal parts exciting and surreal for this mild-mannered some-time reporter, but rest assured it was all good.

Started off the evening at the official Marvel-sponsored get together for staffers and talent at a nice Gaslamp bar and grill type joint I’m sorry to say the name of which escapes me at the moment. As I assembled my meager meal of what appetizers proved compatible with my lactose intolerant system (some tasty spring rolls and meatballs), I got a friendly tap on the back and hearty hello from my comrade of the previous evening, Andy Lanning, sporting a crazy-ass Hawaiian type shirt that screamed “I am British, this looks amazing on me whether you like it or not.”

Mr. Lanning and I pulled up some booth real estate and were joined in short order by Marvel production whiz Rich Ginter as well as “Serial Thrilla” Tom Brennan for cuisine and conversation. Andy favored us with the “secret origin” of his comics career, including how he bypassed UK staple 2000AD and went straight to Marvel via the Epic series The Sleeze Brothers and how he and Dan hooked up in Marvel UK then ended up in the States pitching the Punisher crossover Eurohit and eventually landing Force Works. Along the way, I confirmed everything I always suspected about the craziness of Marvel UK in the 90’s (yes, they were more or less required to have at least three X-Men guest star in every issue of every series) and why original Force Works artist Tom Tenney vanished after four issues never to be seen again (apparently he just kinda…did), replaced by some guy named Jim Cheung.

After that initial crew dispersed to work the room, I mingled and got to enjoy watching Mike Choi convince my officemate, Margarita Vaisman, that he was a struggling young artist who hoped to get work for Marvel someday and then hear her offer him encouragement; after I blew the ruse, I gave him a hard time for getting rid of his rad “Rufio from Hook” Mohawk prior to his wedding.

Suddenly, I received a call on my phone from none other than pro wrestling superstar Christopher Daniels, who informed me there was a party going down on the roof of PetCo Park, home of the San Diego Padres, and my presence was requested; well, you don’t say no to The Fallen Angel, so I politely excused myself and headed to the ballpark.

When I arrived at the venue, there was a huge line and elaborate set-up to get in, so I wasn’t quite sure if I’d make it. A couple texts to Chris later and he descended from on high, ditching his ever-present sports coast no doubt ready to intimidate whatever bouncers he needed to on my behalf, then politely asked some lady if I could cut the line (which I did, no doubt pissing off dozens of frustrated onlookers). Chris introduced me to party host Jeff Katz, the Great Gatsby of SDCC and a dude I share many mutual friends with and had chatted with over Twitter—though I always assumed he thought I was Kiel—and was pleased to finally meet; extremely pleasant fellow who went out of his way to make me feel welcome even as he was in the midst of doing the same with hundreds of others. Those dudes showed me to the elevator and within a minute or so I was overlooking a baseball field on one side of me and downtown San Diego on the other.

Once we hit the roof, Chris had to go find his aforementioned jacket, and so for a few minutes I found myself playing deer in the headlights as music blared, drinks flowed, and Bill Hader, Seth Rogen and Joe Lo Truglio from The State all filed by me in short order. Fortunately, before my mind got too blown, Daniels came back, jacket intact, and escorted me over to where his crew was hanging.

Of course given that Chris’ “crew” consists pretty much exclusively of pro wrestlers and I’m a pro wrestling nut, so my wild night was just getting started.

It was actually pretty funny in retrospect how we rounded the corner and out of nowhere Daniels casually introduced me to one of his good buddies, Samoa Joe, one of my personal favorite current performers and a guy whose matches with Kurt Angle I was literally watching on the plane ride to San Diego. Dude was chill as can be and had actually been wanting to meet me because Chris had been bragging about all the free swag I get him; he said he’d even gotten my number from Daniels and had been contemplating giving me a call “during dinner or something and being, like, ‘Yo, it’s Samoa Joe…could I get some free comics?’” which would have cracked me up to no end. He then told me my spirit animal was a “raging tortoise,” which I told him I “got a lot,” then we shared a hearty laugh as I thought how cool I was sharing a joke with Samoa Joe and not getting choked out in the process.

Daniels wasn’t the only wrestler I knew in the immediate vicinity, as I got a shout out and bro hug from my old buddy Shane “Hurricane” Helms and his crazy ass new dreadlocks (which he reminded me weren’t exactly new as he used to wear them back in his 3 Count days 10 years ago). Hurricane told me he’d been at the show that day and really wanted to “get on that Odin’s throne gimmick” (an important lesson I learned that night was that “gimmick” can mean pretty much any and everything in wrestler lingo; as Chris put it: “It’s the wrestler’s ‘aloha.’”) but there was somebody else who he wanted to see up there even more, gesturing to a gentleman in a suit leaning back all cool and a little bit sinister against the bar.

A few seconds later, I was shaking hands with Mr. Paul Heyman, driving force behind Extreme Championship Wrestling and legendary creative mind in the wrestling industry.

I only got to speak with Paul for a brief time, but that was long enough for me to get a glimpse at the crazy charisma and intensity I’d always heard about. I’d love to get another chance to chat with Paul and just pick his brain about pretty much anything, because you can tell the guy is something else (and I mean that in a good way).

Former WWE Divas Maria and Stacy Keibler were also in “our” little clique, but I only introduced myself briefly. I mostly chatted with fellow “civilians” Michael Kingston, writer of the Headlocked comic, and JC, a former WWE behind-the-scenes dude whose job description I always forget (sorry, bro). Mike and I especially noted how wrestling folks really do live in another world and have their own little cool ass fraternity, but it was real neat to be a part of it for even a night.

After the party gimmick wrapped (ha!) Chris and I accompanied a New Zealander gent named Richard Fairgray who writes the Top Cow joint Blastosaurus back to Jeff Katz’ room at the Hilton where we walked into the unique sight of Stacy Keibler getting a foot massage from Paul Heyman while Hurricane and Samoa Joe watched on—not my typical early Saturday morning.

I hung out for a bit longer, got to witness Jill Thompson join the soiree resplendent from her double Eisner win, then said thank you to the gracious Mr. Katz for a crazy awesome night, said adios to the folks I met, and parted ways with my boy Daniels circa 2 AM to head back to my hotel for some shut eye.

Definitely a night I won’t forget, and a reminder why I’m grateful to have Chris Daniels as a buddy.

SATURDAY, JULY 24
So by the time the show wrapped on Saturday, I was still pretty beat from the night before. I did get a nice natural contact high from watching the awesome Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes preview alongside Chris Yost and Jim McCann, but unfortunately myself and Tom “Maverick” Brennan made the mistake of ordering out for burgers just before the panel, ensuring they’d be nice and cold by the time we got back. I myself followed Jimbo to watch him on the first half of the Gays in Comics panel and received a text from Brennan saying “Your burger is here. It is cold and greasy.” That was my cue to scurry down to the booth where I “live” blogged the big Marvel Studios panel from back amongst Marvel storage while munching on my chilled burger and soggy fries.

The panel ran a bit over—there was some stabbing incident—so I ended up booking it back to my hotel en route to a swanky dinner date with my familiar posse of the Naucks, Dan Abnett and Senor Lanning plus Mike McKone and Tom Brennan as “The Beav.” In my mad dash to snag a clean shirt, I bumped into The Cool Kids Table’s own Kevin Mahadeo and swept him up in my whirlwind, inviting him along while I texted, changed and tried to grab a glass of water.

We met up with the team at the Hyatte and then made our way to Seaport Village, a neat little seaside community that reminded me a lot of Mystic or Rockport. We pulled up a table at the Edgewater Grill and managed to squeeze everybody in; I managed to go five minutes without offending Dan before telling him I felt Mel Gibson’s “Maverick” was vastly superior to Star Wars (it is). From there, Brennan and I began our stand-up routine and had Dawn and Kevin in stitches as we talked about our alternate reality in which we call Joe Quesada every dinner after we get the check to tell him we “made a huge mistake” then he picks us up and takes us home so Bob Iger can yell at us (Kevin assures me it was hysterical). Brennan and me both ordered the crab cakes to keep things light given our still burger-filled-bellies, but I also cowboyed up for a salad I would quickly call “my biggest mistake in hours.”

It was a nice chill end to my evening exploits at the con with some of the people who made it such a fun experience for me. I hit the Hyatte bar briefly afterwards to say my goodbyes to all my bros, but called it an early night.

SUNDAY, JULY 25
We made it! I stayed overtime to help Tim Dillon and his skeleton crew clean up the booth a little and then made my way to the airport.

After what I’m pretty sure was me getting hit on by the girl checking my baggage (oh for a witness), I met up with Alex Kropinak, Ed Bursch, Justin Aclin, Josh Wiggler and a couple more for some last-minute pizza and beers (for them at least; Justin got me some fries).

The delightful Dan Slott was on my red eye home, which was a nice surprise. He was there to see a Marvel exec who shall remain unnamed (lest he choose to reveal himself, because I know he totally reads this blog) offer me $50 for my aisle seat, not realizing he had the aisle seat right in front of me; unfortunately he figured it out before we boarded or I made the deal then spent the early part of the flight reclining his seat back and laughing at me.

Smooth flight home with a kid next to me who kept showing me card tricks (I was polite) and then a few pleasant hours at home in my bed before it was time to head back to work.

Let’s do it again next year!

My Top 5 Comic-Con Celebrity Sightings: 2010 Edition!

Just like last year, Comic-Con 2010 ended up being a hyper-real parade of strange late night encounters with people most of us would vaguely describe as "famous." I'm not the kind of dude who watches TMZ or clicks to People.com in my spare moments, but even I got a little giddy during the show when I'd bump into Jerry O'Connell while heading to dinner in the Gaslamp or bump into Matt Groening and the cast of "V" in my hotel lobby (though part of that giddiness was obviously sleep deprivation).

Though aside from the "aww shucks! weren't that neat?" aspect of bumping into celebrities at The Big Show, I think the thing I like the most about rubbing elbows with minor TV stars and other people too pretty to be nerds is the fact that Comic-Con somehow becomes the ultimate equalizer in terms of how we interact with the people we usually only see on Letterman. The Hollywoodization of San Diego doesn't just mean that these celebs get big panels where their names are cheered for. It also means that they have to share the same hotels, restaurants and pedicabs as people who come to the show to dress up like Power Girl or buy slabbed issues of My Greatest Adventure. And even with the supposedly awesome yet inaccessible studio parties, I think seeing a celebrity at Comic-Con is more like seeing a celebrity at Taco Bell than anything else. Let me show you what I mean with my Top 5 famous folk sightings from this year's show...


5. Erik Estrada

After the first day of the show, Rickey came out to the CBR Yacht after his stint at the DC booth so we could live the glamorous dream of eating Subway and buying beers at Ralph's together. But before we took off on that envy-inducing adventure, we took a quick walk from the slip where CBR's boat was docked to my room at the Marriott Marina Hotel. That path took us just past this spaceship-shaped, Hawaiian-themed restaurant called Ray's. And as we strolled past, Rickey looked up and declared, "Erik Estrada!" and sure enough, the "CHiPS" star was standing by the hostess table being rapidly circled by his nine children (okay, maybe not that many, but there were at least four of them, and they were ALL bouncing off the walls).

As we moseyed on by, I couldn't help but notice that the double E seemed to be quite exasperated with the wait staff. In my mind, I imagined him going, "Look man, I know it's busy here, but I was fucking Ponch...can't I just get goddamned table?!?!" Maybe it was going easier than it looked, but it didn't look that easy on the dude.

In any event, I was glad when I heard that Estrada got some love from members of the Scott Pilgrim cast later in the weekend.


4. LeVar Burton

When I told people that we had LeVar Burton out to the CBR boat for a video interview, they'd do one of two things: sing the theme from "Reading Rainbow" or go "Did he wear a barette over his eyes?" That's about as clear a nerd divide as one can get when you think about it. And really, I'd wondered a little myself whether the real guy was more the imaginatively happy man whose word I didn't have to take for it when it came to picture books or more the no-nonsense problem solver that was Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge.

Though as it turns out, the real LeVar Burton is more like when he shows up on "The Soup" or "Tim & Eric" – a boisterously loud and kind of bonkers joker who doesn't sit still and loves ever minute of it. While most of the staff sat below deck during the on camera CBR interviews, we might as well have been lounging beside him on the captain's chair during his chat with Jonah (which you can see here) as Burton was cracking jokes and rocking the complimentary CBR kazoo at full volume the entire time he was aboard. After the shoot was done, Burton bound down into the cabin for the briefest of moments and declared in the cartooniest pirate voice imaginable "I's just wanted to see what the crew in the bowels of the ship was like. ARRRRRRRRR!" before shooting back up the stair and out of our lives.

I won't lie. It was pretty rad.


3. Donald Glover

Like I said, I've never been really high on trying to get into the big Hollywood parties like the infamous EW shindig or whatever, but one exception I used to make was getting to the United Talent Agency party because the booze was free and it was co-sponored by Oni Press so I got to hang with cool comics people of my acquaintance while gawking at movie stars. This year, the UTA party went on its own way and the Oni crew had their own Scott Pilgrim-themed shindig sponsored by the Toronto Tourism Board. That was great for a few reasons:

1 - As I made my way to the location of the Oni party, I just happened to bump into the Man of the Hour himself – Bryan Lee O'Malley – in the middle of the street. When I asked O'Malley if he was coming from or going to his party, he said, "Going to...follow me!" From there on out, I was led to the entrance where a quick "He's with me" from O'Malley got me a VIP pass and direct entrance into the party (thanks again, dude). I've got to say, for all the bitching I've done about people cutting to the front, acting like a big whig myself for five minutes was kind of awesome.

2 - As expected, the event was chock full of cool people to hang out with. Off the top of my head, I can recall chatting up Matt Loux, Abbie Denson, Raina Telgemeier, Dave Roman, Doug Sherwood and Chris Butcher, and I KNOW there are people I'm forgetting who I'll want to add back in later. I don't care what people say about comics people getting pushed out by Hollywood – I fucking rocked out with some of the best comics folks I know that night, thank you very much.

3 - At one point in the evening, I came across Oni Editor-in-Chief James Lucas Jones and his super keen wife Jennie (who was MEGA helpful all weekend whenever I was covering Oni and Scott Pilgrim stuff or just bumming around near their booth), and it just so happened at that moment they were hanging with "Community" star and would-be Spider-Man Donald Glover. I snapped the above photo and chatted up the trio for a minute, and while I didn't really get to talk much to Glover in any real way, I have to say that the company he kept made him A-list in my book. I mean, I'm pretty sure dude was the only star in attendance at that party, meaning he bailed on the flashier UTA gig to drink with a cabal of cartoonists and Canadians. Gold star for Donald Glover.


2. Stan Lee

I'm sure EVERYONE who spends some time wandering around Comic-Con gets a Stan Lee sighting at some point – the Man is everywhere at the show! – but it can't be said enough that if anyone from the comics side of the aisle whose crossed over into the broader celebrity, it's Lee (pictured here being awesome thanks to UGO and Robot 6). On Thursday morning, I got dragged to the local Fox affiliate at 5:00 AM to be their "Comic-Con expert" for a 12-second segment, and even though most of the staff (even the ones who dressed in costume) had little to no idea what went on at Comic-Con, there was a buzz at the station because THE Stan Lee was coming in later that morning for his own segment.

Anyway, I crossed paths with Stan The Man early on Friday morning when I was running around seeing folks in the Marriott. While waiting at the elevator bank for a trip down to the lobby, Lee and a young man who I have to assume is one of his POW! Entertainment employees came around the corner and stood next to me. They were talking about another of the countless interviews he'd done for the show.

"So how'd that piece for the newspaper go," Lee's aide said.

"Oh, pretty good. Pretty good," he chuckled in reply.

"Do you think they'll run it tomorrow?"

"I don't know. Probably they will. They get those newspapers out pretty fast these days."

"Do you think they'll run it on the front page?" asked the young man, kind of half checking his Blackberry.

"I don't know about that. Maybe they will. Maybe it'll be on the front page," said Lee, absent-mindedly staring at the floor. Then, he sort of mumbled more to himself than anyone else "Maybe they'll put Obama on page two!"

God bless you, sir.


1. Charlie & The Waitress

You'll never hear me complain about this really, but experiencing Comic-Con as a working reporter is a marathon of running about to the point of exhaustion each and every day, staying out late socializing and forgoing sleep and most meals in the name of work and/or partying. And hey, the negative effects the show takes on your body and brain won't ever outweigh how awesome it is to get paid to party for free at the Scott Pilgrim affair or chat up Kieron Gillen on camera or just plop down in a panel room and hang off Mike Mignola's every word. The job is fucking great, and I won't deny that. But I can't gloss over how bedraggled you end up being by week's end either – mostly because said bedraggling led to my most bad ass celebrity encounter of the show.

Saturday night, despite my extreme exhaustion I found myself in a state of total insomnia after nabbing a few hours of fitful sleep (Comic-Con fucks with your circadian rhythm like whoa) and was wandering about the lobby of my hotel into the wee hours trying to occupy my mind. After chatting up the similarly unsleepy Mike Choi and hacking my way through a draft of my Jeff Parker Red Hulk interview (which I'm still not sure is AT ALL readable but whatever), I was heading back to my room for a power cord at around 4:00 AM when I ran into a problem at the elevator bank.

A young lady and I had both pressed the button to head up to our rooms, but after moments of waiting the only doors that opened were to an elevator containing a cleaning lady, hard at work on her hands and knees scrubbing the entryway to the lift. After a moment of awkward silence, the girl said to me, "I'll just wait for the next one" and I agreed. As the doors slid shut, we hit the up button again and the down button (a trip down would be just one floor before going back up) and waited patiently for a ride that wasn't being waxed for tomorrow's guests.

And thank the Lord we did because moments after that, the husband and wife team of Charlie Day and Mary Elizabeth Ellis (also known as Charlie Kelly and the waitress from "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia") walked right up next to me.

Now, I'm not sure how familiar all of y'all are with the series, but I'm a big "It's Always Sunny" supporter in part because I think Day's Charlie character is primed to go down as the first truly great sitcom character of the 21st Century. Some day we'll talk about Charlie Kelly in the same way we do about Ralph Kramden, Arthur Fonzarelli, Latka Gravas and Cosmo Kramer. Dude is that funny and that unique. So needless to say, the second the pair of them turned the corner and came my way, I started to freak out a little.

And as I sat there debating whether or not to say anything, of course the elevator door that opens ready to go down a floor is the same one where the cleaning lady continued to scrub at the brass step into the unit. After everyone stood there for a minute, the woman looked up from her task and kind of waved us towards the elevator, to which Charlie replied, "Really? Well, yeah okay...it's only one floor down. Come on everybody!" and kind of skipped over the woman into place.

Once we were there, shoulder-to-shoulder with the cleaning lady still scrubbing the elevator's bottom, I couldn't help it and I turned with as much restraint as I could to tell them both how much I loved the show. As the thanked me, Charlie's hand shot right out to shake mine, and he pulled me in a bit with a sly 4:00 AM grin saying, "Did you have a good night tonight, man?"

"Yeah, I had a pretty good night. Now I've just got to get through tomorrow so I can catch my plane back to Chicago."

At this point, Charlie broke out into song in a way which I can only describe as "total Charlie" where the lyrics were "Ohhhhh, he's flyin back to the Ol' CHI-TOWN!" and I had to literally bite my tongue to stop from bursting out laughing. Ellis dragged her (somewhat faded) husband to their room a few floors later with a tossed back "Good night." And with the grin on my face, it was pretty certain that I wouldn't be getting any sleep that last night of the show.

I wish you could've been there with me.

**********

Honorable Mention:

All right, I know this has been going on for a while, and I've used up all my semi-interesting celebrity stories, but I've got one related anecdote I thought I'd share for posterity's sake.

As I said in my "What I Wrote" roundup, the CBR coverage of the whole Hall H eye-stabbing was a really harried and surreal experience all around. Though one humorous bright spot to that sad incident came as I rushed over towards the Hall H doors in hopes of getting word from con officials or the police on what exactly had happened.

After I arrived on the scene and fell into a photo of the suspect doing a perp walk, I made my way over to the big glass doors for the hall where a few journalists and some of the Marvel Comics staff arriving in bewilderment for their own delayed movie panel were milling about. After tapping on the glass and getting the attention of a con staffer, I asked whether a statement would be released, who with the police might go on the record, etc. He didn't seem to know but told me that they'd start letting folks into Hall H in a few minutes so maybe I should wait around.

As I stood there trying to call the San Diego Police's media line, I felt a gentle tug at my sleeve. I turned to find an older woman with red hair and a smile on her face. "Excuse me, young man," she said. "I was wondering if you could help me?"

"I can try," I said. "What can I do for you, ma'am?"

"You see, I'm Mark Ruffalo's mother, and I'm trying to figure out where the Marvel panel is."

At that moment, a gentlemen with the lady started to whisper "He can't help you!" in her ear and pull her away as I thought, "Oh fuck! This poor lady has no idea someone's been stabbed in the eye with a pen! She just wants to see her son become the Hulk!"

Luckily, I was able to wave down Marvel's C.B. Cebulski and Mike Pasciullo who put her in the hands of who I'm pretty sure was Marvel Studio's PR contact Melissa Zukerman. I heard later that she was front and center for her son's big moment. Not a celebrity sighting really, but a sweet lady all around.

Her kid's SUPER dreamy too, right?


See you next year!

Ben's SDCC 2010 After Hours Adventures pt. 1

By now you’ve read a zillion and one reports on last week’s San Diego Comic-Con International—including mine and Kiel’s—giving you all the details on the panels, announcements and other spectacular happenings during the show itself. But haven’t you been yearning to read about what a legitimate comic book professional does after the convention hall closes its doors to the public each evening?

Well, in that case, I wish you the best of luck finding a legitimate comic book professional to spin those yarns for you.

In the mean time, here’s what I did during the late PM and early AM hours of my San Diego experience.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 21
It’s tough to have a fuller day that I had Wednesday, as it was wake up at 5:00 AM or so Eastern time, get to Newark Airport, hop on a six-hour plane ride to San Diego, check into my hotel, grab a bite, book it to the convention center, then help assemble the Marvel booth and hobnob with fans and pros for a bit during Preview Night (“hobnob” really meaning tell people where stuff is and keep them off Odin’s throne until it’s all set up).

By 9:00 when the show floor closed, I and the rest of my posse were pretty wiped, so we made the easy beeline to the Tin Fish across the street to score some quick grub before passing out. In this case said posse consisted of myself, Ryan Penagos, John Cerilli, Marc Strom, our photographer Ryan Russell and illustrious Spider-Man assistant editor Tom “The Third Ashmore” Brennan (so called because a fan mistook him for Shawn Ashmore one day of the show and acted awestruck for 30 seconds or so before realizing who he actually was and complaining about Brand New Day).

I am much in Mr. Penagos’ debt for introducing me to Tin Fish last year, as it’s not only conveniently located a literal stone’s throw from the show (I mean, you need to put some heft into your throw, but still), but also boasts great eats and a pleasant outdoor seating area where you can really enjoy the great San Diego weather and get a neat view of the goings on around the Gaslamp District. Dinner was a good chance for me to bond with Mr. Brennan, who would become the Toejam to my Earl as the weekend went, learning a bit more about his mystery-enshrouded personal life and explaining to him why San Diego is pretty much my ideal dream city to live in some day.

But as much as I enjoy hanging with T-Bone, the highlight of Tin Fish is without question its grilled calamari, which I waited 12 long months to experience once more. Calamari is absolutely delicious and among my favorite things to eat, but most places you can only get it fried as an appetizer, which makes my mouth happy, but not my stomach; Tin Fish has an awesome version sans deep-frying which serves as a satisfying and scrumptious meal accompanied by awesome waffle fries.

We got back to the room about 11:30 and while Ryan P. opted for bed, I headed over to the Hyatt bar to meet up with Rickey and Kiel real quick. I actually ended up bumping into Todd and Dawn Nauck, two of my favorite folks in the comics world, and chatted them up after our usual greeting which consists of a hearty handshake for Todd and kiss on the cheek for Dawn that I assure her is “an East coast thing” (this year I finally confessed it is not). Things actually got pretty fast and furious for me as seemingly everybody I knew from Kevin to “Big” Jim Gibbons to ComicsAlliance’s Laura Hudson to more ex-Wizard chums converged on where I was standing and Megan also called to say goodnight, so I was multitasking and socializing like a champ. I hung around way past my bed time and offered up a prayer that I’d be able to wake up a few hours later.

THURSDAY, JULY 22
First real night of the con, I got a dinner invite I could not—and would never want to—pass up from the Naucks to sup with them as well as cosmic writing dream team Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning as well as their erstwhile Guardians of the Galaxy artist Brad Walker. As DnA were late arrived from England following a delay in their flight while Todd and Brad (and Dawn) had better things to do, restaurant arrangements were left to me—the fools.

Luckily I had a lull in liveblogging a panel and free Wi Fi to spare, so I figured out that the Hyatte, where they were all staying anyhow, had plenty of places to eat, including Redfield’s Sports Bar, where we ended up.

When I got to the lobby, Todd and Dawn were running a bit late, so I killed time with the space cowboys and officially met Brad for the first time. A few minutes later, we were joined by a slightly shaken Nauck duo who had just spent an hour dealing with hotel security after a flyer for some video game party (or something) was left on their bathroom mirror and the bell desk knew nothing about it; turned out to be a kinda crappy viral stunt perpetrated on most of the major hotels housing con guests (Ryan and I got one in our room but rather than reacting sensibly like Todd and Dawn, just left it on our mirror for two days because we’re lazy).

Redfield’s was nice and laid back, the only downside being there weren’t any real tables so we ended up at the (pictured above) thing that Dan and Andy christened “Odin’s [some British word I don’t remember].” Actually, that wasn’t a downside, it was awesome.

Brad and I both ordered Kobe beef hot dogs that have probably ruined regular hot dogs for us for the rest of our lives they were so good (it’s worth noting this did not prevent me from having several more convention center hot dogs over the course of the show as they along with soft pretzels composed the bulk of my diet). As for entertainment, that was provided by the Brits, who are just friggin’ hilarious, Andy in particular (I don’t think Dan would take offense at my saying so as he seems quite content in his role as straight man to Andy’s manic stand-up). They had us all rolling, especially Dawn, who had heard tales from Todd of their humor, but was witnessing it for the first time in person; getting Dawn’s attention by yelling “Dawn! Dawn! I believe Andy is telling a joke!” became a running gag for the weekend.

Incidentally I also got to hear a top secret DnA pitch that could have been and would have been awesome on a major character that made me hope someday the stars will align because it would be so so cool.

Relatively early night after spending a bit more time with just the Naucks and seeing Mike Carlin for the first time in a couple years, during the course of which I learned there is a 25-year-old Secret Wars promotional video haunting the Marvel offices that must be mine.

To be continued...