Tag: Comic-Con

2020 Comic-Con Thoughts

On July 22, 2020

In 2020, Book Recommendation, Book Review, Comic Books, Comic-Con, Fandom, Fans, San Diego Comic Con

Nearly forty years ago I went to my first comic book convention.

It was fun, and quite small.

Next I would attend a Robotech convention, it was fun, and even smaller.

A few years later I went to my very first San Diego Comic-Con.

At the time it was held in the old San Diego Convention Center downtown, I’m not old enough to have attended in the hotel where it first began. But that year, it was quite an amazing experience for the kid who had his hopes set on becoming a comic book artist.

Two things stand out in my memories of my first Comic-Con. Getting inking lessons from Dick Giordano, (especially how to create ‘Kirby Dots’) and hoping to meet one of my favorite writers. Unfortunately, he missed his panel, afterwards a few of us attempted to have him paged, but he never showed.

Many years later I spotted him across the lobby of one of the San Diego Comic-Con hotels and I rushed across to talk with him. I told him how much his comics, his writing, his research, influenced the young boy that I was and the man I am. That was probably one of the best experiences of all my Comic-Con visits.

The year of my first San Diego Comic-Con the attendance was 5,000.

That sounded like a massive amount of people at the time, but it is nothing compared to the 120,000 to 160,000 that have attended each year over the last decade or so. Many more who hang out in the Gaslamp District.

In over 30 years I only missed San Diego one time.

I’ve always been a loner geek, and in a massive con crowd even more so. I’d have to find someone to go with me.

With in weeks of when the woman who would become my wife moved to Southern California, I took to her to her first convention. To the San Diego Comic-Con. She’d later say I should have started her off small, but she enjoyed it all the same, and has gone with me every year since. Both of us with Pro-Badges now.

This year things are different, for all of us. Convention season hasn’t been canceled; it has gone virtual. The Convention Center, Exhibit Hall, The Masquerade, the Panels, they all exist in The Cloud right now. On YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, and more.
For San Diego Comic-Con they are now Comic-Con@Home. Wednesday, July 22nd. to Sunday, July 26.

The 2020 Comic-Con souvenir book. Click on the image to download a PDF copy.

It’s disappointing, but it’s not gone.

As for the future, no one really knows yet. Conventions will probably never be that large again, but maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it’s time that our love for comics, movies, video games, science fiction, and fantasy returns to being more intimate. Where a small group of fans can enjoy their shared love for a comic book, or good naturedly argue over how a movie didn’t quite get their favorite character just right, and not be crowded out and have to shout over one another. Where Disney Princesses and Transformers don’t have to worry about thousands of feet tramping on their costumes.

The Cons are about us, the fans, and our love of stories that exist in four-color comics, books, celluloid film, digital pixels, computer screens, smart phones, and much more.

Speaking of that love, and of our fandoms, I’d like to recommend something:

ONCE UPON A CON

As I write this blog I am finishing reading a book for the third time. It seemed to be the right book to read in the midst of this Con Season.

It’s title is GEEKERELLA: A FANGIRL FAIRY TALE, part one of author Ashley Poston‘s ONCE UPON A CON series of novels.

This book is a love song to comic and science fiction conventions, to comics and science fiction television, to fans and fandom, to just plain being a geek no matter who you are. Are you an actor, a writer, an artist, a blogger, or just a good old fan of an old TV series, you exist inside the impossible universe of Geekeralla.

While not being able to go to a con and need something to pull on your convention heartstrings, this book will do it.

Then go pick up the second book in the series THE PRINCESS AND THE FAN GIR L, and coming in August BOOKISH AND THE BEAST.

Your Inner-Geek will thank you.

Post San Diego Comic Con 2013 – #Mission818

By kevinpsb4

On July 22, 2013

In Uncategorized

Well, I’m back from ComicCon and survived being one in 130,000 people on the convention floor.

I won’t tell you how many conventions I’ve been too, and have only missed one in all that time, but what I can say is this may have been one of the most productive cons so far.

Over the next week I plan on writing short blogs about different parts of the con that I experienced. I hope it’s worth the reading.

Shannon and I road the Amtrak Train “Surfliner” down to San Diego and back home again each day. (We didn’t go for Sunday. We needed the rest.) It was a relaxing way to do it, and actually get some writing done. On Saturday we met someone at our hometown train station that was also going to Con, and saw again when we got back late that night. It turned out we had other connections, and this chance meeting may lead into some positive networking with companies down the road. We can only try.

Each day was crowded with people, and sometimes that can be frustrating when you’re trying to keep up with your partner salmon swimming up stream, but it is still fun.

The TV news kept going on about the costumes (or cosplay), but there was so much more to it than that. Though there were some really great costumes. The ones that really got to me were the families. Not just a group of people together, but families. A family that was dressed as Superman/Wonder Woman and Supergirl/Superboy. Another family that was the main pantheon of Star Wars characters. Do what you’re children love, and your children will do what you love.

As stated in my last blog we were going to avoid Hall H and Ballroom 20. However we did make one attempt to get into 20, Steven Moffat was there about the TV series SHERLOCK. The line which began at ground level near went up a long set of stairs and then Disneyland Lined back and forth. We spent 40 minutes in the line, but once the actual program began we knew we’d never make it inside. A friend of ours spent 3 hours in line for the same panel and still never got in.

We never even contemplated going to see DOCTOR WHO in Hall H. Not only getting in line itself can be bad, but also a lot of people decided to camp out in line or in the Hall itself once inside. The simple concept is that you go into see one panel even if you’re not interest in it and stay there until you see the panel you want. Sometimes if you sit in an earlier panel you might discover something new that interests you. Sounds like a good plan, but then you decide to do it for Hall H. Waiting 3 hours might be okay for some, but would you be willing to camp in the Hall our outside the convention center all night long? Well a lot of people did. Not me; no way!

Even avoiding the masses, we did end up in some very good panels. We sat in on one about writing for television and the experience in the “writer’s room.” It was fun that one of our friends was on the panel, would be even more fun if we were friends with the rest of the panel. We got in but the line beyond use couldn’t, this was a much smaller room.

Shannon really got a lot out of a panel on Digital Comics in Schools and Libraries. She’ll be writing her own blogs about that.

There were also a couple of spotlight panels that we attended. Those were cool to hear the people we look up to talk about their careers in their own words. I’ll be writing about one of those later. Of course it was also great to meet people on the floor, in artists alley, they we’ve worked with in the past.

We also attended the Writers’ Guild of America gathering, but could only stay for about half an hour, as we had to get to the train station.

It doesn’t sounds like a whole lot, but the little things are what matters. Each a small part of my #Mission818

We really had a good time.

More Con Blogs to follow.

San Diego Comic Con 2013 and #Mission818

By kevinpsb4

On July 17, 2013

In Uncategorized

As I write this thousands of people are arriving into San Diego for Comic Con International and many are attending “Preview Night”. I’ve never been there on Wednesday nights. It originally was a special “Preview” for professionals and retailers, but now it has grown to be nearly as busy as every other day at Con.

Shannon Muir and I will attend the convention Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. We are riding Amtrak trains to and from San Diego each day, but it is much more inexpensive and relaxing than trying for a hotel room.

We attend Con to meet up with many of our professional friends and network with many of the companies in attendance.

This year I am bringing #MISSION818 with me.

If you’ve been around my blog long enough, or a regular visitor and follower of my facebook or twitter feed you’ll know what #MISSION818 is. For those that don’t here is a brief description.

Shannon and I are engaged to be married, and I plan to move to be with her in the Glendale/Burbank area, and so my Mission is find employment in or around the 818 area code before our wedding.

I would prefer to find employment with an animation production company or comic book publisher, but am open to other positions and companies in that region.

I am a scriptwriter, having written professional in television animation, and been hired to develop series for independent producers. I am also a comic book illustrator, novelist, and book cover artist.

If I could have the exact job I’m after it would Senior Vice President of TV Animation Series Development, but that’s not going to happen right away. In the mean time I’ll be quite happy to assist the guy in the position now. I’ll even bring my own broom.

For my professional friends on facebook and twitter, you know that as I further my career I tag them with #MISSION818. So, this year I will be wearing a #MISSION818 T-Shirt and you all can find me in the Comic Con crowd. See the photo to know what you’re looking for:

Feel free to stop me and say hi, and like my facebook post. More importantly, lets talk about what I can do for you.

Hope to write a Post-Con Blog next week, or maybe some on spot posts to my facebook page while I’m there and let you all know how #MISSION818 worked out.

Thank you all for the support.

Kevin Paul Shaw Broden
Four Names of Professional Creativity

After Comic-Con 08

By kevinpsb4

On August 2, 2008

In Uncategorized

I’ve been home now nearly a week since the San Diego Comic-Con, boy does time fly. Other people have already posted their thoughts on the Con, and I probably don’t have a lot to add, but here is a small ramble if nothing else.I’ve been attending the con for many many years now, since it was at the downtown convention hall and watched it grow every year since then. The first year I was there the total number was 5000, today we reach over 120,000 people and can’t really get much hire then that.

Even though it was crowded, I wasn’t really bothered by the crowds, I was a crowd to them after all. I won’t even blame the greater influx of Hollywood. Someone the other night said that it was Hollywood was taking too much of the con. But I see all this as part of the same. Sure there is a love of comics that have been pushed into a corner, but truthfully we are all part of the same world of visual story telling. Over sixty years ago there were comics based on movies and comedians like Jerry Lewis and Bob Hope. I think that the important thing in all this is that the world, if for only those four days a year, sees comic books, animation, gaming, television, and movies as equals and all have time to shine all interconnected.

I guess I can say that because I have great dreams to be working in all those areas and see them all the same. Sure writing for a comic is different then for movie, but it is still story telling and that’s what I dream to do. There are those who get into animation as a step towards live action writing, but there are also live action television and movie writers who are now writing for comics because they love.

I haven’t always been the best at networking with people at the con, and the crowd makes it all the more fun at trying it. But I came away from this con feeling much better about things, and making greater contacts along the way.

Didn’t expect my ramble to go in the direction it did, but that’s where it is. I have a passion for story telling, visual story telling, “narrative illustration” as my professor and I called. So I’m going be working in this world right along side the best comic, animation, gaming, and movie giants.

Hope you all had a good time and enjoying your summer.