San Diego Comicon Day 5, Sunday

Posted on 08.18.08 11:07PM under San Diego Comicon 2008, San Diego Comicon 2009, San Diego Comicon 2010

July 27

The last day of the Comicon and expectations were low, but in fact with people coming in for just this one day, it was quite busy.

I went to bed about 10:30 PM on Saturday, unable to keep my eyes open even after a shower, literally falling asleep at the keyboard as I was writing this and then jerking awake with a long row of the same letter typed on a page. I think that’s how zzzzzzz came to mean sleeping…

I woke up at 2:30 AM, wide awake and continued to blog. With so many photos to upload, I worked steadily until 8:30 AM.

I met with Les and Ernst Dabel at 10:30 AM. We found an empty room on the 2nd floor that had a huge chess board on the carpet to talk. “This is our office!” said Les. I guess there must have been a human chess game the day before. It was a very good and optimistic meeting and things are going full speed ahead with DOG EATERS. There will be some other big DB news announced in the next week or so. Any good news and good sales for the DB books can only reflect well on Dog Eaters. Like I said, I’m optimistic. The game plan is in place. Now it’s all a matter of execution. Execution!

I didn’t really feel like recruiting new Black Dog Clan members after the meeting. It takes quite a bit of energy to “get into character,” and wind myself up to deliver the pitch the way it should — in rising and falling preacher oratory style. I was a bit drained by both the meeting and the past 4 days. What difference would it make to recruit more members? I would just be making work for myself. I had enough members to make a nice presentation on the dogeaters-manga site. Then, as I was standing in line at Starbucks on the 2nd floor, I saw these two guys and I felt the urge to recruit again.

Don’t know quite who they are supposed to be but I am reminded of the Venetian masked parties.

Then I saw this boy under the “Men’s” sign.
And I was off and running again.
This vampire was a fangirl last year.

And this year she is the star of a couple of hard-core, girl-on-girl DVDs and a character in her own hardcore comic. I’m not sure if the fangs in her mouth are dentures or implants. Or real…

This character was a bit confusing. I think it is one of the minor characters in a webcomic called, GIRL GENIUS, but I could be wrong. You see two interpretations, one played by a boy and the other by a girl. Again, not sure what the intention is here as they were both official cos-players for that booth. A unisex character? A transvestite? A character anyone can play?

On the first or second day of the Con, I shot the oldest and second-oldest sister of the Living Dolls. The middle sister, Rannie Rodil, is the photographer. The one in baby blue is the youngest, I believe… And they are somehow connected to a weird “family” that resides at InkPenMutations. Not sure how it all works, but…

This Button Man is like a holdover from the Ken Kesey days of Orange Owsley. Or a flashback…

Quite a few Iron Man’s this year. I think it will be Watchmen next year.

Foxes wouldn’t normally eat dogs, I don’t think. But they did chew on the comic when I shot them for the Black Dog Clan membership initiation.
I visited the booths of artists David Nakayama who gave me a Hulk he drew in exchange for a DOG EATERS and Dustin Weaver who was right next to him in the farthest corner of the Artists’s Alley. David is a Punahou grad, like Barack Obama. Dustin has the same name as my oldest son, a member of the band Ponytail.
I also paid a visit to Angel Medina who’s art I bought last year. Two pieces, actually.

Another artist who’s work I admire, Simone Bianchi, did not want to be inducted into the Black Dog Clan. Savvy guy, aware of the complications of “endorsing” art and a comic that he is not involved with — and will not profit from. I was stung for a long moment, several hours actually, but it’s cool. I haven’t bought any of his art yet either, so it’s not like I deserve any favors.

I also wandered onto an autograph signing by Adoni Maropis who played Abu Fayed, a terrorist on 24.

Kiddy robots with foam for armor. Like a stuffed animal or plush, as they say these days.

A couple of intricate Kamen Raida models.

The Force still lingers.

There were a lot of cameras this year. Lots of small HD video cams shooting for cable and web, lots of stills. More cameras than things and people to shoot, probably. Greedy Productions, working for G4 in Canada, a TV network dedicated to interactive and new media, shot footage of me going through my spiel. They had already done a little about DOG EATERS on their own, which was surprising and hopefully a harbinger of things to come. There is only so much you can do to promote yourself and your project. It has to take on a life of its own if it is going to survive in the marketplace. It went quite smoothly — it better have as I have been delivering this speech hundreds of times with only minor variations for the past 5 days.

Another shot of Isaac and me. Miyuki thinks it’s important to get capture this time together as Isaac goes off to college in the fall.

It’s over!

Azusa spots a t-shirt: Army of One.

The fastest way back to the hotel…
After a quick dinner at the food court near the Westin Horto, I took the suitcase with DE previews, t-shirts, and other stuff collected over the last several days back to the Westin on 400 W. Broadway before we watched the DARK KNIGHT. I’m embarrassed to say that I nodded off to sleep a few times, starting with the opening bank robbery scene. I must have been exhausted, but I’ll never admit that.

Tomorrow morning early, we leave for Maui. Blogging will go on a short vacation. Check back in a week or so to see what kind of progress has been made on the production. I am still hoping that we will soon have a downloadable pdf of the preview issue #1.

For those of those of you who have been reading this, thanks for coming along for the ride and we’ll see you soon!

Post Comments

XHTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

* Required. Your email will never be displayed in public.