Elvis Stormtrooper. LeVar Burton. Giant Lego Chewbecca.

Yes, it’s that time again! Comic-Con!

And here’s my confessions for people on either side of the comic book divide, rendering me an outcast to both.

• I like comic books.

• I haven’t read many of them.

Aside from Archie and Mad Magazine, I haven’t spent much time savoring the often not-so-subtle blend of pictures and words. But in the last few years, I’ve changed my mind. What caused this miraculous switch you ask? Well, I could say I read Blankets by Craig Thompson and was blown away by the emotion and depth you can put in a graphic novel. Or I could say that Frank Miller’s gritty style in Sin City captured my imagination. But, of course, I’d be lying. The truth is… it was Captain Underpants.

I heart Captain Underpants.

It was my gateway comic. Ever since then, I’ve been slipping away when no one’s watching, cracking the spines of the forbidden fruit, and… reading. And I do love Blankets and Frank Miller is fascinating. But I am still in many ways a newbie. Don’t tell anyone, but this year was my FIRST Comic-Con in San Deigo.

Now to say Comic-Con is about comics would be super limiting. It’s also about movies and tv and toys and art and writing and pop culture and costumes and, well, everything. I went this past Friday, and yes, the exhibition floor was as huge and overwhelming as people said it would be. But the day was fun and wonderful and so very awesome. Here are some things I discovered…

• Wonder Woman! I never thought I’d meet someone who draws for Wonder Woman. She is my favoritist super hero (yes, I have Wonder Woman pj’s). So it blows my mind that I’m now friends with the artist for the recent Wonder Woman comics. Our friend Drew Johnson was at a booth signing his artwork and we got an autographed copy of the recent Wonder Woman (issue 7) and a sketchbook from him. He’s a great guy and a fantastic artist. His wife Karen (who has an equally cool job, working as an animator for the Simpsons) was also there at a booth, but we missed her.

• The ancient secret of the art of webcomics was revealed! Scott Kurtz, who writes PVP, a webcomic, and Robert Khoo, the business manager for Penny Arcade, another great webcomic, let us peek inside their brains for an hour. The audience shouted out ideas for great comic themes (A garbage dump! A chili dog stand! A casino!) and on the spot Scott and Robert invented a new ‘comic’ and business strategy. They scribbled all over the whiteboard, threw witty banter back and forth, and generally showed the artistic and marketing process of getting a webcomic off the ground. It was fun, inspiring, and extremely informative.

• Fomato. I checked out an awesome booth, ran by a new friend of mine. She creates unique and bizarrely funny greeting cards and buttons (of which I, of course, bought 5). The combo of extremely cute characters paired with wonderfully outlandish text was brilliant.

•  Neil Gaiman doesn’t get writers block. Here’s his belief and one I happen to agree with. Writer’s block is just a fancy way of saying you’re stuck. You’re having a problem that you don’t know how to solve. Or you don’t know what happens next, so you can’t go forward. This is currently happening to me in a revision, so I appreciated his comments. To get unstuck, he usually has more than one project going at a time, so that he can switch gears easily, and give himself space to work the problem out. He also says, just don’t let yourself do anything else. You can write or sit there and do nothing, but you can’t read or watch tv or anything else (he credited this is advice to Daniel Pinkwater… one of my FAVORITE writers).

I also discovered $8 sandwiches, mean security guards, and a new meaning for claustrophobia, but I still wish I’d gone for more than one day. Sigh… I can’t wait till next year.

Posted in Nifty happenings

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