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Sweeping the Floor on Day 1

26 07 2007

San Diego Comic-con 2007 started with an early morning train ride for AWN’s Managing Editor Rick DeMott and myself. We met at Union Station a little before 6:00 a.m. lugging our laptops, luggage, schedules, floor maps, phones and cameras.

Rick loves the train!

The ocean is the last calm thing we see

Two hours later we were in San Diego and gawking in amazement at just how much the Con has grown in one short year. I couldn’t believe that it was only Day 1. At 9:00 a.m. the streets were completely packed. Thousands of people packed the blocks of the Gaslamp District. Everywhere we could see was a sea of people. We weren’t the only ones amazed at the volume. News crews and the general public were all commenting on the crowd.

But it’s Thursday! There can’t be this many people!

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Once inside and badged, we did a quick walk through of the packed show floor. It felt like a Saturday. The floor was jammed. It was most definitely not a typical Comic-Con Thursday. Throughout the day the feeling that it was Saturday persisted. There were just that many people packing the aisles and every spare inch of the huge convention center.

I spent the day on the show floor while Rick went to panels and hung out in the mysterious Hall H.

Dark Horse Comics was one of my first stops. I found Jeremy Atkins carefully hanging the bright yellow Dark Horse bags on a stand and picked up my coveted tickets to signings by Mike Mignola, Josh Whedon, Gerard Way, Yoshitaka Amano and tickets to the 300 screening at Petco Park tomorrow. I’m also looking forward to the signing of Alice in Sunderland on Sunday by Bryan Talbot.

Top Shelf Comics who is celebrating their 10th anniversary was next. Chris Staros was doing brisk business and had a full core of cartoonists there. I got to meet the talented and lovely author of The Ticking and Micrographica, Renee French. The Ticking is one of the most astounding and unusual graphic novels out.

Chris Staros at Top Shelf Comics

Top Shelf has some great comics that I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing for my book blog and The Flipbook. I was pleased to see Korgi, Owly, Tales from The Farm and several others of my favorites at the booth along with their creators.

Renee French

Also joining in the Top Shelf autographing celebration are the following cartoonists

Andy Runton
Robert Venditti
Jeff Lemire
Jeremy Tinder
Eddie Campbell
Christian Slade
David Yurkovich
Andy Hartzell
Jeffrey Brown
Renee French
Matt Kindt

I visited Charles Vess over at Greenman Press and as always was blown away by his artwork.

Charles Vess signs The Book of Ballads

Brian Froud was busy at his booth promoting his new Faerie book

The most popular giveaway it seemed was the massive Smallville bag from Warner Bros. Everyone wanted one and the lines around their booth was tremendous and seemingly neverending. When I left the floor at 5:15 p.m. the lines were still wrapped around the booth with people holding Popeye the Sailor hats to be signed. Another popular giveaway was the 300 cardboard shield, also by Warner Bros.

I would have liked more time on the show floor to look around but duty called and I had meetings most of the day. Still, I did manage to follow the yellow brick road and hey, it’s not every day I photograph a girl with a gun for a leg and an armored polar bear.