Guest Post: Craig Gordon, SDCC and Comics, pt. the End

I also picked up the first 2 collected volumes of the Cool Jerk comic strip. This strip is a bit of hit or miss for me. Some of the strips are absolutely hilarious. Some of the others have pop-culture references that I don’t get. Mostly in the first volume, where there are a lot of references that make sense to someone in high school in the 90’s. For those I hand them to our managing editor. She laughs and then has to explain the joke to me. I kind of lived in a closet (pop-culture wise) during the 90’s. The author, Paul Horn, has apparently been to Comic-Con for 30 years in a row as of this year! I can guarantee that I hadn’t heard of Comic-Con 30 years ago. Check out his website and his wife Darlene’s food blog.

Guy painting backdrop at Comic Con.

Other notables include:

  • 17 Machine Studios and their comic Native Drums. I didn’t pick up a copy but I’m keeping an eye on it.
  • Artist Fiona Meng
  • Artist Lesley Vamos who ventured all the way from Australia
  • Meeting Wendy and Richard Pini of Elfquest. They are cute together.

Monday there was no Comic-Con. u_u; The con ended at 5:00 PM on Sunday. Our flight out wasn’t until 8:00 PM on Monday though. We had a lazy brunch then sat at the hotel for several hours until our friend got off work. We walked around the Old Town area of San Diego. It is an interesting 3×4 block area that is trying to recapture some of the feel of what things were like during the mission period of California. Lots of “ye olde” stores. We got lunch/dinner from Coyote Cafe which was featured on Food Network’s Heat Seekers for the Naga Viper Salsa Pork Carnitas. Keeping in mind that we were shortly going to be getting on an airplane, I stuck to the tamer tacos most of which were very good.

Steampunk guy, picture by Craig Gordon

At the airport our flight was delayed for 3 hours due to fog in San Francisco. If you have been to the SF bay area you know how rare that is. This turned out to be ok since we got the chance to talk with someone who was supposed to be on the flight before ours. Five minutes in we find we know the same person who works with Clockwork Alchemy and is organizing Steamstock so we kept chatting for a while. It turns out he is the editor-in-cheif of his own site, Rarity Guide, a site for geek collectors and collectibles and he had been at Comic-Con to get interviews for the site. So that turned out to be a good and informative conversation.

Then we got our flight and finally, gratefully passed out in our own bed at 2 AM.

The main lessons we learned for next year:

  1. Drive. Trying to fit everything into carry-ons is no fun and being dependent on the airlines is almost as bad.
  2. Go to more after parties. This is apparently the best way to network.
  3. Try to get a hotel within walking distance of the Con. Not an absolute requirement but a good idea. Many of the hotels have shuttles to the Con but the shuttles normally run every 30 minutes and stop at 7:00 PM on Sunday. So, if trying to maximize time at the Con and make some after parties, being close enough to walk is very helpful.

By the way, here are the comics I currently read:

  1. Rachel Rising
  2. Unwritten
  3. izombie
  4. Powers (ok, one super-hero book .. kind of)
  5. Memorial

    The ubiquitous end of the line sign. Picture by Jennifer Bevan

Links: racebending.com, Archaia, N.K. Jemisin blog, Princeless tumblr, Keith Knight, Cool Jerk, Burning Kitchen, Elfquest, Prism Comics, 17 Machine Studios, Lesley Vamos, Fiona Meng, Clockwork Alchemy, Steamstock, Rarity Guide, The Stage: Rock Bar & Grill

Written by