My favorite things from San Diego Comic-Con:
1. Watching Neil Gaiman blush many different shades of red at the Eisner Awards, and then get kissed soundly by co-presenter Jonathan Ross. What a lot of people are missing, aside from the hilarity of the act itself, was the subsequent exchange:
NG: … (in shock, a bit)
NG: (recovering nicely) You could have shaved.
JR: You could buy a new jacket!
Bwa!
2. Having the lovely Oni Press people recognize me as a famous librarian — really, nothing compares to that. And then they gave me books. Yay!
3. The love we librarians got at the What’s Happening in Kids Comics panel, as many of the panelists (including George O’Connor and Jimmy Gownley) sung our praises. Thanks guys!
4. Getting to meet many creators, industry folks, and fellow librarians. Too many to name, but, as Gene Yang said in his acceptance speech for Best Graphic Album (yay!), these are my people.
5. Reuniting with my fellow Eisner Judges James Sime, Whitney Matheson, and Chris Reilly. The Eisners were very much like the Oscars: they went on for rather too long, there were dull bits, silly bits, and a few memorable acceptance speeches. Aside from the afore-mentioned snog, the Goon guys (Eric Powell and Dwight Albatross) brought much-needed raunchiness to the proceedings. I want an Eisner belt! And I love any chance to dress up. If I do say so myself, we judges all looked smashing.
6. Checking out the view of the Con floor from the top floor of ADV’s booth (Thanks, Chris!). The throngs of people really are an impressive sight. Apparently there were over 150,000 attendees this year!
7. The TV geek in me really enjoyed the Supernatural panel, the one media panel I was able to get into (admittedly, by camping in the room through the end of the Laurel K. Hamilton panel and all through the Family Guy panel, both of which were happily quite entertaining.) My roomie, lucky girl, actually got into the Heroes/Battlestar Galactica room, but as I had a meeting, by the time I got there, the line had been cut off.
8. The fact that I saw quite a number of female comics fans — go us!
9. Discovering the delightful comic Delilah Dirk and the Treasure of Constantinople by Tony Cliff. I want more, like, right now. Yesterday, in fact. So get working, Tony Cliff!
10. The Golden Compass booth — anything that lets me see the awesome costume and gadget design for such a film makes me happy. Of course, I’m just praying the film is as good as I want it to be.
