Is San Diego Comic Con still for comic strip ? For year , multitude have bemoaned the fact that SDCC is increasingly about movies and boob tube , and now comics retailers are giving up . Yesterday , welistedcomics as one of the “ unsuccessful person ” of Comic - Con , but veteran soldier diary keeper and Image Comics staffer David Brothers disagrees . Here ’s why .
Top image : Kevin Dooley / Flickr .
Hi , I ’m David Brothers , I process at Image Comics , and I had a peachy time at San Diego Comic - Con this yr .
From set - up on Tuesday morning to the beginning of tear - down on Sunday evening , I was work at SDCC . When I was n’t at the show , I was in my hotel room strain to keep up with my normal duties at work so I could go out and see friend for a couple hours at night . I was there to body of work , basically , and I say this to make it homely that I ’m not the conventional con - goer . But at the same clock time , my view as an Image employee gives me a hazard to have a unique convention experience and the opportunity to verbalize to a vast cross - section of flimflam - goers .
Our John Wilkes Booth was packed throughout the weekend , thanks in no minuscule part to the announcements we made at Image Expo on the first day of the convention and the creators signing cartoon strip for their devotee . Most people visiting a comics newspaper publisher ’s booth are already on the hook to a sure extent , but I suffer masses who ’d been get to SDCC for anywhere between one and twenty - plus year who were all excited to be there . Our booth was pack the whole weekend , and the conversation I had with people were overwhelmingly positive . Overwhelmingly enthusiastic .
One of several highlights of my weekend was watching funnies creators sign comics for fans . I watched hoi polloi like Kelly Sue DeConnick , Scott Snyder , Matt Fraction , Chip Zdarsky , Jason Latour , Jason Aaron , John Layman , Rob Guillory , Amy Reeder , and Brandon Montclare go above and beyond every single time . They took photos , gawked at tattoo of their work , and put a smile on the side of everyone they saw . If someone in a costume from one of their books appeared , every God Almighty was on their feet in a shot , quick to take a pic to take home .
I was peculiarly impressed with DeConnick this weekend , who winged her mode from one super - packed signing directly to a gathering of the Carol Corps , an informal - but - passionate fan order for the work she ’s done on Marvel ’s Captain Marvel series . Trailing behind her on the way to that assemblage were even more buff . The gathering was outside , on a Seth of steps connected to the yardbird , and fans came out in droves . This picture from the collect isone of my preferent photos from the bunko game . I defy you to face at this and not feel lovesome about what comics can and have done .
And other comics companies were hopping , too — I have a go at it from talking to my friends that Boom ! Studios , Vertical Inc. , Top Shelf , Viz , and Fantagraphics had a corking con . I in person spotted plausibly a XII Bee & Puppycat cosplayers . Fantagraphics is one of the best publishers in comics , if not book publication period , and their beautifully - designed books bewilder a lot of attention . They surely produce me . Archie was situated near our kiosk and I noticed them killing it , too .
I spent some time dealing with creators who were selling their book on their own , too , buying books from masses like Kenny Keil and Tom Scioli and Stephanie Lantry . I found Spike Trotman by accident , a superstar webcomics creator if there ever was one , and she was in large humour , pushing her Good Book and blowing thinker with her wisdom on the political economy of comedian . Dumbrella , the webcomics corporate , had creators lay out who were excited to be there . Tabling is hard , in spades one of the arduous problem in comics , but they did it with inviting smiles .
All the people I ’m talking about were there as professionals , but the veritable yard bird - goers were incredible , too . I talk to more devotee than I did pros over the course of the week , thanks to my clock time drop on panels . I personally speak in front of several hundred people over the track of five days . When I played call and response with the interview , they were all into it . The hand clapping in our rooms for the Jehovah speaking passionately about produce comics drowned out the noise of movie trailers and video games . I get it on mass will enter rooms and camp in the back ahead of time to see board that are later in the mean solar day , but if our room were full of motor home , they were the politest and most interested motor home in the entire world . I made it a level to involve every elbow room how their con was kick the bucket , and the response every single time was a roar .
And that ’s not even mentioning the cosplayers , or the kids , or the the great unwashed that do n’t correspond the stereotype of a consecrate comics reader , and their avidness to talk about comic strip in existent life . One cosplayer I met said her workweek was made by converge Saga creators Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples during a signing , and then go into Staples elsewhere in the con , being recognized , and having a real conversation .
And focusing on Marvel and DC at the expense of the 12 of other publishers in comedian , and then announce comics a failure at San Diego Comic - Con , is fabulously shortsighted . It ’s a mistake to think that Marvel and DC are all that weigh , that their new events or announcement prescribe the future of Das Kapital - c Comics . Marvel and DC are comic , just like the other newspaper publisher , and they make some great ones when they let the creators do their own thing . But at this point ? You ca n’t handle them like the entirety of the comics manufacture , or even two companies that can order the time to come of comics . They start the moving-picture show , and that ’s nerveless , but running comics ? It ’s just not true any more . Image in particular outsell Marvel in the book market as far as trade paperbacks go , and that holds honest in the comics market recently , too . That ’s no coincidence . People relish Marvel and DC , but they need more than Marvel and DC .
If the announcements from the Big Two felt lustreless , but the fan still had a great time , how did comedian fail ? That vocalise like a Marvel & DC job . upright debuted Moyoco Anno ’s brand new book In Clothes call Fat at the show , a comic pitch toward grownup fair sex . They sold out of Fumi Yoshinaga ’s What Did You corrode Yesterday ? , a romance / cookery comedian . At persona , we sold out of Greg Tocchini & Rick Remender ’s Low , an aquatic sci - fi narration , and Nick Dragotta & team ’s Howtoons , a comic pitch toward getting tike interested in the science through practical play . Boom ! cauterise through Lumberjanes , a comic about daughter at camp . These are n’t your normal comics , and people were eating them up .
Marvel and DC have billion - dollar movie franchises , and that ’s problematical to contend with , at least in terms of get to a big splash in the media . But everyone else has Emily Carroll , Simon Hanselmann , Faith Erin Hicks , Hope Larson , Svetlana Chmakova and piles more . Comics has Raina Telgemeier ! Telgemeier has spent years on the New York Times Bestseller inclination for comics . Years ! She ’s one someone , but she ’s so ferociously gifted and her voice speaks to so many people — so many children — that she has managed to beat entire publishers on her own .
That ’s significant . I ’ll take that , and the exuberance that rise out of it , over event announcements any mean solar day of the week .
As far as I ’m concerned , comics had a great convention . Maybe those other folk disappoint , but break by the fans I met , the hands I shook , and the conversation I ’ve had this weekend , strip have never been in a better place and the sky ’s the bound .
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