The convention fell on Easter weekend this year, which led to me deciding to skip the Sunday activities. There didn’t seem much on the schedule for that day that I was willing to make the trek down to Anaheim for, in any case. The event “began” for me with the discovery Friday morning that, after charging the battery for my Olympus camera over night, the thing is dead, not holding the charge. That meant depending on my tablet for pictures – the tablet that lacks a zoom feature. Ah well.
I drove down early and got a very good parking spot. After snoozing a bit, I sauntered up to where the pro registration line was forming. While waiting there, I encountered Barbara Randall Kesel. After we both got through the registration process, we sat chatting, and she invited me to join her panel about editing that afternoon. I’d been planning on attending it anyway, so it was rather neat to be invited up on the platform.
Once the hall opened, I stopped by the booth for Golden Apple Books to chat with Ryan Liebowitz. As the owner of the Golden Apple Comics shop, he was the one I wanted to talk to about having a book signing for Creating Graphic Novels when it comes out August 1. He’d looked over the review copy I’d left at the store a week ago, and he was definitely interested in it. So, that encounter got my weekend off to a good start.
One of the early presentations I went to was the Spotlight (as special guest presentations are called) on artist Steve Lieber and his wife Sara Ryan, a fine writer (both being special guests).
It was early programming on the first day of the con, so they didn’t draw a very large group, but it made for a nice comfortable setting. They talked about how they got into comics generally. I enjoyed it. (But I have to confess that a lack of good sleep the previous night caught up with me, and I zoned out. I felt bad about that — they were engaging, and I didn’t want to miss anything they said, but alas, I think I did.) I’ve known Steve about a dozen years now, since he did the cover for the Shooting Star Comics Anthology #1. He’s a really nice guy. He introduced me to Sara’s very occasional series, Flytrap, which I love and wish she’d write more frequently. Good people, for sure.
From there, I went on to Barbara’s editing panel. It was a lot of fun. There were six of us (including Barbara), and we got to discuss some of the odd things editors get stuck handling. We were a lively group, and the audience certainly didn’t seem bored by what we had to say. Since I was a last minute addition to the panel, I didn’t have an official name card, so I propped my book up in front of me instead. (Thank you, Beau Smith: “There is no shame in self-promotion.”)
Since I needed to fill in some time before the panels that Brandon Easton had pulled together, I sat in on the James Robinson panel, which turned out to be pretty interesting.
But “The Writer’s Journey” panel that Brandon oversaw, played to a full room. People really are hungry for information and inspiration about writing. Brandon has done this presentation before, about breaking into comics and/or Hollywood. My friend Geoff Thorne is part of Brandon’s panel posse, but he had to bow out this year due to a writing deadline. Even without Geoff’s sardonic wit, the panel had plenty to convey to the listeners. Part 2 of the “Breaking In” sessions followed with a bit of a change-over in the people on the platform, but the insights and encouragement continued.
That panel let out at 7:30, and as I was low on energy and the Exhibit Hall floor was closed at 7, I trudged to my car and got back on the road to Reseda.
I was up bright and early again on Saturday (after a much better night’s sleep), and again got down early enough to get a good parking spot close to the convention center. I especially wanted to be early because the Spotlight panel for Gail Simone was the first thing on the programming schedule for the day.
Before I went up to the programming rooms, I did a quick run into the Exhibit Hall. I ran into Art Holcomb, who had one of the review copies of my book so he could write a blurb. I reminded him of that, and then we chatted about some other things we were each working on. A good chance encounter. From there I went to the Dark Horse booth, because I was hoping to find a copy of the 47 Ronin graphic novel, with art by Stan Sakai. I’ve been wanting to the get book ever since I saw Stan’s early pages, and this weekend I had some spending money. Alas, it turned out they’d sold out of it on Friday. I’ll have to find the book some other way.
But I couldn’t dawdle, I needed to get upstairs for the programming. I got a pretty good seat for the Spotlight on Gail Simone (like Steve, one of the convention’s special guests). Conducted interview style, it was very interesting. She talked about how she’d gotten into writing (at a very early age), having to leave college before finishing a degree because she couldn’t afford it. She said she’d started doing writing online, especially her satiric posts, without telling any of her family and friends, not even her husband. Her writing attracted attention, starting with Bongo Comics – they approached her, asking her to write for the Simpsons comics. And so was launched a career.
Gail’s also a friend, so it was nice to touch base with her and her Awesome husband, Scott, after the presentation. I got to show her the review copy of my book. She had a heavy schedule of interviews, though, so we didn’t chat long.
“Lunch” consisted of nachos overly drenched in what purported to be cheese (I don’t question that too deeply). Then it was back to panels.
The IDW panel had a lot information about upcoming titles. One I was pleased to see them touting was Chuck Dixon’s continuation of his Winterworld, but Butch Guice as the regular artist. It’s always pleasing to see the work of friends get highlighted. Another friend who got some promotion was Tom Waltz. Not only is he an editor for IDW, he writes for them as well. Coming soon is his creator owned property, The Last Fall, which he explained is a project he’s been wanting to do for several years.
After that panel, I had a chance to chat with Tom, catching up on things. It was a useful conversation, and gave me some ideas on projects I could pull up to pitch to IDW Entertainment. That conversation by itself would have been worth the drive to Anaheim.
Barbara was giving her second presentation that afternoon, one titled “Where do ideas come from?” But really it’s a wide ranging commentary on writing, discipline, professionalism, diligence and about anything else she can think of. She talks very fast, so you have to sit still and really listen to get all the juicy goodness she spills out in the short hour. Plus, she often has the wittiest way of putting things, and if you don’t pay attention, you’ll miss the great lines!
After that, I’d intended to go to the “Batman: 75th Anniversary” panel, but the line for that was already very, very long. So instead, I slipped into the second half of the presentation of the pilot screening of The Last Ship. Even though I only saw about half of it, the show looked interesting. There was a brief discussion of it, and then the next panel filed in.
“TV Guide’s Fan Favorites Showrunners” turned out to be an interesting one, and made me not regret missing the Batman panel (and I’m a die-hard Batman fan!). They had a very strong panel, including Chris Carter (who has a new show for Amazon coming soon, but who is, of course, famous for The X-Files and Millenium), as well as the showrunners for Arrow and the upcoming Flash series. That panel let out at 5:30.
I considered hanging around for a panel scheduled for 6:30 to 7:30, “Inside the Writers Room,” but my brain was rather cooked by then. I puttered my way out, and sat outside for a little bit, watching the attendees strolling about, many in cosplay. The Masquerade would be later that evening, so it was a great time to see the variety of choices this year (lots of Frozen, including one guy as Olaf the Snowman).
As I sat there, enjoying watching people enjoying themselves, I realized that down the walkway, there were two guys shouting and haranguing attendees. Eventually, I got curious and went to find out what was going out. They turned out to be hellfire “preachers.” I’m not sure what they hoped to achieve by doing this to WonderCon attendees, because for all the costumes and entertainment stuff going on, it’s hardly a cesspool of hedonistic sin. These two were nowhere near as offensive as the notorious Westboro Baptist folks. But I can’t say they were doing a great job of conveying the love of Christ. Instead they had a circle of bemused observers, few of whom seemed at all hostile to Christianity. The observers seemed more amused by the haranguers’ utter failure to actually connect with anyone present. I shook my head over it all, and headed back to my car, the road, and Reseda.
All in all, though, it was a good two days, both for professional connections and for simple pleasure.
