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So many ladies in the room, and only one George Perez.
Retailers
keep asking me why they haven't been offered my
latest book. A couple of them are angry, just this side of
losing it. I try to explain that Penguin/Pearson is a big slow organization,
and that we tried hard to get them to solicit the direct market, but weren't
able to make it happen. One guy is getting red-faced. I explain that he
could get it through Ingram book distributors, like any other bookstore.
He sizes me up, looks me straight in the eye. "Let me tell you that
that is NOT going to happen. Now what else are you selling that I can't?"
I point to the Family Reunion minicomic. Cover price: One dollar. "What's
the wholesale?" "Fifty cents" He reaches into his wallet
and pulls out a dollar, "Two. Sign'em both."
Speaking of which, I'm out hunting for Sean Stewart. He's supposed to
be signing at the show somewhere, but we haven't exchanged numbers, I
don't know when or where he's scheduled, and I'm not listed on any program
anywhere.
Signin' and seducin' at the Vertigo Booth: Howard Chaykin and David Hahn.
I'm a little late, but I've got a bagful of bagels to help me make it through today-- enjoy your five dollar pizza slice and your three dollar Mrs. Fields cookie, chumps! I'm drawn by some bright colors over to the ONI booth, and find that the sources are Steve Rolston and mate Sabina's freshly died hair. He's Nuclear red and she's Robotgirl Blue. My eyes! They seem quite busy.
Too many people that way... follow this fat guy for a while, he'll clear a path, hey there's Image. I go say howdy to Eric Stephenson and tell him that I've written and roughed out my story for Four Letter Worlds, an anthology he and B.Clay Moore are putting together. Then we talk about secret stuff that you don't need to know about. Eric rocks, that's all you need to know. Nice curious people are asking me what I'm working on at the moment-- glad you asked! I'm writing and drawing a big story for Dark Horse's The Escapist anthology. One of my favorite patrons Scott Hudlow then commissioned me to do an Escapist piece, and there it is, below right. On that subject, Gene Colan drew a story for the anthology, written by Glen David Gold (Carter Beats the Devil). There's Gene behind a mountain of pages, below left. To keep the connection going, the next day I met Glen while walking back to the hotel.
EISNER AWARDS
The Eisners: Parker is nominated, so he's got an invitation. I'd still like to hang around and make a show of support. Plus it'd be nice to get seated at a table so I could get in on the pre-show betting pool. Everyone puts in a couple bucks, then marks their program with their predicted winner. One person is designated to check the programs, ticking off a point for each winner. Hall of Fame nominees serve as tie-breaker. I've got to find a way in. Maybe Parker, with his mighty connections, can help.
If you're part of the awards ceremony in some way, you can go early and there's a "banquet". That is to say, there's a cart with some pizza on it, another cart across the room with some pasta, and you'll have to buy a beverage if you don't have any tickets for free drinks. First you have to get past those well-dressed goons at the door, giving you the stinkeye until you give them a name that's on the list, preferably yours. That's how I got in, but this being the rare year Lieber isn't nominated for anything, we had to play dirty. I immediately found Chris Powell of the Lone Star Comics chain, one of the proud sponsors of the Eisner awards this year. He gave me the name of someone who wouldn't be able to make it, so I go back out and tell Steve that he's Eric Burke. Eric and I go back in and eat pizza.
Obey: Jackie on the Jumbotron.
embedded in them,
on some kind of waxy edible (but you wouldn't want to, unless you want to
see that Comicon Eye later) paper. The trick is to break the treat in half,
then the thing peels off. Try to scrape it off and you're just going to
have fingernails full of chocolate. Lieber schools everyone at the Lone
Star table on how the betting pool works-- I never play it anymore because
I always lose. We're sitting so close to the stage that we don't even have
to watch the jumbotron to see people's faces. And the show starts off with
a real zinger, keynote speaker Michael Chabon(right).
From
our angle one can see Chabon writhe like Jim Morrison as he speaks, which
is a little distracting. Then he got into the message of his address,
and I was all the way onboard. To paraphrase:
"Children haven't abandoned comics.... Comics
have abandoned children."
I'm never the first person to stand up during an ovation or make a "huzzah"-type
remark from the audience, but I would like to state that I began the clapping
on that line. Sadly, I had to; I could tell that people didn't realize
it was a pause for acknowledgement, and the majority of them don't give
a rat's ass if anyone makes comics for kids. It's as if they're all afraid
they might have to work on one, and they'd much rather be doing books
for adults --where everyone wears tights. I could already hear in my head
the usual suspects who would later mention the same ten children's comics
as if that ought to tide the little ones over, when there used to be hundreds.
No surprise that Chabon had to dig out The Death of Ferro Lad for
his son to read. He shot down the lame arguments that publishers trot
out on the subject, one by one. I don't know if anyone there felt like
they should pursue the goal, but at least they were made to feel self-conscious
about it for 20 minutes. I'm motivated, though. I'll state right now,
that I'll take a shot at kids' comics within the next two years, coincidentally
around the time my kid starts to make a move towards reading. Who's with
me?
Steve here: Will Eisner follows Chabon, and comments on the Times Magazine article that Chabon cited. Will strongly disagrees with the NYT's characterization of cartoonists as somehow damaged or maladjusted. And Walt Simonson, the first presenter, agrees that this pernicious stereotype is inaccurate. Then he reads from the list of nominees. First up: "Circling the Drain" by Evan Dorkin...
For some reason Lieber's camera kept making all women look gigantic, and in Trish's case, pure evil. Apologies.
I believe that's Matt Dryer from Dark Horse who looks miniature by the Colossal Carla Speed McNeil. We weren't trying to do Austin Powers-style placement, it just happened.
Awards were given out, for best this and that. I don't remember that part so well. Oh wait, I do remember: I LOST. I got my ass handed to me by Derek Kirk Kim, who won for Talent Deserving Wider Recognition. Other people lost too, but the big winner in real life is Christine Norrie, who just had a baby-- congratulations! The real burner, though, as I mumbled in my audio blog afterwards, is that Derek was really funny on stage, much better than I would have been. Of course, he took a shot at Neil Gaiman "oh, another one of these" which helped him stick in people's minds. It's notable to me though that things I actually liked won, like Eric Powell's The Goon. It wasn't just a reflection of sales figures as it can be at times, so that's welcome. Pal Trish Mulvihill won deservedly for best colorist, but unfortunately we got a shot of her that makes her look like evil incarnate. When Jon Cooke ran onto stage for Comic Book Artist, a pack of business cards shot out of his pocket. Lieber and I made ourselves useful and picked them up. Several times winners started walking to part of a stage where there weren't any stairs, so I kept expecting to see someone step off, hover in air momentarily like Elmer Fudd or Wiley Coyote, and then plunge. Luckily everyone stopped just in time.
Look folks, show up for your award so Schreck doesn't have to keep schlepping up to stage.
Speech time again: for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Jim Lee gets up to do his part. He's a great guy, but I think everyone assumes "super, a millionaire is going to tell us to donate money to a cause again." Boy do we wake up when Jim starts lobbing bombs (figuratively!) at the White House, decrying The Patriot Act and the practice of subpoena-ing individual's library records and book purchases. I'm back up in my seat wide-eyed as he makes the point of how hard you have to fight to keep your basic rights from slipping away, and what a prime target comic books are for that.
The Totlebens! John was a special guest of the show.
The awards are planned in order to allow Will Eisner to sit down every now and then, which is very considerate. But for some reason, he also has to share the duties of opening the boxes the statues were in before handing them to the winners. I guess it gave him something to do; Lieber observes that the unwrapped awards looked like comics longboxes.
A clever end to the show: Joe Ferrara, comics retailer/musician from Atlantis Fantasyworld in Santa Cruz, joins Sergio Aragones on stage, a guitar appears from thin air, and the two go into a number from The 3 Caballeros. You know, that cartoon where Donald Duck and the other birds travel Mexico and South America. I knew Joe could sing, but who knew Sergio had such pipes? Even though the awards ceremony could have been shorter, I don't know what I would have cut out because these special features were truly worthwhile. Maybe whack out those awards.
The row of longboxes.
Lieber again: Bet you're wondering who won the pool. David Seidman hands back the programs, and the winner, pocketing twelve dollars, with 15 out of 26 correct answers, is...