parakkum

Here's the preview night experience roundup:

• Convention center parking was full when we got there, and traffic in front was horrid
• Initial target - cardboard tube samurai blank for kwc at the Penny Arcade booth
• Secondary target - annual visit to Stuart Ng Books for littlestar, where two French books were bought
• Picked up third volume of Age of Bronze
• Picked up a new book from Scott Morse
• Watched littlestar play at the Namco booth
• Visited the Hasbro booth with m; noted that we both own the original of the convention exclusive Soundwave toy
• Chatted with Rebecca Guay; littlestar asked her about her freelance work and some materials and methods
• Perhaps a busier preview night than last year (likely, given the parking issues)
• Road closures on the way out were also unwelcome (last day of driving)

This was a first experience for two new visitors to the group, who were both suitably impressed by the scale. I'm not done reviewing the schedule, so I don't yet know what panels or other events I'll be hitting up tomorrow.

Thursday roundup:

• Standard inauthentic Irish breakfast at Hennessey's
• Attempted "Science fiction that will change your life" panel; it was full
• Attended CAC panel #2; loved the cog sci talk on panel grammar by Neil Cohn; he had the much prized "we've done that experiment" answer to my question
• Visited small press area, bought "A Visit to Laos" and "breeding Season" from Tammy Stellanova
• Tagged along with littlestar and kwc as they picked up books and such
• Talked with Gene Yang

Friday roundup:

• Second and last day of inauthentic Irish breakfast at Hennessey's
• Failed to make it into any panel I was interested in; I'm underestimating crowds this year
• Ran into Jane Espenson; told her I think she's an excellent writer; found out she's now twittering
• Saw trailer for Gamer; it actually looks pretty interesting
• Saw serious woman with cute puppet; puppet made me smile, my smile made her smile
• Best con costume so far (from yesterday); little girl in pink princess dress with lightsaber strapped to her waist
• Narrowly avoided being run down by John Cho's retinue
• Checked out Military Madness: Nectaris, which is coming out on PS3, Wii, and Xbox.
• Picked up a tribble at the Paramount booth
• Helped littlestar acquire chibi Kingdom Hearts trinkets

Saturday roundup:

• Authentic Irish breakfast at The Field, watching Peil on Setanta (we have not yet reverse-engineered the rules for Peil from watching it at the pub, but it seems like the inspiration for Quidditch)
• Did my only portfolio review of this year's Con (10am to 1pm for about five minutes of review)
• Pointed an out-of-work newspaper cartoonist at halfpixel for advice on how to monetize his skills online
• Tagged along with littlestar to various floor locations
• Saw 1" square pieces of Harry Potter costuming on auction (starting at a mere $300/piece)
• Walked through Disney's impressive Alice in Wonderland prop and set display on seventh

Sunday roundup:

• Irish breakfast at The Field, watching hurling on Setanta (in fact, the hurling quarterfinals, which true stalwarts watched from 6am onward in the pub)
• Visited with Ryan Claytor of Elephant Eater Comics and learned that Ryan will be teaching multiple courses on making comics in the mid-Michigan area
• Tried and failed to get into the spotlight on Bill Willingham (in retrospect, his Eisner win made that a foregone failure)
• Picked up two trades worth of Tiny Titans from new Eisner winners Art Baltazar and Franco; showed them littlestar's old (circa early 2000s) Patrick the Wolf Boy sketch
• Stopped by to talk with Dave Kellet to show him littlestar's 2001-era Arthur sketch; ended up picking up the original art for a Sheldon strip
• Spent a while (perhaps two hours?) in the San Diego Children's Animation festival room; saw mostly good stuff that I'll comment about at length later
• Stopped by Chris Sanders and picked up his sketchbooks and Kiskaloo
• Did some other wandering to round out littlestar's "need to see" list
• Picked up the Girl Genius Omnibus (collects volumes 1-3)
• Signed up for next year (we will refund if we get to continue our pro status)

One of the handouts in the goodie bag this year was the zero issue of "Blackest Night," which I gather is DC's latest event (and there were panels about it, too).

Having read it just now, I'm really nonplussed.

Rather than go on at length, let me point you at my more extensive complaint about sticking to continuity at the expense of good storytelling. Let me quote the Flash from this very comic:

That's my point. Death isn't necessarily the end. Not in this line of work. You. Me. Clark. Ollie.

Indeed, somewhat ridiculously most members of the Justice League have died and come back. This is the superhero comics version of the soap opera "everyone having sex with everyone" problem. All the rescinding of story points in service to never, ever resetting the world fundamentally devalues the stories, and it makes the whole thing a tasteless mash that I don't care for at all.

And this is independent of the writers. I like Geoff Johns. Still, I find nothing appealing in this "event."

I'd much rather see the DC universe reset, say, once a decade, than to see the stories devalued and the characters turned into hapless telenovela players rather than the interesting characters they honestly good be.

Or, more simply, I would pay to read a brand-new take on the Batman story every couple of years.