Note: If you just want to look at photos, feel free to skip to my Long Beach Comic Con 2009 photo set on Flickr.

Location

It’s been at least ten years since the last time I’d been to the Long Beach Convention Center*. I didn’t recognize the building the con was in at all (and I’m sure the shopping mall across the street wasn’t there before), though the facade and lobby reminded me a lot of the San Diego Convention Center with the arched ceiling and floor-to-roof windows. It made me wonder whether they had been designed by the same architect.

With a mall across the street to the west, Shoreline Village across a bridge to the south, and Downtown Long Beach across the street to the north — not to mention the food service in the lobby not being swamped — I really regretted having brought my lunch with me. Though it probably did save time, since I had panels I wanted to see from noon until 2:00. If I’d wanted to go to, say, the Auld Dubliner (right across the street! Auughh!), I would have only had about half an hour on the convention floor that morning.

*Not counting plays at the Terrace Theater. Though the last thing I saw there was a touring production of Miss Saigon in 2003, about two days before the start of the Iraq War. Talk about timing.

Main Hall

I think the main floor was about the same size as the floor at Wizard World Los Angeles the last couple of years — or rather, the amount of floor space they used was about the same. (Last year WWLA had a large empty space in the back.) Exhibitors were clustered around the entrance, mostly indie press (I remember Boom, Archaia, and Aspen) and a large Nintendo exhibit. The center of the room was dominated by the Artist’s Alley, with dealers wrapped around it and celebrities lining one wall.

In the back, inexplicably, was a raised wrestling ring. I didn’t notice it when I went through in the morning, but in the afternoon, when they were actually holding wrestling matches, it was loud! Halfway down the hall, you could hear the *smack!* *thud!* as the wrestlers threw each other to the floor. I figure the floor of the ring and the convention center floor must have made a fantastic sounding board!

I got in about 20 minutes after the con opened for the day, so if there were any huge lines I missed them. The artists’ tables were practically empty (they came in later), and most of the action seemed to be at the publishers’ booths and dealers. There was a big line for Jim Lee, and people were lining up for Stan Lee and Berkeley Breathed signings at 11:00.

Unlike San Diego, though, I could walk around without relying on Level 18 Crowd Weaving!

I made a half-hearted effort to look for some of the Golden-Age Flash comics on my list, but I knew I wouldn’t find much. Dealers just don’t seem to bring readers’ copies of golden age books to conventions — or if they do, they’re the rarer ones (like, say, late in the run of Flash Comics) that they can charge $95 for. In the end I picked up a couple of half-priced trades from a series I’ve been meaning to read.

There weren’t a whole lot of people in costume, at least not by San Diego or WonderCon standards. Though I suppose it’s probably about the same percentage of attendees. One thing I noticed is that I’m actually tuning out a lot of the Star Wars costumes, particularly Stormtrooper and Mandalorian variations. There was a gold-painted Boba Fett who walked past me about five times, and not once did I try to take a photo.

Annoyingly, I couldn’t get any signal at all on my phone in the exhibit hall. In the lobby? No problem. On the mezzanine balcony? Just fine. In the programming rooms? Sporadic. Enough to pick up text messages, but not necessarily enough to post.

Panels: DC Nation & Mark Waid

The two panels I hit were DC Nation and “50 Questions in 50 Minutes With Mark Waid.”

I got to DC nation just before it started, and given the relative lightness of the crowd I was surprised to find it almost full. The panel started out with two announcements, one about Flash and one about Outsiders. The cell signal lasted just long enough for me to break the Flash news on Twitter.

The rest of the panel was question and answer format. I’m used to Q&A panels having a microphone set up in the audience, with people lining up to ask their question. This time, Ian Sattler walked around the room with a cordless mic, and people with questions raised their hands. I asked about plans to reissue the collections from Geoff Johns’ initial run on the Flash. A lot of them are out of print and hard to find, even online. “No plans at this time.” *sigh*

Anyway, I’ve written up the Flash news from the panel elsewhere, and CBR & Newsarama have decent writeups of the whole panel.

The Mark Waid Q&A started out with very few people in the audience, but filled in to maybe 1/3 of the room by the end. A screen up at the front of the room displayed the title, some cover art from Incorruptible, and a timer. They had a bunch of questions that had been submitted ahead of time online, and every few minutes they opened to questions from the floor.

Questions ranged from the standard (”What’s going on with X series?”) to the personal (”What’s your favorite beer?” — it’s not beer, vodka.) to the insightful. One that I found fascinating was his answer to the question, “Do you write every day?” He explained that no, he writes every other day, because he finds that he writes better if he writes one day, then takes time off to recharge. For writers, he made the suggestion that you shouldn’t necessarily follow someone else’s method of writing: you should find the method that works for you and embrace it. For his write-every-other day method, it wouldn’t do any good to beat himself up and feel guilty about the days that he’s not writing.

By the end, he managed to answer 56 questions in 50 minutes.

Signings

I looked over the guest list before coming, and decided I’d try to get things signed by Mark Waid and Geoff Johns. I’d gotten Waid to sign The Unknown #1 in San Diego largely by accident, and Johns had signed the first three issues of Flash: Rebirth. For Geoff Johns, I figured I’d bring Rebirth #4 and the variants I had since picked up to make a complete set. For Mark Waid, I figured I’d bring the first issue of The Unknown: The Devil Made Flesh and dig through back issues for some sort of milestone issue. I ended up bringing Impulse #1.

Unfortunately, I had no idea where or when either of them would be signing.

Mark Waid announced a 2:30 signing during his panel, so I took the half-hour break to do some sightseeing (see below), then came back to the BOOM! Studios booth to stand in line. I got there a little late, but there were only about 10 people in line ahead of me. We talked briefly, mostly about The Unknown, and I got someone else in line to take my picture with him.

Then I figured I’d make a second pass through Artist’s Alley, now that the artists had shown up, and noticed a long line running about half the length of the “alley.”

“What’s this line for?” I asked.

“Geoff Johns,” someone answered.

Well, that solved that problem!

So I got in that line as well. At one point I talked a bit with another fan in a Flash T-shirt (he approached me with the standard, “Nice shirt!” greeting of people wearing the same logo). Somewhere along the line I found out that Peter Tomasi was also signing in the same line (it was a Green Lantern/Blackest Night thing), but I’ve never read any of his stuff that I can recall, so I didn’t have anything for him to sign. As I neared the front of the line, the guy in front of me started talking with him about the con, and how it seemed to be off to a good start — like San Diego 20 years ago, back when it was fun — and I sort of nodded and made a few comments like I knew something.

Then I was up to the front of the line, handed Geoff Johns my stack of comics, and told him I was really happy about the Flash announcement he’d made. He said it was going to be a chance for him and Scott Kolins to get back to the kind of stuff they were doing back on their initial run on the book. I said something about how I’d been worried that Wally was going to be sidelined, and he said something to the effect of, “Hey, you shouldn’t worry about that – I’m writing it!”

After the signings I went back up to the lobby, bought an iced mocha, and checked in on Twitter, Speed Force and Comic Bloc, then returned to actually make that pass through Artist’s Alley. I ended up looking at a lot of art, and bought a couple of prints.

Sightseeing

I wandered outdoors for sightseeing a couple of times, once right before that block of panels, once right after, and once at the end of the day. There’s an artificial lagoon wrapping around the Hyatt hotel and the convention center on the ocean side. You can’t really see them in the panorama shot, but in this photo I took a minute or two earlier, you can see a group of cosplayers hanging out on one of the islands.

There’s a pier-like bridge extending from the end of the lobby past the Hyatt out to the shoreline. You can just see the Queen Mary over the tops of the shops and restaurants of Shoreline Village. While there I spotted a couple of oddities: a group of people riding Segways (I decided it the group term should be a flock of Segways) and the Good Year Blimp soaring above a roller coaster and Ferris wheel.

Then there was this great blue heron standing nearly still as if it were posing. I must have spent five minutes stalking that bird, taking photos every few seconds at lower and lower zooms until I got about five feet away. It just stood there, not a care in the world, as if it were thinking, “I’m ready for my close-up!” Eventually the bird did take off, and I tried to follow it, and (amazingly) managed to get a decent shot of it in flight!

At the end of the day, I dropped my stuff off in my car, then went up to the courtyard in front of the Terrace Theater. Mostly I took pictures of the immense fountain. While I was there, there were three women who looked like they were probably there for one of the other events going on that weekend (a craft fair and a corporate training event), and a small boy who looked maybe four. As I walked past them to get to the other side of the fountain, the boy looked at my T-shirt and shouted, “Flash!” I turned around, grinned, said something like, “Yes!” and flashed a thumbs-up sign, then continued on.

End

The last sight of the con I had before getting in my car was a discarded wristband on the steps of the parking structure. It seemed to sum up the end of the day.

Update: I’ve finished and posted my con write-up as well!

A group decided to step in and fill the void by launching the Long Beach Comic Con. The first convention is this weekend…at the Long Beach Convention Center.

Tonight I drove past a billboard and found out what’s going on this weekend at the LA Convention Center, where Wizard World would have been:

“Adultcon.”

Given some of the opinions I’ve seen expressed about Wizard, I suspect there will be people wondering, “What’s the difference?”

It makes me want to headdesk.

Now, I don’t hate Vegas. I’m not ZOMG in love with it, but I’ve been there more than once and I don’t think it should be removed from the face of the earth. What I believe about Vegas is that it is a law and a destination unto itself, and that everyone should be able to choose whether they go based on the merits of the place, not on the merits of what else might be going on there that isn’t a usual part of the location. Please keep this in mind as I present my list of Reasons Not to Move CCI to Las Vegas:

1. Weather. San Diego may be incredibly hot some years, but it’s coastal. There are breezes a lot of the time, and it’s often quite bearable. Vegas is inland desert and is 99% guaranteed to be nasty hot in July/August. Part of the crazy fun of CCI is seeing costumes on the street, which would become darn near impossible for a lot of people given the temperature.

2. Distance. I’m not talking about the distance for people to get there (though I will in a bit), but the distance between things. It can take over half an hour to get from the front door of one hotel to the front door of the next one over. In San Diego, it’s pretty easy to leave the convention center, go find food that’s not jacked up in price for an inferior product, and come back. In Vegas, unless you take the monorail, that’s a pipe dream, especially given that the convention center is off the Strip and not really near a lot of hotels. Keep reading for more.

3. No public transportation. Well, not NO transportation. There’s the monorail, and there are buses. But the monorail only goes down one side of the Strip, and the traffic on the Strip itself, where the buses run, is a nightmare 24/7. The monorail is not convenient to get to; it runs down the backs of the hotels, and getting to the stations from the street, or vice versa, can take 20 minutes just by itself. (We timed.) Lots of hotels do have shuttle service, but it’s not huge, it’s not universal, and it’s not fantastic. Based on the masses of humanity I’ve seen at the SD Old Town trolley station, I doubt the monorail has enough cars to pack the schedule as full as they’d need to, and I doubt the shuttles will satisfy fans wanting to get to places at specific times. There would need to be charter buses, the way SD does it, but because this is Vegas, they would want either tickets or tips…probably both. Which brings me to:

4. Pay For Play. In Vegas, the dollar is still almighty. You can get a hotel room for $50 a night if you play it right, sure, but you don’t get the perks that identify you to the hotel’s amenities providers as a Good Customer. In some places, if you just want people to be polite to you, you have to pay them. In others, you just get dirty looks if you don’t tip. It’s been said that CCI wouldn’t make a dent in the normal daily Vegas people-traffic; if that’s true, then we’d all be running into this. Think it’s maddening to get slow service because a restaurant in the Gaslamp is full, or because you think you’ve been pegged as a low tipper? Try being in Vegas where they know whether you have spare change. Doesn’t matter if the place has only two parties in the section; if one of them is a Vegas regular and has paid to be part of their Premier Club, he’ll always get better service than the other party. I’m imagining the cheaper hotel restaurants being overrun with congoers who don’t understand the ethos (if you can even call it that); the saddest part is that if they voice any displeasure, they simply won’t be heard because all that’s happened is that they’ve run into how Vegas deals with those they perceive as cheapskates. They discourage you from coming back until you’re ready to spend. And,

5. Everything costs more. More accurately, it’s a case of the substandard being cheaper and the quality merchandise being more expensive. You can get a lot of pure crap for very little money, but you have to be willing to accept really crappy crap. Most stores are either souvenir dives or designer boutiques. I’d bet even the toothbrushes in most of the dives are emblazoned with “LAS VEGAS.”

And the food. Every megahotel in the vicinity of the Strip has a restaurant hierarchy. There is at least one posh place, one just a bit below it, one just a bit below that, a buffet, a theme bar, and a taco/burger/coffee stand. Most of the “nice” restaurants in SD are comparable in price to the lowest-price nice places in Vegas, and there aren’t nearly as many tony upscale spots. Not only that, but the cheap places are much greater in number in SD, and easier to get to (see #2 and 3 above). If there are more restaurants in a megahotel, there is usually a theme place that may be either very posh or very casual, followed by a doubling of one of the lower-priced ranks. They’ll also have bars around the casino floor(s), and occasionally a cookie or ice-cream shop. If the hotel is not a new “mega” type, they’ll have a coffee shop and a nice place, and some coffee/ice cream/burgers. The Stratosphere is the best for cheap eats, but it’s not close to anything. (The biggest souvenir shop in the city doesn’t count.) And at the other end of the Strip, the MGM Grand isn’t bad for it either, though their counter service is tucked away into the winding halls at the back of the place. Sure, there’s fast food dotted around here and there, but chances are that you’re not going to want to make the 45-minute trek to the McDonald’s when you can go a monorail stop away and find the cheap food in the hotels on the monorail line. Which will be mobbed, because nobody’s going to want to take the time to hike across the street and hunt through a megahotel for something they can afford.

Actually, there is one thing that doesn’t cost more: alcohol. Three guesses why.

6. No commuting. To those who come in from, say, Virginia, this may not sound like a big deal. But it’s just plain fact: there are fewer people living within 2 hours’ drive of Vegas than within 2 hours’ drive of SD. With the con in SD, people can even stay with friends (or in cheaper hotels) in LA, OC, or even Riverside, and take a train or other mass conveyance into town for the con. Not so easy in Vegas. Which means that a lot more people would be staying in town, filling up services and probably driving up hotel prices out of sheer demand. Another consideration: Hollywood is not close enough to Vegas for big-name stars to come out by bus for just one day. There’d have to be planes involved, or hotel stays; and with the way insurance works, the cost might be too great for the perceived benefit…especially considering how many lowlifes decide it’s their right and privilege to post exclusive footage to YouTube five minutes after it’s been aired. Dragon*Con suggests that there would still be plenty of star power, but such things as bringing in large portions of new movies’ casts might become much less feasible.

In the interest of fairness, there are a few reasons Vegas would be superior to SD for a giant con of any type:

1A. Parking. Vegas has parking. Acres of it, all over the place, for a lot less than you pay in SD. Anyone driving in would be able to park, for as long as they wanted, probably even wherever they wanted. Then again, #6 above might mean fewer people wanting to park in the first place.

2A. More floor space. The LVCC has nearly four times the floor space of the SD facility. To someone who’s been stuck in foot traffic on the floor at least once every year, this sounds like absolute heaven. Even if the con used only half the floor space available, prospects might be a little brighter for those of us slogging through the whole thing. On the flip side, they don’t have much more in the way of meeting room space; chances are, there’d be a bunch of exhibit space being used as the equivalent of Ballroom 20 and the 6A-F rooms. I’m not sure from the floor plan whether any of the large floor divisions is set up to be the equivalent of Hall H; I may need MeetingMatrix to find out. (Because only a meeting planner could ever possibly have a legitimate desire to know the details of the center.) Also, there are multiple small convention/event centers in Vegas; one of these could easily be used for, say, an exclusive screening of something at night. Ticket sales for 12,000 seats in the Mandalay Bay center would probably cover the rental cost and the rights, with some left over for the Cause of the Day.

3A. More hotel rooms. The Vegas visitor site boasts “over 140,000 hotel rooms,” which sounds fantastic. Throw in the fact that many congoers share rooms, and you have a recipe for much easier reservations than can be had in SD. Downside: the same room can vary in price by as much as $300 from Tuesday to Friday night, so you can bet they’ll be picking a more middling point on their scale for con-block reservations. And this is Vegas, so see #5 above. They’re going to do everything in their power to be sure their Premier Club regulars are able to get rooms if they want them.

If Las Vegas wants CCI, it’s in the way Irvine wants a university: they want the benefits without having the necessary people around. Congoers for CCI, by and large, are not well-heeled yuppies with expense accounts, and we are not there to spend our money at the blackjack tables. The Vegas I know is not enthusiastic about our kind of congoer overrunning its streets and its bars, and it has a much higher threshold for good financial behavior than San Diego—where we already fall short. Let’s do ourselves a favor and start looking for better solutions to the crunch.

This time last year, they’d already gone on sale and sold out.

As recently as three (or maybe four) years ago, they’d have sent a postcard by January. They used to include a full list of hotels in the winter newsletter with distance and prices. I could swear I remember them going on sale in January.

Of course, five years ago you could still book the Little Italy Super 8 only a month in advance. Now the discounted rooms are in such demand that they sell out in a matter of hours.

Like last year, they are only selling tickets in advance, so if you plan on attending, you should order them online.

AMERICAN GLADIATORS Cast Members MAYHEM (William Romeo), STEEL (Erin Toughill), FURY (Jamie Kovac), HELGA (Robin Coleman), LASER (JIm Starr), and TOA (Tanoai Reed) appear to sign autographs from 12:00 P.M.-3:00 P.M. There is no charge if you bring one item for them to sign, but the cast will have a SPECIAL AMERICAN GLADIATORS POSTER available for purchase that they will all sign together. Though AMERICAN GLADIATORS will no longer be seen on NBC-TV, an announcement will be made at the Convention of where new episodes will air. New Cast Members from the new season of AMERICAN GLADIATORS will also appear.

RAY PARK is known for his role as DARTH MAUL in STAR WARS EPISODE ONE: THE PHANTOM MENACE, and this Movie celebrates it’s 10th Anniversary of release during 2009. RAY stars as SNAKE EYES in G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA Movie scheduled for release this summer. RAY will be signing autographs from 12:00 P.M.-3:00 P.M., and while there is a charge it includes a choice of photo.

A set of five G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA POSTERS will be given away FREE to everyone attending while supplies last.

The LOS ANGELES COMIC BOOK AND SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION takes place at the Shrine Auditorium Expo Center, located at 700 West 32nd Street, right across from USC College. Admission is only $8.00, five years and under are free. A large Dealers Room full of Comic Books, Anime Merchandise, Toys, and other Collectibles are also featured. Call (818) 954-8432 or check www.comicbookscifi.com for more information.

The LOS ANGELES COMIC BOOK AND SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION celebrates 32 years of operation during 2009, with well over 350 shows having been held. During it’s long run, the LOS ANGELES COMIC BOOK AND SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION has provided the public with an intimate forum to meet creators of Comic Books, Animation, Television Series, and Movies.

Okay, read it?

Anything else you’d like to know about the convention? You’ve got a guest list, a location, admission price, some of the swag, anything else?

Like, oh, I don’t know, the date and time?

Fortunately we have the Internet to answer that question, as a quick trip to their website reveals that it’s February 15.

Now if they’d just make an effort to post a schedule more than one month in advance…

(I was so tempted to call this post “Press Release Fail,” but I think there’s too much Fail on the Internet as it is.)

Okay, I get that you don’t like the Scrappy… but shouting “Shut up!” when she’s spilling the beans about Willow & Tara’s fight? That sorta implies that you don’t want Tara to find out that Willow has been altering her memories. That’s psychological abuse by any standard. Is it better for Tara to stay in an abusive relationship than for Dawn to be the one to open her eyes?

Or how about when she mentions to Sweet that her sister is the Slayer? That sets the rest of the story in motion — in fact, it sets the rest of the season in motion. Not only does it make it possible for them to “beat the bad guy,” but it sets up that Buffy/Spike relationship, and I’d bet 90% of the people booing Dawn just lurve “Spuffy” to death. (Excuse me while I gag.)

It’s hate for the sake of hating the character, even when she does things you like — or things that are necessary.

Personally? I couldn’t stand her through most of 5th season. I’m not sure what turned me around, but it was during the last episode, “The Gift,” that I decided, y’know, she’s okay. Katie, who has a younger sister, found Dawn to be the best characterization of a younger sister on television…and couldn’t hate her for that reason.

Perhaps it was the realism of that sister relationship, seen through Buffy’s eyes, that made so many viewers dislike her. Well, that and the Scrappy effect.

(20-Things post found via Blog@Newsarama)

1. Take the following Monday off. Comic-Con is not relaxing. Even if you don’t go out to parties every night, it’s still exhausting. It wasn’t so bad when we left early on Sunday, but the last two years we’ve stayed all the way to the end of the show. Two-plus hours of driving, plus a stop for dinner, meant we weren’t home until Sunday evening. You’re supposed to be a zombie at the con, not after you get home. It would be much better to take a day to sleep in and recover a bit. (Plus it would allow extra time to do things like sort through photos and post them quickly.)

2. Take the whole week off and make it a vacation. We missed maybe a grand total of 4 hours of daytime programming this year, and still didn’t catch everything we wanted to. (Admittedly, a lot of that involved choosing between simultaneous events.) That doesn’t leave much time to just be in San Diego, except for nighttime. It would be nice to head down the previous weekend and spend a few days as tourists. Maybe hit the Wild Animal Park or something. Then switch hotels on Wednesday and do the con. Certainly our trip to WonderCon earlier this year benefited from taking extra time to do other things.

Pasadena, however, is within driving distance if we stay in the OC/LA area. It might be worth keeping an eye on.

Speaking of which, yes, the books finally came in! I picked mine up late morning, and decided to shell out the extra $20 for the hardcover because it’s just so big. It’s at least an inch and a half thick, and it’s 12 inches square — the size of a vinyl record album case.

Katie dressed up as Yomiko Readman, and we started the day at Richard Walker’s Pancake House. They were very busy, but had a system in place that kept people moving — and they were also very good. We got to the convention center around 10:00, explored the floor a bit together, then split up. When I bought a comic from Sergio Aragonés that I hadn’t seen before, and asked him to sign it, he asked her what character her costume was from. He clearly didn’t recognize the show, but it was nice of him to ask. The first hour or so that we were there, she mostly got people asking, “What’s that from?” but then people who knew the show started asking for her picture.

I managed to round out the complete set of signatures on the Girl Genius trades. I also picked up a print of the Flash: Rebirth cover at Moose Baumann’s table, and commissioned an Impulse sketch from Todd Nauck. When I got there, he was talking with someone, and I waited while they chatted for several minutes. When he left, it turned out that he was Carlo Barberi, who drew Impulse during most of Todd Dezago’s run. I couldn’t stick around while he drew the sketch, since I was on my way to a panel, plus he was finishing up a sketch for someone else, so I’ll be heading back sometime tomorrow to pick it up.

I went to a couple of panels by science fiction authors, both one-person shows: Connie Willis and Robert Sawyer. Connie Willis was very funny as she talked about writing in general, about her upcoming novels, and answered questions from the audience. Robert Sawyer mostly talked about his experience in the publishing industry, and managed to make it interesting. I followed it up with a panel on lost civilizations and secret societies that should have been fascinating, but was dull enough that I left only 10 minutes in and decided to hit the art show instead. Katie attended “Humor in Science Fiction” and the Bones panel, and I finished the programming day up with Final Crisis Management.

Today was the day for running into people. On my way from Image (with the Tori book) to Studio Foglio, I ran into a group from Comic Quest (the local comic store I go to on Wednesdays). I ran into my mom at the Connie Willis panel. We met up with our friend Sean at lunch, and I ran into our friend Wayne after Final Crisis…because Katie had spotted a Minbari, and I went over to take his picture. Ten feet away, there was Wayne.

Lunch was at an Irish pub called The Field. I missed Sean’s phone call, so by the time we caught up he’d already found a place and ordered lunch, but they were nice enough to move all of us from the tiny little pub table he was sitting at to a larger table. Up to this point, we’d been batting 1.000 on food. Dinner was another story. We hadn’t gotten around to making reservations, and after a couple of places with long waits, we just went to the Horton Plaza food court.