“I’m sure Jeph Jacques was responsible.”

WIth those damning words, Sam Logan laid responsibility for his difficulties getting to SDCC squarely at the feet of his greatest rival. What should have been a routine trip from Logan’s home in British Columbia to the airport in Bellingham, Washington was fatally compromised by “delays at the border”, which caused Logan to miss the only flight of the day to San Diego, and necessitated a 2000km roadtrip, accomplished in 22 hours. Reached for comment that his minions had been responsible for the delays at the US-Canadian border, Jacques said, “I wouldn’t say that they were officially my minons.”

In less menacing news, Fleen can confidently report:

• The various members of Dumbrella met the public in their annual roundtable session, with an emphasis on the changes to their work and working styles — Jon Rosenberg has shifted his focus from continuity storytelling to new creations each week; Andy Bell has worked with a top corporation to bring a mascot to 3D life; Chris Yates has partnered with a major manufacturer of puzzles to bring his designs to the mass market; Meredith Gran has done a very similar thing in compiling her self-published books into a new compendium via a top-line publisher; and Rich Stevens remains Rich Stevens, bouncing from project to project and becoming a one-man movie/TV costumer’s supply shop.

  The other practical upshot of the session: working on items that gain a mass-market consciousness is that they can take over your identity. To a degree, Rich Stevens is now known as “the Scott Pilgrim shirt guy”, Andy Bell as “the Android guy”, and Chris Yates as “the poop sign guy” (all of which items are available for purchase at the Dumbrella booth, #1337; NB: Fleen is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dumbrella Hosting. This disclaimer may contain forward-looking statements that should not be relied upon as definitive guidance; consult a financial professional before making any investing decisions, and see a doctor if you experience erections lasting more than four hours).

• Kazu Kibuishi has the most adorable and good-natured child in southern California, and possibly the entire time zone. Impressively, before I could even offer to come back later when he didn’t have an armful of offspring, he sketched and signed my copy of Flight 7 while holding his infant son in the other arm. This will someday be known as the “Juni Maneuver” and will eventually form one of the qualifying tests for the Master Comics Artist certification.
• Ever wonder what WOWIO (no link) was doing with all the money it wasn’t paying to webcomickers for a very long time (although, to be fair, they have paid up since)? Me too. Thank goodness it wasn’t anything frivolous like saving up for a party yacht.
• The TopatoCo party was more fun than a crowd of webcomickers & webcomics fans plied with overflowing platters of little hamburgers and tiny hot dogs, and beer and champagne in abundance. No, wait, that’s exactly how much fun it was, with Jeff Rowland and Sam Logan holding court at a banquette piled high with books for the early part of the party, and a general migration to the nominally fenced-in porch in the latter portion.

  It was from this vantage point that the Scott Pilgrim party bus was observed to arrive at the same venue, as even fancy-pants Hollywood types want to be as close to a TopatoCo party as possible (it’s rumored but unconfirmed at this time that Michael Cera tried to crash, but was turned back by TopatoCo’s hired goons).

  Making it past the goons was Hope Larson, who dropped some tantalizing hints about her magical girl graphic novel (with Tintin Pantoja on art) and A Wrinkle in Time adaptation, due in 2012 and 2013; it’s a bit early in the process to be entirely certain, but at this point it’s about 98% certain that both of these books will continue the trend of each Hope Larson project somehow managing to be even better than the one before it.

Up today: the Nappy Hour panel with Keith Knight, Spike, and Dwayne McDuffie (10:30 in room 3; by the time you read this you should be heading up there); the Nicholas Gurewitch panel (3:30 in room 5AB) and the Archaia panel (6:30 in room 9; Tom Siddell of Gunnerkrigg Court, whom I spoke to only briefly at the TopatoCo party, will be part of the panel).