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Friday And Saturday In San Diego, Whatever Shall We Do?

As a quick heads-up, there’s a lot of media presentations on Friday and Saturday, and the comics-related topics take a bit of a back seat.

Friday Programming
Writers Unite: Pitching and Writing Creator-Owned Comics
11:00am – 12:00pm Room 23ABC

It’s got a series of creators that are identified by both corporate-owned properties they’ve worked on and their creator-owned projects. Most importantly, Jim Zub will be there.

CBLDF: Raising a Reader
12:00pm – 1:00pm Room 30CDE

Want kids to get interested in comics? Give them comics¹, and you could hardly do better than made by the panelists.

Drawing Stories: What’s New in YA Graphic Novels
12:00pm – 1:00pm Room 25ABC

Vera Brosgol, Gris Grimly, Faith Erin Hicks, Hope Larson, and Paul Pope. What more do you need?

Celebrating Strangers in Paradise’s 20th Anniversary with Terry Moore
4:00pm – 5:00pm Room 23ABC

To paraphrase something I said with respect to Jeff Smith’s spotlight panel on Thursday, this is what a twenty year independent career looks like.

Digital and Print: Friends or Foes?
6:00pm – 7:00pm Room 9

I want to go see this one to see if the consensus has shifted since I moderated Webcomics: Threat or Menace? at NYCC in — goodness! — 2008.

Rise of the Independents
6:00pm – 7:00pm Room 32AB

Sounds good, but a caveat: they’re using “independents” to refer to non-Big Two publishers like Image, Dark Horse, and IDW.

Axe Cop
8:00pm – 9:00pm Room 6DE

Premiere episode will be screened and there will be staged battles by cosplayers choreographed by Malachai Nicolle which should be awesome. Also, ready to feel old? Malachai is now nine, he dreamt up Axe Cop when he was five, which means he is rapidly approaching having spent half his life as a comic creator and he’s not even in junior high school yet.

 

Saturday Programming
ShiftyLook: Video Games/Webcomics Amalgam Extraordinaire!
2:00pm – 3:00pm Room 28DE

Given that this session combines Zach Weinersmith, Kris and Scott (Scott and Kris), and Andrew Hussie, I fear that the room may be too small. Judging from the maps, Room 28DE (waaay over to the left, past the Sails Pavilion, past Ballroom 20, in the upper-left corner) has a capacity of 200, tops.


In fact, for the first time, I’m noticing that most of these sessions I’m recommending are over the southern half of the convention center. Allow for an extra 15 minutes or so to get there.


Mainstream Talent and Indie Spirit
2:30pm – 3:30pm Room 5AB

Looks pretty similar in tone to the Writers Unite panel on Friday morning, but if there’s one thing you can’t have too much of, it’s Jim Zub.

comiXology Submit: The Future of Self-Publishing
3:00pm – 4:00pm Room 23ABC

Oddly, a big part of the pitch for this session references — quoting here — Kickstarter sensation Rachel Deering², which definitely involves a different kind of self-publishing than the comiXology kind. Odd.

Adventure Time Comic Book Panel
3:30pm – 4:30pm Room 8

Ryan North, Shelli Paroline and Braden Lamb, Meredith Gran, and Natasha Allegri. I was hoping they might have Yuko and Ananth also to talk about their imminent six-part miniseries of PepBut and Cinnamon Bun in a noir mystery, but you can’t have everything.

Spotlight on Vera Brosgol
4:00pm – 5:00pm Room 4

I’ll be the guy asking how much money she wants to finish up Return To Sender.

Jeff Smith and Terry Moore
5:30pm – 6:30pm Room 24ABC

To paraphrase something I said with respect to Jeff Smith’s spotlight panel on Thursday, and also Terry Moore’s retrospective panel on Friday, this is what two twenty year independent careers look like.

Financing Your Dream: Kickstarter Fundraising
6:00pm – 7:00pm Room 23ABC

Everybody involved in this panel appears to have been part of a major property like Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica; low chance of it addressing the scale of the individual creator.

Stripped: The Comics Documentary
7:00pm – 8:00pm Room 28DE

Last year Dave Kellett revealed that he’d gotten an email interview with Bill Watterson; a few months back he made it known that he’d upgraded that to a voice interview. I am almost afraid to guess what he might drop on us this year, but wouldn’t you want to be there when “Dave Kellett” removes the lifelike mask covering his face and is revealed to be Bill Watterson!?³

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¹ As I write this, it’s the day after my youngest nephew received as part of his birthday present a stack of Adventure Time and Road to Oz comics, along with both volumes of Astronaut Academy and Drawing Comics is Easy! (Except When It’s Hard). He’s five and I hope to be starting him down a long, enjoyable road.

² I wasn’t familiar with Ms Deering so I searched for her; if I’ve found the right person, she’s run two projects, both successful, for a total of just over US$32,000. I don’t wish to minimize her achievement, she’s funding her comics, that’s admirable — but whoever wrote that copy needs to adjust their definition of “sensation”. Here is a small sample of projects that I feel would better qualify for that word.

³ That’s not going to happen. Probably. Maybe I should check with Dave’s wife to be sure.

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