San Diego pt 4

Pictured here is Jerry Robinson, who created the Joker and drew Batman for many years starting from his first appearance. Jerry Robinson was one of the panelists on the Thursday Golden Age and Silver Age cartoonists panel that they have every year at the San Diego convention. One of the highlights of that panel this year was when Robinson recounted his involvement in getting some long overdue monetary compensation for Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (the creators of Superman) and a credit byline for them in the Superman titles. Robinson had wanted them to get a bigger annual pension, but as Siegel and Shuster's health wasn't that great at the time, getting a settlement agreed upon while they were still alive was the priority. I'd love to read an autobiogaphy or biography on Jerry Robinson and am surprised there isn't one yet.
One of my favorite people these past few years at the San Diego convention is San Francisco small press artist and painter, Lark Pien. I get at least one of her little paintings each year. This photo is of Lark mimicking the character in the painting of hers I bought for a friend here in Vegas (Derrick, of Comic Oasis, who intitated an arrangement that makes comic retailer's lives run more smoothly).
I took this photo of a fantastic illustration of Kull drawn by Marie Severin one day while I was wondering around booths that had original artwork.

Another photo I took while wandering around looking at art. This is by Tom Yeates, a vastly under-rated artist, who sadly hasn't done any comic book projects in some time.

I like attending the Eisners and even though they run really long, I think they're important and I can't think of any way to make them shorter (except this year most of the presenters weren't as "on" as the presenters were last year and the magic theme was lame so things on that front could probably have been fine-tuned). For me the Eisners this year didn't have nominations or winners that I felt as passionate about as in previous years (I thought there was some great works in comics last year, but this year's Eisners reflected that less for me than in previous years - like Blue Pills not even being nominated) - and I thought that P. Craig Russell's artbook retrospective not winning in best comics related publication sucked balls (and not in a good way!).

I had a good time at this year's convention, but not as good as last years. Actually I have more fun at San Diego in the evenings after the convention is over and on beach day Saturday. I think that I just get overwhelmed too easily and miss the days when the convention's attendence was under 30,000 (not the 125,000 it is now). Sure there's pros and cons pertaining to large and small conventions, but I think that the San Francisco Wondercon (which happens in February) is more relaxed and thus more my speed. I do think that the San Diego comic con should be experienced at least once and that if you avoid the tv / movie panels / booths and just do the comic book parts of the convention you'll be less stressed (but still not able to do all of that contrary to those that say that there's not much comic book programming / booths at this show). Will I go back next year? Right now magic eightball says "outlook not so good", and maybe my absence will make room for those who haven't gone previously.