THE COMIC-CON UPDATE

As promised not too long ago, it's time for a second skip-week in the ongoing James Bond newspaper strip project. Due to a number of factors, I've fallen behind on that reading -- and one reason for the problem is that I'm here in sunny San Diego this week for Comic-Con. The convention just started yesterday, but since I like to have something to go up on Fridays even if it's not my normally scheduled post, here's your (drum roll) Comic-Con Update (one day in)!

And... it’s not much. I went to one panel yesterday; the STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS Tenth Anniversary retrospective. It was fun; series producer/co-creator Dave Filoni told some stories along with the other guests. They all lamented the series’ premature cancellation and showed some concept art to tease what would have come if the show hadn’t been yanked.

Then, to close things out, Filoni said that he had something to show the fans who had supported the show over the years. The lights went down and a trailer rolled. New footage appeared, along with the tagline “A war left unfinished... until now.” They has tricked us! This was no post-mort for a series cancelled before its time! It was an announcement that the show would be coming back next year!

The crowd went nuts. It was a really cool moment, and though it was, like I said, the only panel I went to yesterday, it was more than sufficient to allow me to call the day a win.

Next week: more James Bond, though I’m still way behind on my reading. This project may yet have further hiccups, but I guess we’ll find out together...

COMIC-CON 2016

For the first time since 2006 and only the second time since 1999, I won't be attending the San Diego Comic-Con this year! No, I wasn't unable to secure a badge; in fact my friends were very lucky with the online lottery this year and we could've grabbed tickets for all of us with no hassle for a nice change of pace. But I'm voluntarily skipping this one due to the birth of my son. If all goes according to plan, by the time this post goes up, he's on his way into the world, if not here already. So no reminiscences this year about SDCCs past, and no recaps a week after I return. I'll be way too busy!

But, that said, I planned for this. Just last night I finished John Byrne's FANTASTIC FOUR and wrote the last post in that series, and I'm a few months ahead of schedule on Friday posts as well, while my monthly X-Men Collected Edition reviews are written and ready to go up through the end of the year -- so Blogger will continue publishing 'em even as I'm far too busy to keep writing 'em (though I may not have much time to respond to comments the next week or two).

Next year I hope to be back at Comic-Con with the bundle of joy along for the ride (not at the con, but on the trip at least), but for 2016, I'm sitting it out.

COMIC-CON 2015 RECAP

Some may recall that last year, I was a little underwhelmed by my Comic-Con experience. The trip was fun, but it was more in spite of the convention rather than because of it. This year, thankfully, things returned to form. Here's a recap of the trip by way of some of the tweets I sent out from the convention.

And now I wait for admittance into Comic-Con #SDCC #SDCC2015 #PreviewNight

— Matt Re (@MC_RE) July 8, 2015

Preview Night: every year I'm unsure whether I want to do it. It costs extra and it's become practically as crowded as any other day of the show. But, given the amount of time spent standing in lines and attending panels throughout the con, Preview Night really is, as it always was, the best opportunity to tour the exhibit hall. And this year it was actually productive for me, as I came across a Japanese Transformer I wanted at a very reasonable price ("Combiner Wars" Superion, for those curious), which might have been scooped up by someone else if I hadn't been there. Nonetheless, I still wonder if it's worth it. Technically, for the price I paid for the Preview Night badge, I could've just had the toy shipped to me from overseas for the same ultimate price.

RETURN TO COMIC-CON

Just a quick note to mention that today I'm bound for sunny San Diego with plans to attend Comic-Con this Wednesday through Saturday (we will be driving home on Sunday). And this year, I'm thinking I might tweet a bit from the convention, just for fun. So if you haven't noticed the little "Follow" button off to the left, now might be the time to jump on it. In fact, here's a bigger one for you:

Follow @MC_RE

That said, I make no promises as to the quality or quantity of my tweets! I'm still new to actively tweeting, and I often forget to do it until the moment has long passed.

As always, the regularly scheduled IRON FIST and STREET FIGHTER posts will go up while I'm away, and I will once again try to compose a summary post a week or two after my return.

COMIC-CON 2014 RECAP

Free lunch on Thursday,
courtesy of the Ninja Turtles.

I had hoped to have this up last weekend, but a week of catching up on work after a week-plus vacation kind of sucks the desire to write anything out of you. So, here I am -- a Comic-Con post-mortem, two weeks after it ended.

You know that sad, sort of "let down" feeling you get after something you looked forward to for a long time has come to an end? That's how I feel around this time pretty much every year. As I noted previously, Comic-Con has changed a lot since I started attending. This has been my big vacation every year, and while I did have a longer trip a few months ago in the form of a honeymoon, that didn't stop Comic-Con from being as huge a part of my summer as it's ever been.

THE SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON

Living in the Bay Area, San Diego is only about an eight-hour drive south. And in between my sophomore and junior years of college, I made that pilgrimage for the first time with a couple friends -- Chris, with whom I had attended both middle and high school, and Brian, a friend of Chris's from his college. It was 1999, and it was a simpler time. We bought our con tickets online, but we needn't have bothered -- badges were still on sale at the door when we arrived. The whole affair only took up part of the convention center, which seemed enormous at the time.

That year was my first SDCC, and though it remained relatively small for a few more years, that was the last time it really felt like a comic book convention, in the traditional sense, to me. I bought a ton of back issues while I was there; I was going through a Mark Gruenwald CAPTAIN AMERICA phase and plugged some big holes in that run. I got head sketches from several artists during signings at the Marvel booth, including two of my favorites, Alan Davis (at the time the regular artist and plotter of X-MEN) and Terry Dodson (then the artist on GENERATION X). I also paid for a full-figure commission of Moon Knight from Ron Lim, who has, for as long as I can remember, had the most consistently reasonable convention commission prices of any artist I'm regularly interested in.