Salutations Semantinkerers!  This is Ben and James once again reporting from the first annual Long Beach Comic Convention!

Well, we expected Saturday to be a busier day than Friday, and it definitely was.  More Costumes.  More attendees.  More poor planning!  Wha– Huh?  That’s right.  I’m afraid that Saturday was a great deal less impressive then Friday, though I would still put the entire convention oodles (that’s right, “oodles”) above many others.

Apparently Japan has a different version of Star Wars.

I don’t know. Mr. Wolff wins.

Looks better than Nick Cage’s version.

Bad. Ass.

Here’s the deal:

Ben and I awoke with great zeal, excited to continue what started on Friday as a wonderful time.  We went to Ghettobux, wrote our blog, plotted out the various panels we would attend, and were heading back towards the Long Beach Convention Center by 10:30am.  The first thing we did upon our arrival was find the new artist-friends we made the day before.  First was Lord L Mesa, who had a throng of peoples awaiting his attention and still found the effort to give us a smile and warm greeting.  We gave Lord a copy of Mythoi and let him go back to doing his thing after a brief conversation.  On our way to the next drop-off, Ben ran into none other than the great Mark Waid!  Ben seized opportunity and chirped a bit about the book in Mr. Waid’s ear and he asked if he could have a copy (of course, we gave it to him)!  Geeking off of that encounter, we made our way to Joel Gomez who opened Mythoi without hesitation and gave some instant (and appreciated) constructive criticism.  Finally, we dropped the last freebie issue off to the mighty Doug Mahnke, who had no time to open or look at the book but asked to get back to us soon.  It may sound small, but as an independent writer/artist who grew up reading these guys, it means the world to Ben and I to have these guys read our stuff.  It’s an honor.  Really.

Well, with our hearts all aflutter we trudged around the rest of the convention floor which was much, much fuller of freaks, geeks and other forms of fandom than the day before.  We killed some time perusing various booths (taking notes for one of our own some day…) and then followed the wall of celebrities off the floor to the panel rooms above.  This is when things when sour(ish)…

The first panel we went to was the writer’s panel, presented by Aspen.  In the program it says that Jeph Loeb, David Wohl, JT Krull, Scott Lobdell, and Jimmy Palmiotti.  Unfortunately, only the first three showed up (still an honor for fans like us).  Apparently Mr. Lobdell has Swine Flu and Mr. Palmiotti was called to another panel.  Ben and I were understanding and shrugged it off — the might that did show up was still beyond worthy of our attention.  The panel was excellent.  As a writer I took notes as these masters delivered various tips and tricks to the audience.  This was the best panel and earned an “A” for the day.

Writers = “Directors”

Ben and I grabbed lunch at Island’s across the street (try the new chicken sandwich with fried onions — awesome) before making our way to the next panel of the day: editing in comics.  Promoted to be speaking in this panel were Matt Gagnon, Rob Levin, Scott Dunbier, and Matt Hawkins.  Dunbier no showed for one reason or another, and Hawkins was replaced by another Top Cow editor whose name escapes us at the moment, but was awesome and informative.  Once again, it was disappointing to not see who you allotted time for, but the panel was almost as good as writing, and may only have been lacking in audience questions, which was partially our fault.  Overall, we give this panel a B+.

Editors = “People who do everything else”

At this point in the day, Ben and I snuck away for a quick meeting with some investors.  After an hour on the phone, we hustled back to the convention to join in on the Art Panel, which featured Joe Benitez, Dustin Nyugen, Mike Choi, Ale Garza, Philip Tan, and another gentleman whose name escapes us because we are terrible audience members (maybe Micah Gunnell).  The artist panel was interesting.  It wasn’t bad, but the information presented wasn’t incredibly helpful to Ben (an editor), or I (a writer).  We had hoped that by attending the panel we could learn more about the artistic process, but really only learned about the types of music (or lack thereof) that the artists listen to, what types of pencils and/or inks they use, and what inspires them to work.  The answers to these questions were all case specific and changed artist per artist.  The panel was unhelpful for us, but probably great for fans.  Unfortunately, it felt more like a personal panel interview then a panel about the artistic process — to be fair, I again blame poor audience questions.  B-.

With two out of three panels not delivering what was promised via program, Ben and I made our way to the final event of the day:  Thomas Jane’s premiere of “Give Em Hell Malone.”  We weren’t bitter, but I would be lying if I said we weren’t a little bummed.  We walked into a very empty room at just fifteen minutes or so before showtime to meet Thomas Jane and a couple of his buddies setting up the Playstation 3 that (we assumed) would be gracing us with his latest cinematic adventure.  Unfortunately, after waiting until ten after the scheduled showtime, Thomas Jane announced to less than 100 people that we would not be seeing “Give Em Hell Malone,” but would instead be watching the black and white version of “The Mist.”  Don’t get me wrong, “The Mist” is a great film, but this iced the let-down cake for Ben and I so we trudged off with our heads down and left the rest of the theater to enjoy their time with Mr. Jane.  To be fair, Thomas Jane seemed very bummed that he couldn’t show his film, and Ben and I are sure it wasn’t his fault.  You’re still the sh*t, Thomas — we love you!

Back at our hotel room, Ben and I got all cleaned up and decided to attempt and retake our hopes from the night by attending Mark Waid’s party at our new favorite Long Beach Bar, The Auld Dubliner.  It wasn’t very busy when we got there around 9pm, so we found a table, grabbed some beers and played a game of Scrabble.  By the time the game was over the occupancy had tripled and the band was playing loud.  At one point we were stampeded by a bachelorette party for a young lady who loved to dance.  It was a great night full of drinks, talks, laughs, and eventually, great sleep.

Day 3, here we come…

James and Ben