It's insane. And Stan Lee was here! He was signing today only for a half hour. Waited over two hours (got in early using press credentials and was first at Marvel booth). Finally got the ticket I needed to get stuff signed by Stan only to find out these tickets would be drawn out of a hat and only forty people would actually get stuff signed by Stan. Won raffle out of the dozens of desperate fans. I only saw like one other guy that actually had a comic by Stan -- the rest didn't really had anything by him for him to sign and kinda grabbed whatever they could. Chumps. I got Amazing Spider-Man #33 signed. (Only one item per person). Too awe-struck to introduce myself to Stan.
Chris Giarrusso was great, as always. I got a beautiful V sketch from David Lloyd and a Rorschach from Dave Gibbons (lots of waiting and hurt feet, but soooooo worth it)! David Mack was a gentleman as well. He gives you tons of free stuff every time you stop by his booth. He gave me a few Kabuki comics last year and I've been hooked ever since.
More later.
--Sergio Lopez
So I've been getting scores upon scores of e-mails inviting me to attend various movie premieres, interview opportunities, press parties, and panels for San Diego Comic-Con. I've turned down most of them and I think this is a problem with a lot of comic news sites.
Newsarama is the perfect example. I remember, not too long ago, when it was a comic news site. Now they cover just about anything even remotely related to pop culture, and even, it seems, some stuff that isn't. Wizard is heading down that way as well. Comic Book Resources is a bit better.
Really, Newsarama has turned into a sort of all-purpose pop culture news site more akin to IGN. But, despite appearances, this entry isn't mean to bash Newsarama. Call what they're doing evolution -- actually, the change mirrors that of San Diego Comic-Con itself (and some of the other larger cons).
They only invite I've accepted so far is for a chance to interview the director and cast of Watchmen. And that's because I'm doing my best to keep the Comic Book Gazette a site that actually focuses on comic books. Amazingly, I've actually received very few invites that are actually comics-related. I briefly considered covering the animated Star Wars movie or the new Terminator that's coming out, or even some of the video games Marvel or DC have coming out. But that's not what this site is about. Heck -- we don't cover just comic books: we cover independent comic books, specifically (or movies related to indie books!), even though we will stray into Marvel and DC territory on places other than the Front Page. And I'm kind of iffy on Watchmen, even -- that was released by DC. It looks as if most of the SDCC content we'll post will be interviews with creators, and not panels on video games and unrelated movies.
And, really, isn't that the way it should be?
--Editor
