The last day of Wondercon
Mar. 1st, 2008 03:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stinglikeabeeI'm posting this from Groundwork in Hollywood, in the company of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
parlance and her writing group. I've actually managed to pull out 600-plus words for the unnamed ficlet, which is great, but I've also drunk too much coffee and feeling a bit sick. *blergh*
Since I won't have the time to post this later tonight, here's the rest of my writeup on Wondercon:
San Francisco does the slow, drizzling rain so very well. When I wake up I get the urge to put on my lady's fedora and heavy wool coat and traipse around in the footsteps of Sam Spade. Then I remember I haven't read any of Dashiell Hammett's works and instead wear my usual uniform of red knit hat and black hoodie. Last night's a little fresh in my mind as well. I went to the io9.com party instead of the Isotope New Frontier after party, and met with some nice people - some of whom were really, really drunk. We're talking heavy breathing, shouty, drunk. It's still stinging that I had completely not known about the New Frontier after party because I probably would have had more fun there. But ah well, I did get to speak to a Spongebob writer.
The crowd's gone at Moscone South and the pace is much more civilised. There's not much to do, and I place myself in Trailer Park. This is where the audience is treated to a bunch of film trailers. I imagined a suit or two in the darkness, making notes on the level of audience response per trail. The one that seemed to get the most attention was the Speed Racer trail, as old as it was. Maybe it was the fact that it played in a darkened room, or that it was on a huge screen, but it actually seemed less crazy then. Sure, it still looked like an unholy mix of pepto-bismol and an acid trip, but somehow it worked. Hey, as long as they keep the original theme song throughout I might be sated.
The next panel I attended was called 'Goal settings for creative types'. With a name like that, you can miss it, right? It's certainly the first panel I've been to where the moderator handed out worksheets and notes. It's a brilliant one hour of motivational lecture - we learn 10 tips on how to achieve our goals and it was a lot of fun. I haven't the sheet with me right now or the name of the excellent moderator, but I will dig around for the info.
Lastly, I headed to 'Cover Story: Art of the cover' with panelists Tim Sale, Darwyn Cooke, Jim Lee, and Terry Dodson (moderated by Mark Evanier). Evanier pulled out several covers that were selected by his blog visitors and asked the artists to expound on their own. Specifically he started with a quote from Sergio Aragones: A bad cover is one that needs words. I think most of the artists up there disagreed. Basically the cover is there do draw the reader's attention, but how it was approached varied. Sale saw covers as similar to posters, like that of movies. Whereas according to Evanier there was once a DC executive who saw covers as a way to push sales. According to this fellow, the best selling covers had: fire, gorillas, and prison cells. Put them all together and that issue ought to be the best selling ever.
Learning about how Cooke created his covers was really fascinating. Out of the guys up there, he sounded like the most knowledgeable. After all, he had been a magazine art director in his 20s and spoke about RGB and CMYK. It was kinda intimidating, hehe. For the TPB of the New Frontier he explained how he had to cut the oil painting into four in order to scan them, since it was so big. Wow, I would have freaked if I had to do that. Then there was this very beautiful Spirit cover he made for the last issue he penned and drew.
It's a romantic image, a sort of bittersweet farewell. The only thing that ruined it was, as Cooke named it, 'the UPC barcode retard'. As you can see there is this black space on the bottom that was perfect for the barcode, but instead the guy placed it covering one of the posts. Nice.
Jim Lee's a real funny guy, and he cringed at the covers that were selected. They all seemed to be going from left to right, except for the one exception that was All Star Batman & Robin. For one of the covers he needed an image of a back tattoo - the Joker had this really awesome-looking dragon tat. In the name of research, he went to google and printed out as many images of back tattoos as he could. But if you do the same thing, you'd find that some of the images were uh, really revealing. A guy printing loads of pictures of naked men. That's something his girlfriend walked in and found pretty disturbing. Lee also shared the story of Mattel calling him up and asking if he'd be interested in drawing something for Barbie's 50th anniversary. The offer said Lee could do anything. 'Anything?' he asked. So he produced an image of Barbie and Skipper in lingerie, motorcycle jackets, smoking cigarettes, in an alleyway. That was rejected. Haha, but what I'd give to see it.
By the end of the day I just sat at a table in the eating area and people-watched. There were the last dregs of cosplayers checking each other out - for some reason a chubby Naruto was trying to pick a fight with a zombie. There was a father or two trying feed toddlers. But mostly, everyone was chilled out. Don't think I was expecting anything spectacular to happen, but I guess I was already missing the con. I'm not sure if I'll be around for the San Diego comicon this year, but I'm hoping against all odds anyway. The one thing that I kept thinking was this might be the last time I would be able to attend such a gathering, and that depressed me. There's nothing I can do to change my situation. I've just gotta try and enjoy it while I can.
parlance and her writing group. I've actually managed to pull out 600-plus words for the unnamed ficlet, which is great, but I've also drunk too much coffee and feeling a bit sick. *blergh*Since I won't have the time to post this later tonight, here's the rest of my writeup on Wondercon:
San Francisco does the slow, drizzling rain so very well. When I wake up I get the urge to put on my lady's fedora and heavy wool coat and traipse around in the footsteps of Sam Spade. Then I remember I haven't read any of Dashiell Hammett's works and instead wear my usual uniform of red knit hat and black hoodie. Last night's a little fresh in my mind as well. I went to the io9.com party instead of the Isotope New Frontier after party, and met with some nice people - some of whom were really, really drunk. We're talking heavy breathing, shouty, drunk. It's still stinging that I had completely not known about the New Frontier after party because I probably would have had more fun there. But ah well, I did get to speak to a Spongebob writer.
The crowd's gone at Moscone South and the pace is much more civilised. There's not much to do, and I place myself in Trailer Park. This is where the audience is treated to a bunch of film trailers. I imagined a suit or two in the darkness, making notes on the level of audience response per trail. The one that seemed to get the most attention was the Speed Racer trail, as old as it was. Maybe it was the fact that it played in a darkened room, or that it was on a huge screen, but it actually seemed less crazy then. Sure, it still looked like an unholy mix of pepto-bismol and an acid trip, but somehow it worked. Hey, as long as they keep the original theme song throughout I might be sated.
The next panel I attended was called 'Goal settings for creative types'. With a name like that, you can miss it, right? It's certainly the first panel I've been to where the moderator handed out worksheets and notes. It's a brilliant one hour of motivational lecture - we learn 10 tips on how to achieve our goals and it was a lot of fun. I haven't the sheet with me right now or the name of the excellent moderator, but I will dig around for the info.
Lastly, I headed to 'Cover Story: Art of the cover' with panelists Tim Sale, Darwyn Cooke, Jim Lee, and Terry Dodson (moderated by Mark Evanier). Evanier pulled out several covers that were selected by his blog visitors and asked the artists to expound on their own. Specifically he started with a quote from Sergio Aragones: A bad cover is one that needs words. I think most of the artists up there disagreed. Basically the cover is there do draw the reader's attention, but how it was approached varied. Sale saw covers as similar to posters, like that of movies. Whereas according to Evanier there was once a DC executive who saw covers as a way to push sales. According to this fellow, the best selling covers had: fire, gorillas, and prison cells. Put them all together and that issue ought to be the best selling ever.
Learning about how Cooke created his covers was really fascinating. Out of the guys up there, he sounded like the most knowledgeable. After all, he had been a magazine art director in his 20s and spoke about RGB and CMYK. It was kinda intimidating, hehe. For the TPB of the New Frontier he explained how he had to cut the oil painting into four in order to scan them, since it was so big. Wow, I would have freaked if I had to do that. Then there was this very beautiful Spirit cover he made for the last issue he penned and drew.
It's a romantic image, a sort of bittersweet farewell. The only thing that ruined it was, as Cooke named it, 'the UPC barcode retard'. As you can see there is this black space on the bottom that was perfect for the barcode, but instead the guy placed it covering one of the posts. Nice.
Jim Lee's a real funny guy, and he cringed at the covers that were selected. They all seemed to be going from left to right, except for the one exception that was All Star Batman & Robin. For one of the covers he needed an image of a back tattoo - the Joker had this really awesome-looking dragon tat. In the name of research, he went to google and printed out as many images of back tattoos as he could. But if you do the same thing, you'd find that some of the images were uh, really revealing. A guy printing loads of pictures of naked men. That's something his girlfriend walked in and found pretty disturbing. Lee also shared the story of Mattel calling him up and asking if he'd be interested in drawing something for Barbie's 50th anniversary. The offer said Lee could do anything. 'Anything?' he asked. So he produced an image of Barbie and Skipper in lingerie, motorcycle jackets, smoking cigarettes, in an alleyway. That was rejected. Haha, but what I'd give to see it.
By the end of the day I just sat at a table in the eating area and people-watched. There were the last dregs of cosplayers checking each other out - for some reason a chubby Naruto was trying to pick a fight with a zombie. There was a father or two trying feed toddlers. But mostly, everyone was chilled out. Don't think I was expecting anything spectacular to happen, but I guess I was already missing the con. I'm not sure if I'll be around for the San Diego comicon this year, but I'm hoping against all odds anyway. The one thing that I kept thinking was this might be the last time I would be able to attend such a gathering, and that depressed me. There's nothing I can do to change my situation. I've just gotta try and enjoy it while I can.
