Comic-Con -- Second Thoughts

Last time out I reported on all the things I missed on Thursday; it was a long list. What I saw on Thursday was actually a very short list.

This year we were staying at the DoubleTree near the freeway and about a mile from the Convention Center. Except for a couple of strange happenstances with room service, we really liked the hotel and it was a lot less expensive than the W where we stayed last year. We actually got into our room earlier than we expected and headed down and waited about 10 minutes for the shuttle to arrive. We were at the convention center in about 10 minutes and amazingly had our badges about 10 minutes after that. The lack of on-site registration really seemed to streamline the whole process.

As we always do, we headed directly to Room 8, home of most of the Mark Evanier-led panels. As we got there he was interviewing letterer Todd Klein. I found it fascinating, wife wife may have found it boring. We sat through it and moved closer to the front when it ended to get a better seat for the Golden/Silver Age of Comics panel that is a yearly highlight of the con for me, and this year was no different.

Mark presided over a panel of comic greats: Al Jaffee, Russ Heath, Larry Lieber, Jerry Robinson and Al Feldstein. Jaffee was the only one I had never seen before, but I could sit and listen to these guys for hours, though we only had an hour and a half. It flew by. I don't remember right now a thing anyone said during the panel, but I do recall that I was surprised at how much work Jaffee and Feldstein had done pre-EC/Mad.

After that, I wanted to hang around for the Dexter panel, but neither of us felt like standing in the outrageously long line. The whole town was plastered with Dexter billboards declaring "Power-Saw To The People." As an aside, I really dislike the way the con now handles the lines for 6A, 6B and the ginormous 6CDEF. The weave them in and out of the hallways in long narrow lines, that does not seem to be much of an improvement to the old days, when you just walked into any door to the room and took a seat. Now all the rooms have designated entrances and exits and it doesn't improve much, if you ask me; but no one is.