Yesterday was great, even though Marv Wolfman and I wound up hosting a Gene Colan Spotlight without Gene Colan. Through some miscommunication, Gene and his wife Adrienne were still at their hotel when he was supposed to be over in Room 8 at the Convention Center, being quizzed by Marv 'n' Mark. Amazingly, it went rather well without him…or at least, almost no one left as Marv and I just talked about Gene's awesome body of work. He arrived in time for the following panel, also hosted by moi and which Marv was on, which was about comics in the seventies. Since Gene drew comics in the seventies and we still had most of the audience for the Gene Colan panel there, we folded him into that one and pressed on.
Following that, I moderated a terrific panel which gathered together Sheldon Moldoff, Jerry Robinson and Lew Sayre Schwartz, the last three surviving Bob Kane ghost artists on Batman. It was the first time all three were together, the first time Lew and Shelly met. For those of us obsessed with Golden Age history, it was Candy Store Time.
The highlight of my day was the presentation/talk by Stan and Hunter Freberg, delivered to a turnaway crowd in a nowhere-near-large-enough hall. Stan was (and remains) one of my big idols and when I'm asked in the future to rattle off my fave Comic-Con moments, don't let me forget the joy of being able to introduce him and his lovely spouse to a huge room of Freberg fans. The time ran out way before the anecdotes he was prepared to tell and we never even got to the video clips he brought, except to open with the Warner Brothers cartoon, "Three Little Bops." So I think we need to have them back. Like, every year if they can stand it.
The Eisner Awards were held this year in a new venue — a lovely ballroom over at the new Hilton Bayshore, right next to the Convention Center. The hall was better, the hors d'ouevres (I was told) were better, the mood was better…but some folks were unhappy because the cellphone reception inside was such that one could barely Twitter. Bill Morrison did his usual fine job as emcee and his wife Kayre was stunning in her role as Prize Model or whatever the proper title is for looking great and handing out statuettes. I got one but the best part for me was still Frank Jacobs of MAD Magazine accepting the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Writing, a lifetime achievement honor presented by Jerry Robinson and myself. When oh when will someone wise up and publish a collection of Frank's brilliant poems and song parodies for that mag?
Have to run and do five (ohmigod, five) panels today, starting with Quick Draw!, which is always a fun sprint to the finish line. I hope for your sake you're here at the Comic-Con today. Because if you are, you're having a real good time.