The above photo is from one of the best panels I've done out of umpteen zillion at Comic-Con. It was called "Jack Kirby: Friends and Family." The "friends" were artist Mike Thibodeaux and, I guess, me. The "family" consisted of Jack's daughter Lisa and grandkids Jillian, Tracy and Jeremy. In the above photo, the back row is (L to R) me, Jeremy and Mike. The front row is Jillian, Lisa and Tracy. Despite the indifferent look on my face in the pic, I thought it went great with each person talking about what being related to or associated with Jack has meant to them. Lisa and Mike especially shared personal stories about Jack and his beloved wife Roz.
At the end of the panel, there was a special treat. I introduced David Glanzer, who is Director of Marketing and Public Relations of Comic-Con and he presented the convention's highest honor, the Icon Award, to Jack Kirby. This has never before been awarded posthumously but Jack was a guy who rewrote almost every rule he ever encountered so it seemed appropriate for the convention organizers to rewrite this one. His family was thrilled to accept it on his behalf.
Earlier in the day, I presided over another important panel. Eric Reynolds, Maggie Thompson, Scott Shaw! and my friend John Plunkett joined me to speak of Pogo, Walt Kelly and especially my dear Carolyn Kelly. I'll write a little more about this one after I return home. I was very pleased with how this one went, too. We not only announced that the much-delayed Volume 4 of The Complete Pogo is off to press, we even showed pages of it on the big screen.
I'm running out of time to write this post so I'll cut to the awards ceremony…a great time. The lovely Athena Finger (granddaughter of the man it was named after) joined me in presenting the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing. We gave one to Bill Messner-Loebs, who was present to accept it and who showed with his witty acceptance speech what a fine writer he was. The other went to Jack Kirby and to the delight of the audience was accepted by the above-named Kirbys. I believe Jack has now received every award he could possibly receive for his work so we'll have to invent some new ones.
I missed some of the show because I was backstage in the "green room," which of course was not green, talking with my fellow presenters. At some future convention, I would like to interview Jonathan Ross for an hour or so because he's one of the sharpest, funniest people I've ever known. Come to think of it, so is Wayne Brady, who was a surprise presenter there and so are Tom Lennon and Phil LaMarr and others who were back there at various times…Sergio Aragonés, Dave Gibbons, Paul Dini and Misty Lee, Phil LaMarr, Art Adams and I forget who-all-else. Jackie Estrada, who presides over the awards and the award show, did her usual fine job and I need to get in the shower if I'm going to make my first appointment this morning. More to come and I don't have time to proofread so if there are any tyops in here (like that one) I'll fix them later.