You know, I'd forgotten how my body needs to sleep much of the day after I get home from Comic-Con. It could still use a few extra hours in a prone position.
Everyone thinks Saturday is the most crowded day at the con. That was mathematically true back when the con didn't sell out other days but did on Saturday. Now, at least in theory, it should be at capacity every day. Still, Saturday does feel more packed, which is why I'm glad I have so many panels then to take me off the main floor. In addition to the ones I'm mentioning, I dropped in on a few others for brief cameos.
Oh, before I forget, I have a photo from the Saturday morning Cartoon Voices panel…
Left to right, we have Josh Robert Thompson, Mick Wingert, Richard Horvitz, me, Grey Griffin, Kaitlyn Robrock and Jeff Bergman. Moderator aside, this is a group of some of the most talented performers you'll ever see. One of them is even the current voice of Bugs Bunny and I'll give you a hint: It ain't me, Doc.
Now then: As happens often at this con, I encountered some folks who have somehow decided that I am the official Complaint Department for Comic-Con. There is nothing I can do about the long lines except to suggest that maybe you don't have to stand in some of them. If the room for a given event seats 3000 and 3000+ people want to see it, there are going to be lines and someone may not get a good seat or any at all. That's simple math that applies not only at this con but everywhere, and Buckminster Fuller in his prime probably couldn't find a solution for that one. If you do, send it to the convention organizers…and maybe the Nobel Prize people while you're at it.
I had a couple of those on Saturday, including one guy who approaches me almost every year to kvetch that there aren't any panels about Golden Age comic book creators. This year, it went roughly like this…
ME: There are several panels this year about Jack Kirby and Will Eisner. Don't they count as Golden Age comic book creators? And there are panels on Reed Crandall and John Stanley and I think some others. I know there's at least one on the history of Wonder Woman.
HIM: No, I mean like the Golden Age Panels you used to do where they actually fly in the creators and you interview them? Why don't we still have those?
ME: Maybe because we don't still have enough of those people to do that. Aside from Stan Lee, who will only do events about his current projects, who at this convention worked in comics in the forties?
HIM: Well, they could have flown some people in.
ME: Names. I want names.
HIM: Well, I was thinking about Sam Glanzman. Now, I know you're going to say he died but that was just a few weeks ago. Why didn't they arrange a few months ago to fly him out?
ME: Let me get this straight. You're upset because they didn't try to bring in someone who would have been dead by now?
HIM: But they didn't know when he would die and they didn't try to get him. That's my point. Why didn't they try to get him as a guest a few months ago?
ME: A few months ago when he was in hospice care? You do understand that a man in his nineties, even if he's not dying, might have some limitations on his ability or even his desire to travel…
HIM: Okay, maybe Glanzman couldn't but I'm sure there are others who are able to travel.
ME: Names. I want names.
HIM: Hey, don't stick me with this. You're the expert.
Yeah, there are a few but not enough to have great panels like we once did. I don't know…I just don't understand people who complain before they pause to consider that there might be a good, simple reason for the way things are. Some people seem to feel important and empowered when they are demanding that others serve their desires.
We did have a panel of "older" comic book creators but it was folks who started in comics in the seventies. In the above photo, we have (L to R): Marv Wolfman, Keith Pollard, me, Ron Wilson and Paul Levitz. That's the back row. In front, that's Joe Staton, Elliott S! Maggin and Mike Grell. (Hey, in Jewish blogs and magazines, do they caption their photos R to L?)
All of us discussed our work back then. I still think I could be given the bulk of the credit for ending the Silver Age of Comics just by my entrance into the field in 1970.
We had some good stories about meeting impossible deadlines, working with folks whose work we'd loved as readers, etc. Paul discussed the massive discomfort of having to tell someone — especially someone who was older than him and had a family — that there was no more work available.
I was darting all over the convention center all day and so was too weary to attend more than one party that evening before a bunch of us shuffled off to a nice dinner. It was one of the best days I ever had at a Comic-Con, in spite of the fellow who was upset I didn't do a panel interviewing dead guys.