I forgot to mention that I have been announced as a Special Guest at this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego. It runs July 19-22 with a Preview Night on July 18. Manuele Fior, Richard Friend, Jim Lee, Lonnie Millsap and I join a list that includes Rafael Albuquerque, Marc Bernardin, Thi Bui, Aminder Dhaliwal, Cory Doctorow, Emil Ferris, Brian Fies, Andy Fish, Veronica Fish, Alex Grecian, Elizabeth Hand, Deborah Harkness, R.C. Harvey, Nalo Hopkinson, Larry F. Houston, E.K. Johnson, Lynn Johnston, Jeff Lemire, Paul Levitz, Richard Liniers Siri, Jason Lutes, David Mack, Larry Marder, Scott McCloud, Mike Mignola, Terry Moore, Ann Nocenti, Daniel José Older, Randy Reynaldo, Jeff Smith, Maggie Thompson, Peter J. Tomasi, Tillie Walden, and Jen Wang, with more to be announced tomorrow.
I will be hosting some double-digit number of panels and hopefully, the first of those numbers will be a "1." I will also be presenting the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing to this year's recipients and one of my panels will be an interview with this year's "alive" recipient. The names of both recipients will be announced shortly and I am very proud of this year's selections.
In the months before Comic-Con, I get three questions over and over again and the answer to all three is "no." Let me list them and elaborate…
Can you get me into Comic-Con? No. Your best bet here may be some exhibitor or dealer. They get a certain number of passes for the folks who work their booths and may have extras. Also, folks who want you on a panel or presentation may be able to get you in.
Can you help me get a hotel room? No. I really know nothing about that. I don't even book my own hotel room. All I can do is suggest is that you study the Comic-Con website and also check in at an unaffiliated site called the The San Diego-Comic Con Unofficial Blog. Although these folks lean heavily on the aspects of Comic-Con that are of little interest to me — movie and TV celebrity sightings and autographs — they do a Herculean job of providing info and it's absolutely free. This article by the ever-helpful Kerry Dixon will tell you all anyone can tell you about hotel availability.
Can you help me get a panel or other program item on the schedule? No. I just do mine. I can tell you though that the schedule gets firmed-up much farther in advance than most people think. I've had folks write or call me in July to ask about this and I have to tell them the schedule's not only locked but it's already at the printer. It may already be too late to add an item to it for this year.
I'm sorry. I'd like to help everyone but I can't. The hall only holds so many people, there are only so many hotel rooms, and the schedule has to be set months in advance. Nothing I can do about any of that.