LA Times Reporter Assaulted at Comic-Con

I was walking alone to my hotel after late Saturday night interviews with Neal Adams and Darwyn Cook. I was also talking on my cell to Spencer Weiner, the photographer for The Times shooting Comic-Con. Spencer heard everything that happened next.

I (literally) bumped into a young guy walking with three friends in the Gaslamp Quarter. They were tattooed and wearing the street uniform of baggy pants, white T-shirts and shaved heads. The guy started mad-dogging me, rasping threats. I told him I was just walking by, no offense meant. He got in my face, and I told him it would be stupid for us to make something out of nothing.

"You calling me stupid?" "No, I'm not." Then I stopped talking, because my mouth was bleeding. One of his buddies, standing off to my side, cold-cocked me, and the ring on his fist took a chunk out of my face. I never saw it coming. I was at the emergency room until dawn.

Full Story.

Pictures from Comic-Con

Our humble table.


Best badge I saw.

Comic-Con 2007, A-Z

I got home about 7 this morning, checked email for an hour, slept for half an hour and then went to work. The con was loads of fun. So much so that I'll will definitively say it's the most fun I've had at Comic-Con ever (out of 3).

Unfortunately, I was trapped working behind the Comic Foundry Magazine table for 95 % of the time. But still, I loved being able to tell people about the magazine, and loved it even more when they gave me money at the end. CF star Laura Hudson graciously split her time between Virgin Comics and CF and helped man the table with me.

But, without further ado, Comic Foundry's A-Z experience of Comic-Con 2007:


A — "Are You a Virgin?"
This is what a potential customer thought I asked her. In reality, I asked, "Are you Persian"? The answer to both was No.

B — Bloggers
I love getting to see all the people I know online. This time I finally met Whitney Matheson, Tom Bondurant and JK Parkin (and wife) and caught up with Tom McLean (and wife), Grame McMillan (and wife), Ian Brill (not married), Tom Spurgeon (who didn't stop by the table!) and
Heidi MacDonald (who also didn't stop by the table!)

C — Comic Creators
There were a bunch of cool comics creators that picked up copies of the magazine, including: Ed Brubaker, Eddie Campbell, Mike Choi, Matt Fraction, James Jean, Derek Kirk Kim and some guy named David Lloyd?

D — Dan Didio
He accidentally hip-checked Laura. T'was hilarious. Laura thought less so.

E — Ellis, Warren
I met him at this Avatar event some night. But I was really sad he didn't try to destroy me with his cane or nibble on my soul. Don't believe the hype. Ol' Warren is a big teddy bear.

F — Five (5)
This comic by Gabriel Ba, Becky Cloonan, Fabio Moon, Vasilis Lolos and Rafael Grampa was the only thing I bought at the show.

G — Good Food
I had dinner with Robert Venditti (Surrogates), Andy Runton (Owly), Kristian Donaldson (Supermarket), Randy Lander (Formerly of the Fourth Rail, now Comic Pants), and PJ, whose last name I can't remember for the life of me. Grilled mahi tacos are delicious.

H — Hill, Jonah
I was lucky enough to chat with Jonah Hill. We featured him in Comic Foundry Magazine and he was just as hilarious in person.

I — "I Don't Get the Joke In the Title"
That was the best attendee response to the magazine.
The second-best was: "If I could read I would quit my job."

J — Joss Whedon
I told him his shoe was untied. He declined to tie it though, because he didn't feel like bending over. I insisted since the bathroom we were about to enter was very...wet. He eventually wised up and tied it up. There's a joke to be made about me making Joss Whedon bend over, but I'm not going to make it.

K — Kiel Phegley, Wizard writer
I don't know what we were talking about, but I do know it was hilarious.

L — LOST Panel
I didn't see it (or any other panel, for that matter), but I heard all about it. So much, in fact, I was able to describe bit by bit to other people. Ding!

M — Men's Room at the Sci-Fi/EW Party
I met more celebs in there than I did the actual party AND the urinal was in the shape of a mouth, Rolling Stones-style. For reals.

N — Networking
I met a bunch of cool people at the show. The ones I can remember off the top of my sleep-deprived head: Nisha Gopalan, James Sime, Jacq (what's your last name?) from DarkHorse (who LOVED our old Lost Girls issue cover we did last year), Stuart Moore, Gotham Chopra...This list will be updated later.

O — Oh Shit
We found a typo in the first issue of Comic Foundry. That certainly put a damper on things. Pobody's Nerfect.

P — Party, The Sci-Fi/EW Party
I got to hob-nob with Battlestar Galactica, Eurkea and random other celebs.

Q — Quite Delicious = Missy Peregrym
I walked past her in the hotel. My heart skipped a beat.

R — Recognition
I got recognized twice. I also watched 47 people ask Laura: "Hey, are you Laura from that Myriad Issues blog?"

S — Saturday
Here's what I don't get. If Saturday was sold out, where were all the people? Friday was definitely our best day, sales-wise, and Saturday sucked. I heard the exact same sentiment from a lot of other vendors. Discuss.

T — Table Talk
The Best Pitch I heard in Small Press: "It's about a ninja and a sumo wrestler fighting over the last piece of cherry pie," Vinny (I forgot your last name but will look at your card later), artist on "It's Ninja Time!"

U — U Like Us! U Really Like Us!
We had several people who bought the magazine earlier at the con and came back to the table to tell us how much they liked it. Wow.

V — Vasilis Lolos
I was convinced we were wearing the exact same pair of Nike High-Top Dunks. Alas, they were slightly different.

W — Wolk, Douglas
I read his story in Blender on the plane to San Diego. We had dinner Friday (along with Laura and some Complex dudes). We discussed the possibility of a second edition of Reading Comics, and if/when, him re-writing the book so that Infinite Crisis is named the best comic book. Ever.

X — Xena, aka, Lucy Lawless
I saw her at the Sci-Fi party.

Y — Yuri Lowenthal
We featured the celebrated voice actor in the first issue of CF and we happened to cross paths many times at the show. The first was at a party where we were trying to explain the concept of Second Life to his agent.

Z — Zuda Comics
They had a fun happy hour I attended. I have to say, I love the gimmick they had of giving out blank postcards and having people sketch on them and mail them in. Clever kids. At the party they had some demos and what was most interesting was a new web-comic reader they had embedded in their site. Hmm...

First Image from Comic-Con!

That's right, table N 11 in Small Press. Find us!
(photo by Laura Hudson)

New IRON MAN Pic in EW

In EW's 2-page Comic-Con preview, they've got a new shot of Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark/Iron Man.

Rome Actor is the Next Punisher

According to LationoReview, Rome actor Ray Stevenson is set to take over for Thomas Jane in Punisher 2. Stevenson plays badass Titus Pullo in the HBO series Rome and played Dragonet in 2004's King Arthur.

DC Comics to Publish World of Warcraft Series

PR: Preview art from the series will debut at Comic-Con International, held in San Diego, CA from July 26-29. The World of Warcraft comic book will be published through DC's WildStorm imprint and debut this fall.

The ongoing monthly series will be written by industry veteran Walter Simonson (Thor, Orion) and feature art by Ludo Lullabi and inker Sandra Hope. The first six issues of the World of Warcraft comic series will each feature two covers, one by superstar comic book artist Jim Lee and a second by Blizzard Entertainment Senior Art Director Samwise Didier.

The first storyline of the new ongoing series begins when a human is found unconscious on the shores of Kalimdor, with no memory of who he is or how he arrived there. Enslaved by an orc shaman, the man must fight for survival against members of both the Alliance and the Horde. He strikes uneasy relationships with other races in his quest to find the secrets of his past.

Comic Foundry at Comic-Con

Comic Foundry will have a table at next week's comic extravaganza, the San Diego Comic-Con. We're at table N 11 in the small press area. We'll have a couple hundred advance copies of the magazine for sale. These are super exclusive, so if you're going to the show, make sure come by and check us out!

SDCC06: At the Eisner Awards

Comic Foundry covers the red carpet at the 2006 Eisner Awards

Rock and Roll Thor

Found on Strange Ink

The Magazines Are In!

I just got an advance shipment of the magazines! Wow! It's finally in my dirty little fingers. Exciting!

Laura Hudson is Crazy-Bananas

(as the kids say).

Laura Hudson of Comic Foundry and Virgin Comics fame is reading and reviewing comics for 24 hours straight. I love comics, but 24 hours straight? Wow.

Her blog has all the deets.

I watched it so you don't have to

Last night on the G4 Network, after their live E3 coverage, they had on a Comic-Con 2007 Preview show. I was very intrigued as to what type of previews they had that could fill an hour of television, so I checked it out. Lame. Lame. Lame. I love the G4 network, but the preview was not so much a preview. It was basically Blair Butler and Chris Gore at some smaller California comic convention saying how excited they were and how cool the event is and making liberal use of "nerd prom." If anything it was a highlight reel of last year's show. So, no need to contemplate suicide or anything if forget to Tivo it.

What it could've made it better? A red carpet look at the Eisner Awards, of course!

Battlestar Razor Trailer

What up, Pegasus?

Reserve a copy of Comic Foundry

One of our many, many marketing programs is to provide printable forms for you to fill out and take to your local shop. It's that easy. Just click here, print it out, fill it out, and voila! You can have yourself a reserved copy of Comic Foundry on September 5th. If you've supported Comic Foundry in the past we're incredibly appreciative, and hope you'll continue supporting us and order a copy.

DC + BAPE shoe collab

Continuing their collaborations with DC Comics, BAPE, the uber-cool Japanese fashion house is releasing a new sneaker line. It features character-based shoes for DC icons Superman, Batman, the Flash and Wonder Woman.

Personally, I'm not a huge BAPE shoes guy and don't love the plastic feel. That, and they'll probably cost three bills (that's $300, son!).

(image stolen from HypeBeast)

Video: Comic Foundry

Comic Foundry is Coming.

Death Note Movies

This weekend was the Asian American Film Festival here in New York and I was lucky enough to snag tickets to both Death Note and the sequel, Death Note: The Last Name. Now, I'm a pretty huge Death Note fan, so I was incredibly anxious to see them. Shusuke Kaneko, the director, was there to introduce the first film, which was cool because he later had a Stan Lee esque cameo.

Overall, I liked them both, but probably the sequel better than the first — mostly because it's SO radically different than the original manga that I really had no idea what was going to happen next.

Paolo Rivera + Joe Quesada meet Conan O'Brien

For those of you smart kiddies that picked up Mythos: Spider-Man, you would've seen that instead of a wrestling match for Spidey's origin story, Paul Jenkins and Paolo Rivera substituted in an appearance on Conan O'Brien. Paolo and the Marvel crew got to meet the comedian, who is obviously much taller than every at Marvel combined.

From Paolo Rivera's blog. (He has a blog?)

People I could give a big bear hug to right now:

Chris Sims.

That is all.

Jay Stephens contributes to the Marvel Indy Anthology

Beast vs. Morbius

Anyone?

Is it just me, or doesn't Marvel's new Anyone Can Be A Skrull Plotline feel very much like BSG? What? Elektra's a Cylon?

Comic Foundry is in Previews

So I finally got my filthy hands on the July Previews and sure enough, we're in there. I didn't even have to pinch myself. The great news is that not only are we in there, we have a "Spotlight On" preview (Big props to Diamond's Tim Huckelbery for scoring us a that, by the way). So what's next? Now we have to make sure your local comic store orders a copy or 27.

One of our many, many marketing programs is to provide printable forms for you to fill out and take to your local shop. It's that easy. Just click here, print it out, fill it out, and voila! You can have yourself a reserved copy of Comic Foundry on September 5th.