SAN DIEGO — Well, it’s all over. I survived my first Comic-Con International.

It’s going to take me a few weeks to digest the whole thing, both from a business perspective and as a collector. One thing for sure: It lives up to its reputation as spectacle.

I spent the final day with my lovely bride Stacy and youngest daughter Katja in tow. Following the “My Dad Makes Comics!” panel (featuring Sky and Winter McCloud, daughters of Scott, and Brennan and Amanda Wagner, children of Matt), Katja was eager to check out the scene on the Event Hall floor. Stacy captured some of the highlights:

On the way down to the Event Hall floor, Stacy captured this pattern shot from the escalator.

The first order of business for Katja was the Pokémon booth, where she got to preview a future release. (She won three of the five games.)

Before leaving Pokémon land, Katja made Daddy stop and pose with her and Pikachu.

Katja with her Marvel mutant namesake.

The Batmobile, courtesy of Hot Wheels.

And hanging out near the Batmobile? Catwoman stops by for a picture with Katja.

The Jackalope. (Katja didn’t want to pose with him.)

SAN DIEGO — After dozens of warnings about the apocalypse that is Saturday at Comic-Con, I decided to blow off the whole day and spend it with Clan Wahl instead. I mean, really, who wants to stand in line for what seems like hours to see the cast of “Battlestar Galactica” when you can stand in line for what seems like hours at Knott’s Soak City. I’m going to try not to think about that last sentence too hard.

Seriously, though, no regrets. After two-and-a-half days, I think my geek was waning. I needed a break.

Back at it Sunday, this time with the whole family in tow.

(Photo by Stacy)
There were too many people at Soak City, but it was cooler than the Convention Center.

SAN DIEGO —Another day, another bulleted list of semi-random observations from Comic-Con 2007:

• Once again, the day started with a ride downtown on the special event, red-line trolley. Unlike Day 1, the damn thing was packed. By halfway in, there were so many people wedged in the trolley cars that the doors wouldn’t close. The conductor started yelling “clear the doors” over the staticy intercom, as the train couldn’t move with open doors. As we sat there, the AC went out (accident or punishment for not clearing the doors? Hmm … .) For a minute I started to wonder if I’d caught the bait-and-switch trolley to Auschwitz. But, finally, the train started to roll.

• My while-riding-the-transit thought of the day: Where do the homeless people go during big events like Comic-Con? They were everywhere when we were out and about on Tuesday. But once the con started, not a one. I’ve had similar experiences at big events in Washington, D.C., and Chicago. Are there City Beautification Police that sweep the streets before out-of-towners show up? Or maybe it was the Red Shirts from the convention’s event staff?

• I rolled into the Convention Center around noon, hoping to avoid the angry herd moments of Day 1. As I approached the gates, a loud, friendly man with a megaphone was shouting out instructions, and the well-informed crowds were merrily — and quickly — getting where they needed to be. Progress, I’d say.

• First up for me Friday was “Impact University: How to Write and Draw Graphic Novels,” featuring one of my favorite comic-book writers, Peter David, and the longtime editor of the Comics Buyer’s Guide, Maggie Thompson. (I’ve been a subscriber to CBG since I was 15; the publication was one of the things that kept me “stuck” to comics when normal teens started drifting away.) Also on the panel was Orson Scott Card, author of “Ender’s Game,” and David Petersen, a recent sensation in the comics world thanks to his “Mouse Guard” series.

Peter David lived up to his reputation as an amusing panelist, generating regular belly laughs from the crowd. He also dispensed some nice nuggets of wisdom, including a discussion about theme. The most important question an author can ask, David says, is “What is the story about?” It’s a different question than “What happens?” He cited an example from a British author, whose name he couldn’t remember: The king dies, then the queen dies; that’s an example of “What happens?” The king dies, then the queen dies of a broken heart; that’s an example of “What is the story about.” The first is a series of facts; the second explores an aspect of the human condition. The distinction between the two is key.

Another interesting piece of advice was from Orson Scott Card, who, unfortunately arrived late and had to leave early: “If you want to get published, stop caring where.” Not sure if I agree with that one, but then he’s published a hell of lot more work than I have, so what do I know?”

• I took a bit of a flyer on next panel. The topic, “How to Create Successful Comic Page Layouts,” was one of great interest, but I was not familiar with the presenter, Christian Hill, a professor of illustration and sequential art at Cal State Fullerton. I decided to check it out largely because it was in the same room as the “Impact University” session, and I lacked the will for another mad dash across the Convention Center.

Turned out to be a very good decision. “The Comic Art Prof” really knows his stuff, and the session was loaded with good info: page-mapping approaches, eye magnets and tips about pacing, tempo and rhythm. There was too much good stuff to really get into here, so check out Hill’s Web site if you want to learn more.

• On the journey between panels, I must have seen at least a dozen costumed attendees posing for photos with total strangers. Big ol’ Klingons. Cute anime creatures. Baby-eating zombies girls. Super-heroes from every walk of like. Ask any one of them to pose and they smile and gleefully agree. I find that weird.

• Panel three dealt with the business of Web comics, and featured talent from of PvP (artist Scott Kurtz) and Penny Arcade (business guru Robert Khoo), two of the most successful Web toons around. The basic premise was sound — the two teamed up to create a new Web property, on the fly on stage — and the execution was quite good. The oversized Kurtz has a personality to match his girth; the guy could be a standup comic if the cartooning thing ever fizzles. He led the packed room through a laugh-filled brainstorming exercise that laid the groundwork for a casino-themed Web toon. Khoo’s business chops were equal to the task, walking the group through a business plan built around merchandising, advertising and partnerships.

The whole experience was a lot of fun, but, after the fact, something just felt wrong. Finally it hit me: I’d just spent an hour learning how to “monetize” an “intellectual property.” I like to get paid, but, damn, if that didn’t feel a little dirty.

• About two months ago, I developed a wild hair that I was going to quit my day job and move my family to Vermont for two years so I could pursue an MFA at the Center for Cartoon Studies. My lovely bride Stacy talked me down, but I still secretly dream about it late at night in my studio.

The fourth and last panel for Day 2 was with James Sturm, director of CCS. I learned a lot and…

-sniff-

I don’t want to talk about it any more.

• Back at the Exhibit Hall: Just seven rows to go.

• There was a noticeable up tick in the number of costumes on Day 2. I saw an Emma Frost and was amazed to learn that costume actually works in the real world. (I’m guessing glue or tape. Lots of it.) There was a female Flash in the tightest costume I’ve ever seen. (Breathe, girl. You need to breathe!) And a Spartan from “300” who actually looked the part. (Turns out he might have actually been one of the 300. Several of the stars were at the con that day for a panel about the DVD release.) And oodles and oodles of girls doing things to their waists unheard of since Victorian times in vain attempts to look like anime characters. (Ow. Why would you do that? Just stop.)

I decided on two more costume absolutes Friday, to go along with Day 1’s “no fat super-heroes” rule: 1. Robot suits made out of cardboard boxes always look sad, and 2. Chubby white girls should just say no to dressing like their favorite anime characters.

• My Comic-Con tip of the day: Don’t be an asshole during panel discussions. No, it’s not OK to sit and chat with buddies during the session. If you have to leave early, don’t slam the door. And, for the love of God, TURN YOUR DAMN CELL-PHONE RINGER OFF!!!

That’s it for the Day 2. Two down, two to go …

SAN DIEGO — Once again, I’m running of fumes. It seems like Comic-Con might just be kicking my ass.

I’ve compiled notes on Day 2 but won’t be able to finish my post until Saturday afternoon (I’m planning a short Day 3 visit to the Convention Center because every con veteran I talk to says Saturday is “a fucking zoo.”)

Look for my Day 3 report late Saturday night. And, if everything goes right, my Day 4 report Sunday evening should include several convention photos (courtesy of my lovely bride, Stacy).

Editor’s note: I completed most of this post when I got back to the hotel Thursday evening, but fell asleep at the computer before finishing and posting. Lame, I know. I wrapped it up Friday evening, before moving on to my Day 2 report.

SAN DIEGO —The bulleted list of random observations worked well for Day 0, so lets make that the Official Format of my Pilgrimage to Geek Mecca Posts™. This time, in semi-chronological order:

• The day started with a ride in on the special red-line trolley, added just for Comic-Con. A whole train full of happy geeks. A good way to start the day.

• At risk of sounding like I’m obsessing about San Diego’s mass-transit system: The trolleys appear to run largely on the honor system, with no one checking to see if you’ve actually bought a pass to board the train. Except when a small cadre of Taser-armed transit cops swarm the bus to check people’s passes, blitzkrieg style. It’s only happened twice, but, both times, every person on board produced the required ticket. It makes me wonder how severe the punishment for noncompliance must be. (Public executions at Old Town Station, anyone?)

• Comic-Con got off to an inauspicious when the red-shirted event staff couldn’t figure out which doors to unlock when. Ten minutes after the con was supposed to open, thousands of people remained outside baking in the San Diego heat (only in the 70s, but the humidity will kill you) and the doors remained shut. Every once in a while, a door would crack open and a Red Shirt would send everyone to a different gate: “Go to D.” “C is open.” “All you people should be at E.” The crowd started getting rowdy, with calls of “just open the fuckin’ doors” echoing throughout. Just when I started to worry it would turn ugly, the Red Shirts started letting a trickle of people — myself included — through Gate E. Relieved, I scurried off, never looking back.

• Things didn’t get much better once I got inside. Everywhere I went, Red Shirts would yell at me because I was going the wrong way. One even grabbed me. I tried to follow the signage, but some key ones seemed to be missing. After about 20 minutes at the con, I felt like a 10-year old, but not in a good way.

• Things got better once I finally made it to my first panel, a session on the nuts and bolts of writing. Mark Verheiden, a comic writer turned co-executive producer of “Battlestar Galactica,” held court for an hour. As anyone who knows me knows, I’m absolutely drooly about the new BSG, regularly referring to it as “the most fully realized piece of post-9/11 art I’ve seen.” Given the massive critical acclaim the show has received from just about every quarter, I expected Verheiden to be a bit aloof. Nothing could be further from the truth. He genuinely seemed to be a decent human being. Nice, even.

He also shared good advice, including:

Mark Verheiden’s writing process
1. Determine theme. This comes before the plot.
2. Determine the idea. This is the large sweeps of the story.
3. Breakdown with cards. Each character’s main story beats are listed on their own index card. (For BSG, each character gets a different color card.)
4. Outline. This includes every single story beat.
5. Write character bios. Not for publication, just a graph or two to help better understand the characters.
6. Write the script. This is the “fun part,” Verheiden says.

He also says that the comics field is harder for writers to break into than television or feature films (that was depressing), but that self-publishing is a great option for getting started (thank God for that). He also stressed the importance of networking and offered one simple suggestion:

“Don’t be a jerk. Be a relatively nice person.”

Words to live by, no?

• After coming out of the Verheiden panel, I heard a primal scream from the end of the hallway. Some poor schmo had waited an hour-and-a-half to get his badge and get into the con. Then he wandered the wrong way down a hall. He apparently had reached wits end when the Red Shirts swarmed.

• The second panel I attended, “Drawing Style and Storytelling,” wasn’t nearly as good the first. This session was advertised as a workshop for developing visual styles for specific projects. Unfortunately, the four artists on the panel — Darwyn Cooke (“DC: The New Frontier”), Cameron Stewart (“The Other Side”), Carla Speed McNeil (“Finder”) and Colleen Coover (“Banana Sunday”) — aren’t really known for changing their styles from project to project. (Back in the day, this would have been a great topic for Frank Miller and Keith Giffen. Now that’s a panel I would have paid to see.)

Still, a few pearls of wisdom from this one: Cooke thinks the nine-panel grid is the best way to do a comic-book page. He also says that a story’s tone should set the visual style, and warns that going completely digital limits a comic-book artist’s potential income (no original art to sell).

But my favorite bit was from Coover, when asked about going back and tweaking older art: “Done is beautiful!”

• On the walk to the third panel, I ran across three Red Shirts dealing with a spitting, snarling, beet-red man (no, I don’t think that was his costume). He kept screaming something about wanting to kill a volunteer who’d sent him the wrong way. Nice to see the organizers getting a handle on the people-routing thing as the day moves on.

• Panel three featured MSNBC editorial cartoonist Daryl Cagle, of Daryl Cagle’s Professional Cartoonists Index fame. Didn’t learn a whole lot at this one, which is actually good, I suppose. But Cagle was an entertaining speaker — and a much better editorial cartoonist than I’d realized. I think his own cartoon work might get lost a bit because of his role as the host of the index, and as a syndicate chief.

• Throughout the day, I continued to systematically work my way through the massive Exhibit Hall. I’ve now seen 27 of the 55 rows. Almost half way there!

• While in the hall, I bought a bunch more half-off trade paperbacks. Note to self: Trade paperbacks are heavy; don’t buy them early in the day.

• Best costumes of Day 1: A young couple dressed as Superman and Wonder Woman, While both were undersized for their parts, the costumes were sharp and they looked really cute together. (Cute? Did I really just describe a scantly clad Wonder Woman as “cute”? Dear Lord, I’m getting old.) Worst costume: Fat, Latina Supergirl, running for the train. (My eyes!!!) Fat Captain America wasn’t pretty either. In general: “Fat” and “super-hero costumes” appear to be a no-no.

• My daily tip for future Comic-Con virgins: Wear good shoes. Not ones you just think are comfortable, but good shoes that offer real support. If you don’t, you’ll cry. Like I did.

On to Day 2 …

SAN DIEGO —It’s late. I’m running on fumes and my brain has gone fuzzy. So instead of the well-organized report I’d planned, here are some random observations from the day leading up to Preview Night at Comic-Con:

• A city’s roads tend to show you the surface of a town. Want to see its backside? Jump on its mass-transit system. The view from San Diego’s trolleys: Lots of palm trees and a handful of cacti, plenty of Southwest-style architecture, a surprising amount of poverty and squalor, gang tags galore, and, for some reason, an abundance of razor wire (really, it seemed to be everywhere I looked).

• There was a diverse mix of riders using mass transit. Like at home in Wenatchee, there were plenty of Anglos and Latinos, but here there is a significant black population, too. And geeks. Lots of geeks. It was the start of Comic-Con, after all.

• When we booked our hotel room, the person at the desk said the metro system “takes you straight to the Convention Center.” If by “straight” she meant three trolleys, one bus and a half-mile hike, then she wasn’t lying.

• A parting thought about San Diego’s mass-transit system: It was clean, affordable and on time, most of the time. Local riders were friendly and helped keep out-of-towners from getting lost. This mirrors my experience with mass transit in Chicago and Washington, D.C. So why can’t Seattleites get their act together and install a real metro system with either elevated trains or subways? It sure beats sitting in and grousing about that awful I-5 crawl.

• Everywhere I went — at the mall, in the parks, on the trolleys — I saw people of different ages, genders, races and ethnicities reading the final installment of Harry Potter. It was beautiful, really.

• Comic-Con is as big — and impressive — as advertised. I didn’t get there until around 7 p.m. (long story, but it has something to do with the three trolleys, the bus and the hike I mentioned above) and, after securing my badge, made it into the Exhibit Hall at about 7:20 p.m. It was hard to get a sense of scale in there but I swear it was as big as Waterville — and there were certainly more people in there than my tiny town has even seen. I walked for what seemed like miles, through film displays, life-size Pokémon sculptures, gaming tables and a battalion or two of Stormtroopers before ever seeing an actual comic book for sale. (Of course, once I found some comics, it didn’t take me long to spend mumbly mumbly dollars on half-off trade paperbacks. Expect plenty of reviews in the weeks ahead.)

• A tip for those attending Preview Night in years ahead: Leave at least a half hour before it closes. Wait till 9 p.m. and you’ll be part a sea of flesh, oozing forth from every door of the Convention Center. This of course is made worse if you’re using mass transit — like EVERY OTHER PERSON IN SAN DIEGO. I exaggerate only a little. (Oh, and the buses start running hourly after 9 p.m., instead of every 30 minutes. This makes that whole three-trolley-one-bus-and-a-hike thing take even longer.)

Because I got home so late, I haven’t had a chance to go through the final programming schedule to figure out what I hope to see tomorrow. I probably should sign off and go do that before crawling off to bed.

Till tomorrow then …

SAN DIEGO — The OtWP crew — myself, along with my lovely bride, Stacy, and my mini-me, Katja — have checked into our Days Inn base camp. The girls are already snoring so I figured I’d log on for a quick update.

The journey down was uneventful, a plus given this was Katja’s first time on an airplane. The closest thing to a disaster was me realizing I’d left my comic-book catalog at home. I would be lost on the exhibit hall sales floor without it. (Do I need Amazing Super Tool No 127 or 128? What about an upgrade of Arty Indie Angst No. 4? Noooooooo … !) My older daughter, Stazia, came to the rescue by shipping it out Express Mail. (Thanks, Boo!) As long as USPS doesn’t decide to reroute it to Weehawken, salvation should arrive by noon tomorrow.

Of course, I’ll still probably be lost when I hit the exhibit hall. While I’m a long-time veteran of smaller conventions (as attendee, dealer and guest), I’ve never been to an event anywhere near this size. We’re talking well over 100,000 participants, taking in hundreds of dealer tables and exhibits, and participating in four days worth of programming and activities (five if you count Wednesday’s Preview Night). I have a feeling I’m going to be utterly overwhelmed, very much like I was when my Auntie Nancy took me to my very first convention, 25-or-so years ago. (To give you an idea of the scope, check out this PDF of Comic-Con’s massive exhibit hall. Keep in mind that it doesn’t include Mezzanine activities or the programming halls.)

I’ll be checking out Preview Night tomorrow from 6 to 9 p.m. With any luck, I won’t spend all my designated mad money as soon as I walk in the door (that’s what happened at that first con I mentioned). I’ll deliver a full Day Zero report tomorrow night, along with a preview of the programming highlights I hope to attend on Thursday.

To be honest, I can’t freakin’ wait!

Yes, I’m late to the party. (Blog? Who needs a blog?) But, now that we’re all here, ten things to help guide you through the OtWP Blog:

1. It’s written and drawn by me, Andrew Wahl, journalist/writer/cartoonist extraordinaire. OK, so maybe “extraordinaire” is a little strong. But I have been at it for a long time and don’t completely suck.

2. It’s also called “An Off the Wahl Perspective.” Because “OtWP Blog” isn’t nearly pretentious enough.

3. It’s really not all that new. I’ve been posting political commentary along with my weekly editorial cartoon since 2004, as well as sharing news about my cartooning career and other Off the Wahl Productions’ endeavors. The switch to a WordPress-driven blog should just make posting easier. (Note: The older material is archived elsewhere on offthewahl.com: First half of 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004)

4. WordPress also allows for comments. So don’t be shy!

5. New with the blog launch: Regular “What I’m …” posts. Such as “What I’m Reading” or “What I’m Listening To.” Because the blogosphere is short on pop-culture reviews. (Also look for occasional “Top 5” posts, where I get all drooly about my all-time favorites.)

6. Also new with the blog: Advertising! Boo. Hiss. I know. But I have this dream that someday my online efforts will at least pay for my monthly comic-book fix.

7. Occasionally, I’ll post while traveling. These posts will show up in a category called “On the Road.” Because I’m a clever boy.

8. There’s an editorial cartoon archive, separate from the blog, that’s a bit easier to browse. This is also where you’ll find hi-res file for print publication. If you’re interested in publishing one of my toons — in print or online — be sure to check out the Reprint Rights page. And, if you really like a toon, order a signed print for just $35 (come on, man, I need those comic books bad!)

9. Did I say 10? I think the first eight just about cover it, really. Enjoy the OtWP Blog, and be sure to let me know what you think.