From: [j r m] at [grove.ufl.edu] (Geoffrey R Mason) Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc Subject: SAN DIEGO: Wednesday report Date: 4 Jul 1996 15:17:00 GMT Wednesday, July 3 was the second day of the Comics Expo, the retailer-only part of the show. Most retailers were able to get up and over to the convention center to make it to the 8:00am breakfast with Marvel, as many were curious if Marvel would react to Frank Miller's latest attacks from the previous day. Strangely enough, the great majority of retailers I've talked with seem to have felt that Miller is just beating a dead horse by keeping up his attacks on Marvel, and that he is completely missing the boat on his stand on "mature readers" labels on comics. After eating food paid for by Marvel's profits from retailers who ACTUALLY SELL their comics, I listened to some of Marvel's plans. They most interesting of which is TV advertising. Marvel previewed two commercials that they would be test marketing in 10 citues around the US to see if they can get any kind of actual response from TV ads. Retailers loved this intent to advertise. Later in the day I attended a "First Amendment in Comics" debate that had a handful of pro-First Amendment folks and one guy from the Christian Coallition. As expected, the entire audience was against the Christian Coallition fellow, so the debate ended up being him reacting to questions with the normal stuff you've heard.. This debate was worth a miss. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, however, thew a really nice reception for the president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who CBLDF brought to the convention. Nice stuff, and the speeches made at the reception were quite interesting, especially a sample reading of some of the 1950s anti-comics stuff that first brought comic books to ACLU's attention. There are a number of other First Amendment events planned for this weekend, and I'll let you know how they go. The closing night party for the Comics Expo was lots of fun with a ton of "names" in attendance.. As they say, EVERYONE goes to the San Diego con... Jeff -- Geoffrey R. Mason | [j r m] at [grove.ufl.edu] Editor - indy Magazine | 611 NW 34th Drive College of Law - Univ of Florida | Gainesville, Florida 32607-2429 -- URL = http://grove.ufl.edu/~jrm === From: [j r m] at [grove.ufl.edu] (Geoffrey R Mason) Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc,alt.fandom.cons Subject: SAN DIEGO: Thursday Report Date: 5 Jul 1996 16:49:06 GMT Happy fourth of July as the San Diego Con opens for its first "real" day, open to the general public. It is quite sad, but more people mentioned the "Independence Day" movie than the actual 4th of July celebrations! The relative low-light of the day was watching the fireworks. Mind you, I generally love fireworks, but the convention didn't actually shoot any off, but rather provided a perch on the bay side of the convention center to watch tiny little firebursts from way too far away, from some group that actually shelled out some $$ on a display. I got some free cotton candy, or as the brits would say "candy floss". The reason I know this and many other rather silly British phrases was because I spent the evening hanging out with Richard Johnston (dirtbag), a font of very silly humor... Our big event was the Friends of Lulu party, a membership recruitment party that hopefully added a number of members... I didn't do all that much else other than enjoy the HUGE exhibition hall, buying TONS of great comics in the small press area (I'll give you a breakdown on ALL of them when I get home), shmoozing with folk I wanted to interview for indy, and generally wasting lots of valuable time... Three days left... -- Geoffrey R. Mason | [j r m] at [grove.ufl.edu] Editor - indy Magazine | 611 NW 34th Drive College of Law - Univ of Florida | Gainesville, Florida 32607-2429 -- URL = http://grove.ufl.edu/~jrm