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Fri, 22 Jul 2005
comicon 2005
Now that I've returned from my very first Comicon in sunny San Diego I
thought I'd take a moment to reflect. Overall I had a blast, although
that was due as much to what a great city San Diego is as anything that
went on in their super-futuristic convention center.
My host was Chris "Chip" Vanacore, who long-time Mike's Coliseum customers may remember from his days working behind the counter. He's currently drumming up a storm for his band Dirty Sweet. Actually, you probably won't recognize him as he looks nothing like the kid I remember beating up in elementary school. Now he looks more like Charles Manson than I ever remember.
Anyway, the highlight of the convention for me was the hour-long perfomance by Tenacious D. They truly delivered an awesome performance that I'll always remember.
The best comics-related panels that I went to were the Bill Liebowitz memorial and the Eisner awards, which were both fun yet twinged with sadness as we lost two really important men involved with the comics industry.
While we were nominated for the Eisner Spirit of Retailing award, we failed to make the finalists and were not even allowed to sit with the nominees. I was disappointed, to say the least, but there were 18 nominees this year, and the competition was very tough. The winner was Mimi Cruz of Night Flight in Salt Lake City, Utah. I've only heard great things about Mimi, and I know the award was well deserved. We'll just have to keep working hard at improving the store, and we'll try again soon.
After the dissapointing denouement of the awards, I decided to spend some time seeing San Diego. We met Alton Brown, my favorite TV cook and got him to autograph some books for us. He was a nice guy and really took time to talk to everyone.
Sunday we sipped cocktails at the scenic and historic Hotel Del Coronado. It was beautiful and really helped relax and enjoy the first vacation I've taken in a long time.
Monday we went to the world famous San Diego Zoo. It lived up to it's reputation and was a great way to wind up our time in San Diego. I'll be back to visit next year for sure.
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