I'll be backposting entries for the Comic-Con as I want to keep the chronology correct. I'm knocking off the easy ones first (i.e. the ones with the least amount of photoshop involved). I'll probably be using this entry as a tracking entry and advancing it forward in time.

• Bendis/Oeming/Mack
• Stan Sakai
• Jim Mahfood
• Joss Whedon
• Scott Morse
• Spotlight on Neil Gaiman

I saw this at Comic-Con and now it appears that theforce.net has posted the video online. There's one really awesome Batman shot (1:20) that alone makes the movie worth watching.
- TFN FanFilms | Short Films | Batman: Dead End

Note: I'm mostly posting the more fluffy entries first, as some of the other stuff will require me getting out Photoshop to clean up sketches/photographs

McKean and Gaiman did a session together. It was mostly Gaiman answering (partly due to audience bias, partly due to personality). It was fun to see them up there together, as they had plenty to jibe each other about.

One of the funniest stories was about a convention that Gaiman went to where someone came up and gave Gaiman a set of death dolls. Included in the set was one of Gaiman himself with a black leather jacket, black glasses, and frumpy hair. Later on Gaiman was at a sushi restaurant and didn't have a place to put the doll, so he placed it on the counter. The scene worked out somewhat like:

A Japanese waitress comes up, looks at Gaiman, looks at the doll, and then looks back at Gaiman

WAITRESS: "He is you?"
GAIMAN: nods
WAITRESS: "You John Lennon-san?"
GAIMAN: "No no"
WAITRESS: "But he is you?"
GAIMAN: nods
WAITRESS: "Oh, I understand John Lennon-san. I tell no one."

Waitress then asks Gaiman for an autograph, which he signs "Neil Gaiman." She doesn't seem to notice.

I went to Ballroom 20 fifteen minutes early to see Eliza Dushku and ended up getting to see Quentin Tarantino's suprise panel.

Joss Whedon was a spaz; entertaining, but nevertheless a spaz. I don't care enough to transcribe everything he said, which was mostly bitterness at Firefly (with optimism for the future), closure over Buffy, and dodging of questions about future story arcs. Luckily, Rebecca Salek did good job of transcribing the Q&A session, which you can find in this Newsarama thread.

I went to Alex Ross' spotlight panel, which was cool mainly because during the entire panel a video was run showing the creation of the Mythology cover from nearly start to finish. Alex Ross first draws a very detailed thumbnail of the page (we didn't see this part), and then scales it up to the full canvas (which is very large).

Tara/Amber Benson from Buffy the Vampire Slayer was at the Comic-Con signing autographs. I didn't bother, but here's a photo:
this entry contains a photo, click to view

I got to meet Erik Larsen at the Comic-Con. I really liked his Spiderman so I asked him to draw me a sketch. He was a bit hesitant at first, as he was slightly annoyed that I didn't ask for Savage Dragon. He was more understanding when I explained that I hadn't been collecting comics for almost ten years (I had stopped just when Savage Dragon was lifting off). If Larsen weren't so darn consistent in putting out Savage Dragon, maybe it wouldn't be so expensive and time consuming to catch up on the 100+ issues he's done in the meantime :).

Alex Ross signed my sketchbook as well as my copy of Kingdom Come (I got Wair to sign this as well). Photos and his sketch below. Amanda was stunned at the quality of the sketch.

Neil Gaiman is officially my favorite guest at the convention. He held the most panels, and those I saw were very entertaining, even the spotlight session which he came without anything prepared. Instead, for the entire one hour session he took questions from the audience.

Updated: added notes from Newarama at the end

Updated 8/10/05: got some paintings from Scott Morse at Comic-Con 2005

Scott Morse was one of the coolest artists I met at the convention (I'm biased because we both dig Kurosawa films). We got to trade lists of Kurosawa films that we've both seen. He's pretty much seen every film that I haven't, though I have seen one that he hasn't (Ichiban Utsukushiku, which was a war propaganda-ish film that Dower showed a class that I was in). I bought several comics of his, including The Barefoot Serpent, Little Grey Man, Smack Dab, and The Kid from Planet Earth. I've only had time to read Visitations and The Barefoot Serpent, the latter of which I liked because of the Rashomon parallels, as well as the Kurosawa theme of becoming yasashii (easy/nice/gentle).

The sketch of Toshiro Mifune/Kikuchiyo in Seven Samurai that Morse did for me was simply amazing (he was breaking in his new copic markers, which Amanda talks about in her blog):

Stan Sakai is a really nice guy. He was really friendly to meet in person and he did a bunch of sketches for us, which are below.

Jim Mahfood (Grrl Scouts, 40oz) did a bunch of sketches for us. The best is the one he did was for pqbon (should be obvious)

Jim Lee was supposed to do a panel about drawing, but many things were not in the favor of this happening:
- he showed up late as he had plenty to delay him everywhere he wanted to go
- he didn't have any drawing supplies on him (he borrowed from audience members)
- the projector couldn't pick up pencil marks, so he had to do his rough sketches with pen
- the projector was upside down
- the moderator didn't allow Jim Lee enough time between questions to actually draw

The Image booth was one of the first booth's I visited. Bendis, Oeming and Mack were all there. Bendis did a really funny drawing for pqbon, and honeyfields managed to talk to Oeming for so long (~30min+) that he broke out the brush and did a really cool Batman for her (I believe her request was for something "bad ass").

I didn't get a chance to talk to Mack until much later in the convention. We briefly chatted about his Alias covers (which I really like), and he ended up handing me a generous stack of his Kabuki works for free. I'm looking forward to reading the Kabuki works, because with the Alias covers at least, I've found his artwork to be a good transition from real world into the story itself. Also, unlike most comic books that feel like they take place in complete fantasy, his mixed media style makes you feel like you're in a slightly altered universe, only different enough to allow a fantastical story to take place.