Monitor Duty by Randy Lander "San Diego Bound" Well, it's that time of year again. No, not summer, although technically I guess that's a correct answer. No, it's time for the San Diego Comicon, and as has become my routine, I'll be attending. What does this mean for the site? Well, it means that I'll have First Look reviews for next week, but my regular reviews will be either light or nonexistent. Then, thanks to the vagaries of travel time plus the recuperation time needed after San Diego, there won't be any First Look from me on the week of July 26th, and I most likely won't have regular reviews on July 29th either. Augie De Blieck has had a routine of running down the panels he's interested in each year, so I figured, what the hell? Let's steal from Augie. I was actually a little underwhelmed by the panel schedule this year. Usually I have a hard time figuring out which panels to skip, as there tend to be a lot of things scheduled up against one another, but this time out, I really didn't run into many schedule conflicts. Aside from one, and that was a conflict with my Sunday flight, not with another panel. The good news is that gives me more time on the floor and I should be able to get to all the panels I want to go to. Hell, I usually only wind up getting to one or two out of my planned ten or so anyway. Thursday is the lightest day for me. There are a number of panels that sound potentially interesting, including a spotlight on coloring with Alex Sinclair, creator focus panels for Geoff Johns, Dustin Nguyen and Batton Lash, among others, but the one that I'll most likely be attending is the Spotlight on Stan Sakai: 20 Years of Usagi Yojimbo from 3:00 - 4:00. I'm a latecomer to Usagi, but I've discovered a real love for the character and for Sakai's art, and given how hard it has been for me to find a copy of Usagi volume one (and I work in a comics store and have access to ordering!), I'm looking forward to buying a copy from either Sakai himself, Fantagraphics or Comix Relief while I'm there. Either way, I look forward to hearing a little more about the history of a character who I've come to know only recently, but who has been around a long, long time in the small press. If I wind up ducking out of the panel or not making it up there, I might make a point to go by the Matt Wagner signing at Dark Horse. I'd really love to get my Mage hardcover signed, but unless it miraculously ships next week, I won't have it for San Diego. At any rate, I'm sure to catch up to Matt Wagner at some point during the Con, because to my surprise he's got a table set up in Artist's Alley. As does Jim Lee, and I'm sure that table will be swamped constantly. Friday is a little bit heavier, with two panels, although only one is directly comics-related. I'm fascinated by the concept of 24 Hour Comics, which seems like a special form of creative madness, so I'm very curious to see the 12:00 - 1:00 24 Hour Comics panel featuring the originator of the concept, Scott McCloud, as well as a number of contributors and the publisher of the 24 Hour Comics anthologies that came out of 24 Hour Comics Day. That's the only directly comics-related panel, although the other two have comic-book tie-ins of sorts. I'm a huge fan of The Iron Giant and of Pixar's films, so putting Brad Bird (the creator of Iron Giant) together with Pixar for a superhero movie, The Incredibles, is really great for me. From 2:30 - 3:30 there's going to be a Disney/Pixar: The Incredibles panel, and I'll definitely be planted in a seat in that room, and with any luck I'll be able to get up to the autograph area immediately afterward and get Brad Bird to autograph something... they'll probably have Incredibles posters, but I might bring my Iron Giant DVD just to be safe. Then I might try to pop by the Dark Horse booth somewhere between 4:30 - 6:00, when Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez will be signing. I'm a big fan of both gentlemen, and it kills me that they've been in Austin shooting Sin City but haven't stopped into the comics shop I work at... although really, it's in Round Rock, which is a little bit north, so it's not surprising. Saturday is the big panel day, and will no doubt be the busiest day of the Con as usual. Again, the majority of the panels aren't directly comics-related for me. I'm a huge Alias fan, and I've heard good buzz on showrunner J.J. Abrams next project, Lost, so I'm intrigued by the 10:00 - 11:00 ABC's New Fall Series Lost panel. That time means they won't be showing the pilot, but clips are good, and Abrams was an engaging speaker during the Alias panels in previous years. The other panel is more directly comics-related, being a panel from 2:00 - 3:00 Dimension Films: Sin City, a look at the upcoming film with cameos on the panel by some of the stars. I'm intrigued to see how these very stylized comics will make the transition to film. Perhaps most importantly on Saturday is, from 12:00 - 1:30, Quick Draw! Cartoon Improv. This improvisational drawing game has been an annual tradition at Comicon, and my annual tradition has been to plan to go, change my mind at the last minute and go to something else and then regret it. This year, no matter what, I'm going to this panel, which features Sergio Aragones and Scott Shaw! as regulars and Jeff Smith as this year's guest artist. Should be a lot of fun, if all that I've heard is to be believed. Sunday I have a flight out in the afternoon, which sadly means I can't go to the Wonderfalls panel. I'm kind of bummed about that, as I loved that show and so did my wife, and we would both have loved to have seen the two unaired episodes they're going to show. Happily, it seems that a DVD release of the show is on its way, so we'll see them eventually. My other two panels of the day are similarly TV-related. I love Showtime's Dead Like Me, so I'll definitely be in the audience from 11:30 - 12:30 of MGM-TV: Dead Like Me. And I was an even bigger fan of Joss Whedon's Firefly, and can't believe it's actually true that they're making the movie, so I can't wait to see some of the cast and get some of the details on the upcoming film, from 1:00 - 2:00 at the Joss Whedon - Serenity panel. Truthfully, I would love to get to meet and talk to Joss Whedon during this Con, but that seems pretty unlikely, so I'll settle for listening to his always-entertaining commentary at this panel. So that's my itinerary, or at least the plan, which I seem to always divert from. I'll no doubt spend most of my time on the floor, meeting and greeting folks that I know and making new acquaintances as well as getting sketches, buying stuff I'm going to have to get into a suitcase somehow and enjoying the general vibe of the show. If you see me there, make sure and say hi! With any luck, I'll get invited to some fun parties like last year, and come back with stories to tell and sketches to show off on the site. One thing's for sure: Without Don and his big bottle of rum, my evenings probably won't be anywhere near as lively as they were in the last year. That also means we're less likely to wind up drunkenly debating which way to get back to our hotel, though, so you know, glass half-empty, glass half-full and all. Email Randy Lander comments about this column.