Comicons have certainly changed a lot since I attended the very first one, back in 1963 in New York. That one all took place in one room in a seedy Greenwich Village hotel. The “dealer’s room” was a couple of tables in the back of the panel room, where some of the organizers were selling their doubles out of cardboard boxes.

This year’s San Diego Comicon pretty much filled up the entire city of San Diego. Huge, overwhelming, exhausting, a bit scary… one runs out of adjectives. The concom took very good care of me, however, and I had a great time signing, speaking, sweating (it was bloody HOT in San Diego), and tromping up and down the length of the San Diego Convention Center, past hundreds of booths and displays, a giant Lego Batman, and other sights too numerous to mention. There was a very hot Wonder Woman wandering around one day, and an equally hot Mazda RX-8 on display at the Top Cow booth, both of which I lusted after, and I had the thrill of doing a panel with Peter S. Beagle, whose work I have admired for a long long time (if you have never read THE LAST UNICORN or A FINE AND PRIVATE PLACE, don’t call yourself a fantasy fan).

The parties were wild as well. The posh Sci-Fi Channel party on the pool deck of the swank Solamar Hotel and the Conan party with its sword-swinging dancing girls were both great and the goth/ vampire bash X-sanguine was unforgettable. An old abbey, stained glass windows, video screens, pillowed alcoves, and swarms of hot young women in leather and corsets… I could swear that I spent part of the evening talking with Jack Black, but I think that was just the drinks they kept thrusting into my hands.

It wasn’t all fun and games, however. I had a lot of business meetings in San Diego as well, and a number of them are going to result in new deals and projects and comics and toys and other good stuff somewhere down the line, I hope… but I can’t talk about any of that until the contracts are signed.

I also had a great brunch with some stalwarts from the Brotherhood Without Banners, who seem to be everywhere these days. I hadn’t enjoyed brunch at the Westgate since 1987 or so (it used to be the headquarters hotel for DC Comics, back when comicon was still in the old convention center next door), but it was just as fabulous as I remembered.

That’s all the fun I will be having for a while, however. I’m home again and it is time to get going on the novel once more. I have less than a month until worldcon, and I would like to get a big chunk of DANCE done before I take off for Anaheim.

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