Three Days

The weather forecast for Comic-Con International in San Diego calls for partly cloudy skies, high temperatures around 80° and low temperatures around 70°. Matter of fact, that's roughly the forecast for around the next month in San Diego and when you come back to that town for next year's Comic-Con, you will have partly cloudy skies, high temperatures around 80° and low temperatures around 70°. It doesn't change much there.

The other day, I phoned a restaurant near the convention to try and make a lunch reservation during the con. I like talking business with publishers over lunch because they pay for the meal and then when the project falls through or they don't hire me, I can think, "Well, at least I got a free lunch out of it."

A man at the restaurant said, "I'm sorry but we don't take reservations during the convention." I guessed the reason but I asked why anyway. He said, "Because during Comic-Con, we don't have to. We never have an empty table for longer than it takes to clean it for the next party."

Right there's a lot of the reason I don't think Comic-Con will ever move unless the parties who negotiate on behalf of the city are really, really stupid. What we bring to the local economy there would not have anywhere near the same impact on Los Angeles, Anaheim or Las Vegas, which are the only real alternatives.

By the way: It'll be 110° next week in Las Vegas. If they moved Comic-Con there, the cosplayers dressed like Iron Man would melt away like the witch in The Wizard of Oz.

Getting ready for my panels. The third seat onstage for Quick Draw! will be filled by the brilliant cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz. If you're familiar with his work, you're as excited about that as I am. And we have some surprise folks joining us for our Cartoon Voices panels. More tomorrow.