7/29/04 9:15 AM: Days later, I'm still sleepy.

REVENGE OF THE NERDS: Last year, I talked about comics fans and assorted similar types populating geekdom as "the lost ones." Not so this year. With the media frenzy starting early and rooms going for upwards of $600 a pop, the have-nots are suddenly the haves. There was a swagger and a confidence to the former A/V club members, the guys who still play D&D or MUDs, the girls with ponchy bellies and a stack of autographed memorabilia. The shellshock of last year's explosion of scale is lost on these people -- they trek the 'con's floor with grim determination, as retailers look exasperated and try to undercut each other's prices (although the silk Punisher button shirts never got below $38.50). With the likes of Sarah Michelle Gellar talking about the Clone Saga (see "You've Got Buffy" below), with Jessica Alba making friendly with the mortals and even Sanaa Lathan there to tempt me, what do the jocks and popular kids have to compare, that they've carried into their adult lives? Male pattern baldness? Prostate check ups? Mortgage payments? The nerds laugh at you and breathe the same tepid, reconditioned air as Jaime King and Rosario Dawson. No, this year it was a different party altogether, and nobody was apologizing for their devotion to serialized stories nor the cults of personality that spawned your Jim Lees, your Neil Gaimans or even your Rob Liefelds (more on him later). Even my dawg Eliot, perennial girl-free zone that he is, ended up making out with multiple lovely ladies at the vampire version of the Masquerade Party, getting a phone number from a shapely lass in a Michelle Pfeiffer Catwoman suit, and generally playing way beyond his normal stats. This is the effect of "Nerd Spring Break" (as Jeremy Love called it, more on him in a bit as well).

BUSINESS: On my behalf, it was a better and worse trip personally for my real goal: getting work. I covered seven panels (one by proxy) for Comic Book Resources, which got even more play than normal due to a content sharing deal with the gang at Newsarama (if you care, the topics I covered were Constantine, Lady Death, Batman Begins, Fantastic Four, Sin City, Alien vs. Predator and a big wrap up of goings-on at Warner Brothers Animation). To be honest, that kind of sucked, because I was in some really long lines (I was even ahead of The Beat's Heidi Macdonald in the Sin City line, and she works for Comicon.com). I ended up making back most of my hotel fee in journalism, but it sapped me of my energy and my motivation to actually shmooze and try to take meetings et al.

I got all the way to the 'con and realized I only had one copy of my Image proposal with artist Eric Battle, and none of my other proposals (a failed Epic pitch, some fill in issue ideas for Iron Man and two backups for Detective Comics) with me at all. I also realized I had exactly four business cards to last the whole weekend, which were gone within an hour into Friday. Normally, this would be a recipe for disaster.

Somehow it worked out. The Image proposal got into the right hands (again, don't start with me on how it sat on Valentino's desk for more than a year with nary a reply), I got a very good lead on DC Comics, and I am now tentatively authorized to say I may be putting out my first comic book around August of 2005 on IDW (I can't say more or I'll screw it all up). Most of that was accomplished on Friday night and early afternoon Saturday. Who knew? Maybe my propensity for over-preparedness was killing my flexibility. Maybe I needed time in the game to get the contacts together for this. Whatever. No more loading for bear for me, although I will have business cards next year.

OMNI-DIRECTIONAL: I had one of the best hotels in town, so close to the 'con I could see the doors from the elevator on my floor. I spent a grand total of $293 for Thursday-Sunday. Mentioning this got no fewer than three people to take a swing at me, recounting treks from as far as the Motel 6 (where I stayed last year, out past the San Diego Concourse). In my room was a microwave and a fridge, which allowed me to save a ton on food by hitting Ralph's on Market for frozen dinners, Hawaiian bread (a favorite of mine) and cheapo lemonade. There was covenient parking, which gave me freedom to drive where I chose and not worry about what to do with the car afterwars. I had a noon meeting Saturday, woke up at 11:46 AM, brushed, washed up, left by 11:53 and was on time, all the way to the DC booth. That's how splendid my room was.

Of course, you literally can't have everything. Despite my best efforts, I could not get a dial up connection with SBC to save my life. So I ended up shlepping the four blocks to the Omni, where my CBR boss Jonah was staying, and mooching off of their free wireless connection from the lobby, at least an hour of every day of the 'con. The only time this was bad was Friday, when I was up until 4:30 and the air conditioning was cranked up to "pack meat." Sure, the world was able to know about Keanu getting a birthday gift mere hours after it happened, but sheesh. My feet filed for emancipation, based on extreme cruelty, after all the shlepping from one end of the 'con to the other, from the Hyatt to Gaslamp, and what have you. I actually think the Omni staff half believed I was staying there. Wild, wacky stuff, that.

DAMIAN SCOTT AND ARTISTS I WANNA KNOW BETTER: One of my peripheral goals at San Diego was to meet artists. Why? I am a writer, and my drawing skills are less than impressive. I also have not learned how to use Poser yet (despite being told by my dawg Eliot that the joint was littered with booths showing just that). If i wanna get anywhere with comics, I'm gonna need to know artists. So I see some faces and some talents that interest me -- Damian Scott sketching next to Bill Willingham at the DC booth, for instance, or the many styles of Howard Simpson, the clean lines of Artxilla's Sanford Greene, or the understated elegance of CJ Randall. I even got all four issues of Menthu from Robert Roach. Talented people out there. I'm not sure how many of them I could (or want to) trick into working with me, but hey. It's data, right? I'm not as enthusiastic about selling my writing, compared to actually doing my writing, but I gotta keep my foot in the water, I guess.

BLACK TO THE FUTURE: On a similar note, the annual Blacks in Comics panel was in the biggest room I've ever seen it in, although Dwayne McDuffie says the crowd was smaller than last year. What was really frustrating to me was the point -- and it happens every year -- where the same points are regurgitated. "We gotta work together." "We just gotta get out there and do our own thing." "DC and Marvel gotta let us in." Blah blah blah. Then the "I just wanted to say I love your work" types sucking up valuable panel time, or the "I don't have a question, I have a comment" types from the audience -- like anybody anywhere shlepped all the way to San Diego to hear them. Things reached the zenith of self-aggrandizement when showboating self-publisher Alonzo Washington monopolized the floor for what felt like six weeks, harping about how world famous he is in St. Louis, how his son is now a comic book publisher, and some other stuff I've read him say before and therefore tuned out on. He seemed a little miffed that BadAzzMofo's David Walker hadn't seen fit to include him on the panel, but whatever -- when was the last time an issue of Omega Man showed up at your comic book store?

I said I was gonna try and stop slapping Black folk around, no matter how zany things get ... ah well, another New Year's resolution shot to hell. This one had a good run.

NAPPY HOUR: After the panel, K Chronicles cartoonist Keith Knight was passing out what he called "the world's most ghetto flyers," photocopies of a marker-drawn slip simply saying "Nappy Hour, Tivoli Bar, 6th Ave and J, 7PM." Most of the panelists and people of color seemed intent to show, so I started telling other Black people about it (UGO readers are like, "Damn, it got all ethnic in this wrap up all the sudden" Shut up -- I write my wrap, you write yours). Only problem is Tivoli Bar is two blocks east of 6th and J, a fact I only found out by calling Boost Mobile 411. A lot of other people must have given up, showing up at the construction-damaged corner of 6th and J, but it was still a lively crowd. Jeremy Love, Knight, Michael Davis, Variance Press' Travis Johnson (who told me he wants to set up an "Image Comics deal for graphic novels"), and some others I didn't recognize. I was late for another meeting, so I hopped on a petty cab behind a gorgeous young lady who I started to flirt with, until I noticed her wedding ring. Which made the ride scenic, but ultimately fruitless.

FAMILY AFFAIR: My biggest pleasant surprise was spending time with Nikki Duncan-Smith, formerly Lil Nikkei of Rap Pages back when I was there. Nikki and I didn't see eye to eye on things -- she helped get me ousted, I badmouthed her, mistakes were made. All of that was water under the bridge, as she greeted me with a big hug and a bigger smile. My newfound Zen attitude likewise held no grudge, and we talked about making a co-op for creators of color, so everybody doesn't have to reinvent the wheel every time somebody gets an idea. She's still a little bundle of energy, reminding me of stories probably best left forgotten (like Master P almost throwing professional groupie dream hampton out a window), but I couldn't help but enjoy hanging around her and the crew of Blokhedz (a fine book with an urban slant on magical realism, with an issue on the stands now).

Last year I also talked about inadvertantly hitting on the wife of the maker of Booty Babes. So of course I'm a little more careful this year. I swing by Nikki's booth, on the ass end of Hall H (Dwayne McDuffie, the Love Brothers and Gettosake were all jammed over there in a mini-ghetto). Nikki says to a young woman standing nearby, "Oh, you should get with Hannibal, he's a great writer and editor, does reviews and all that." So she turns to me, and there's this beaming, beatific shaven headed goddess, rocking a backpack like a b-girl of old, and smiling at me. I'm stunned. I managed to shadow my stammer and smoothly shake her hand and start talking. She's a game producer, out there from NYC to promote a project. I fake enthusiasm (I really don't have much enthusiasm for much, save that IDW thing I mentioned) and start poking around the conversation for information. She offers a card and I don't have one (this is later Saturday), so she just suggests I email her to follow up. She's smiling a lot at me, and her body language is open, leaned towards me and interested. Still. So she mentions she's out here with her team, and I ask, "really? Who's that?" She said, "Oh, my husband Blah Blah over there," pointing at a really large human being, "and these guys ..."

I started to tune out. I pulled the rip cord before I did anything stupid, made my farewells and hightailed it outta there. I almost passed by their booth on Sunday, but was able to give it a wide berth. I don't cover games, and I'm too lazy to expand (for free). Oh well ...

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE: My weekend was bereft of romance, but Jeremy Love couldn't say the same. I kept passing him coming to and from the Hyatt Friday night, and then after dropping off my homeboy Chris Allen at his car on Saturday, I'm returning my car to its aforementioned groovy parking spot when I see Jeremy riding behind the gorgeous petty cab driver, and can't resist. I park and hop out, joining them. Seems Jeremy just came from Gaslamp, where he'd been throwing back shots with three gorgeous women who rubbed against him endlessly. After a few hours of that and trading numbers, they put a twenty in his hand for cab fare and set him in the aforementined petty cab, where he keeps flirting. I, of course, would be wracked with jealousy had I not leaned one of my mottos, "don't hate, congratulate." So he and I end up back at the Hyatt bar, with him bumping into Matt Fraction and me into Rich Johnston. We then sit at a table full of his online pals (who I seemed to get along well with) talking GL Corps vs. LSH (duh, LSH in a walk, even post Zero Hour) and other such trivialities until about 3AM. When I grow up, I'm gonna be cool like Jeremy Love ...

DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK: Just outside the Lady Death panel, I ran into CrossGen escapee Tony Panaccio, who was running point on the Marvel Superheroes Guide to NYC with the Travel Channel, which boasted thre Marvel EICs on one panel (Roy Thomas, Joe Quesada, and of course Stan "The Man"). His old pal Michael Uslan was also there, and the material looked both fun and informative. I just wonder why so few superheroes end up in, say Des Moines or Amarillo. Anyway, Panaccio looked none the worse for wear, and actually got some respect from me when he donated his time and talents to helping a little Florida girl get a new kidney, which I was able to promote in the community newspaper I edit here in Los Angeles, so that was nice to see him there.

YOU'VE GOT BUFFY: Despite being a late adopter of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (on UPN), I had no real interest in seeing Sarah Michelle Gellar on her panel with some Roswell guy about some remake of a Japanese thriller series. I'd done a lot of panels by then, and the Fantastic Four/Alien Vs. Predator one was the last one I had to do before I could go to my hotel room Saturday evening. Of course, Gellar was late, which pushed my panel late, which irked me to no end. Still, she managed to surprise me -- in Letterman style, she presented the "top ten reasons she hadn't been to Comicon before." Some insider -- maybe Prinze -- must have written the stuff for her, because she had every in joke from every comic book store in the land. "I was waiting for somebody to explain the Clone Saga to me." "I saw DKR2, and I was done with comics!" "I was waiting for Todd McFarlane to go back to Marvel -- how much can he do outside of Spider-Man?" And so on, et cetera. It was comprehensive and scary in its depth. That was weird.

... AND I WOULD KNOW YOU FROM ...: I swear this is the story as I overheard it. Rob Liefeld walks up to the Comics Pimp James Sime, and gushes, "I read you column every week, I love it, I've learned so much." Sime allegedly said, "Er, thanks ... who are you?" Everyone around loses it. I swear, that's what happened, according to whoever was standing next to me.

In an almost related note, I'm sitting having drinks with some people at the Marriott bar (where Chris Allen got really ridiculously drunk in a really entertaining way) and Liefeld walks by with somebody I didn't recognize. Matt Maxwell leans over and says to me, "You know we could just go kill him now. We'd be heroes." I chuckled. Not that I'm against random acts of violence, I was just really comfy at the time, despite the scary electronica they were playing at the bar.

MORE COWBELL: The tail end of the 'con was spent hanging out with DVD/movie poster artist Craig Sherman, who's also a regular at my Friday late night karaoke show at Mel's Drive In in Hollywood. We gasped and swooned at the "Lost Wonderfalls Episodes" panel Sunday, and ended up at Henry's Pub on 5th Avenue Sunday night. Neither of us wanted to fight tre traffic on the I-5, so we extended our stay in "America's Finest CIty" (that's what they call it in San Diego, honest). There's karaoke on Sunday nights at this joint, and the food's not bad, so we hung out. It was a blast -- almost every singer was really good, compared to the mutants we're used to seeing in LA. I'm not gonna say who was in the mood to break federal law and record performances on CD, but I have a fairly interesting recording of myself singing "The Scientist" by Coldplay, "Wherever You Will Go" by the Calling and "Ascension (Don't Ever Wonder)" by Maxwell. I almost had my act together to get a Comicon-specific karaoke show, but couldn't find a room -- next year, I'll have none of that. It's going down -- I'll bring the equipment myself, and book the room months in advance. Worked at Wizard World Texas.

Drove back to LA at 2AM on virtually empty freeway lanes, and all was relatively well for another year.

Originally published at UGO.com.