San Diego Comic Con 2008 Coverage

Stan Sakai · Post by **Stan Sakai** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 6:44 -0700

We're having a great time at Comic-con. A person saw the Albedo #2 recreation, liked it, ordered a commission, and so I've already done a second one. Of course, it says it is a recreation at the top, outside the image, and the date is current. Speaking of commissions, I have received a few unusual ones--Usagi and Gary from Gary's Corner Bookstore, Hellboy, Marv from Sin City, a Japanese armor-clad polar bear chasing a squirrel, and Usagi as Green Lantern.

I'm right across from the Playstation booth. In the mornings, they have a game going on, and Karaoke in the afternoons. I now know what it is like to be an American Idol judge listening to amateurs think they are the next (name your favorite singer).

Thank you, everyone who brought bears for Hannah's Girl Scout Gold Award project. Even non-Usagi readers brought some over. John H brought a bag-o-bears. We've already gotten a very nice box full.

Sharon and I went to the DH/Lucas Films/Weta/Gentle Giant party last night. We got a neat gift bag, which included an old metal ammo box painted white with the Lucas (?) logo. Kind of neat, and unusual.

Gaffey · Post by **Gaffey** » Sat Jul 26, 2008 7:12 -0700

Stan Sakai wrote:a Japanese armor-clad polar bear chasing a squirrel

I'd love to see this.

rayofash · Post by **rayofash** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 17:05 -0700

Yay! Found him and bought my very first Usagi Yojimbo comic. It was kind of embarrassing that all I had was quarters and dimes though.

Stan Sakai · Post by **Stan Sakai** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 20:48 -0700

Well the 2008 San Diego Comic-con is officially over. We packed up our booth, carted everything to our car, and now we're preparing to taxi to the Dead Dog Party. This year we are celebrating Dave Stevens' birthday. Dave has passed away, but his birthday would have been a few days from now.

It was a great con, despite Playstation being right across a short aisle from our booth. Karaoke all afternoon for 5 days. I am no longer a Billy Joel fan.

Post by **Todd Shogun** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 21:40 -0700

I just got back a bit ago myself. What an epic event...I'm still attempting to absorb it all! I'll try and post a few more pics and stuff in the coming days. I need rest...

Wily Pueo · Post by **Wily Pueo** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 1:13 -0700

Stan Sakai wrote:It was a great con, despite Playstation being right across a short aisle from our booth. Karaoke all afternoon for 5 days. I am no longer a Billy Joel fan.

ROTFLOL!

Stan Sakai · Post by **Stan Sakai** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 7:57 -0700

We had a great time at the Dead Dog Party. The elite of comics was there, and Matthew had a picture taken with Frank Miller. There was an open mike, and people talked about Dave Stevens. When we walked into the restaurant we were all given T-shirts with Dave's Bulldog Studios logo, and the room was decorated with Rocketeer mylar balloons from the 1980's that someone had hoarded. The buffet was great Mexican, and there was an open bar (though I stuck to Sprite).

I don't think I can do a day-by-day trip report, as all the days seem to run together. DH gave out 11x17 posters of the Tomoe's Story GN and that same image was in a perfect bound manga-size book of DH projects.

I received some very nice gifts as well as book trades. One outstanding gift was a sculpture of myself as a kimono-clad painter bear. Very cool.

Post by **Mayhem** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 7:43 -0700

I'm back... and recovering as well! Expect a hoard of pictures when I get around to going through my SD card... and some surprises and a couple of "can't believe I managed that" moments

Fanfan · Post by **Fanfan** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 9:19 -0700

Hey Todd, is it possible you put the name of the dojo members on this photo ?
http://usagiyojimbo.com/conventions/gal ... ewsIndex=1

Post by **Steve Hubbell** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 11:01 -0700

Collecting Usagi sketches from other artists is gaining in popularity....

These images are from bwbollom's "Burning. Hammer. Press" blog report of his San Diego vacation.....

bwbollam wrote:I’ll start with one that’s already been shown here, but is still my favorite…set up with Emo Gonzales on Preview Night and picked up the next day. His take on Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo:

bwbollam wrote:I wanted to see Ken Knudtsen’s take on Usagi as well after receiving some great art from him last year. I think he did a great job:

bwbollam wrote:Usagi by Franco

bwbollam wrote:Usagi all by Art Baltazar

bwbollam wrote:And I’ll end on another of my possible favorites…one more Usagi, this time by Rod Guen/Rodolphe Guenoden. Rod was the artist who worked on Kung Fu Panda that I wrote about here a while back and I thought his take on Usagi might be interesting because of his personal martial arts background and his recent work on KFP. Here’s how it turned out

http://burninghammer.com/wordpress/?p=35

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12429790@N ... 336308355/

Marchino · Post by **Marchino** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 12:48 -0700

WOW!!!

aweasome scketches oo and thers one of Art Baltazar,i meet him he is a great guy also he made an Iron Fist on me scketch

SDCC was aweasome i meet a lot of people and i buy some things and see a lot of things more!!

and i have the pleasure to meet Sensei!!!!! ( thank you sensei for been very kind at the SDCC with me , me brother and me friend Mauricioand thank you for all the time you spend on the Usagi Skrull and all those things..

also i have read the books of UY i buy on your both like 2 times jeje UY book 1 rulz!!!!) , and i meet Sergio Aragones ( he sing me Spirit comics written by him

) , ooo and i meet David petersen ( i bought from him Mouse Guard Fall in hardcover and an Print and as you seen on me gallery he made an a Usagi Scketch for me

), and i meet Eric Powell(the GOON!!)and meet Jim Steranko!!!! , Arthur Suydam ( he is the Artist of the covers of marvel Zombies) , Darwyn Cooke ( i meet him 30 min befor the Con closed so i was very lucky to find him he give me a print of his new series and he made an scketch of Wonder Woman on me scketch he is a nice guy

) , oo Tommy castillo ( he is really cool

i dont know any series hes workig on but probably is one a series about zombies or something like that ..

) and i meet lot of people more the ComicCon 08 was great!!! the place is full of things and people aweasome!!!!

Abayo!!,
Marchino

Stan Sakai · Post by **Stan Sakai** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 13:13 -0700

It was a pleasure to meet you and your family and friend, Marchino. I am glad you had such a wonderful time.

Post by **Mayhem** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 15:12 -0700

Finally ploughed through the 250 odd photos I took and picked out the best ones... enjoy!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mayhemers/ ... 439787144/

bwbollom · Post by **bwbollom** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 18:21 -0700

Steve Hubbell wrote:Collecting Usagi sketches from other artists is gaining in popularity....

These images are from bwbollom's "Burning. Hammer. Press" blog report of his San Diego vacation.....

http://burninghammer.com/wordpress/?p=35

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12429790@N ... 336308355/

Hi Steve, Sensei and the rest!

Those Usagi sketches are from my blog. I was going to wait and post them here once I got back home and had a chance to make nice, clean scans, but I guess they look good enough

Thanks for posting them Steve...we're staying at my wife's grandmother's place until next week, so I won't have access to a scanner for a while, and it takes forever to post pictures over the dial-up access we have here. The blogging has been tedious, but I wanted to do it for family back home to see how the convention has been. I hope the Usagi drawings are acceptable in honoring one of my favorite characters. I think they came out quite nice!

It was also good to meet Sensei again, even if briefly this year. Thanks for always taking the time out to say hello to your fans!

Brandon

Stan Sakai · Post by **Stan Sakai** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 18:25 -0700

Great drawings, especially the one by Rod.

I've known Art Baltazar for years, but never got an Usagi drawing from him. He did do a nice caricature of me, though.