Boots(Netflix)
Set in the 1990s before the ban on gays serving in the military openly was overturned, Boots is a coming of age 10-part dramedy series that follows a closeted teen’s experiences as he goes through boot camp after he joins the U.S. Marines. While the show is primarily told through the eyes of the teen fresh out of high school, it actually is an ensemble piece as we follow the journey of several of the aspiring marines, as well as some of the senior non-coms and officers, and the teen’s single mom (played by Vera Farmiga).
Complaints from across the political spectrum—with some accusing the series of being “woke,” while others see it as a glorified recruitment poster for the military—suggest that the show has managed to thread the needle of shining a light on the harshness and intolerance of military culture, while also acknowledging that it instills toughness, confidence and discipline into its recruits (as well as unapologetically turning them into efficient killing machines).
I found the show entertaining and engaging, and full of heart—even many of the drill sergeants, while certainly hard asses, are given moments to show their human side. While the entire cast is terrific, particularly Miles Heizer as the main protagonist, Cameron Cope, actor Max Parker, as a closeted drill sergeant and decorated marine, to be a standout in a heartbreaking and conflicted role.
Teenage Bounty Hunters(Netflix)
This 10-part dramedy series was quite a gratifying find—produced back in 2020, I had never heard of it and stumbled across it by accident. Thanks to a great fusion of writing and actors, I found the show charming and hilarious, and full of heart.
The series follows two non-identical twin sisters named Sterling and Blair Wesley (adorably played by actresses Maddie Phillips and Anjelica Bette Fellini), who by happenstance become bounty hunters under the mentorship of a gruff but kind-hearted bail enforcement agent named Bowser (Kadeem Hardison). Set in Atlanta, the girls are typical teens who nonetheless also come from a conservative right wing family (hence their comfort with handling guns), though they have good hearts and are ingrained with tolerance. While clearly genuine about their Christian beliefs, perhaps reflecting their generation, they nevertheless are less strident in how they interpret the Bible on issues like sex, race, and the environment.
That said, this is not an action series—indeed, it’s more of a coming of age story that focuses on the girls’ high school lives, friendships and first loves (and sexual awakenings), as much as their bounty hunter side hustle, if not moreso. And this includes their relationship with Bowser with whom they form their own familial bond. Tying this all together is the girls’ growing suspicion that their parents are harboring a dark secret about their past that eventually intersects with the girls’ bounty hunting.
While the first season did not end in a completely unresolved cliffhanger, it nevertheless ended with some revelations and loose threads that clearly would have driven the next season. Unfortunately, the show was not renewed for a second season, which I suspect might have partly been due to COVID. Given the great ensemble—and particularly the incredible chemistry between the incredibly charming and comedically gifted two leads—it’s criminal the show was not renewed.
We saw Spinal Tap II: The End Continues on opening weekend and greatly enjoyed it. (Though I hadn't seen it in years, a few months back we also watched the original This is Spinal Tap a few months back in a theater on re-release.)
The movie had some good laughs and, aside from a few callbacks to the original film, it didn't feel like a retread. It looked great on the big screen (versus the original which even in the re-release felt dated due to being incredibly grainy), and I thought the music and actors’ real-life music chops were more front and center—it was entertaining to just see them jam, and that’s taking into account that a lot of these performances simply take place in a rehearsal studio space as they prepare for a reunion concert.
It was a particular treat to see Paul McCartney and Elton John with substantial cameos, not just brief one note walk ons. In fact, McCartney was a real highlight—although he’s often played himself, often in comedy sketches, these are often with a knowing wink to the audience. In contrast, I was impressed that, here, he was more natural and played it fairly straight, while of course still recognizing he was in a comedy, landing laughs. (Their "new" drummer, Didi Crockett, played by Valerie Franco, was also a welcome addition.)
At 83 minutes, the movie certainly doesn’t wear out its welcome, ending in almost a sudden, abrupt manner with a scene that you could probably spot coming a mile away lol. Full credit to them for not letting the film become overly sentimental or valedictory.
Though I didn’t exhibit, I received a pro badge and attended L.A. Comic Con on the Saturday and Sunday of the three-day show, held Sept. 26–28. On both days, I took the L.A. Metro to the L.A. Convention Center, only about a 25 minute ride for me.
In the past, the entire show fit inside the L.A. Convention's big South Hall, so I was surprised to discover that there were additional exhibition halls, with the bulk of Artists Alley/Small Press in a completely different hall downstairs, which, based on my guestimate, seemed to nearly double the exhibition space. The crowd sizes were pretty good throughout the convention center.
The autograph area was down in the artists alley area as well, where people like David Tennant, Dallas Bryce Howard, Vincent D’Onofrio, Denise Richards, and Elizabeth Olsen were signing (the lines for Tennant were especially long!) I saw a lot of fellow cartoonists and publishers I know. My daughter was also there separately, helping out a friend at an artists alley booth!
One feature I appreciate about L.A. Comic Con is that its main stage is simply an open area in the middle of the main hall, so there's no waiting in line for a seat or to get into a room. In fact, my primary reason for attending L.A. Comic Con the past several years when I haven’t exhibited is to see the celebrity guests, a luxury I never have a chance to take advantage of at San Diego Comic-Con! Last year I saw actor Ewan McGregor and the year before that, 2023, I experienced one of my favorite comic con highlights of all time when the four Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings hobbits—Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Dominic Monagham, and Billy Boyd—appeared together.
On Saturday morning, I attended a sneak peak panel of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art that included moderator Jessica Alba, director Robert Rodriguez, cartoonist legend Frank Miller, and illustrator/painter Kadir Nelson. A short video of the new museum, scheduled to open in 2026, was shown—what impressed me was the number of comics and cartoonists represented in the video, ranging from Charles Schulz, to Winsor McKay, to Moebius, and many in between! (My metro ride to the convention center actually goes right past the museum.) I also watched part of the panel with David Tennant and Billie Piper, and later, Dallas Bryce Howard. Howard was a particularly fascinating interview and the last question from the audience asked for her memories of working with Robert Redford on Pete's Dragon and, in response, she provided a beautiful tribute to Redford.
The following day, I briefly attended a panel featuring a reunion of the cast of the film, Starship Troopers, which included Denise Richards, Casper Van Dien, and Michael Ironside.
But the main draw for my attending L.A. Comic Con this year was actress Freema Agyeman. Though she’s arguably best known for her role as Martha Jones, one of the companions of David Tennant’s Doctor Who—a role she has reprised, most notably in a series called Torchwood—I became a fan of hers on the television import series, Law and Order U.K. Like Howard, she gave a thoughtful and engaging interview about the acting process. She spoke about her various roles and her of Shakespeare, having appeared in a recent production of As You Like It.
Immediately following that panel, I ran to another panel that had started concurrently, on Toxic Fandom, that I enjoyed.
Though I seriously considered exhibiting at this year's Long Beach Comic Con, held August 30–31, in Long Beach, California, I ultimately didn't. While the show was just 25 miles from my residence, which would not require the expense of an overnight stay at a hotel, the cost of a table was more than I could afford for a show that was still rebuilding after COVID. (I exhibited there in 2022, sharing space provided by the organizers to CAPS (Comics Art Professional Society), a professional society I belonged to.)
One of the reasons I seriously considered tabling, however, was due to the announcement of artist Howard Chaykin as a special guest, of whom I'm a longtime fan, dating back to his days on American Flagg (1983–89). Frankly, since I didn't expect big crowds at the show or for the event to be very busy, I thought it would be an opportunity to have more than a perfunctory conversation.
This, in fact, turned out to be the case. Though I've briefly met him a few times, I never assume people will remember me—fortunately, he did. (One of the first things he told me that made me laugh was, "You present a lot younger on Facebook!" The first time we met, when he was introduced to me by a fellow artist, when I told him I was a big fan, he said, "Of course, we steal from the same people!") In any case, we had a great time chatting, particularly talking about Broadway productions we had seen, after I mentioned my trip there back in April.
So it was a great thrill to see Chaykin and become better acquainted! I purchased a recent American Flagg print he was selling at his table (see below), which he signed along with several items I brought along—including the back cover of Blackhawk #3 since, as I mentioned, I owned the art featured there!
Another memorable guest at the show was actor William Daniels (St. Elsewhere, 1776), now 98, whose wife of 74 years, Bonnie Bartlett, was also there as a guest. Since they were charging for photos and autographs, I assumed it wouldn't be proper for me to take a photo without paying.
Click here to see the full photogallery of the show.
A few weeks back, I received a reminder from my web host provider for my wcgcomics.com website that my three-year hosting package was up for renewal in mid-September. Although the previous two three-year terms, starting in 2019, were approximately $98 for three years, I was shocked to learn that the renewal cost for another three years was nearly $400!
After researching options, I decided on Bluehost, a well established and reviewed web host company. My only concern was the amount of work and level of technical ability that would be required. While I consider myself moderately web-savvy, and had changed hosts before, this was my first time doing so with a WordPress (WP) site. While WP made site management and updates simpler in many ways, migrating was a little more complex than simply copying and moving files from one account to another, because WP is a more complex beast. Beneath the hood, WP is a complex engine involving nameservers, databases, DNS and A records (the latter of which I still don't understand). These all have to be correctly configured to ensure that when someone types in the specific URL for a domain, the internet correctly points the user's browser to the correct IP address for the website.
Thanks to the time I transitioned to WP in 2022, I was somewhat experienced backing up and re-installing a WP website (using a plug-in called Duplicator). In this sense, transferring and re-deploying the files to another web hosting service wasn't too much of a leap, nor was simply re-directing my domain name to my Bluehost site either. But making all the other little changes beneath the hood—as well as migrating my domain name email accounts—seemed daunting. (I am sure web host providers rely on people choosing the least path of resistance by simply paying the higher renewal fee than going through the hassle and stress of such a migration.)
Fortunately, saving some bucks is a great motivator. It helped that Bluehost had solid 24/7 chat support which I took full advantage of—while everyone who assisted me was competent and patient, I did sometimes feel like they were not understanding my questions or adequately responding to me in layman's terms. It also helped that there is a consistency in the platforms' administrator pages, particularly in the same use of the cPanel to manage the account and websites.
In the end, after doing everything I needed to do on my end based on their guidance, I had to make a leap of faith and accept a certain level of uncertainty on my part, and put my complete trust in them. In this regard, they were actually fairly reassuring, and I drew some comfort from the fact that they no doubt did this almost daily. Since I had already installed and deployed the site several times and had all the backups, I figured that if worse came to worst, I could still go back to my original web host provider or start again from scratch.
That all said, once I made the leap and pointed my domain name to the new web host, of course everything went relatively smoothly and quickly.
Migrating my email also turned out to be fairly simple and smooth. Many years ago, I had fortunately set up all emails sent to my domain name accounts (i.e., emails with the wcgcomics.com extension) to not reside on the server but to forward to a private shadow gmail account where I actually managed the emails within a single account (the account is also configured to allow me to send and respond to messages under my wcgcomics.com email accounts). So though any mail sent to me during the brief transition may have been lost or bounced back to the sender, once I created and configured the same accounts in Bluehost, they automatically re-sync'd to the master gmail account. So, yay! In fact, the change also gave me the opportunity to clean up and streamline the way the accounts are configured.
So, bottom line, though the process was a bit stressful, all turned out well and, all things considered, in retrospect it was not quite as onerous or time consuming as I had anticipated. Indeed, the entire episode turned out to be a good learning experience because the process has now been demystified. I should note that, for the future, I've gotten into the habit of documenting such projects step-by-step as meticulously as possible.
To celebrate a birthday, I saw Some Like It Hot last week at the Pantages Theatre in L.A. (or more specifically, Hollywood). To be honest, this musical was not at all a show I was particularly interested in, partly because I didn’t see how anything could live up to the original film starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, which, I recognize, might not be fair. But we got tickets since there were not many other shows playing we wanted to see.
It was fine and entertaining enough, with a lot of big numbers, a few laughs, and nice performances. But nor did we find the production or the songs particularly memorable. My wife even bought a yacht cap for the occasion (if you know, you know)—she knows I’d never wear it in public lol, though she did swoon when I modeled it for her at home for a laugh. But, sadly, that whole conceit from the film—where Tony Curtis disguises himself as a millionaire (while impersonating Cary Grant) to woo Marilyn Monroe’s character, Sugar—was not in the musical. (Instead, he masquerades as a Hollywood screenwriter, which plays on Sugar’s desire to be a famous actress.) And reflecting modern day concerns, the show understandably also leans heavily into the film’s themes of sexual identity and fluidity, making it LGBTQ+ friendly.
Interestingly, while parts of the movie were famously shot at the iconic Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, those scenes are actually set in Florida, so the hotel wasn’t identified or mentioned in the film. In contrast, in the musical, that part of the story not only takes place in San Diego, but the Hotel del Coronado is pointedly named-checked and identified! (I have visited the hotel and spent a day at its beach, pretty much in the same location as where they shot scenes from the film.)
The day after we saw the play, we were inspired to watch the movie. I’ve seen it numerous times and we still laughed out loud a lot! Of course, the characters in the play and the film are not identical but one element I missed in the musical—aside from a Cary Grant impersonation—was that, to ensure the character of Sugar is strong and possesses agency, you lose the vulnerability of Monroe’s performance. But, I guess trying to live up to Marilyn Monroe would be a tough proposition!
Here is another of my occasional blog posts that documents my business and website processes—in this case, both!
An important obligation of being a business that sells physical goods (in this case, comics) is the need to track inventory. This is particularly needed for tax purposes since businesses are required to report the value of inventory on hand each year ("Cost of Goods" or COG) and, subtracting from the previous year's inventory (taking into account purchases that added to inventory), determine the Cost of Goods sold. As someone with more than a few items—26 individual issues and several trade paperback collections and special editions—this becomes a bit more complicated at scale.
Hypothetically, at minimum, inventory only needs to be taken annually: at the end of the year for the tax reporting requirements described above. But another reason to keep an eye on inventory throughout the year is to ensure that you do not run short of some items, at least if you are keeping them available. (I should add that, for tax purposes, it is always best to keep as little inventory in stock as possible in order to minimize tax liability since that inventory is counted as a saleable asset.)
ExpressInvoice logo
In recent years I've used both invoicing software and separate inventory software to track sales, customers, product information, inventory, etc. Invoicing software also helps to calculate sales tax when applicable on invoices and sales, and at the end of the year, producing reports that total sales, tax and shipping fees collected, etc., for tax purposes. The invoices also serve as sales receipts for customers who have ordered from the WCG Comics website.
I've used a few invoicing and inventory applications over the years. They have become surprisingly pricey—nearly all of them are monthly subscription-based and none seem geared or friendly to very small business users like myself. (In addition, while invoicing and inventory apps often have overlap, they are still two distinct processes that seem to necessitate two separate programs.) I have used two standalone single-purchase software apps for years: ExpressInvoice and Inventoria from NCH Software, which worked in tandem for generating invoices and tracking inventory. They had their quirks and were not perfect but, given the one-time price, they sufficiently met my needs and I was happy with them.
That said, in recent years, these application have been moving towards a more frequent paid licensing update model, with somewhat higher prices, though they were still preferable to subscription based options. However, over the past year, I began encountering problems and receiving error messages because the two applications were not properly connecting or syncing—until recently, after recording a sale with ExpressInvoice, Inventoria would automatically adjust each item's inventory, keeping the inventory levels synchronized on both applications. The applications stopped recognizing each other and, when they did infrequently and seemingly randomly, the inventory levels were off because they had not been syncing regularly.
After looking for potential alternatives that would not require a subscription (surprisingly, I found none), I decided to look into the capabilities of my current payment processors: WooCommerce and Square.
As I have blogged elsewhere, last year, after migrating my website to WordPress, I shifted from PayPal to WooCommerce, an integrated WordPress plugin, as my online sales processor. And though WooCommerce was the engine driving the process, the Square platform was the actual payment processer behind the scenes. (I already use Square on my mobile device for credit card sales at conventions and signings—that said, I actually only adjusted the settings of the application earlier this year to begin automatically calculating tax and to make sales based on items in the store, versus charging just by amount.)
In any case, though Square and WooCommerce each have built in inventory features, since I already was using ExpressInvoice and Inventoria, I never activated them—until now.
Long story short, with ExpressInvoice and Inventoria becoming less dependable, after some fiddling, I activated and implemented the inventory functions in WooCommerce and Square, and sync'd them. So whenever an online sale is made in WooCommerce, the sale posts on Square and adjusts the inventory accordingly on both platforms.
The only drawback is that Square and WooCommerce feel a bit clunky and inflexible, particularly Square's report functions, which seem less straightforward and user-friendly than those generated by ExpressInvoice and Inventoria.
Admittedly, ExpressInvoice was somewhat of a redundancy, operating as a shadow system of sales made through WooCommerce and Square—but recording all sales in the app centralized both online and in-person cash sales and inventory tracking into one system. Although Square will now automatically record sales of items made on my website or mobile device, I will still need to enter cash sales after the fact and develop a process and system so that both my sales and inventory are accurately reflected on the platform.
In any case, though I'm glad to have cut ties with software that were somewhat redundant, at the same time I'll have to develop new workarounds and processes now that I've moved inventory tracking entirely to Square.
Over on Facebook, I posted the link below to a YouTube video from San Diego Comic-Con by a vlogger who goes by the handle JustinScarred, cued to my cameo appearance in the video! I ended up watching the entire video and greatly enjoyed it! As mentioned in my Facebook post, I was familiar with Justin, but I must say, his walk through of Comic-Con captured the show fairly perfectly. Though your mileage may vary, I do find Justin entertaining and funny—and while I know he's a big geek (his channel, Randomland, used to primarily focus on theme parks), I came away impressed by how broad his knowledge is of all things geek—including comics!
It was nice that he made a point of walking through and highlighting both the Small Press Area and Artist's Alley, and particularly called to attention his love for Stan Sakai and his work, Usagi Yojimbo, and not just in one video but two! Justin posted a video for each of the three days he was at the show—even more impressively, he pretty much edited and posted each video by the end of the day! That sounds pretty nuts! But I watched all three and enjoyed all of them. If anyone is inclined to get a sense of what it's like at Comic-Con, this is as good as you could ask for.
To go straight to the photogallery from the show, click here.
Although I’m still catching up and recovering from the show, I can confirm that this year was my best ever San Diego Comic-Con in terms of straight comic book sales! On top of that, I sold sketches and original art and still have some sketches and orders to fulfill now that I’m home.
As always, there was the usual mix of returning readers and new people discovering the series for the first time. Though people find their way to the series in different ways, I continue to be cheered by the appeal of Rob Hanes Adventures to a broad audience—it's been nice to discover that the series appeals to readers beyond what I assumed was a more specific target audience of classic comics.
Some love the art, with many “getting” the Jonny Quest/Tintin/old adventure strip vibe right off the bat. (The last couple of years, a lot of people have told me that my work reminds them of Archie comics!) Others dig the done-in-one adventures without the need to know an extended continuity, while others latch onto specific stories, like the baseball issue, the Comic-Con issue, the drawing room murder mystery story, or last issue’s “time travel” adventure that took Rob to the 1940s. (One person immediately recognized the film, Black Hawk Down, as an influence on issue 9 from the cover alone, before I even brought it up in my spiel—that reference is always a draw and he immediately picked it up.) I’m also glad that people today don’t get too hung up on the issue numbering, often picking up random issues based on what grabs them—and often coming back for more!
Best of all, with so many issues under my belt, I’m glad that people don't get hung up on having to start with number one and are open to picking up random issues—of course, it helps that all my stories are stand alone. And many do come back to complete their collection.
Though there is always an ebb and flow each day, Wednesday's Preview Night, Thursday and Friday were strong—my weakest day was Saturday. Back in the day, Saturday was often anticipated as a big sales day since, being a weekend day, that was when a big influx of attendees arrived. But my experience has been that the dominance of big draw programming in Hall H and other panels often sucked people off the floor. On Saturday, the size of the crowds was fine, but sales for some reason were much more difficult to make and close.
Panels and Exploring the Floor
The main drawback of being an exhibitor is that I rarely have time to explore the floor, go out to visit people I know, or attend many panels and programming. Nevertheless, I did still see many friends and colleagues at the show, many because they stopped at my booth.
I also was invited by artist-writer David Blake Lucarelli (Tinseltown) to participate in a Writing for Indie Comics panel on Friday at the Omni Hotel. I hadn't participated on a panel for years, so it was a great experience. Some people at the panel did come by my booth later during the show.
Colleagues and friends I saw included Andrew Pepoy (Simone and Ajax/Little Orphan Annie),who invited me to a dinner he traditionally organizes each year during Comic-Con, which also included Lucarelli, Ted Sikora (Hero Tomorrow Comics), and John Lustig (Last Kiss); comics writer Ron Ingersoll; comics writer Tom Mason; comics editor David Olbrich; Matthew Schofield (Steamroller Man); New Yorker cartoonist Lonnie Milsap; writer and Lucasfilm PR veteran Craig Miller, and more. In addition, while strolling through Artist’s Alley with my son, I bumped into Jackie Estrada, the night before she oversaw her very last Eisner Comics Industry Awards show after an amazing 35 year run! (I regret I didn’t think of taking a photo with her!)
I did attend some after-hour panels with my wife. I went with my wife and friends to see Kevin Smith’s after-hours panel in Hall H, as well as the Bad Medicine podcast panel she has taken to attending every year that features actual physicians—this year, in a panel entitled, “The Unbearable Weight of Medical Mixups,” they discussed the injuries and maladies seen in Nicholas Cage films. (Last year, they covered the many deaths of actor Sean Bean in films and television!) My wife separately also attended a podcast recording of a Comic-Con Hollywood Babble-On with Smith and Ralph Garman that was held at a local club in San Diego.
I also attended part of a “playback” panel where they re-play some of the big panels of the previous days (but cut any exclusive footage scenes)—though I saw part of the DC/HBO Max Peacemaker panel, I really wanted to see the Ryan Gosling and Ghosts panels, but ended up deciding to grab a late dinner with friends and family instead. Those panels often can be later found on YouTube anyway!
I also took time on Friday to explore the floor, primarily traversing to the opposite end of the floor to see the DC Comics booth and Artist’s Alley. On Sunday, I also made a quick run to the LEGO booth to see its impressively massive recreation of both the interior and exterior of the San Diego Convention Center during Comic-Con (seen in picture at right)!
Hiccups
Of course, there were also the occasional hiccups and obstacles. Over the past few years, I’ve experienced an intermittent issue with completing credit card orders on my mobile device that’s become worse over time—tap payments from a credit card have become particularly hit-or-miss unless it’s phone-to-phone. Though I fortunately still have my old plug-in card reader, even that was not going through. I even consuted with the IT/wifi folks at the exhibitor’s help desk! However, on the first day of the show, a customer (in fact, the one who bought issue 9 based on the Black Hawk Down cover) gave me a tip that really saved my bacon! He suggested I switch my data from 5G to LTE, saying that everyone at the convention center was clogging the 5G network—and that turned out to resolve my problem!! I had hoped to see the customer come back so that I could thank them, but they never did. In any case, what a lifesaver of a tip!
Though I didn’t mention it to many people during the show outside of family, I also caught a stomach bug the first night that woke me up at 3 a.m. each night and kept me occupied until it was time to prepare for the show. While I was fine the rest of the day, strangely, it would strike me again at the same exact time each morning. This went on for the duration of the convention! All things considering, since it didn’t affect me during the day and put me out of commission during the convention, it could have been worse.
While the current political climate has reportedly created a chill on international travel to the U.S., I must admit, I was happy to see some of the people who regularly come to the show from overseas stop by my booth. I always pointedly asked how it was coming into the country and, fortunately, none had any horror stories. These included people from Europe, Mexico and Canada.
News Coverage
My appearance at this year's San Diego Comic-Con generated some appreciated coverage at First Comics News (June 10), The Beat (July 11), and Bleeding Cool (July 13)!
I also made a quick cameo in YouTube @JustinScarred's Randomland channel in an episode from Comic-Con on July 26! The embedded video below is cued to my appearance, but I encourage you to watch the entire episode, it's actually as good an account of the Comic-Con experience as you can get!! I actually know of Justin's work from way back, when my son for a spell followed his channel. He's a big kid at heart and his videos are entertaining and funny—he posted three videos for the three days he attended.
In addition, an article about the show on, of all places, The National Review, included in its photo gallery a shot of the floor where you can clearly see me in the middle of the shot! (Photo below—you can clearly see my booth and me in the center, bottom third of the shot. My banner with the orange background pops pretty well!)
Lovely San Diego
As I've mentioned, this was my 28th appearance as an exhibitor. Though in many ways I have my system down pat, I've also learned to be flexible. Traditions come and go...
In recent years, we've begun staying at the Manchester Grand Hyatt, which is one property over from the Marriott Marquis next door to the convention center. We've stayed at both over the years, but have come to prefer the Grand Hyatt—it's close enough to walk but still provides a little distance from the frenzy of the convention that often bleeds into the Marquis. With Seaport Village in the back, a nice restaurant (and hotel commissary and bar in the lobby), it provides a more convenient alternative to having to forage for dinner in the Gaslamp. This year, I even discovered the pool!
Anyway, it was a fun and exhausting show, I’m already looking forward to next year—and already have the script for Rob Hanes Adventures #27 completed and ready to be drawn!
Below are additional photos from the show. Click here to see the entire photogallery.
