Comic Books

[Óttar]

Robert Crumb, the god of comics.

[lei.talk]

June 24, 2010 | U-T file photo


The huge numbers associated with Comic-Con
underscore the importance San Diego leaders have placed
on retaining the convention
after the city’s contract expires in 2012.


Gauging the power of Comic-Con's punch
By Lori Weisberg, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 5:45 p.m.

When tens of thousands of Comic-Con attendees flood San Diego next month for their annual confab, they’ll be bringing more than superhero costumes, comic books and Star Wars paraphernalia. They’ll be delivering an economic bonanza of nearly $163 million, the first official estimate of the convention’s financial impact.

The previously undisclosed figure, obtained Thursday from the San Diego Convention Center Corp., is quadruple earlier estimates that sought to quantify both the direct and indirect spending generated by the Comic-Con gathering.

The corporation says its latest calculation is the most accurate because it reflects a survey it commissioned of 2008 delegates who were queried on where they came from, whether they stayed in hotels and how much they paid for those room nights. The overall spending analysis also takes into consideration the results of an annual visitor study city agencies conduct looking at overall spending generated by a cross section of larger San Diego conventions.

The huge numbers associated with Comic-Con underscore the importance San Diego leaders have placed on retaining the convention after the city’s contract expires in 2012. The city is still anxiously awaiting word on whether Comic-Con International will stay put or relocate to Los Angeles or Anaheim, which have been heavily courting convention organizers.

“We did the research to get a better handle on the convention, and when the numbers came back we were all stunned,” said Convention Center spokesman Steven Johnson. “The survey was an important tool for us in reaching out to the hospitality community to educate them why it’s important to address Comic-Con’s concerns so that we can secure them for 2013-15.”

While economic impact analyses are sometimes regarded as overly inflated guesses of spending, corporation officials point out that their latest estimates likely understate Comic-Con’s impact because they do not take into account money spent by the roughly 50 percent of attendees the survey found do not stay in hotels.

In all, Comic-Con in 2008 attracted more than 134,000 people, of whom nearly 68,000 spent the night in a hotel room, according to the survey, conducted by San Diego-based CIC Research. Spending alone on lodging, meals, transportation and other related items totaled $67.8 million, which includes $25 million in revenue rung up by conventioneers occupying nearly 31,000 hotel rooms.

While Comic-Con has long attracted a large contingent of locals, over the last decade it has morphed into a global event, with Hollywood heavyweights using the event to preview new television and movie projects to their devoted fans. Among those staying in hotels, roughly 68 percent hail from outside Southern California. The average room rate of all attendees is an estimated $199 a night, according to the survey.

“The reason Comic-Con is a valuable asset to the city is that it does produce those kind of numbers and during a time of year when the rooms are needed in some areas of the city,” said Jim Durbin, general manager of the San Diego Marriott in the Gaslamp Quarter. “If we lost this convention to another city, it will put a significant hole in our summer, and to fill that up, you’d have to chase a whole lot of groups in different markets.”

There are a few other smaller San Diego conventions with more well-heeled attendees that have a larger economic impact on the city, Convention Center officials acknowledge. The November meeting of neuroscientists, who number 36,000 and spend more per night on hotel rooms than Comic-Con delegates, contribute an estimated $170 million to the local economy, said Johnson. However, unlike Comic-Con, most conventions do not attract huge numbers of locals, whose spending is not tallied.

San Diego tourism expert Carl Winston concedes that some economic impact studies fall short by not taking into account money that would already be spent at a particular destination, but still believes they are a legitimate way of assessing the worth of an event.

“These (economic impact) multipliers are pretty common,” said Winston, who heads the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at San Diego State University. “You’re trying to say that if a delegate spends money at the Hilton, and that hotel employs a maid, that maid earns money she wouldn’t have otherwise earned, and then she’ll spend money on something in San Diego. “But one of the big fallacies in economic impact studies is they don’t address the incremental impact that would have occurred had not the event been there.”

[lei.talk]

Originally Posted by Pallantides


Originally Posted by lei.talk
only when inked or pencilled by ernie chan.

was this point not - previously - clarified?

over a dozen other illustrators have depicted the character
in a manner consistent with the creator's description.

Originally Posted by Pallantides John Buscema also did draw Conan like that,
I can scan the signed drawing he made for me at the Raptus Festival in Bergen many years ago.

does the rendition (below) show a borealised lapp
or the cro-magnoid described by the author of conan?

Originally Posted by the Elf in a speedo

Conan and the Cimmerians are supposed to resemble robust Paleo-Atlantids imo.

yes! please! post your original buscema art-work!

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[lei.talk]

Katchoo

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[Psychonaut]

My favorite currently running title:

[lei.talk]

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[Psychonaut]

What did you think of it? I've not yet read it simply because I generally avoid holocaust related books/films/etc. (it's good for the blood pressure). I've long wondered if Sim's art would survive his conversion to Christianity. It ruined the last two Cerebus phonebooks for sure. I've been buying Glamourpuss, but am holding off on reading it until I find all the back issues I'm missing.

[lei.talk]

as one may discern from these examples,
dave sim is at his best drawing his creation: CEREBUS.

as one reviewer warned:

If you are hoping for SIMian artwork, you will be even more disappointed than with Frank Miller's "Ronin".

If you are hoping for SIMian storytelling, you will be even more disappointed than with the final volume of the Barsoom series.

Don't we all hate it when an artist "grows"?

this graphic novel sat (bagged) on the rack
in my book-store
for nearly two years, because

my employees could not - in good conscience -
respond affirmatively to "Is this any good?".

i would not pay cover-price for this item.

i re-paid my store's whole-sale cost
from my comics-supplier: fifty percent.

Psychonaut I've long wondered if Sim's art would survive his conversion to Christianity.

dave's abuse of lsd and marijuana
created a mind unable to arrange data hierarchically,
his narcissistic regression
following deni's departure and an early manopause
precipitated by alcohol and concomitant mal-nutrition

led to his amalgamation of the semitic fremdkörper.

he has degenerated
to posting videos of him reading aloud
from those three texts.

say yes to life

say no to drugs

...and, now, for a tangent.

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[lei.talk]

[Psychonaut]

I'm finally getting around to reading Blackest Night. I completely understand what all the hype was about!