I didn’t know Mike Wieringo personally, but like the rest of the comics community, I was totally shocked Monday to hear he’d died of a heart attack. Here’s a guy only 44 years old (same age as me; there’s some food for thought), totally dedicated to his art, who apparently lead a very healthy lifestyle. And now he’s gone.

I discovered his work a few years ago when Mike Manley did a feature on him in Draw magazine, and so when Eric Nolen-Weathington suggested a Modern Masters volume on him, I didn’t need any convincing. Just amazing, amazing stuff.

Eric just emailed me to say there will be a public viewing for Mike this Friday at 1 p.m. at the Hall-Wynne Funeral Service chapel in Durham, NC, followed by a memorial service at 2 p.m. Please help get the word out, so everyone can pay their respects.

And let’s all try to stress-out just a little bit less over all but the most important things.

Finally got to view the “In Search Of Steve Ditko” documentary by British TV commentator Jonathan Ross the other night. Jonathan was kind enough to drop off a DVD of it at our Comicon booth, and I found it immensely entertaining. It was a riveting hour-long look at Ditko’s career that I hope will soon be widely seen in the US. He manages to expose Ditko to the world in a way that’s respectful to comics fans, while keeping it lively enough for the general public to enjoy. I can’t say enough good things about it; you get Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Stan Lee, John Romita, Flo Steinberg, and others on-camera talking about Ditko and his work, and yes, Jonathan does actually go in search of the elusive Mr. Ditko at his New York studio. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but do seek it out if it’s available on YouTube or elsewhere online. (Nice to see Jack Kirby Quarterly‘s Chrissie Harper listed as “Researcher” on the documentary’s credits; near as I could tell, Jonathan got all his facts right on-screen, no doubt largely due to Chrissie’s help.)

George Khoury gives a nice wrap-up about the trials and tribulations of working on his history of Image Comics, and of successfully getting all seven Image founders together for their recent panel at Comicon (the first-ever panel with all seven members in attendence). It (along with links to the actual panel) is at:

http://comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=11519

Again, great job George, on both your book, and the Comicon panel!

Westfield Comics has posted a preview of BACK ISSUE #24’s Michael Golden interview at:

http://westfieldcomics.com/wow/frm_feat_181.html

Just an aside: I used to get all my comics from Westfield back in college, and their customer service was always exemplary. Great company!

All our newest books and mags are now officially in the mail, including the limited edition of the John Romita…And All That Jazz hardcover (52 copies, with custom Romita sketches in each; sorry folks, they sold out quickly). So if you’ve been patiently waiting while we get caught up on shipping after Comicon, look for your stuff in your mailbox soon. And thanks for hanging in there with us; we’ll be back to same-day and next-day shipping on orders by the end of this week.

After a week of vacation, we’re back at TwoMorrows HQ, to a huge pile of orders and emails. So I’ll have to ask everyone’s patience, as we slowly dig out of the rubble. We hope to have everything caught up by week’s end, including shipping of all our new publications that were released over the last two weeks while we were gone.

In the meantime, enjoy this photo of Roy Thomas and your’s truly, basking in the afterglow of Alter Ego’s Eisner Award for “Best Comics Related Periodical”, at our Comicon booth. Photo by Dann Thomas.

Last day of the con, and it started with a bang. The annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel was held at 10:30, and featured Neil Gaiman, Darwyn Cooke, Erik Larsen, Kirby family lawyer Paul Levine, and moderator Mark Evanier. Mark took the first 30 minutes of the panel introducing Kirby family and friends, giving them the opportunity to mention upcoming Kirby stuff, and there was a really nice, touching letter about Jack written by Joe Simon, which was read by Steve Saffel (who’ll have something really, really exciting to announce soon for Simon & Kirby fans).

Darwyn Cooke had one of the most moving comments about Jack, discussing The King’s integrity, and just his human side. Neil Gaiman referred to the (aforementioned) Steve Ditko documentary by Jonathan Ross, and a comment made by Stan Lee where he basically comes out and says he doesn’t consider Ditko to be the co-creator of Spider-Man (which of course leads me to think he feels the same about Kirby as a co-creator). Lot of food for thought there. Erik Larsen hit a real personal note for me, commenting on how his favorite work in Kirby’s “Klik-Klak” saga in Kamandi (which is the first Kirby work I discovered as a kid). It was a rousing, funny, and touching 1.5 hours, and it’ll all be transcribed in an upcoming issue of the Jack Kirby Collector.

The remainder of the day was spent saying goodbyes to our friends, and then hectically packing up all our leftover booth stuff at the end of the show, and getting it shipped out. Some went to Chicago for our booth at Wizard World: Chicago, and the rest back to Raleigh, NC.

Comic-Con continues to grow each year, but I’m not seeing any real growth in the “comics” area. It’s mostly movies, gaming, etc., etc., and it’s gotten to the point where they could almost spin off the comics stuff into its own, solo con, and I don’t think we’d see any real difference in our readership’s attendence. Maybe other retailers would, but as much fun as the con is, it’s gotten so huge, that a lot of the fun of years past is missing. We’ll be back next year I’m sure (already paid for our booth), but this thing has gotten to be a monster. They’ve run out of hall space and hotel rooms, and the traffic’s ridiculous. But it’s in San Diego until at least 2012, so we’ll just have to see where it goes from here.

Saturday was a blur of activity, as it’s usually the busiest day of Comic-Con, with the largest crowds and most panels. This year, Saturday sold out months in advance, so there was no on-site ticket sales. This made for no long lines surrounding the convention center, and the crowd seemed to flow much more smoothly than in years past. (In fact, the crowd seemed to be not as large as the last couple of years’ Saturdays; I suspect the Con set a lower number of ticket sales than were allowed in the last two years; supposedly the Fire Marshall almost shut the con down last year, due to overcrowding.)

Spent the day pressing the flesh with people at our booth. It was nice seeing our regulars; guys like Jerry Boyd, Carl Taylor (who we hadn’t seen here in a few years), Clayton Moore (not the Lone Ranger), Dr. Mark Miller, Michael Zuccarro, Glen Gold, Pete Von Sholly, and so many others who we only get to see once a year in San Diego. Got to meet John Lowe (author of our new book Working Methods) in person for the first time; we know so many of our contributors only through phone and email correspondence, so this is my favorite part of Comicon. Also, Roy Thomas was on hand (as he was Friday and Sunday) to meet a sizeable line of people wanting his autograph, so it was fun to get to speak to him in person, instead of always by phone and computer.

All in all, just a crazy day. I was supposed to have dinner with Lisa Kirby, Mike Thibodeaux, Rick French, and Rand Hoppe, but after figuring the logistics, plus having two small kids that needed their sleep (and me not having had much the night before, because of the Eisner Awards ceremony), I had to opt out. The extra snoozing did me a lot of good, as I was much more awake on Sunday. More soon!

Comic-Con’s a distant memory now, but what an experience it was! The Image Founders Panel went off without a hitch, with all seven founders graciously showing up for the hour-long, jam-packed event that was their first time appearing on a panel together (they’ve done panels before of course, but never with all seven on the same panel). George Khoury did a fabulous job moderating the extremely high-profile shindig, and it’s nice to know that these seven guys could take time out to reminisce, even though they weren’t plugging anything for themselves personally. (And despite a lot of fans thinking there’d be major fireworks—evidenced by the noticeably louder roar when Rob Liefeld first entered the room—these guys all respect each other, and have done a lot of growing up in the last 15 years.)

The Eisner Awards on Friday night were great. Despite an overly long ceremony, there were some memorable moments. Two actors from “Reno 911” got the house rocking with their presentation, but the best had to be the very last presenters, British TV celebrity Jonathan Ross, and writer Neil Gaiman. I won’t go into all the details of it, but Jonathan’s amazing ad libbing ended with he and Neil kissing, and Neil overall very flustered (in a most hilarious way). At one point, I was laughing so hard tears were streaming from my eyes, and I was having trouble catching my breath. (Sidenote: Jonathan and I spoke by phone a couple of months ago about his new documentary called “Finding Steve Ditko”, and was kind enough to drop a copy off at our booth while I was off at lunch. So while I missed meeting him personally, I’m really looking forward to viewing it. From what both Rand Hoppe and Neil Gaiman said about it, this is something comics fans are definitely going to want to see.)

Of course, the Eisner Awards are extra fun when you actually win one, and it was a delight to see Roy Thomas accept an award for Alter Ego as “Best Comics Related Periodical”. The category had us up against both magazines and journalistic websites this year, so the competition was fierce. Roy was one of Comic-Con’s guests of honor this year, so I’m glad he was on hand to accept personally (or I’d have had to go up there and make an idiot of myself). Kudos to everyone who helps with the magazine, including Jim Amash, PC Hamerlinck, Michael T. Gilbert, Bill Schelly, and designer Chris Day. I know firsthand how hard you guys work on the mag, and it’s a well-earned honor.

More on the remaining Comic-Con days when I get a minute; it’s time to take the kids to visit a big Mouse in Anaheim!

NEWS FLASH! Alter Ego wins Eisner Award! All seven Image founders show up for panel! More details soon; gotta go open the booth for Day Three!