Countdown to SDCC 2009!

[SDcomics]

RIP Shel Dorf



Shel Dorf, comics fan, letterer, and the driving force behind the early years of the San Diego Comic-Con, passed away yesterday from complications related to diabetes. He was 76.

Growing up in Detroit, the young Dorf organized fan gatherings and conventions, including the “Triple Fan Fest”, an interest he took with him when he moved to California in the late Sixties. Together with Ken Krueger and other enthusiasts, Dorf put on what become the mighty San Diego Comic-Con. As Mark Evanier writes in a personal reminiscence:

It was his friendship with so many heroes that led him to help put on the Detroit Triple Fan-Fairs in the sixties and then, when he moved to San Diego, to rally fans there to start something similar. I met him in late 1969 or maybe early 1970, shortly before a one-day con that he organized as a kind of “dry run” for the larger convention he hoped to stage. He was enthusiastic. He was optimistic. He was passionate, not just about the convention but about the wonders that could occur just by assembling so many talented creators and fans in the same building. As it turned out, he was right.

Dorf remained Chairman or president of the show for many years, although he was estranged from the show and those running it in recent years. His health had been poor for quite a while, and he was hospitalized for the last year of his life; he died with his brother Michael at his side.

Dorf was also the letterer for Milton Caniff’s Steve Canyon newspaper strip for the last 14 years of its run, something he was very very proud of, and he was the inspiration for the character Thud Shelley. Jack Kirby, with whom Dorf is pictured above, on the right, included him in Mister Miracle as Himon.

There’s a Shel Dorf Tribute website, which was set up during his illness, with remembrances of the early days of the con, photos and more. The Comics Reporter and The San Diego Tribune have further obituaries.

Mike
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[SDcomics]

[SDcomics]

[SDcomics]

And four day passes are gone.



http://www.comic-con.org/cci/cci_reg.php

[mrjasontodd]

its a good thing we got our 4 day passes w/ preview night right away. All my friends thought we were crazy to get tix this far in advance but looks like my readyness paid off.

Does anyone else have passes or were going to get passes only to see this?

[SDcomics]

One-Day Memberships Will Be Available For Purchase Beginning Tuesday, December 15th

[SDcomics]

From yesterday's San Diego Union-Tribune:

Comic-Con sells out four-day passes

By Peter Rowe

Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 12:52 a.m.

Did you get the memo? Four-day passes for the 41st annual Comic-Con International sold out faster than a speeding bulletin, disappearing more than eight months before the July event.

The county’s largest convention and one of the world’s premiere pop culture showcases, this super show seems impervious to economic turmoil. Despite the recession, the Con raised prices on its four-day passes to $100 from $75 and still sold out — in record time — by last Friday.

“I think everyone in comics is stunned by this,” said Tom Spurgeon, editor of The Comics Reporter. “It was only seven years ago you could make the decision to go to Comic-Con — the week of Comic-Con! You could even find a hotel within walking distance of the convention center 10 to 14 days before the show… Those days are long gone.”

In 2008, when attendance was capped at 125,000, four-day passes vanished two weeks in advance. For last summer’s show, they sold out four months before the July event.

Single-day passes to the 2010 Con, which will fill the San Diego Convention Center July 22-25, will be sold online at comic-con.org, starting Dec. 15. Preview night, July 21, will be open to four-day pass holders only.

A handful of four-day passes have been withheld for radio and Internet giveaways, plus a Comic-Con International-sponsored auction.

[SDcomics]

Judges named for 2010 Eisner Awards

[SDcomics]

I saw this in yesterday's San Diego Union Tribune:

Convention Center gets more land to expand

Agency works out deal for $13.5 million

By Helen Gao

Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 1:09 a.m.

A key piece of waterfront real estate for the expansion of the San Diego Convention Center is being acquired by the nonprofit city agency that manages and markets the downtown facility.

The board of the San Diego Convention Center Corp. decided on Tuesday to spend $13.5 million to buy out a lease on a 7-acre-plus property held by Fifth Avenue Landing LLC.

The acquisition has been in the works for a year and will allow for contiguous expansion of the Convention Center.

Under the deal, the Convention Center Corp. will pay $1 million upfront to the company, controlled by businessmen Ray Carpenter and Art Engel. Over the next four years, it will pay $500,000 each year and then make a balloon payment on the fifth anniversary of the closing of the sale.

If the expansion plan does not pan out, the corporation can back out of the deal, but it will lose whatever money it has paid the lease holders.

“At any given time if we cannot get approval to do the expansion there, then we can walk from the deal. They simply take possession of the property,” said Convention Center Corp. spokesman Steven Johnson.

The transaction still has to be approved by the Port Commission, which is scheduled to vote on it Dec. 1. The port administers the property for the state and leased the lot to Fifth Avenue Landing. The company has been trying unsuccessfully for years to build a posh 250-room hotel there. The site is currently being used for parking, docking of yachts and a water taxi service. Fifth Avenue Landing will retain the water rights under the deal.

A city task force in September endorsed plans for a $753 million expansion of the Convention Center. Advocates say larger exhibition halls are needed to attract and retain trade shows, but the project faces an uncertain future because of financing challenges.

Mayor Jerry Sanders’ office has spent the past several months doing outreach to the business community to gauge support for increasing the hotel tax or a new tax on food and beverage sales as a way to raise money for the expansion.

“There have been a lot of meetings with stakeholders,” Sanders spokeswoman Rachel Laing said.

“They have been generally positive meetings. Everybody recognizes that more conventions and larger conventions are very good for the whole region.”

She said over the next four months, better cost estimates and a financing plan will take shape.