PP GURU: COMIC CON
CROTCHROT JARGON REPORT

Here's the Guru's kvetch # 1:

The PP Guru is nearly at his wit's end concerning San Diego Comic Con International's yearly jam-packed jubilee — that it's getting a little too much jammed packed for his own good. It seems that the entire city wants their piece of the pie from the annual four color/manga/movie & tv vacationing crowd that leaves a trail of freebie entrails consisting of free discarded posters, postcards, and stickers in its' wake. the PP Guru only says that because he can imagine the city has to pay it's street sweepers overtime just to clean after the pile of shit we leave behind on the streets (the PP Guru must have seen at least thousands of littered flyers and cards scattered all over the Gaslamp Quarter area of town).


Mother Grimm at Golden Apple in 2001


The PP Guru's alter ego - Cary Coatney did not have a very profitable year concerning his Deposit Man line of products - even though attendance was up about 10% percent from last year- not many people were in a buying frenzy- in fact, people were in so much in a hurry to get from one section of the exhibit hall to the next, that they barely even gave his product a section glance.

Guess Who Is Being Ignored in this Photo?

Of course sharing a booth with a hottie such as Mother Grim with eerie contact lenses didn't help his exposure much either- all the attention went to her, even though she didn't fare at the booth financially either. Mother Grim maybe sold no more than two books on her end. Most of her sales went into her line of photos or trading card sets.

But more on Mother Grim later on the week- the PP Guru is pressed for time (he has to go down and pick up his Constantine DVD down on the lot AT HIS SPECIAL EMPLOYEE DISCOUNTED RATE, thank yew very much) and he wanted to give his loyal archaic peyote partisans a whole smorgasbord of greivances that he experienced at the con- especially about the lines for every kind of service imaginable- every where a line here, every where a line there. Line upon lines upon lines- it just never ended. However the one thing- the only incredible thing that really licked the lycra hemmed ballsweat of the PP Guru's bright purple flourescent undies was this the gouging in price of this little underwelming number:




Now the PP Guru forgot entirely about the DC purposily releasing Frank Miller and Jim Lee's collaboration on the pumped up cream in your fanboy jeans release of All Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder title (in 3 different variant editions) to coincide with the San Diego Comic Con International, thus causing a retailing avalanche, a stampede if you will, to initiate a price hike war amongst the dealers in the showroom.

A $ 2.99 book released on that Wednesday (the preview night of the show) does not constitute a inflation of up to $ 10.00 for what it nothing more than a creative burp or a fart from Mssrs Miller and Lee- because that's what the book is- nothing more than a eight minute read of shit that you've already seen before. Not to extract anything from Jim Lee or Frank Miller - they are surely the creme of la creme of mainstream comic book genius storytelling- but c'mon, not much dialogue, regurgitated action sequences, and 3 pages of Vicki Vale in see through Victoria Secret panties makes one feel a little cheated.

The PP Guru was appalled at every dealer that he went to that were selling this nonsensical product at $ 5, 6, 7 or 10 dollars a copy. The PP Guru luckily found a dealer that was selling the Robin cover for $ 4.00 a copy- so he found that sort of reasonable...but why? The PP Guru bought the rest of his weekly fix for nothing more than cover price- did they think that these dealers were going to make the money of their tables on just this one book alone? Was it because since all close to 100,000 attendees were inconvenienced becaused they were separated miles and miles away from their hometown specialty store?

IF either Jim Lee or Frank Miller walked by your favorite dealer's table and decided to take a steaming pile of shit on all the copies lying on top of your table, instead of personizing it with sharpie - would you still inflate the price?

The griping has barely begun ... Knocked out by:

~ Coat


Cary's test shot of someone in the Claypool Booth ...

Oddly enough - Claypool's PR presence got a boost from the many Cassandra Peterson Autograph session under the sails in AA8. We sold $10 and $25 dollar packs as well as the Trade Paperbacks ... SoulSearchers and Elvira being the big sellers ...

Added by Sparky