Today started off with excitement and joy as I woke up early and headed to the Convention Center with the hope of getting the autographs of the “Mythbusters.” Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman. The way autographs work at Comic-Con is a strange and mysterious thing involving lines, bags, tickets & cats. First you arrive at least an hour before they asked you to so you can wait to see if you are part of the group to get autographs. This was around 7:45 for me, and I waited with a whole lot of people. Once the magic hour has arrived you move through the line pulling raffle tickets from a bag. If your raffle ticket is blank- no autograph, if it has a stamp of a cat on it, you need to return at 10:30 to get in line for the 11:30 autograph session. Make sense. So lets say, you were like me and didn’t get a ticket with a cat on it, you have two options, first is to leave muttering under your breath. The second is to get back in line and try it all again. That’s what I did… twice. Finally pulling an elusive cat. I returned and waited in line (again) to get Adam & Jamie’s autographs.
I was (for some strange reason) really nervous, my mind lost in thought when I finally got up to the front of the line. I realized that yes, that strange man I had asked to get a photo with Cecil who I thought was Adam Savage, WAS ADAM SAVAGE! I was right! He even notice Cecil and commented which threw me off. It threw me off so much that I didn’t pose for a picture and forgot to ask that they make it out to my class.
I went to a Comic Book Legal Defense Fund session with Jeff Smith- Creator of Bone in which he outlined his process for doing a comic by roughing out a four panel idea and bringing it all the way to the finished product. Due to time he only finished two panels, but it was really cool.
I then headed off to a session on Using Comic Books in your classroom, which was interesting. The panel discussed how “Graphic Novels” aka comics have slowly worked their way into the libraries have been successful, and how while many are under the impression that comics are great for reluctant readers when they actually help with readers of all levels. The thing missing- actual curriculum, in these days of standards. Hopefully some of these more direct pieces will be addressed in the panels tomorrow.