Last weekend, our US Senior Correspondent Dan Berry was able to attend the Comic-Con International satellite event, SAM: STORYTELLING ACROSS MEDIA, a unique event held over one day and geared towards aspiring artists and writers, giving them the framework, the tools and practical advice to allow them to tell solid and entertaining stories.
To facilitate this, some of the biggest names in creativity were invited to the former Hall Of Champions at San Diego’s Balboa Park, the space that is slowly and surely evolving into CCI’s Comic-Con Museum. While the building is effectively a shell at this point, it is still a cracking space in good stead and this event gave a preview of what the Museum could eventually become and the energy and creativity it can present.
Dan attended a number of the presentations of the day, including Spotlight Panels from the likes of DC Comics‘ Jim Lee, writers Julia and Shauna Benson, and also writer J. Michael Straczynski, as well as sessions with Jessica Tseang, Barbara Randall Kesel, Chris Ryall, Scott Tipton, Whilce Portacio, C.B. Lee, Cindy Pon, Greg Van Eekhout, Sarah Kuhn, and moderator Maryelizabeth Yturralde – Dan’s photo galleries of the sessions are below but now, let’s here from the man himself about his own impressions of the event:
Dan Berry: Comic-Con International knows how to put an event together as they have been doing for a long time, and the inaugural SAM event was no exception. For a one day event, it was packed with a lot of interesting panels over the course of a few hours.
The day started off with Jim Lee doing a spotlight panel where he walked through his thought process when it came to drawing and putting panels together. After the panel was over, he raffled all the pieces he had just drawn, including a gorgeous piece of WONDER WOMAN (which I’m jealous I didn’t win).
Being that the day was titled ‘Storytelling Across Media’, it stood to reason that panels from comic book artists weren’t the only type available, with Shawna and Julie Benson making an appearance as well as J. Michael Straczynski, talking about their careers in writing for both comic books and TV. In addition I attended the panels about ‘Storytelling with Sound and Music’, and the ‘Storytelling in Comics’ panel both of which had some great talent discussing their work in those fields.
The final panel of the day was the ‘Storytelling in Museums’ panel in which the panelists discussed the setting up of displays in museums and how they all tie together to create a story. They also discussed briefly about some of the potential future plans for the Comic-Con Museum.
After all the panels were done, there was a mixer where attendees could mingle, drink, and eat… and I can’t deny, the food there was delicious!