Howdy! This is the first of my online reports from the 2000 San Diego Comic-con International. This year's convention has been preceded by both ProCon (on Monday), a gathering of comics industry professionals, and Comic Book Expo (on Tuesday and Wednesday), a gathering of comics retailers. As I write the convention is being rearranged in anticipation of the 50,000 comics fans who wil be allowed in tomorrow morning. It will be amazing! What makes this year particularly exciting is the buzz on the new X-MEN film. The huge weekend numbers ($57 million!) for the movie have bouyed everyone's spirits, and led us all to believe that attendence at this year's show could be the highest in history. Our booth this year is completely focused on projecting an image of stability in the comics world. My reasoning in following this path is that I have been very concerned about the overriding sense of gloom that has been hanging over the industry for the past couple of years. To offset this sense of negativity I decided to employ the following methods this year: 1) We ordered an immense array of signs for our booth, including a huge banner (15' X 15' high) of Captain Woodchuck that dominates the center of the entire exhibit hall. 2) We've set up 8 huge monitors linked to the Internet, all of which can navigate our site through a T-1 line. 3) I arranged to have $100,000.00 in cash brought into our booth (by armored car...). I have this cash on exhibit in a large display case with a sign that says "Yes! The comics business is great!" While having that much cash on hand may seem like either an act of ridiculous oestentation, or a big security risk, it is actually having exactly the effect was hoping to achieve. In a business that has been notoriously cash-poor for the past couple of years, the idea that a retailer has struck it rich on the Internet has acted as a real inspiration to comics retailers otherwise feeling pretty negative. I've already heard a number of comments coming back from comics dealers saying that they're much more interested in exploring options on the Internet now that they've seen that it actually works for someone... Aside from our booth, here are some links to photos from the con that show other booths: 1) Cartoon Books Booth Jeff Smith (the creator of BONE) has a slew of action figures shipping in November, including a wonderful King Dok figure. Jeff hasn't set individual prices yet, but the figures will be solicited in September. 2) DC Comics Booth DC brought prototypes for a huge number of their upcoming action figures and statues. We'll have photographs of individual items over the next couple of days... 3) Wonder Woman Statue Pam got this great shot of the upcoming Wonder Woman statue. It is is currently a Bonus Book item (List price $195.00 - Our Price only $129.95). Order it from Sean (1-800-676-6423) today! 4) CrossGen Booth CrossGen is a new publisher that is gaining a great deal of respect within the industry. They have a very colorful booth. 5) Dark Horse Booth Dark Horse left behind their wonderful Concrete and Alien Queen figures this year, but the life-size Darth Maul is very cool! Dark Horse has a variety of new statues coming, some of which we will feature in coming days. 6) Astonishing Comics Herobear Booth This very small booth features HERO BEAR, a new title by Michael Kunkel. Even though this book only has two issues in print, everyone is calling it the next BONE! It is so popular that it was nominated for an Eisner award based on just a single issue being published! 7) Marvel Comics Booth Marvel has a very dynamic booth, featuring a large number of graphics from the X-MEN movie. 8) X-MEN Plane Inside the marvel booth they have this very cool model of the plane the X-Men used in the film. 9) Mile High Comics Booth This long distance shot gives you an idea of the size of our huge banners. Captain Woodchuck is over eight feet tall! We'll have some close-ups tomorrow. Chuck Rozanski, President - Mile High Comics, Inc.