This post today is an out-and-out plug for my panel appearances at San Diego Comic Con (aka Comic Con International) later this week. The annual event is July 24-28 at the San Diego Convention Center in downtown San Diego. It’s been sold out for months – over 150,000 people will be invading the area. The complete programming schedule is HERE. I hope to see you there!
THURSDAY JULY 25th
60 YEARS OF BEATLES COMICS AND ANIMATION – 3:00pm – 4:00pm PDT – Room 29AB
The Beatles made their big splash in the USA on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964. In the six decades since, they have been a constant presence everywhere, including in comics and animation, most famously with the Yellow Submarine film, but also in countless comics, graphic novels, and cartoons, mainstream and independent. Here to take you on a magical mystery tour of the Fab Four in comics and animation are FabFourPhiles including moderator Danny Fingeroth (A Marvelous Life: The Amazing Story of Stan Lee), Bill Morrison (The Yellow Submarine Graphic Novel), Grant Geissman (History of EC Comics), Michael Uslan (executive producer of the Batman movies), Jerry Beck (The Animated Movie Guide), and Charles Kochman (Abrams ComicArts).
WORST CARTOONS EVER – 7:15pm – 8:15pm PDT – Room 6BCF
Making its 20th appearance at Comic-Con, esteemed animation historian Jerry Beck and ASIFA-Hollywood will once again foist a selection of the most terribly written, ugliest drawn, and unintentionally funniest animated films ever made. Cartoons include Con favorites Mighty Mr. Titan (the physical fitness superhero in his form-fitting costume a little too tight for comfort), Sam Bassett (the machine gun wielding dog detective) and Johnny Cypher in Dimension Zero (worst. anime. ever.). This year some awful new cartoons will make their debut: Sam Singer’s L’il Dan’l Boom and the all-time horrific The Three Dogateers. Don’t say we didn’t warn you!
WARREN KREMER: HARVEY COMICS COVER GENIUS – 8:00pm – 9:00pm PDT – Room 29AB
I’m a huge Harvey Comics nut – and a tremendous fan of the line’s main artist and designer Warren Kremer. This is a tribute to him as a bunch of us analyze his greatest cover art. Kremer’s daughter Maryanne Kremer-Ames, Jim Thompson (A People’s History of Comics, Eisner Hall of Fame judge), Alonso Nuñez (executive director of Little Fish Comic Book Studio, Eisner Hall of Fame judge), Mark Badger (artist, DC/Marvel; creator of Badgetoons), Jerry Beck (author and animation historian), and Steve Leialoha (artist) celebrate Kremer’s induction into the Hall of Fame this year as they look closely at his greatest covers from Casper, Wendy the Good Little Witch, Hot Stuff, Little Dot, Little Lotta, Stumbo the Giant, and Richie Rich – a master class on color, brushstrokes, design, direction, character expression, and the art of the gag.
Because this panel was scheduled to overlap with my WORST CARTOONS EVER show – I will only appear on this panel’s last 40 minutes.
FRIDAY JULY 26th
MeTV TOONS PANEL – 1:00pm – 2:00pm PDT – Room 6A
MeTV, America’s No. 1 classic television network, has launched a new sister network: MeTV Toons, an all-cartoon channel with a schedule of more than 40 different classic animated series airing each week, sourced from every major animation studio in Hollywood. The network will feature dozens of characters from Woody Woodpecker and Bullwinkle to Speed Racer and Scooby-Doo to Popeye and Bugs Bunny — who celebrates his 84th “birthday” on Saturday, July 27, with a one-hour original special premiering on MeTV Toons.
MeTV vice-chairman Neal Sabin, actors Bob Bergen (Space Jam, Looney Tunes: Back in Action), Eric Bauza (Looney Tunes Cartoons, Muppet Babies), Jeff Bergman (Tiny Toon Adventures, Our Cartoon President) and Candi Milo (Space Jam: A New Legacy), animation historian/journalist/expert Jerry Beck, and moderator Michael Schneider (Variety) explore and celebrate many of the greatest classic animation series and characters, now seen on their new home, MeTV Toons. All panel attendees will receive an exclusive MeTV Toons giveaway item!
SATURDAY JULY 27th
BECOMING BETTY BOOP: The Evolution Of An Animated Icon – 10:30am – 11:30am PDT – Room 29CD
The Fleischer Studios team holds a discussion about Betty Boop: her history, popularity, and impact on pop culture. Featuring Mark Fleischer (chairman and CEO of Fleischer Studios, grandson of animation pioneer Max Fleischer), Susan Wilking Horan (VP of business operations, co-author of Betty Boop’s Guide to a Bold and Balanced Life), Kristi Ling Spencer (director of marketing, co-author of Betty Boop’s Guide to a Bold and Balanced Life), Frank Caruso (creative director, Betty Boop cartoonist), Jeni Mahoney (VP of digital media, historian), and Bill McClinton (president of global icons). Moderated by Jerry Beck (author and animation historian). Everyone attending will get an Comic Con exclusive Betty Boop giveaway item.
I’d also like to reccommend you attend any of Mark Evanier’s incredible panels. The complete list of those is POSTED HERE.
Jerry Beck is a writer, animation producer, college professor and author of more than 15 books on animation history. He is a former studio exec with Nickelodeon Movies and Disney, and has written for The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. He has curated cartoons for DVD and Blu-ray compilations and has lent his expertise to dozens of bonus documentaries and audio commentaries on such. Beck is currently on the faculty of CalArts in Valencia, UCLA in Westwood and Woodbury University in Burbank – teaching animation history. More about Jerry Beck [
These events all sound fantastic, and I wish I could attend them all, especially the Beatles and Betty Boop panels. I’m delighted to see that the Three Dogeteers will be making their Comic Con debut. I bet their cartoon will steal the show! Have a great Comic Con 2024, everybody!
Wow! Some of these events sound quite nice. I am sure that the “Betty Boop“ panel will be a lot of fun. Wish I could be there, but everybody who can attend, have a wonderful time! Perhaps you could post video highlights here at some point, if such highlights are being gathered. in the meantime, the best of luck to all these events.
I hope one of the topics discussed on the MeTV Toons panel addresses their poorly-implemented rollout and the thousands of frustrated prospective viewers that currently have no access to the channel, and likely won’t for the foreseeable future.
It wasn’t poorly rolled out. If you were privy to how each and every new channel and network has been launched, you would know that it’s a process. There’s no on switch that brings the channel to every human with a television. I hosted a game show for Game Show Network many years ago and never saw it when it debuted as my cable provider didn’t carry GSN. But, within a few months it did, as the network grew in popularity. MeTV Toons will continue to join more and more platforms. The great thing is that fans want this network. They can help by contacting their providers and request it. This is actually how channels get added all the time. Trust me, providers want to offer customers what they want.
I can understand you wanting to beat the drum for your employer, but MeTV didn’t even begin running promos for the channel until the week before the launch, thereby not giving adequate time for cartoon fans to lobby their respective providers to acquire it before the premiere. I’d say that was a tad ill-conceived.
And, no, I don’t expect MTT to be available nationwide all at once. However, I do believe there should be more than TWO cable TV suppliers carrying it a month later (only accessible via OTA or streaming everywhere else).
For the record, I did contact a Xfinity rep, and was told there are no plans to pick it up locally (despite the fact that I reside in a Top 10 TV market that already carries several Weigel-owned networks). If you have any additional suggestions, I’m all ears.
i think they went into a channel like this the wrong way. Watched the recent Neal Sabin interview on youtube and he admits that they are having a hard time finding legit sponsors for this channel. It also hurts that a lot of the local stations have zero plans to pick this up.
They should have used the old Nickelodeon/Nick @Nite template as the pitch, where it would have been classic cartoons and kid shows during the day and classic shows and sitcoms at night.
I think their main stumbling block is due to a common misconception among cable providers: “Oh, we already carry Cartoon Network–They have all those shows on there”. What MTT needs to get across to these outlets is that CN – and Boomerang – have not aired this type of programming in many, many years, and that there is a large, enthusiastic audience hungry for vintage TV and theatrical animation. And then back that up with the ratings for Toon in with Me and their Saturday and Sunday morning blocks. Otherwise, they’re fighting an uphill battle, and I’m afraid the channel will eventually fall by the wayside after a year or two without ever reaching its potential viewership.
Geez, whatever happened to being optimistic? Have faith on this. Besides, I heard my local station in Columbus is already in talks on running it here.
Frndly TV an app on thr Roku Channel is featuring METv Tpons
I used to work at the Hilton bayfront right next to the convention center and randomly met you Jerry at the bellstand and had a nice quick convo before you had to ride down the escalator to attend a panel. Have fun at that crazy big show!
No Leslie Cabarga on the Betty Boop panel?
Jerry, I hope you don’t mind my letting readers ALSO know that Hanna-Barbera will have a presence at Comic-Con as well.
Saturday July 27, 2024 4:30pm – 5:30pm PDT
Room 7AB
HANNA-BARBERA: THE RECORDED HISTORY
The legacy, voices, and music of Bill Hanna, Joe Barbera, and their collaborators are celebrated by host Mark Evanier and actor Tim Matheson (Jonny Quest, Space Ghost, Sinbad, Jr., Animal House, Virgin River), cartoon voice performer Katie Leigh, animator and animation historian and Comic-Con special guest Tom Sito, and author Greg Ehrbar (host of The Funtastic World of Hanna & Barbera podcast).
And of course Jane Fleischer-Reids Betty Boop restorations panel on Thursday.
I would have loved to attend SDCC. All the panels sound very interesting and exciting. I especially would have liked to hear more about MeTv Toons, which I still don’t have on Fios. For those who attended this year’s convention, hope you all had a great time! 🙂
Is there a list of what was played? I was there but can’t recall the titles that I wanted to share with friends. Thanks