* Fantagraphics’ Eric Reynolds walks back his perceived gloom and doom about the state of Comic-Con and the role of the small press and retailers in it. He notes that Fanta has reduced its SDCC presence in the recent past without noticeable detriment to itself or its consumers, and any future reduction next year or whenever will likely be similarly seamless. He also says that though this year’s sales were a drop-off from last year’s, last year’s were probably their best ever and not plagued by the recession that began in earnest last fall. But he warns that there’s a lot of grumbling in altcomixville.

* Tom Spurgeon follows up on his earlier Con reports with a variety of practical suggestions to solve problems that cropped up this year. Most of them seem quite doable to me.

* The Robot 6 crew runs down 15 SDCC announcements they’re excited about. JK Parkin catches something I’d missed, namely that Kurt Busiek will be taking Astro City monthly following the completion of the loooooong-running Dark Age megastory, and will also be launching a new American-myths series called American Gothic.

* My pal and Comic Book Resources stalwart Kiel Phegley links to everything he’s written on SDCC so far, which is a lot.

* Meanwhile, my pal Chris Ward went to Tim and Eric Awesomecon 2009 and all I got was this awesome gallery of photos and videos. Great job!

* Entertainment Weekly’s portrait gallery of celebs at Comic Con by photographer Michael Muller is a nice idea. I’d love for someone to do something similar with the comics people, at least the guests of honor and panel subjects. (Via Jason Adams.)

* Bryan Lee O’Malley reposts Ubisoft’s official press release about the upcoming movie-based Scott Pilgrim video game and offers some thoughts.

* Related: Chris Sims’s side-by-side comparisons of Scott Pilgrim panels to the videogame screenshots they pay homage to are a lot of fun.

* Curt Purcell reviews Gilbert Hernandez’s Speak of the Devil, an odd jumping-on point for Los Bros indeed.

* Part 2 of Chris Butcher’s July 2009 Previews Liveblogging. Zounds, Crumb’s Genesis will be here before we know it!

* At Comics Comics, Jeet Heer presents cartoonists talking about Vladimir Nabokov, because why not?

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