I arrived nice and early this morning, giving me time to wander around before my first panel. It can certainly be hard to move around with the crowds, but there’s a lot of neat stuff to look at. I especially enjoyed seeing the Adam West Batmobile on the floor.
The DC Universe panel featured a rather hefty guest list: Dan Didio, Francis Manapul, JT Krul, Jeff Lemire, Gary Frank, Doug Mahnke, Christian Alamy, Marcus To and Brian Azzarello. To start things off the panellists explained their goals for the books they’re writing.
- Manapul on The Flash: lots of awesome action and fast running.
- Krul on Green Arrow: make Oliver Queen the centre of his own universe again.
- Krul on Teen Titans: get things back to the Young Justice crew.
- Lemire on Superboy: give Conner Kent a sense of family that he never had.
- Frank on Superman: Secret Origin: distil what was most important about Superman into one story.
- Frank on Batman: Earth One: quite the opposite. Tell a new Batman story using a completely blank slate.
- Alamy & Mahnke on Green Lantern: build meat onto all of the new characters in this book.
- To on Red Robin: focus on Tim’s youth and give the book a bit of a lighter tone.
- Azzarello on First Wave: introduce these classic characters to a new audience.
After this the panel explored a number of topics, answering many questions. Here were a couple of highlights…
- When they were falling behind on Final Crisis they received Grant Morrison’s massive script for issue #7 and wondered how anyone could draw that. Doug Mahnke saved the day drawing 30 pages in 3 weeks!!!
- I asked a question about the use of previously forbidden characters such as Sandman’s Death and Starman’s The Shade who are now showing up in some books. Didio answered that they are trying to bring in some of these characters if anyone has a good idea, but they still make sure to run it by the creator (or influential writer) of that character first. For example, Neil Gaiman was consulted on the use of Death in an upcoming Action Comics issue.
- After the audience was polled about who is reading digital comics (a good fifth of the room, or so) Azzarello asked a follow-up question: “are you paying for them or pirating them”. The room shared an awkward laugh together.
Immediately after the DCU panel I got myself in line to meet Gary Frank. I’m a huge fan of his and was excited to have him sign a couple of comics. He’s an extremely nice guy and I can’t wait until he and Johns release Batman: Earth 1.
Afterwards I talked to Alex Maleev. He was working on a gorgeous painting of Daredevil when I got there and it was neat to see him work. He signed my copies of Scarlett (which he was more than happy to discuss) and Spider-Woman. I also got to talk to Darwyn Cooke, who was extremely nice and even remembered me from our interview a few years back (yay!). He signed a copy of Parker: The Hunter for me.
It was now time for Isaac and I to brave our most dangerous mission: the line-up to get a Stan Lee autograph. Oh, the line was indeed long, but we were game. So game, in fact, that we amused ourselves with yo-yos. It sure helped pass the time. A good hour (?) or so later, feet sore from the standing we were face-to-face with the man himself. Let me tell you, it was worth it. It may have been a brief interaction, but seeing “Smilin’ Stan Lee” smile at me was a definite highlight to the show, and I have the autograph to prove that it happened.
Running late from the Stan Lee autograph session, I arrived to the “Pint O’ C.B.” panel (a Marvel panel with C.B. Cebulski) late, but in time to ask a question that had apparently already been asked: “what’s up with Runaways?” I was okay with the fact that I asked it again, though, since Marvel needs to know that people love Runaways. Unfortunately all I got was the expected “we love these characters, but we’re taking out time with a relaunch” answer.
I had some time left before my last panel of the day, so I went on a flurry of getting books signed: Jeff Lemire, Chris Sprouse, Francis Manapul and Adam Kubert. All very nice and more than happy to discuss their work with me.
At the end of the day I was exhausted, I was sore from waiting in line and I was hungry. But no way in Hell was I missing seeing Kirby Krackle play! A panel with the undisputed greatest nerd-rock band in the world was one of my most anticipated events of the weekend. It was a great panel which featured acoustic versions of some of their songs preceded by some explanations of how the songs came to be. They were funny, they were rocked and they played my requested song (Henchmen). It was a great way to end the day.
Did I say “end the day”? NOT QUITE, because THE DELOREAN FROM BACK TO THE FUTURE WAS THERE!!! Okay, fine, it was a replica but it was still totally awesome.
Tomorrow I am sleeping in.
Here is a picture of the DeLorean.
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