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Monday, July 26, 2004
Comic-Con Fan Report part 3
Part 1
Part 2
Fri.
This won’t be all of Friday. I’ll just do the a little bit of the day, as a lot happened.
This was panel day for me. While I went to two panels on Thursday, I went to twice that number on Friday plus I went to the Eisners. The first panel I went to was the only news one I attended. It was Vertigo: Breaking Boundaries and it started at 10:30 a.m. This meant getting to the Con as soon as doors opened at 10:00. We did, and the accomplishment of our goal led me to one odd observation.
There is nothing quite like seeing the absolute blob of people that is Con goers waiting to get in. Our shuttle had to travel the entire length of the convention center to get to its stop. That meant that any passenger looking out the right side window got to see wave after wave after wave of anxious fans. Pretty soon you can’t make out any noticeable differences, not even with the costume people. You just sit there and witness the enormous flesh-gathering.
I made it to the Vertigo thing with time to spare, although you wouldn’t notice that by the way I was stressing out getting there. Karen Berger, who reminded me of a really nice high school guidance counselor, introduced the large group of people on stage. Every popular Vertigo ongoing book was represented by at least one member of the creative team. There was trouble getting the lights to dim to start the slide show. Of course, as soon as that problem was fixed Berger had a conversation with someone working under her that went something like this:
“Alright, can we start the slides now?”
“Actually, we’re looking for the slides.”
“You mean, you don’t have the slides here?”
Still, Berger kept everything cool and calm. To stall time Dave Gibbons talked about his upcoming original graphic novel The Originals. “It’s going to take me as much time to talk to you about it as did for me to do it the way things are going,” Gibbons observed.
Eventually, though, the slides were retrieved and all the big news was announced. You can read all about them on other sites so I’ll just talk about what being in the room was like. Everybody was getting excited about the new stuff and what’s happening with the old stuff. Then the film Constantine was brought up. You could feel the mood in the room turn more than a bit dour as Berger explained the film. When she mentioned Keanu Reeves’ name a person sitting behind me let out the softest, shortest “boo” I think I ever heard. Berger even said that Reeves does a good job as Constantine, which another person decided to snort rather loudly at. I felt that was a bit rude, this was a woman who was bringing that person several books a month that I’m assuming that person enjoys. At least give her her say. “The important thing is that this is the first Vertigo movie,” Berger said. That got the crowd back together and everyone leapt into applause.
Colleen Doran, who will be doing the art on a book Warren Ellis is writing called Stealth Tribes, offered some advice. “If you’re going to use yourself as a model in a story Warren’s writing read the ending first,” Doran said. “Else you will have to draw yourself doing some freaky stuff.” The book is about body modification and people spending a lot of time online. If Ellis wasn’t going to write a story like that, who would?
An audience member identifying himself was “a rabid Bush-hater” got a round of applause from the crowd, certainly from me. He asked if any of the creators were worried about bringing politics into their books. Berger put it best, “if we were scared of what people though of our stuff, we would have been gone a long time ago.”
One last thing about Vertigo and it’s important. I don’t usually act like any type of comics-activist, but here I will make an exception. When Seaguy was brought up Berger said that Grant Morrison and Cam Stewart would like to do more with the character. They said they would publish more of the book only if they got some real positive response. Right now they feel they’ve got about half-and-half going. I appeal to you to go to DC and e-mail them (the link is right there where I send you) and tell them you want more Seaguy. C’mon, you know you want it.
Looking at that big block of text I think should end here. I’ve still get plenty more to talk about, I just worry that this will go on for so long that people will tire of hearing about Comic-Con before I even get to my final post on the subject. Still, I don’t want to drown the good folks on the internet in reading, so I’m trying to keep the posts smaller. I’ll have more on Friday up tomorrow. See you then.
Permanent Link: 11:19 PM |
1 comments
Comments:
You're killing me with these reports. So jealous. I've gotta go next year, just so I can say I've done it once. Which means I should start booking my hotel room... five months ago.
# posted by tomthedog : 8:10 AM
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