SDCC 2014 - Panel Roundup

San Diego Convention Center. The white tents are protecting the hours
long line to get into Hall H from the blazing sun. Photo by Kim Munson.

Here's a quick round up of panels and other happenings at San Diego Comic Con International:

At the Future of Geek panel moderated by John Siuntres (Word Balloon podcast), Heidi MacDonald (The Beat), Rob Salkowitz (Comic-Con and the Business of Pop Culture) and Tim Beyers (Motley Fool) expert industry watchers talked about the sudden increase of comics conventions around the country, and what this means to the comics industry.This was a fascinating panel, and a recording of it is available on the Word Balloon site.

Future of Geek: Siuntres, Salkowitz, MacDonald and Beyers,
with an unknown but helpful tech guy standing behind. Photo by Kim Munson.

This year marked the 60th anniversary of the publication of Dr. Fredrick Wertham's infamous book Seduction of the Innocent, which provided an occasion to look back on an era of censorship that strangled the comics industry. The panel Sixty Years of Seduction: Rights, Wrong, and Wertham, hosted by Jeff Trexler (the Beat), managed a large and interested audience, despite a late Friday night time slot. Scenes from Sequart's new documentary about Wertham, Diagram for Delinquents (above) were shown by its director Robert A. Emmons, Jr, who was joined by Brandford W. Wright (Comic Book Nation), Carol Tilley (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), and two psychiatrists, Vasilis K. Pozios, MD and Praveen R. Kambam, MD. The panel discussed Wertham's history and influences, his methodology, his campaign against comics and his legacy. A lively discussion about comics and violence followed. This panel is available almost verbatim on Bleeding Cool.

Wertham experts: Trexler, Emmons, Wright, Tilley, Kambam and Pozios. Photo by Kim Munson.

It's always fun to get the annual update from J. Michael Straczynski, this year he told us about Joe's Comics (through Image), a comics reboot of the Twilight Zone (Dynamite), a new volume of Superman (DC) and an endless stream of film and TV projects, including his new Netflix series Sense8 with the Wachowskis. He also told us that he might finally be doing a Babylon 5 movie (yay!) and that he forged his records in order to graduate from high school. It's always something...

JMS presents new projects. Photo by Kim Munson.

Art panels are always my favorites, and this year did not disappoint. One of the most interesting panels (to me) was Temple of Art, a documentary about collaboration and the creative process featuring the work of 52 different artists. Among the artists on this HUGE panel were Grant Morrison ("I paint with words"), Bill Sienkiewicz, Barron Storey and Dave Mckean.

I'm always happy to add fun pages to our ever growing collection! This year I bought a great page from "The Slobbit" a MAD Magazine spoof drawn by Tom Richmond. That's the devious and dangerous dragon Smaug in the nose and glasses. Richmond was very nice, and was sitting at the National Cartoonist Society booth with Greg Evans, and his daughter Karen, the real Luann.

MAD's Tom Richmond. Photo by Kim Munson.

Sunday, after the annual meeting of the church of Jack Kirby, which this year included one of my favorite oddballs, artist Scott Shaw!, was one of my favorite panels, Cover Story: Art of the Cover. In this session moderated by Mark Evanier, 5 well-known artists talk about the success, failure and challenges of 5 different cover images from projects done throughout the course of their careers. The artists do not see these images ahead of time, and are often surprised by the selection. They talked about the difficulties of having to produce a relevant cover months before the script for a comic is even written, and the challenge of finding a fresh take on an established character. Artists included Mark Brooks (New X-Men); Amanda Connor (Power Girl, Harley Quinn); Fiona Staples (Saga); Jae Lee (Before Watchmen) and Stan Sakai (Usagi Dojimbo). CBR has posted an almost verbatim report on this panel, including images.

Cover Story: Moderator Evanier, with artists Connor, Staples, Brooks, Lee
and Sakai. Photo by Kim Munson.

SDCC 2013 - JMS Wins Icon Award

J. Michael Stracznski

Almost every year at SDCC, I manage to catch the spotlight panel on J. Michael Stracznski. At the beginning of the session, JMS was awarded SDCC's Icon Award and he gave a short "state of JMS" address. Since I had just seen him at the Image Expo earlier this month, the contrast in the audience was really interesting. JMS's Comic-Con session is usually a free-form affair, this year he grabbed a wireless microphone and wandered the room responding to audience questions much like he was interviewing contestants for a game show. Many of the questions at SDCC were about Babylon 5, in contrast to the comics only orientation of the fans at the more formal Image Expo session, who only had specific questions about Joe's Comics and other writing projects.

The answer to most of the Babylon 5 questions was that the series is in limbo. When the series was produced, HD/Blu-ray was not common, and none of the special effects were created in a way that they would transfer over to HD without redoing everything. A documentary about the fans and legacy of Babylon 5 is in production, and there is a video of the recent Babylon 5 20th anniversary cast reunion at Phoenix ComiCon (full session). He also talked about Sense8, the new series he is developing for NetFlix with the Wachowskis.

JMS gets Icon Award.

Patricia Tallman, CEO of Studio JMS.

JMS is an amazingly successful and prolific writer. I seek out his session every year just to hear him answer questions about the writing process. To paraphrase:

"Get out of your own way. Don't tie yourself in knots trying to fit a particular style. Writers talk on the page in their own natural voice, because your own voice is unique to your point of view and experience."

"I ask 4 questions: Who is the character? What do they really want? How far will they go to get it? Who will try to stop them & what will they go through to do it?"

Every year he ends on an encouraging note, not give in to the tyranny of reasonable voices and create good work. Borrowing from another beloved Sci-Fi film, it boils down to "Never give up, Never surrender!"

Image Expo 2013

I've been giving a lot of thought to last week's Image Expo, an event held in the theatre at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco). Unlike many of the hugely inclusive comics conventions I've become accustomed to, this event was organized solely by Image Comics to share "the state of the company" and give fans a chance to interact with comics creators in a relatively intimate setting.  The day consisted a keynote and creator introductions by Image publisher Eric Stephenson, followed by panels, signings and opportunities to buy sneak peek & variant editions of new books.

Much has been written about this event, and it's not my goal to rehash the while thing here (overview by Deb Aoki). Stephenson spoke a great deal about digital comics, that they made up 15% of the companies total sales and seemed to drive new sales of paper comics (see The Beat). He also explained that they are releasing DRM free comics, so fans can actually own their digital copy and read it on the device/app of their choice (see ARS Technica). Creators attending were Robert Kirkman, Ed Brubaker, J. Michael Strazynski, Kurtis Wiebe, Matt Fraction, Rick Remender, Jason Aaron & Jason LaTour, who all announced new projects (photos Bleeding Cool | Image Comics). There was an after party, which I missed (but Frazer Brown didn't).

What I want to address in this post is a question asked of me by Stephenson. During Straczynski's Q&A, which was moderated by Stephenson, I got up to ask a question. When I mentioned that I've attended JMS's annual session at San Diego Comic-Con every year, Stephenson asked me "What do you think we can do to make this event better?" I admit that SDCC and the Image event are so completely different that I did not know how to respond in that moment. So, here's my opinion.

Dream Police from JM Straczynski
and Mike Deodato, Jr.

I think it was a good event and Image fans are passionate enough about hearing from the comics creators to support it (there was a full house even though there was a BART strike). YBCA seems like the perfect venue. The theatre itself showcased the presentions well, but it's still an intimate space. Even from the back, you could see everything and not feel too far from the action.  YBCA has enough hallways and lobbys for signings and sales, it was occasionally crowded at peak times, but not overwhelming.

After some discussion with my lovely husband and other friends, we concluded that the event model isn't SDCC, it's Creation Entertainment, the organizer of events featuring the stars of Sci-Fi shows we all know and love. In this model, you pay for different levels of access, including special seating, lunches, receptions, yoga classes, etc.  While the Image Expo obviously has different goals, the fans are clearly hungry for interaction with the writers and artists creating work for Image. Would 5 or 6 people pay a premium to have coffee & a chat with Matt Fraction or Robert Kirkman? I bet they would. The money could be donated to the Hero Initiative, CBLDF or another cause. Anything that encourages fan interaction in a safe way would be a plus (sounds like the after party was a success on this front).

I also wish that there had been more artists among the featured guests (I believe Jason LaTour was the only one). Many of the writers profusely complimented their collaborators, but panels like "Comics & Creativity" could have been much richer if both writers and artists were present to talk about their working relationship. There was no female presence, and I'm not sure if that was the "luck of the draw" due to the slate of upcoming books, or lack of female creators working with Image in general. I was surprised, given the level of artistry involved here, that there wasn't a special promotional poster for the event (this would have been popular for signings).

These suggestions aside, I enjoyed the day, and I support Image's "creator first" model. I wish them continued success! On to San Diego!