C2E2 Report: Marvel – The Next Big Thing

 

 

Not to be outdone, Marvel had me scrambling out of the Batman panel to secure a spot in Marvel: The Next Big Thing. While the X-Men, Spider-Man, and Batman still rule the roost, Marvel’s made huge strides with some of their less famous characters lately and this was the place to hear about it.

Nick Lowe, our moderator and editor of Spider-Man and Moon Knight, took a moment to thank the Chicago fans before introducing the panelists. The first was Mike Marts, an Executive Editor, newly returned from DC’s Batman office. Lowe asked him what it was like to be back. Marts replied that it felt like slipping on an old shoe. Lowe was not entirely thrilled with the analogy, leading Marts to amend his statement, “A shoe that makes a lot of great movies.” Next up was Joshua Hale Fialkov, the writer of Ultimate FF. After him came Charles Soule, the writer of Thunderbolts, Inhuman, and She-Hulk, the last of which received particular applause. Then came James Robinson, writer of Fantastic Four and All-New Invaders. A trio of artists rounded out the panel; Mahmud Asrar, Wolverine and the X-Men; Ryan Stegman, Wolverine; and Skottie Young, both writer and artist on Rocket Racoon.

C2E2 Report: Tim Seeley – Matters of Life and Death

Tim Seeley has been making waves for a long time with creator owned series like Hack/Slash and Revival but recently he’s begun commuting to Gotham City to write Batman: Eternal and Grayson for DC. A skilled writer and a talented illustrator, Seeley is a prolific creator, drawing covers for numerous companies and penning clever, often unsettling, scripts month after month.

With so many interesting projects on his plate, I knew it would be worth my while to seek Seeley out at C2E2, in his hometown of Chicago. Tim was kind enough to speak to me during his live sketching session, the results of which you can see in this article. Read on to hear about Seeley’s process, his thoughts on death and horror, and comics like Revival/Chew, “The Body”, and Grayson.

C2E2 Report: DC Comics – Batman

Saturday was a big day for this year’s C2E2, with a lot of DC and Marvel’s biggest panels taking place. Besides entry in the morning, the longest line I saw all weekend was for this panel. Hundreds of fans filed through the doors of the convention’s largest panel space, and with good reason.

As things got started, John Cunningham, DC’s Marketing VP, introduced us to our panelists: James Tynion IV, former writer of Red Hood and the Outlaws and Talon and an architect of Batman: Eternal; Scott Snyder, writer for Batman, lead writer for Batman: Eternal, and all-around Batman superfan; Jason Fabok and Dustin Nguyen, the two artists for Batman: Eternal; Patrick Gleason and Peter Tomasi, the artist and writer, respectively, on Batman and _____; and Jim Chadwick, an editor with DC’s digital division who works on Batman ‘66, among others.

Cunningham started by reminding us that this year is the 75^th anniversary of Batman and promised a slew of celebration, most clearly embodied in a “Batman Day” sometime this July. He also mentioned the two animated shorts commissioned for the anniversary and, as a thank you, revealed that we’d be screening them before the panel began.

Unfortunately there was some technical trouble, kicking off a friendly rivalry between Cunningham and the people running the projector.

Unable to resolve the problem immediately, we turned to the comics.

The first book mentioned was Grayson, which received a warm reception, but just as quickly as it was brought up, Cunningham informed us that he couldn’t talk about it yet. Instead Scott Snyder took the opportunity to enlist the audience in a campaign to make sure that DC used the slogan that he and the other writers had come to love, “You think you know Nightwing, but you don’t know Dick.” It seemed to take off with the fans. DC had actually published the line in the Grayson #1 solicit a few days earlier, but after this panel I’m sure they were pleased that they went ahead with it.

Next on the docket was Batman and Scott Snyder’s “Zero Year” storyline, which has just entered its final phase, “Savage City”. Snyder, ever eager to share with the fans had thrown in a couple of extra slides into the presentation as a thank you. “You guys are our bosses,” he said, quoting a sentiment that drives he and Greg Capullo’s work on the title.

C2E2 Report: Wolverine – 3 Months to Die

 

Though I didn’t plan it this way, my final panel of C2E2 was Marvel’s Wolverine: 3 Months to Die. And while I regret not being able to see a couple of the later panels, I can’t say that it was a bad note to go out on. Full of interesting questions and big announcements, it was definitely one of the most exciting panels of the weekend. And so with that in mind, I’ve decided to skip ahead and write about it early.

Before beginning, Mike Marts warned us that, “in true Marvel fashion you should stay till the end of the credits. And on that ominous note he introduced our panelists, Charles Soule, writer of nearly everything including The Death of Wolverine and Thunderbolts; Jason Latour, writer of Wolverine and the X-Men; Russell Dauterman, the artist on the upcoming Cyclops ongoing; Jordan White, the fantastically mustachioed editor of Deadpool and Thunderbolts; Mahmud Asrar, the artist on Wolverine and the X-Men; and Greg Pak, who might have seemed a strange addition to those who had not yet heard the rumors.

The panel started with Dauterman, who was unequivocal in his glee and honor at being invited to work on Cyclops alongside Greg Rucka. Dauterman attributed much of his love of the X-Men, Marvel, and comics to X-Men: The Animated Series. With an impish gleam in his eye, Jordan White immediately leaned forward and invited us to take part in a ukulele sing-along of the show’s classic theme song, despite its lacking any discernible words. Unfortunately the internet has thus far failed in its basic purpose by not providing a video of the event, though a quick search can probably turn up video of other instances. Regardless, take my word that it was extremely well received.

Marts then turned to Wolverine and the X-Men. He asked Mahmud Asrar who his favorite character to draw was. Asrar had trouble with the question, saying that they’re all growing on him, but settled upon Storm. Latour mentioned that the series has been juggling quite a bit but that we’re getting to the point in the opening arc where things start to fall.

Then Marts pulled up the covers for Wolverine 8-12, the titular “3 Months to Die” storyline, one at a time. I imagine the reaction was just about exactly what Marvel was hoping for but, of course, it’s hard to deny the striking power of the images.

While the first of “3 Months to Die”’s five issues drops in June the title is entirely literal, as Charles Soule’s The Death of Wolverine will be released weekly in September. Soule described the miniseries as hitting fast and hard and explained that it would consider how Logan explores his own mortality after over a century of life and relative safety. He also revealed that each issue will look at a different time in Logan’s life and, by extension, another Wolverine.

C2E2 Report: Different Perspectives – An Interview with Russell Dauterman

Some of you may not have heard of Russell Dauterman yet, but that’s likely about to change. Dauterman was the artist on the excellent Supurbia, closed out the last two issues of Kyle Higgins’ Nightwing run with a bang, and is now going to be launching the new Cyclops title for Marvel.

Russell has a unique and beautiful style and such a wonderful love for the material that I knew I had to talk to him and, thankfully, he was gracious enough to give us a bit of his time this past weekend at C2E2. Join me as we discuss character, representation, and working in the industry.

C2E2 Report: Inside the Creator’s Studio with Mark Waid and Buddy Scalera

Not to get ahead of myself, one of the big lessons of C2E2 for me was how much I love it when creators speak honestly. It’s fun to hear announcements, but they’ll be on Bleeding Cool soon enough anyway. No, while all the traditional elements of the con experience you imagine are great, there’s something special about conventions that dismantles the strange, often artificial barriers between creators and fans. I’ll probably talk about this again before my coverage of C2E2 is over, but rarely was this fact more apparent than in Buddy Scalera’s Inside the Creator’s Studio with Mark Waid.

Things took a few minutes to get off the ground. First Mark Waid was late and then Scalera needed a moment to get things in order. Before Waid arrived, Scalera talked to us about illegal torrenting and the serious threat that he felt it posed to the industry. In the latter interim, Waid showed us all a magic trick. It was the purest silliness but it set a familiar vibe for the panel.

Scalera’s first questions were about Waid’s childhood and how it influenced his writing. Waid said that his family’s frequent moves were a fairly significant part of his experience. Scalera then brought up the theme of family in Waid’s writing. Mark said that while his relationship with his family was not a bad one it was not particularly strong and that he left home in his mid-teens. He also mentioned that growing up in small southern towns influenced him significantly. Growing up in the 60s Waid really saw a significant cultural evolution in the more ‘traditional’ areas of the country. He pointed to the realization that some of his racist relatives were still fundamentally good people limited by the culture they grew up in as a significant one, one that taught him about the complexity of good and evil.