New York Comic Con 2012

Date: October 11-14. 2012 Location: Javits Center, NY Attendance: 116,000   New York Comic Con 2012 (October 11 - 14) - 126 Photos   Thursday: Arrived a little after 3pm on Thursday and got in easy with only a little line up for press. The process of getting a badge was very easy. Friends of mine who got their tickets online said they got in quick as well. I used the $3 coat check as I did not want to wear my coat all day. No problems there. I went to the Artist Alley area that was off in a room at the north end of the convention center and it was a bit of a walk to get there. I heard from multiple artists they did not like the location as it was away from the main hall. Also the area did not have carpet so hard concrete floors were in order. I was told last year they had put the celebrities in that room, everybody assumes they didn't like being there which is why they aren't there again this year. I got the impression artists were not feeling appreciated by the convention. Everybody wants to be where the action is on the showroom floor, not put in a side off room that will not get the same level of foot traffic. I then went to my first panel. Irwin Hasen Spotlight (51:21, 47mb) Note: There is some adult language spoken on the panel. I went to the Irwin Hansen spot light panel. Everybody was there early. Irwin was funny just talking to his friends before the panel started. When the panel started, they announced that Irwin Hansen had won the election In a write in vote and played Hail to the Chief. On the panel was Irwin Hasen, Al Jaffee, Arnold Roth and Paul Levitz. The panel was moderated by Danny Fingeroth. Al Jaffee and Arnold Roth told funnies stories about Irwin, Paul Levitz talked about Irwin and Jack Kirby were two golden age artists who knew how to draw a fight and why. Irwin was funny and spoke a lot about his past and didn't pull any punches about his feelings for former publisher MC Gaines who died in a boating accident. J. David Spurlock came on the stage briefly to tell stories about Irwin. Along the way Irwin's book The LoverBoy was plugged. They sold some books for $25 at the end of the panel. There was roughly about 75 people in the audience. Throughout the panel we could hear the panel happening next door when they got loud, this was a problem in multiple panels I was at. There was no water for the panelists and an audience member gave Irwin a water bottle from his bag. This was fixed for all panels going forward. I spent much of Thursday wandering around the convention floor. The Javits center is different from most conventions centers. It has a bunch of smaller rooms on a variety of floors which was confusing. It's easy to completely miss a large room where many venders are set up, unless you are keenly checking your map to visit all the rooms. Whenever I did ask the NYCC staff/helpers I usually got the correct answer on where I was to go. The hallways are not carpeted, which was different too.   Friday: I was staying around the corner from a shuttle bus pick up stop. I went there and waited between 10 and 10:30 and no bus came. Other people were waiting and eventually they left to walk to the con. I did too and helped a family was also waiting that didn't know the way. In blocks around the con, they had people with signs directing people to walk down certain ways because of road construction around the convention. One of the kids that I was walking to the con with was dressed up as Phoenix and it was funny to see some regular New Yorker's heads crank when they saw her walking by. New York is not yet San Diego when it comes to comic con awareness. There was a lot of construction going on and on 1 building there were a bunch of workers in hard hats watching in amazement at all the people walking to the convention, pointing out those in costumes. Brian Wood & Dark Horse (56:20, 51.5mb) Interviewed by Dark Horse editor Jeremy Atkins, Brian Wood talks about his new series The Massive as well as his upcoming Star Wars work. He said the Massive will be about 24-30 issues tops. He said he doesn't want to develop really long series anymore, particularly after preparing for one at DC that was canceled early. They announced that Brian is doing a new Star Wars book that's just going to be titled Star Wars (no subtitles) and it's taking place after the Death Star gets blown up. The book features the main Star Wars characters (Luke, Han, Leia, etc..) and he said what is different about this (and why Lucasfilm liked it) is that it focuses more on Leia's roll in being an active fighter for the resistance. He said the movies always showed her as one, but the comics stories did not show this as much. Brian mentioned he was at a Star Wars convention recently and it made a big impact on him. Said that Star Wars literally appeals to people from 2 years old to 70 and he saw both types. He also found Star Wars fans to be very easy going and are just enjoying the work. He said fans of other properties he works on (mentioned X-men and Conan fans) can be rougher on the people working on those characters. Brian said he really enjoyed the X-Wing focused novels he read when they were published and said there is going to be a lot of X-Wing action in his stories. The audience asked some questions and he revealed he doesn't try to draw stuff for his artists, except in special circumstances. He mentioned one of his artists knew English as a second language and he would just draw out the panel shapes for him as it was easier for everybody. He did say he's very particular about the design of his covers and drove Fiona Staples nuts on DMZ. A fan had brought up Couriers, a creator owned work that was just collected and put back in print. He said the Couriers was optioned for a movie 7 years ago but nothing has been done with it. He said the original artist is no longer drawing comics, instead he became a Chef. The two did talk about doing another book if the movie gets made a long time ago. There were about 300 people at this panel. Grant Morrison Spotlight (53:21, 48.8mb) The panel had started a couple of minutes late. It was held in a big, long room with a big screen TV in the middle of it. They started off talking about Grant Morrison's new series Happy. He had answered questions about 20 minutes in from the audience. He talked about superheroes, Superman in particular. He also talked about Multiversity. During the chat he scribbled down an idea he came up while chatting and jokingly said that was going to be his next 12 issue maxi series. Grant is doing a series called Annihilator at Legendary Comics. He said while he was working on superhero books he was thinking up creator owned projects. He talked about his love of Kirby and how he would come up with ideas that could be developed into something big and just throw them away, sometimes new ideas will be on every panel on every page. He thinks all comics should be like that. He revealed he has written (and paid well for) 3 screenplays but they've not yet been turned into movies. He said his last one was Dinosaurs vs. Aliens. When asked about bringing the DC Universe to life he said he did that, but it fancies Geoff Johns over him. Somebody had asked him about juggling multiple projects at the same time. Grant reveals he never says no to a project. He says he works 24/7 to make it all happen. Says everybody else has to figure out in their own way to do the same. Says you just need to learn to love doing the work. Grant said he does like Jeff Lemire's Animal Man, but doesn't like the idea of the Red (introduced during Jamie Delano's run on the character) because he had already built an explanation in regards to living things being connected. He said it feels like they are turning the Animal Man book into more Swamp Thing like. He gave praise to Bill Finger, saying he was the best Batman writer. Grant said he would like to finish 18 days as it was supposed to be a 22 part webisode. He said it's still out there and they are trying to make a movie out of it. Grant talked a bit about Superhero theory. He thinks Batman is an adventure character and they shouldn't ascribe sexuality to him (in regards to Batman/Robin being Gay). The panel was moderated by Kim Alexander of SiriusXM (satellite radio). Joe Simon Memorial (57:13, 52.3mb) On the panel was Emily Groben (Joe Simons Grand Daughter), Jim Simon (Joe's son), Dave Gibbons, Paul Levitz, and Angelo Torres. The panel was moderated by Steve Saffel. Angelo talked about working with Simon on The Fly (for Archie) and eventually Sick magazine. He revealed Joe loved Fiffers Sick, Sick, Sick book and took the title from there. Paul Levitz revealed how DC editorial thought that Prez #1 would change the industry and was as important as Action #1. They asked him to write an article to say that. He got to read the story via original art while at DC, had to write the article there and they inspected it before he left. Dave Gibbons talked about being a fan of Joe Simons work and talked about being able to talk to Simon on the phone at last years San Diego. Jim talked about how his father was hard to work for because things had to be done his way. He did say he loved his father and he was an excellent one but they had their ups and downs when working together. Emily, who took care of Joe in the last few years of his life, talked about waking Joe up and showing him that his and Kirby's Crime stories reprint book was a New York Times best seller. The panel also revealed the Joe has twin teenage daughters with a psychic connection (a story was told about how they each knew where the other was in a shopping mall). Angelo told a funny story about getting Al Williamson to redo his work again for Joe. Other family members told stories about Joe too. It was also revealed that Joe Simon fought to get Jack Kirby's name on the Captain America movie as a co-creator, something Marvel did not want to do. He also negotiated on Jack's family's behalf on getting an advance and advanced royalties on their reprint work. Paul Levitz talked about how really only Joe and Eisner were the business oriented creators from the Golden Age who were good at negotiating for their rights. Paul explained how the other creators were fresh out of high school with no knowledge of the business aspect of comics. Gibbons talked about how these (often teenagers) were making up on the fly how to do comics back then. They also showed some video of Joe Simon talking about his early career prior to and getting into comics. Mark Waid showed up towards the end of the panel and apologized for missing it. He told a story about he and Brian Augustyn visiting his studio. Waid said they were expecting a dry comic history retelling and instead Simon was asking them about what was new in comics. At the end they had everybody look under their seats for a ticket to win Simon's new biography. There were about 150 people in the audience. I found the shuttle bus to be not worth the wait at night. A very long line up of people to get on for hotels that were all of 10 minute walk from the con.   Saturday: On Saturday they had security checking the bags for Press/Pro's and exhibitors as they entered the Javitz center. I'm not sure why. Also, the door that Press/Pro's and exhibitors had to go in was in the middle of the line that fans had to go in. NYCC had people on the street directing people where to go to get into the con, blocking them from going down certain blocks. By following them I had to walk against a long line of fans to get into the con (I wasn't allowed in through the regular fan door). I managed to get in the normal way on Sunday by ignoring one of their volunteers and walking through one of the forbidden blocks. The Image Comics Experience (57:33, 52.7mb) A group of male image comic creators were on this panel to talk about their upcoming work and other books being announced. On the panel was Kieron Gillen, Andy Diggle, James Asmus, Jim Festante, Jim McCann and Jonathan Hickman. The panel was moderated by Eric Stephenson. They quickly announced what new works the group was doing and let the audience ask questions. They spent some time talking about breaking into Image. They gave advice about how to work through when parts of a story isn't working. They broke down how to make a full story into a comic book issue by issue series. The group revealed they often get new ideas in the shower or while driving. They also get them from reading non fiction (something writers do a lot of). They also talked about being a writer/editor and dealing with the negative aspects of being an editor to your artist. There was more than 200 people in the room. The showroom on Saturday was incredibly jammed. By far the most people squished together I've seen at a convention. This made browsing/shopping difficult. Everybody was just walking around as stopping would jam up the isle. I did not get many cosplay pics this year because of this. It was almost impossible to get pics on the showroom floor. Garth Ennis & Avatar (44:18, 40.5mb) Moderated by Avatar owner William Christensen. The panel started about 10 minutes late. They announced they are doing Live Action Crossed webisodes, leading to a Crossed movie that Garth is writing and direction and Avatar is funding. Christensen revealed they are doing the film so there won't be "no studio bullshit." They film rights were sold but they just recently got them back. The webisodes will be rated R and the DVD will be not rated. Garth revealed he is going back to Crossed once a year and do 3-4 issues. He'll be back with issue #25 and again with issue #50. Garth revealed he is doing 6 new series, half with Avatar, half with Dynamite. He says he is comfortable with the independent companies right now. Said he could be back to Punisher or Fury if he gets a really good idea for a story though. He took questions from the audience. Garth revealed he had Boys all planned out from the start as he felt this was a series that would last until it was finished. Said he finished writing the Boys a year ago. He talked about the Boys being optioned and it looks like the option is being renewed but no movie is being made at this moment. Garth revealed he's a hardcore atheist and getting more hardcore with each year. He thinks Preacher is considered blasphemy by religious people and isn't likely to get put on TV. Said the message is that God is real and he's a dick, which nobody wants to sink a lot of money into it as it's a very risky gamble. Garth says he doesn't hate superheroes but he didn't grow up reading them. What he doesn't like is the stranglehold the sub-genre has on the comic book marketplace. He said he dies a little when he goes into a comic book store and it's mostly superheroes. He wishes comics was more like books and movies with a wide variety of genres. He said he doesn't read comics, with the exception of Saga. He revealed that Hughie in Boys being Simon Pegg was kind of an accident and not something he intended, that was the artists doing. Cassidey in Preacher was inspired by the Near Dark film. Said he's somebody that appears to be all right but the closer you get to him the more ugly he gets. He thinks Alien is the best horror film. He thinks horror should be horror, he doesn't like that it's gotten so mainstream and that the classic characters are now humanized and even been made cute. Garth said Alan Moore's 2000AD work kept him reading comics. Thinks Miracle/Marvel Man was the best of Alan's 80s work. He might write a novel at some point. More Dick's are coming. He revealed there was a British character named Johnny Red and he would write that in an instant if it were offered to him. There were about 200 people in the audience. Hellboy in Hell with Mike Mignola (56:32, 51.7mb) Panelists include Mike Mignola, Scott Allie, James Harren and Tyler Crook. They announced some new Hellboy books. Mignola will be doing a Hellboy in Hell story. Mignola revealed there is no word on a 3rd Hellboy movie. Also not likely to be an animated Hellboy movie without a live action movie to push it. Mignola has been away from Hellboy for a while now and he's back drawing it and that's all he wants to do right now. He says there won't be anymore Screw On Head stories. He feels he nailed it on the first go and has nothing more to say about the character. He advised a young artist to do what they wanted and not something they think will be commercial. Mignola is influenced by painters, for comics Kirby and Starlin were his comic influences. He talked a bit about creating monsters. He said he doesn't want to do any Hellboy crossovers (Scott Alley said crossovers are not fun to do). Mignola mentioned he fell in love with this old Jewish cemetery that got used in Hellboy and others movies (From Hell being one). He said they have an area where a movie studio can make their own plots and the rest of the cemetery is the background. Mignola said he tries to keep his Hellboy stories self contained. The two artists told stories about loving a Hellboy story as a fan and later being able to draw the follow up to the story when working on the series. Mignola revealed that Duncan (Fegredo) can draw women better than he can and because of this Hellboy was able to have a relationship in his series. Mignola said he doesn't read comics but does like Jim Wooding. All the artists talked about working digitally. There were about 300 people in the audience.   Sunday: Image Comics - Female Creators (58:16, 53.3mb) Moderated by Jennifer de Guzman. On the panel was Christine Larsen, Alex de Campi, Amy Reeder, Fiona Staples, Ming Doyle and Jordie Bellaire. Each of them told their origin stories on how they got into comics. Alex De Campi praised the Philadelphia area for having a women friendly comics community. Alex revealed She loved Elfquest and Asterix, then got into X-men with mohawk punk storm. Amy Reeder started by reading Manga and getting in with TokyoPop. Fiona worked at a comic shop, he big break was doing a movie adaptation comic. Ming said she was drawing alternative costumes on superheroes and posted them on her livejournal. Then she started getting offers for work. She also broke into comics on the same book Fiona worked on. None of them broke in the usual Marvel/DC way. A fan asked about a story floating around online about a big two editor telling an artist their autonomy was wrong and to look up Sports illustrated swimsuit issues to get it right. The panelists all talked about drawing bodies in different ways. Fiona mentioned she was given freedom to design the Saga characters. Alex talked about she's noticed female artists pay more attention to the fashion that kids and teens wear. They talked more about beauty and different body types. Talked about working with Male writers and artists. Alex talked about being bullied by male artists. All the creators took turn recommending other books by female creators. They talked about elitism and "only" groups, both for and against. They gave advise to a male writer regarding writing female characters. Everybody's eyes lit up when somebody asked about female action heroes having a male mindset but in a female body. At the end they gave away grab bags of comics to people that asked questions and leftovers to anybody that came up. There was about 200 people at the panel. I was not able to get around and ask dealers how the show went for them as I had to leave early to catch the last train out that day. It did appear that Artists Alley was popular and the artists were busy and happy though, which was nice after the disappointment many of them expressed at the beginning of the con. A number of them told me they never even ventured onto the main floor themselves because of how busy they heard it was. The Javits Center also had issues with their escalators breaking down constantly during the convention. In short the place was not built for large scale consumer conventions, it was more designed for lower volume business to business shows. But next year the construction will be done and they'll have an extra 90,000 square feet to use and it will be interesting how that impacts the convention. I will be going again next year. As always you can find the above panels and other comic convention panel recordings at http://www.TheComicBooks.com/audio.html   Regards, Jamie Coville http://www.TheGraphicNovels.com News and discussion on a free, Delphi like forum.

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Text Copyright © 2012 Jamie Coville About the Author E-mail: jcoville@kingston.net