Marvel's Con Signing Schedule

It took some sleuthing, but we found it. Click here for the schedule.

Gearing Up For the Con

Greetings faithful readers from your not-so-faithful editors. Shame on us. We know, we've slacked. We wish there was a good excuse, but suffice it to say life, work, travel, etc. have intervened. However, in the last week our mind has turned almost exclusively to comics.

For one, in years past when we went to Comic-Con were were a little unprepard. We knew which issues we wanted to get signed, but sometimes they were diffiicult to locate. Our filing system alphabetically seperated each title in one of two categories: ongoing or limited and cancelled series. That proved to be unworkable. So, about two weeks ago we merged those two cetergories into one. Then we downloaded a free copy of Comic Collector Live, a free software which tracks and organizes your collection, and allows collectors to purchase and sell to each other, among other features. Although we found the software a bit clunkly, it was still useful. Perhaps after more time using the program, it'll become more workable. We've yet to try any of the features beyond the organization of the collection. Now we have a grand total of 4125 comics, a respectable # but nothing that will win us any awards. It took us, on average, 3 hours to do 4 longboxes. What really slows you down are variant covers - do you have them or not? Noting signed comics is truly a pain, though we have relatively few of those so it wasn't all that overwhelming.

Comic-Con 2008 is completely sold out, so if you don't have your tickets yet and you are planning on heading down to San Diego, it's probably not worth your trouble. In all the years we have gone, we have yet to notice folks trying to pawn off tickets. Logistically, that would be difficult unless the person is selling the laniard and pass. This isn't like a Grateful Dead Show where you can just hope for a "miracle."

The Programming Schedule is up and complete. Click here to find out more. For our money, Sunday's pretty lackluster this year, so perhaps we'll plan a trip back to the Zoo, Wild Animal Park, Sea World or various museums. We've already got all day Monday as well, so it'll be a nice change of pace from moving like cattle through the convention center. Also be sure to check out the film pages too to help plan your visit.

Our signing plans aren't complete. Although DC and Marvel haven't yet published their signing schedules as far as we know, we've got our last batch of David Mack comics to get signed. This will get us through the present and all the random past issues we have acquired over the years (one of the positives of organizing the collection) Mack, for our money, is the most innovative artist working in comics today and a genuinely nice guy. Check out his Kabuki series, as well as work on a recent New Avengers cover. Mack will be at the Image booth.

Also at Image will be the Luna Brothers, creators of Ultra, Girls, and the Sword, some of the most originally and engaging comics of the last 5 or so years. We'll be sure to get some of their work signed too.

This year we got a hotel closer to the con. Last year we were out at the Sheraton. Although a nice hotel and on the free shuttle line, it was very far removed from the action. This year we happened to make reservations at the Sofia Hotel, an historic hotel about 8 blocks from the convention center. We're really looking forward to taking advantage more of the downtown core during this trip.

Now for the bad news: We're 75% sure that we won't be attending the con in 2009. Why? The cost of hotels. Between our flight and membership, we spent about $200. Our hotel- to be sure one of the most reasonable con hotels out there - is running $165/night + tax. After 5 nights, that really adds up. We're looking at international travel next year for about the same price. Depending on exchange rates, we may avoid Europe and look to Peru, Costa Rica or some other great opportunity. The con will still be there in 2009. All of this wouldn't be necessary if there were more competitive hotels in the mix. We firmly believe that the Con needs to move to Las Vegas, and not because we live there, but because of the amount of convention space (allowing the Con to grow) and the availability of rooms. Sure it'll be hot, but that's what air conditioning's for.

That's about all from us. Look for pictures from the Con, and perhaps even posting directly from the convention floor as Wi-Fi is free there this year.

Thanks for being faithful readers.

Regards,

Your Slacker Editor Mister Fanboy

Catwoman Book to Be Put Down?

We found this little of giblet of craptacularness on Newsarama today buried in their coverage of the New York Comic-Con:

"I heard a rumor online - is Catwoman getting cancelled?" DiDio: "That is true, actually." He added that doesn't mean you won't be seeing the character in the DC Universe.

If it's true, that just plain sucks. It's a great book that's solidly written and drawn. Whereas I think most of DC's uber -events suck, because I find them long-winded, confusing, and unsatisfying, it's little books like Catwoman that are in the trenches dealing with more personal issues that are so much more gratifying. Perhaps that's why my pull list has been heavier on the Marvel side than DC for the last few years.

Top 4 Reasons I Don't Care That Big Barda Is Dead

This past week there's been quite the kerfuffle about Big Barda's death (appearing off panel, apparently, which I agree, is a total cop out and cheat). Perhaps I will get flack for this, but here are the top 4 reasons why I don't care.

1) After the fiasco that was Infinite Crisis, I have foresworn all DC crossovers. I skipped 52 -- even though from what I gather there were a plethora of interesting story threads, and won't touch Countdown or the Death of the New Gods with a 10 foot pole. I know this is controversial, but I find DC's crossovers too convoluted and steeped in way too much continuity to be enjoyable; as such, I prefer Marvel's. The irony of this being said on a blog called Mister Fanboy is not lost on me. Because her death happened in one of the aforementioned DC crossovers, I have doubts that it matters one wit and won't be retconned during the next big event in such a way that it causes even more confusion. Say what you will about Marvel's big events - and I am sure you will - but theirs tend be much more finite and self-contained.

2) Big Barda means nothing to me (sadly, the same goes for her husband, Mr. Miracle). Sorry, but for one reason or another, her storylines/books were never the ones that I read. That by no means implies that she wasn't a worthwhile character, but it means I'm not all that familiar with her. Even when a gifted writer such as Gail Simone featured her in her last Birds of Prey arc, I didn't get much of a feel for her - or why I should really like her. Perhaps that was due to the fact that there were so many other female heroes in the story and it was hard to make Barda shine, but she vaguely came across as like the Hulk - Barda Smash!

3) I liked Knockout better. Using the work of Simone again, through Villains United, Secret Six, and then Birds of Prey (again), I really learned to like Barda's fellow New Godsian (?, or whatever). The cynical amongst you might say that because I am a guy, and because Knockout was in a same-sex relationship with Scandal, of course I would like her. However, that's not really the case. I appreciated her brashness (which I got the sense that Simone was getting at with Barda herself, but just didn't work for me). I bring up Knockout for two reasons. A) She had a similar origin to Big Barda and I learned to like her and appreciate her first, without being exposed to what I have come to learn is a confusing backstory for all of the New Gods and B) I was actually sad when she got killed (although super-miffed that there was no follow-up in Birds of Prey - thanks Editors!)

4) It's fiction. Character's die. They are then often resurrected. Phoenix. Psylocke. Ice. And the list goes on and on. Perhaps it's finite, but that doesn't mean the writer is directing this at you (reader) specifically. But then again, if Dazzler were to truly bite the dust in continuity, I would be pissed as all get out too and therefore happily be wearing the label of a true hypocrite. I think this goes back to my 2nd point in that the character never really resonated for me.

I was going to include a 5th reason, but I just couldn't think of one.

So, there you have it. Give me a reason why I should care. Seriously. Why am I wrong? Or am I right? Why is the world shaped like a triangular burrito? Discuss.

Comic-Con Day 2 Report

Curse you Blogger. We wrote this post once already and then it disappeared when doing a Spell Check.

As a result, here’s a brief version.

Lots of comics signed by:

Our favorite, David Mack

Peter David, including information on upcoming
hardcover from IDW of Fallen Angel and goings-ons in X-Factor

Gail Simone where we professed our sadness over her leaving Birds of Prey, our fondness of Welcome to Tranquility, and the excitement a certain female blogger has over her penning Wonder Woman (you know who you are).

Also of interest:

Dan Slott showed us images from an upcoming issue of She-Hulk and discussed a brief cameo of Squirrel Girl in the animated Fantastic Four.

We attended the Mondo Marvel panel, but there’s nothing we could tell you that other blogs haven’t already reported, except that Marvel Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada has lost a ton of weight since last year.

The Babylon 5 panel, regarding the direct to DVD film to be released tomorrow, was a blast. Bruce Boxleitner, Tracy Scoggins, JMS, and Peter Woodward, among others, were present.

All of Comic-Con officially sold out all 4 days today.

Although it’s crowded here, the organizers seem to have done a nice job considering. We still think they should consider relocating it to Vegas.

We pretty much dropped the ball on Photos for Friday, but the crack Mister Fanboy Photographic Team was in full force on Saturday. Look for a post and more photos tomorrow.

Comic-Con day 1 Report:

Day 1 has come and gone and we’re not sure what we’ve got to show for it. Perhaps it’s because we only visited one full and two half panels. Perhaps it was the early flight, checking into our hotel and the late arrival. Or maybe it was the ½ mile line just for pre-registered attendees to register. On top of all of that, we totally dropped the ball in taking photos and the ones we did pretty much sucked. Whatever our problems were, here’s a blow by blow …

The line to register sucked. We did not encounter nearly as many problems and we cannot tell you why. Let’s be honest. Comic-Con needs to consider a different location. It’s grown way too unwieldy for San Diego to handle – and we really like San Diego. Perhaps Vegas? And we’re not just saying that because we live there. We’re saying that because there’s lots more convention space and accommodations.

The exhibit hall was packed, as we expected. Saturday will just be insane. Last we heard they had less than 2000 tickets for tomorrow left, so we wouldn’t be surprised if it already sold out.

David Mack continued to be very gracious and signed about 15 issues for us. We also bought his new children’s book The Shy Creatures, which spun out of Kabuki: Alchemy in a way.

It’ll be out in bookstores and ye oldde comic shoppes soon. We warned him that we had more to bring each day this weekend. He truly is the nicest and one of the most talented guys in the industry today. He’s at the Image booth if you’re able to attend. His significant other – her name escapes me unfortunately – is very kind as well. We’ll be back there tomorrow and will hopefully get some pix.

Mondo Marvel Panel: Oddly, it seemed anticlimactic. Sure they announced a new Captain Marvel title, but after Civil War: The Return who didn’t see that coming. JMS was interesting … but we’re more interested in his panel on the new Babylon 5 direct-to-DVD title out next week.

It was announced that Marvel beat DC at their annual softball game 16-9, which oddly mirrors Marvels recent sales dominance in terms of $’s. Other things we’re announced that we didn’t care too much about. Way too much discussion of the Iron Man movie for our tastes (we admit, we never warmed up to the creator, regardless of his sheer disckishness a la Civil War).

Film director and well known actor Jon Favre stopped by. Machine Man will be showing up as a supporting character in Ms. Marvel and will be drinking a lot (yippee). That’s about all we remember.

We also accidentally went to the 1st half of a panel on the new Demon’s of Mercy game, for which Marvel did an exclusive comic that we got.

Amber Benson (Buffy’s Tera) did one of the voices. She looked stoned as a goat.

Marvel handed out variant editions of New Avengers #31 (the Skrull issue), but it’s basically a B and W rendering of the original cover. But still, it’s nice.

After a very leisurely dinner, we couldn’t get a seat for the upcoming Superman/Doomsday DVD, which didn’t sadden us too much. We did attend the Kung Fun/Superhero Film Extravaganza which we truly liked. However, all of the walking and traveling of the day really hit us and we had to take the shuttle back to our hotel for some shuteye, but we thought we’d do this post for you all first.

Finally we did pick up some swag for our dear friend Amy Reads over at Arrogant Self-Reliance, that we’ll give her the details about next week. Sorry we’ve been so bad about visiting the blog lately Amy. More swag updates tomorrow.

That’s all for today. Not too sure if we’ll have internet access during the rest of the stay or not. If not, look for an update on Monday.

Marvel's Civil War Done By PBS.

Updated: Can someone please explain why we can no longer post You Tube videos with the new blogger? Click here to see the video.

Imagine if Ken Burns worked for the Daily Bugle, or with Marvel's intrepid reporters Manoli or Conan (named after NPR's Neal Conan, by the way), and reported on the recent Civil War story. Imagine no more! See the clip. You know you want to. We found this over at the Blog At Newsarama, which actually found it at iFanboy (how in the world did we not know about this site?). Does this mean we'll be seeing something similar this Fall, what with DC's upcoming World War III story and Ken Burns' upcoming World War II documentary series?

Sure it's about the wrong Civil War, but we thought Dali's work above was a nice change.

Proselytizing Penance's Pain Points

Yeah, we know this happened a few weeks ago, but were unable to dish about it then, so here we go.

Here's a quick primer: Speedball was a member of the New Warriors, with his powers based on kinetic energy, or some other quasi-scientific explanation that doesn't really make sense to us. He was the one member of the New Warriors to survive Nitro's blast that leveled parts of Stamford, Connecticut, which in turn resulted in the Civil War mini series. Perhaps you're familiar with it. (Editor's Note: We still waiting for Microbe to reappear, perhaps taking on the properties of super high heat bacteria, a la hydrothermal vents. Yes, it's just a theory.)

At the risk of sounding like a Marvel shill, Civil War: Front Line is a quite useful addendum to the Civil War mini. It's in Front Line that we learn that Speedball (Robbie Baldwin) survived. He had a rough road to hoe- society, his family, and many other heroes feel that he was to blame for the tragedy in Stamford, whereas he pointed out that Nitro was the one who actually killed folks (even though the New Warriors attacked across the street from a school). He was placed in the Negative Zone prison, and then trotted out to speak before congress. On his way into the hearing, a distraught parent shot him. The end result was that his powers went awry.

Up until this point we have enjoyed Front Line (heck, we're in the blogging minority in that we are enjoying Civil War in general). However, issue #10 really bothered us. Speedball apparently can no longer access his powers without inflicting pain on himself. It's a bit vague to us as well (for a brief description, albeit in the context of the Thunderbolts, which we will get to later, read the Newsarama article here). He has a costume developed with hundreds of internal pain points to represent all of the persons he - in his mind- had a hand in killing. The result is that he won't be able to use his powers without injuring himself in some way and every time he does, he will have to think of those he has impacted. He forswears his previous identities and will now to try and atone for his sins. Hence the name Penance.

So anyway, the problem we have with the character is the pain points inside the costume. It seems all too gulag-ish to us. I mean, was Paul Jenkins (the author) doing investigative reporting in the Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay Prisons when he wrote this? We like harsh. We like dark. We are not fond of self-immolation in our funny books. At the same time, the idea that he must think of the Stamford victims, is good for the character and will undoubtedly offer many great storytelling opportunities in the future.

Moving on, Penance will soon join the relaunched Thunderbolts, joining villains and reformed-villains on the team. Within the context of the relaunched title, we think the character will work. We do not, however, think it's necessary for him to injure himself. What kind of message does this send? Marvel has it's "no smoking policy" (and depending on whom you are speaking with, a "no gay character" policy), so why not a "no self-mutilation" policy? Now before you get all high and mighty on us, we know that for Wolverine to use his claws, they have to break free of his skin. But Wolverine has a healing factor. As far as we know, Penance does not (and if he did, we think it would undermine what they're trying to do with the character). It's this element that we have a major issue with.