The Comic-Con That Was

This year’s con was a huge improvement over the previous one.  If only for the fact that I didn’t lose my badge on Saturday.  Then again, I was only there for two days, so the window for things to go wrong was just that much smaller.  Aside from the always enjoyable (and usually fruitful) searches through the half-off bins, I attended a few panels as well.  One of them was great, even though a key panelist didn’t show up.  The others weren’t bad by any stretch of the imagination.  Even so, I still had plenty of time to go out for dinner with Steve (and John on Friday) and play videogames at his place during the evening.  Did you know that you can rescue Hideo Kojima in “Metal Gear Solid V:  Ground Zeroes?”  It’s like he knew what was going to happen to him once “The Phantom Pain” was completed!

Wait, where was I?  Oh right, the panels:

Image Comics:  Where Creators Own Process:

Moderated by David Brothers, this panel had creators Gabriel Hardman and Corinna Bechko talk about their series “The Invisible Republic” and Nick Dragotta and (eventually) Jonathan Hickman discuss “East of West.”  I wasn’t all that interested in the former team — they are the team who gave us the underwhelming “Star Wars:  Legacy vol. II” — but it was neat seeing Hickman in person as well as listening to him and Dragotta discuss their title.  It was neat to learn that Dragotta is a big manga fan, which was brought up after Brothers remarked about how one of the pages brought up for display reminded him of Masamune Shirow’s work.  This isn’t an influence I would’ve expected after seeing his art on “East of West” and I thought the comparison was a bit tenuous given that the two artists have VERY different styles.  Dragotta is tops in my book, however since he hasn’t forsaken the mainstream to work on porn and doesn’t look like he operates with his head completely up his ass.

The best bit from the panel was a small rant from Hickman about why it doesn’t pay to create new characters for Marvel.  Comparing the state of storytelling for the company to an incestuous orgy (and how Freddy Krueger was spawned), the writer went on about how the best approach there is to simply mine continuity over and over again.  After all, why create characters that you don’t own for the benefit of this corporate behemoth?  He is writing “Secret Wars,” so if anyone would know from that, it’s him.

How Comic Books Took Over Hollywood:

Key creator/contributor to “Batman:  The Animated Series” Paul Dini, Marvel Editor-In-Chief Axel Alonso, “Fanboys” director Kyle Newman, and a voice actress whose name I can’t remember talked about how things have changed between Hollywood and its relationship to geek media.  I was looking forward to more specific details regarding that, but it was mostly felt like nerd cheerleading to me.  John attended this panel as well, and he got more out of it than I did.  Then again, my attention was split between listening to the panel and reading “Thor:  God of Thunder vol. 4” while I waited for something interesting to be said.  So I guess I have myself to blame for not getting more out of this panel, but at least it was another solid volume of that title!

Manga Publishing Industry Roundtable:

Here we are with the highlight.  Several key figures from the manga publishing industry — Leyla Aker of Viz, Kurt Hassler of Yen Press, Ben Applegate of Kodansha, and Erik Ko of Udon, with Deb Aoki moderating — discussed the business and its trends for an all-too-short hour.  Dark Horse’s Michael Gombos was supposed to be on this panel as well, but he never showed up for whatever reason.  I would’ve loved to have heard his thoughts as well, but instead I had to settle for the trolling he got from Hassler about how he saw the missing panelist in a line for “My Little Pony.”

It was an illuminating panel overall with some of the takeaways being that business is good right now, new data shows that scanlations do hurt sales, digital is something they still need to get further ahead on, older/sports/josei titles still don’t sell well, and just about all of the panelists are looking forward to Dark Horse’s license-rescue of “Planetes.”  Of the panelists, Hassler came off the best in my opinion as he seems to thrive on challenge.  There was a point in the panel where he went on at length about how it’s the responsibility of publishers to sell the titles they release to the best of their abilities and find ways to make sure the very best stuff sells.  It was inspiring stuff, even if his headstrong nature got him into trouble with Aker later on when the two were discussing the difficulty of selling josei manga in the west.  Yes, it has been a historically difficult genre to market, and publishers need to do more to sell it, but arguing with a woman about this?  That’s just bad form.

While Aoki did have a host of questions plucked from Twitter for the panelists, most of them had to be rushed through due to a lack of time.  There was one (or maybe it was an audience question) about selling older series that prompted Ko to say, “Wait until you hear what we’ve licensed at our panel tomorrow.”  Big talk, to be sure, that happened to be fully justified when it was revealed on Saturday that Udon will be releasing legendary shojo manga “The Rose of Versailles” in two-in-one collections starting next year.  This is one of those series that I never thought we’d see licensed.  I’ve been hearing about the story of a crossdressing female palace guard during the French Revolution since I was in college.  Unfortunately, its age made it seem like we’d never see an official translation out here.  Kudos to Ko and Udon for proving me wrong there.

Last but not least, one of the Twitter questions was pointed directly to Dark Horse.  Specifically, a commenter remarked about how the company maintains such a low profile that they forgot that Dark Horse releases manga and wanted to know how they planned to raise their profile.  I am of a like mind with this person and I’m sure Gombos’ answers would’ve been interesting to hear.  That said, it is somewhat telling that the one critical company-specific question was directed to that company and not one represented by the other panelists.

Quick Draw!:

The one panel I went to on Saturday.  Not quite a Comic-Con tradition, but I’ve been to a few of these in the past.  One of several panels hosted by Mark Evanier and the only one to feature the drawing talents of his most frequent and best-known collaborator Sergio Aragones.  The idea is that every year Aragones is joined onstage by Scott Shaw! and another artist as they engage in an artistic improv, realizing Evanier’s (and occasionally the audience’s) challenges on the page.  Shaw! was absent this year and I arrived late, so while I know one of the other artists was Disney legend Floyd Norman, I don’t know who the other one was.  They both did well, holding their own against Aragones the master.  Really, it’s his show every year.  Whether he’s tasked with drawing “Batman vs. Superman,” what a dad did to annoy his son while they waited at the airport, or just something he runs away from, the results are always entertaining to watch.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a ton of reading to catch up on (starting with vol. 14 of “The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service” which I didn’t even get at the con).