WonderCon 2026: Not What I’d Hoped

Because that’s the feeling you get when you pull up to the convention and get a text letting you know that something’s come up and your friends won’t be making it this year.  It certainly put a damper on things as I walked over to the convention center, but there were at least some panels I was looking forward to seeing along with taking my time to check out the dealer’s hall.  The real question was would I be leaving really early to come home and spend the rest of the day playing “Esoteric Ebb” or stick around for one final panel after a two hour break for a spotlight on a creator who I’ve developed mixed feelings about over the years.  Read on and find out.

Bad Idea:  The WonderCon Panel

Bad Idea is a comic publishing company that started with the idea of selling comics direct to consumers via comic book stores.  That didn’t work out as well as they thought it would, but they’ve since managed to diversify their approach while not going out of business in the process.  Now they’ve been publishing lots of notable creator-owned work from established comics creators like Matt Kindt, Lewis Larosa, Tomas Giorello, Robert Venditti, Trevor Hairsine, and Mike Carey along with Hollywood creatives like “John Wick” writer Derek Kolstad and “Brightburn” director David Yarovesky.  The latter of which was also at this panel along with Bad Idea impresarios Dinesh Shamdasani and Benjamin Simpson to spotlight upcoming work from the publisher.

Some of this stuff did look pretty interesting, like the long-in-the-works kaiju series “Megalith” from Kindt and Larosa which has taken eight years to complete because of the artist’s painstaking approach to the art.  Yarovesky also talked about his horror series “Project:  Goat” about a family of goats that has to survive after they’re kidnapped by cultists.  Adam Pollina, who I remember from his work on various X-books back in the 90’s, is doing the art after the writer seized on his ability to mix cuteness and horror – the series was described as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” meets “Bambi.”  There’s also “The Hab,” another horror series from writer Joshua Dysart about a billionaire who takes his family and crew into an underground bunker before the apocalypse hits only to find something’s down in the ground waiting for them.  David Lapham is providing the art, with Bill Sienkiewicz and Jacob Phillips delivering additional art at key points.

There’s also other high concept stuff like the high-end military repo man for the government series “Warbird,” Mike Carey and Jonathan Wayshack’s horror title “Cul-de-sac,” Tony Millionaire’s “The Oddball Odyssey,” and the Navy SEAL turned Priest turned mafia fighter “Ordained” to look forward to as well.  While Bad Idea is mostly focused on delivering single issues (and trying to complete them, as one audience member asked about the delay for the final issues of “Planet Death”) they’ve indicated they’re not averse to collecting them either.  Which is good news for me, as some of this stuff sounds like it could be fun to read – like David and Maria Lapham’s “The Ends” which is currently part of an order pending fulfillment with my preferred online retailer.

The Comic Art of David Lynch

We lost a true original when filmmaker David Lynch passed away last year.  So influential that his name became a kind of shorthand for a particular brand of surrealism, he died with his legend intact and a fandom ready and eager to revisit and re-appreciate his works.  This includes his lesser-known forays into art and animation which Comic Book Legal Defense Fund representative Jeff Trexler, comics history professor Michael Dooley, and former Los Angeles Reader editor Dan Barton were here to do.  Comics creator Jeff Lemire was also scheduled to show up, but couldn’t make it for unspecified reasons.

Fortunately the hosts on hand were up for talking about Lynch’s forays into comic art and animation.  We learned that he originally was planning on being a painter, but then pivoted to filmmaking after his first experience with animation in the short “Six Men Getting Sick” (screened here, and it was a trip).  He did continue to paint in his spare time and even returned to animation with a series of online shorts via his Dumbland site in the 00’s.  We even learned about Lynch’s aborted plans to continue “Twin Peaks” in the 90’s via a graphic novel with art from Matt Haley.  There was also plenty of talk about Lynch’s influence on comics mainly through acknowledged connections from Grant Morrison who was noted as describing his “Batman” run as the 60’s series done by way of Lynch.

The real highlight of the panel was hearing Barton talk about actually working with Lynch on the minimalist cartoon strip “The Angriest Dog in the World” in the Los Angeles Reader.  The art was never anything more than an introduction at the start followed by four panels of a black dog growling viciously, three of them during the day and one at night.  The only thing that changed in each strip was the dialogue which Lynch called in to Barton every week without fail.

Barton acknowledged that it was a bit surreal to have this noted director call him up every week, and to do so without fail even when he was out of the country filming something.  But he also acknowledged that Lynch was always a courteous and positive creator in every interaction they had.  Barton’s working relationship with the man was also good enough that he got invited to an early screening of one of Lynch’s movies in the 80’s that turned out to be “Blue Velvet.”  The editor did note that while the director was only paid $25 for each strip, the people running the paper were apparently cheap enough to see if he’d be willing to do it for free,  They had Barton ask Lynch about it, who told him (in a chipper voice at the panel), “Nope, you still have to pay for it.”

What’s the Buzz With the Beat?

I read The Beat every day as its reporting is an invaluable source for news and opinions regarding comics themselves as well as the ongoing shenanigans in the industry.  So when I saw that its Editor in Chief Heidi MacDonald was going to oversee a panel talking about the inner workings of the site, I was ready for a deep dive into current online comics journalism.  What I got was MacDonald hanging out with fellow Beat staffers Kalai Chik and Tamur Dahl, Ahoy Comics publisher Nat Gertler, comics art curator Patrick Reed, and animation/comics veteran Greg Weisman, and asking them questions like “Is it harder or easier to create something these days” or “Do we miss the monoculture?”

It’s easier to create but harder to distribute, and we at least miss the common cultural touchstones that the monoculture gave us.  These are the things that sunk in before my mind started to wander as I wondered if I had made the right choice in attending this panel and not, say, Scott Dunbier’s about his current comic publishing efforts with Act 4 (which is not something I was preparing to say after last year).  Then we had Weisman talking about his difficulty trying to watch all of “Mad About You” on current streaming services, which led to Heidi lamenting the difficulty in trying to find out what streaming service had “Terminator 2” on it.  Which convinced me to do these two things in the future:  To keep reading The Beat each day and never attend another general panel about it at a convention.

Absolute Batman Q&A Spotlight on Scott Snyder

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stick around for this, but after wandering around the dealer’s hall for a while, and taking some time to grab an early dinner I figured I might as well.  Snyder didn’t have a moderator for this panel nor did he have anyone from DC with him either, which he said was great because now he didn’t have to worry about spoiling anything the publisher didn’t want to.  The already enthusiastic crowd loved that and had plenty of questions for the creator, almost all of them about the most popular superhero comic around right now:

• Are there plans to do Absolute versions of B-list Bat-villains?  Expect to see Firefly, Mister Zsazz, and the Mad Hatter in the near future.  Snyder and artist Nick Dragotta have also talked about creating all-new villains for the series as well.
• Why does he beat up Batman so much?  Because he loves him.  By having him face the threats facing us right now, he’s showing that they can be defeated.  Which is why Absolute Joker is an evil billionaire.  He also imagines the world as a father to address the threats that he thinks his kids are going to face.
• What’s his favorite issue of “Absolute Batman?”  After making the requisite, “It’s like asking me to choose my favorite kid,” joke – he said the first one.  When Dragotta came over to show him the layouts for it, that’s when he knew it was going to work.
• How have the artists he’s worked with helped him grow?  If you’ve heard about the initial difficulty he had working with Greg Capullo on “Batman” he brought that up again here.  Snyder’s ultra-detailed scripts did not endear him to the artist and things only got better once he started to give up control.  This made him realize that his approach was wrong and he’s since tried to give enough room for artists to deliver their own style because that makes them, and the story as a whole, look a lot better.
• Has there been anything he’s fought for in “Absolute Batman” that hasn’t made it in?  While there have been lots of discussions about what should go into the title, apparently there hasn’t been anything that DC President Jim Lee has said can’t go in.  Even the school shooting in the first issue.
• What are his favorite Batman stories?  He acknowledged being “really boring” about this by citing “The Dark Knight Returns,” “The Animated Series,” and “Batman Beyond.”  Someone did ask if we’d ever get Absolute Terry McGinnis at some point, but Snyder said “No,” because that character only works with an older Bruce Wayne.  So not until he and Dragotta decide to do “Absolute Dark Knight Returns.”
• What’s the best part of working with the other Absolute creators?  That they decided to do this even though they didn’t have to.  They all had their own successful careers and still thought it’d be a great idea to reinterpret DC characters in this fashion.  The one that got away was Daniel Warren Johnson, who was busy with “Transformers” when Snyder asked him.  Which worked out for the best as that effectively forced Snyder to put his Absolute Detective Chimp series on the back burner and write “Absolute Batman” instead.
• No, Snyder assured everyone at the panel that he wasn’t kidding about that last part.
• Will there be more crossovers in the Absolute Universe?  Yes, as he and Jason Aaron are co-writing one that we’ll see in November.
• Why is Alfred the way he is in “Absolute Batman?”  Because he’s effectively Snyder’s self-insert character.  All the fears and anxieties the character has about the world and Batman’s efforts to change it is the writer working through his own regarding the world today.
• How do you organize a series like “Absolute Batman?”  Know how the title’s emotional arc is going to go and treat the whole thing like a road trip with room for plenty of unexpected detours.  Right now the plan is for Snyder and Dragotta to do 50 issues at minimum, and 100 issues maximum.

Snyder also had some non-Absolute things to mention:  That most everything at DC is over-performing these days, such as the new “Lobo” series whose first issue debuted to 160K sales.  That Warner Bros. said no to a Pennywise vs. Joker battle for “DC K.O.:  Boss Battle.”  That we can expect new “Jonah Hex” and “Spectre” series in the future.  The panel could’ve gone on longer, and I wouldn’t have minded, but the writer was eventually given the sign to wrap things up.  He thanked his audience for their questions and support while also letting us know that no matter what the odds, Batman will never give up!