WonderCon 2019
Thanks to the magic of (limited) press passes, John, Myron, and myself all made the trip down to WonderCon in Anaheim this year. We only went down for Saturday but we were still able to cram in a lot of worthwhile sightseeing, shopping, and panels into the trip. As for the panels, we didn’t get to see a whole lot. The ones we did get to see were, of course, pretty entertaining and even enlightening in parts.
Spotlight on Andy (and Emma) Kubert
Prior to the panel, Myron mentioned that he knew one of the Kubert brothers had a daughter who was coming up in the industry. He couldn’t remember who, but Emma’s appearance at this panel cleared it up for us. While she talked a bit about her current work with “DC Super Hero Girls” and what it was like growing up with a famous comic book artist for a dad. Short version: pretty cool.
The real focus, naturally, was on Andy and he provided some pretty informative and detailed answers to the questions asked by the moderator. We learned that he didn’t start out as an artist as a kid (unlike his brother Adam) and it wasn’t until he enrolled/started working at his dad Joe Kubert’s School of Comic Art that he really started to get into it. Andy admitted that he was terrible at first, as he talked about how awful his first pro job — inking one of his dad’s “Sgt. Rock” comics in the 80’s — turned out. However, he had drive and a real competitive streak and this led to him pushing himself to get better over the years. Leading to work that he wasn’t embarrassed about with DC.
Andy’s lengthy “X-Men” run in the 90’s was only touched upon briefly here and only during the fan Q&A session where someone asked if he felt pressure having to follow Jim Lee on the title. The artist’s response was a terse “Yes” followed by some laughter, which all but told us that there was a lot of still-raw drama from that period. He also talked about the trepidation he felt when faced with the Miller/Azzarello script for “The Dark Knight III” and reiterated the fact that he’d be teaming again with Miller on a new DC project which might hit the stands next year. Details were scarce on the project, save that it’s going to involve Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman, as well as Sgt. Rock as Kubert said he really wanted to do right by his dad’s signature character after that terrible inking job from two decades back.
Spotlight on Donny Cates
This was the highlight of the con for me. The panel was moderated by his friend former Marvel marketing guy/current BOOM! VP Arune Singh, and the two bounced off each other really well with bits like the writer’s “confession” about his Dallas Cowboys fandom and anecdotes about their time at Marvel when Cates was an intern. We also got basically the writer’s life story as we learned about the various bits of drama and trauma that fuel his writing. While this did mean that there were some somber points, as Cates opened up about the fact that he went through a divorce last year, they were balanced out by how he discussed using them in his writing. Case in point was a bit where he described writing a particularly wrenching monologue in “Venom” only to leave in a bit about “being in a bed meant for two.” Which led his editor to call him up after he got it and as, “Hey Donny. Everything all right?”
It was funny in context at the panel. Really.
Other highlights included seeing the writer (and certain question-asking fans) tap-dance around giving information around certain upcoming projects. While “Venom” was one of two things he absolutely wanted to do at Marvel, he’s been able to get his hands on the other and can’t say anything about it yet. We also learned about how his comics-retailing career came to an end via the bad actions of the owner of the shops he was managing and a guy who drove a car through one of his shops. Then there was the bit about how he almost gave up writing comics after his early projects, “Buzzkill,” “The Ghost Fleet,” and “The Paybacks,” were all cancelled/cut short due to low sales and how “God Country” almost wound up being his swan song. Thankfully for everyone at the panel — including a genially heckling Mark Waid in the audience — the series blew up and Cates finally got the success he deserved.
Oh, and it turns out that Alan Moore is a pretty relaxed guy to meet if you go to visit him at his home in Northampton. That’s what Cates and his artist friend/collaborator Geoff Shaw decided to do after they were in England for a signing and their cabbie told them that Moore lived 20 minutes away on their route. The writer took that as a sign and asked the cabbie to take them there. It wasn’t hard finding Moore’s house, it was purple with snake engravings on it, and after Cates worked up the nerve to knock on the door he was greeted by the sight of Moore in shorts, a T-shirt, and flip-flops. After explaining to Moore that he and his friend also worked in comics they struck up a conversation which now led to the photo of the two writers that Cates later shared on twitter. As for the text that came with the photo, which said that Moore agreed that Cates’ “Venom” series was better than “Watchmen,” word eventually got back to Cates via Moore’s daughter Leah that the “Watchmen” writer found it hilarious.
DC: Meet the Publishers
The publishers in question being Dan Didio and Jim Lee. This was mainly a promotional panel as the two showed off/made a case for the most high-profile projects coming from each of the company’s imprints. This included a lot of YA stuff from their new Ink/Zoom imprints, which generally looks good even if I’m way out of the intended age range for this kind of thing. More along my interests were the promotional bits about DC’s “Year of the Villains” and the recent “Detective Comics #1000” release. Lee has a story with Kevin Smith in it, about whatever happened to the gun that killed Thomas and Martha Wayne, that they both had a lot of fun working on. To the point that they agreed to work together again in 10 years for Batman’s 90th Anniversary. Also of note were the announcements that the “Sandman Universe” series would all be getting a second year, and promotion for the upcoming Black Label titles, “Batman: Last Knight on Earth,” “Batman: Curse of the White Knight,” and “Superman: Year One.”
Lee and Didio were affable, amusing presences throughout the panel, even if it was a bit odd to the see the latter latch onto a fan who remembered Jimmy Olsen being turned into a turtle for a lot of reactions to what he said. Most interesting was the fact that when it came time for Q&A at the panel, the majority of the people asking questions were kids. You could tell that it caught them a bit off guard since most of these panels usually have them dealing with fanboys that are around my age. Still, they admitted to being encouraged by having kids ask them questions at a panel like this since it offered at least some evidence that DC’s efforts to reach a newer, younger audience were bearing fruit.
Either that, or they were all just camping out for the “Batman’s Birthday” panel that was going to take place after this one.
One other thing I want to mention is that the three of us all wound up buying one of the same thing at the con. That would be a copy of “Detective Comics #1000.” For myself and John, that would be our only copy. For Myron, I think this was either his fourth or fifth. I’d already heard about most of the stories, and their creators, in the issue, and while I’m not normally one to buy a single issue, being able to pick up a copy at the convention was just too easy. Where am I going with this? While I said on the last podcast that the next one would be about the most recent “Darth Vader” series, that’s not the case anymore. Next time will be all about the three of us discussing what we liked and didn’t about “Detective Comics #1000.”