The Madness known as the San Diego Comic Con is now concluded. As I type this folks are recovering, or flying, or sleeping off the wrap-up party buzz, and we the "unfortunate" are left to continue our daily affairs and go on with our lives content in the fact that we didn't have to spend the thousands of dollars and hours of stress and crowd fighting to learn what we needed to know about our beloved media for the year to come. Thankfully we have all the comics and media sites (not to mention the sad and ridiculous "coverage" brought to us on G4. Yippee!
I did not go. I am too poor and frankly my interest in the comic market has waned over the years, but I do still like to keep in touch with the news, just in case there's anything of worth that might be coming out. I HAVE gone to the Comic Con in the past- and I recommend to everyone that they HAVE to go, at least once. It is NOT a bad con, in fact given the whirlwind of attention and crowd that flock there it is a miraculously GREAT con. Very much a testament to what comics are and should be, and frankly if everyone there actually bought and read comics as a hobby the market would be twice as healthy for it.
For those interested, and because I now have this nifty blog to spout on, here's some of the key events and news that I have found to pass on. I warn you, this is just the news and shit that I've gleaned from other sources and my opinions on such. Here goes:
1) The Black Panther cartoon from BET had a teaser trailer shown that finally brought The Black Panther as a recognizable character to the level of the 60's Marvel cartoons. The writing was straight out of the comic, as was the animation. The fan's were totally dumbfounded and the miracle of the level of Flash animation they beheld. Watch this one when it comes out folks- it probably won't last long, BUT it IS classic- classically stiff and bad- BUT nostalgic of those great 60's cartoons I saw as a youth and just didn't know better.
2) Cloak and Dagger are getting their own series again, only this time it's a bit mangaled (spelling here should be correct- a combo of "manga" and "mangled"). The promotional illustration shows a much younger in the face Dagger, with tits about 2 holes up on the circle template than last time, and a Cloak looking like an old pedophile standing over her. Yes the fan boys will all be buying that one.
3) DC will be rolling both the Archie stable of superheroes and the entire Milestone line into their current DCU, because, well, because JMS wanted to write the Archie characters and DC finally convinced those holding the Milestone rights that they could use the jing BUT adding more minority characters to their current universe was NOT a deciding factor in picking up the Milestone line (wink, wink). The origins on most all the characters will remain intact. Dakota will be a city in the DCU that's always been there, and the Archie superheroes will all be brought into the DCU as if they've always been there as well, only through the pages of Brave and the Bold, so they'll get the "Batman Bump". No new titles from either stable was announced except that all the Milestone material would be reprinted in volumes to bring fans up to date. On a side note I HOPE AND PRAY that they take the time to recolor all the Milestone material because if they take the time to do it folks might actually not only read the stuff, but swear they've never seen it before.
This is the kind of whack-a-do thinking and planning that has made DC the kind of muddled screwed up mess since Crisis. Why can't both stables keep their own separate earths and make crossovers with the DCU directly or indirectly as the need fits. This continued over population just begs to bring in confusion. I always thought Crisis was a boneheaded decision in the first place as was praying that they'd separate again when DC did Infinite Crisis (as was rumored), instead all we get is more muddled confusion and characters who over lap. Sad to see because keeping the earth numbering system keeps it all nice and tidy, fosters creativity (and even competition if you split up the earths with different editorial teams), and begs for a nice set of "scorecard" history books for continuity buffs (which is an audience that both Marvel and DC totally have ignored the last many years), giving George Perez at least a good year or two's worth of work to do. Pretty sad.
4) Neil Gaimen and Kevin Smith are both writing Batman stories for DC, prompting cheers of joy for the Gaimen part and "WTF?" looks for the Smith part. Fans were assured that there were already scripts for 2 of the 3 parts of the Smithtacular endeavor already done, so the wait for the 3rd would end up being the hold up at this time to get a complete story. Let's hope Smith isn't doing for Batman what he was rumored to do with Green Hornet, or anything close to his "wonderful" rant on what he would have done with Lord Of The Rings. Somehow "Brokeback Gotham" seems like a working title that I would assume would fit if that was the case.
5) Joss Whedon actually DID have a Dollhouse panel (which the media said was in doubt given the fact that he was reshooting the pilot). Fan response to the teaser trailer was mostly positive with only one attendee given the mike to ask why the show looked so lackluster and dull. discussion of the "Save The Dollhouse" sites was mentioned, because the new series is on Fox and they canned the now classic Firefly after shakily airing 10 episodes. When asked about more Buffy Joss said he was getting his fix from writing the comics, so there goes that universe.
6) The Smallville panel announced that Green Arrow is now added to the cast full roster and the ninth episode will feature the Legion Of Superheroes, a moment that SHOULD have occurred in about the 3rd season, but hey, better late than never. Now if they could only get closer to actual Superman cannon, but that would be expecting too much.
7) Lots of what looked like ho-hum media panels as the networks all paraded out their media shows they pray would get a fan bump from the con. If you want a list go look at the media news and comic news sites,
8) All the little publishers below Dark Horse all got lost in the shuffle, oh wait that's really not news is it? Oddly I have yet to find any news of Boom, Tokyo Pop, or Viz on the news site- I'm still looking though.
9) Oh, and Martian Manhunter is officially "dead, dead", which means that DC is tired of trying to fit him in anywhere and screwing up more of his origin and looks, which frankly is probably a good thing.
To me that's all the relevant news- I'm sure there's more I could talk about, like Batman supposedly dying (which ALWAYS turns the character into a winner- sheesh look at what it did for Superman and Green Lantern), and all the constant fuss the Marvel boys had to deal with over their botched Spiderman reboot (serves them right btw), but really, who cares? I stopped reading most of the "mainstream" stuff when I realized that not only had they lost the initial spark of creativity, but that the "big two" figured that "realism" and "decompressed storytelling" were THE way to go. In other words I woke up.
I'm heading back to work now, I have REAL work to do. I was working most of the weekend instead of attending the Comiccon, like a LOT of other comic creators around here, in fact I've still yet to bump into anyone that actually attended from the mid Michigan area- anyone? Anyone?
WAKE UP!
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