When you hit up a comic book convention there are many things to see and do. You can spend all your time in line for free sketches at the company booths. You can browse the retailers looking for deals. You can sit in on a panel or two.
Before we started doing our video coverage of the con, we used to engage in a combination of all of the above. But now that we spend pretty much our entire time compiling footage for the show, we don’t get to do most of those things. Someone came up to us and asked us about company announcements and we were honestly stymied because you don’t hear much in the trenches. Most of the news we don’t find out until we get home and read about it on the internet.
Here are a few announcements from the past weekend that I found interesting.
Okay, it’s clear that DC has me firmly by the man bits. I’m going to be dropping a lot of cash on this event and I’m pretty excited to do it. Final Crisis: Rogue’s Revenge by Geoff Johns and Scott Kollins (A reunion of the modern classic Flash team!), Final Crisis: Revelations by Greg Rucka and Philip Tan (Love Rucka, not so keen on Tan), Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds by Geoff Johns and George Perez (I’ve already gushed about this one – but my question is, when does Johns sleep?), Final Crisis: Superman Beyond by Grant Morrison and Aaron Lopresti (This one’s in 3-D!), and Final Crisis: Requiem by Peter J. Tomasi and Doug Mahnke (Tomasi might be my new favorite writer and these guys did the excellent Black Adam mini-series.). Normally I groan at too may tie-in books but every single one of these has at least one person who I absolutely love so right now I couldn’t be more excited. The more I think about Final Crisis, the more impatient I am for it to start.
Mark Waid on The Amazing Spider-Man
Raise your hand if you aren’t writing an arc of The Amazing Spider-Man. Anyone? Anyone? No? Okay. If you’ve ever seen Waid speak in person, then you know he’s a funny guy so this will probably be a good fit for the book with a thousand writers.
The writing team of Jonah Hex — Justin Grey and Jimmy Palmiotti — are teaming up with the most excellent artist Amanda Conner on this one. I like Power Girl as a character and I think that Geoff Johns has done a lot of interesting stuff with her in the last few years of Justice Society of America and I would have been on the borderline of checking out this series, but with this creative team announcement I am so down for this book it’s not even funny.
I was at the Cup o’ Joe panel when this was announced to — what I think was — a perplexing amount of applause. Are people that excited for a book featuring ape versions of Marvel characters? And didn’t DC do something similar, or am I crazy? Look, I like primates as much as the next guy but this is just downright odd. Are apes the new zombies? Maybe this was a joke I just missed because I was sleepy.
Johns and Robinson on Superman
This isn’t so much news or an announcement so much as an off-handed comment that Geoff Johns made during a panel in response to an audience question. He said that he and Robinson had two and a half years of stories plotted out for Superman and Action Comics. At least two and a half years of Johns and Robinson on the Superman books! Are you kidding me? This is too good to be true, which probably means it won’t happen.
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I’m stoked for all of those except the Marvel Apes – maybe. I had no idea that A) Morrison was writing another Superman book and B) it was going to be 3-D!!! Awesome is not enough of a word for how good that sounds.
Excited for all the DC stuff. I’m all in for Infinite Crisis and a Power Girl book sounds great. Amanda Conner’s gonna be at WWPhilly and she’s on the top of my sketch list.
My friend and I had the same reaction to the applause for the Marvel Apes. I asked her if the people cheering thought it was a joke. . .and Joe promptly said that people always think he’s joking when he talks about it, but he’s not, and then the crowd applauded more. Don’t ask me. I have to say, the art that went with it was nifty-looking, but it’s not something that I can imagine buying.
Please tell me someone saw the new Dark Knight trailer???
Hey all u "Wannabe, tryin to break in to the biz, wish I had my own book." future creators. They were giving out a free DVD at the show called "Countdown to Wednesday" all about the comic biz, and how to break in. It starred some of the heavy and not so heavy hitters of the comic biz giving advice.
If its at the bottom of your schwag bag and u passed it over, give it a viewing!
I have to admit, I’m kinda going apeshit over this news.
The Power Girl series, not the Apes…
"Please tell me someone saw the new Dark Knight trailer???"
I got to see it! It was soooooooooo good. I can’t wait for the dark knight to come out 🙂
Geoff Johns…A Flash book?…Thank freaking god!
I know i’ll be picking up all the Jeff Johns FC books and the Grant Morrison superman.The one i am most excited adout is Legion of 3 worlds Jeff Jonns and Gorge Perez.I don’t know adout Marvel apes.Power girl i jost don’t know that much adout her so i’ll wait to see how it goes to see if i should get it on trade.Mark wade on spidy is going to be great.
This is probably the most excited I’ve been for a DC event since I started reading superhero books two years ago. At a minimum, I’ll be picking up Legion of 3 Worlds.
I am really happy to live in a world where Marvel Apes exists, but I cannot imagine paying for or reading it personally. The Augie de Bliecks of the world will have to swear it’s great several months from now in order to sway me. Naturally, I look forward to 2009’s Marvel Robots and 2010’s Marvel Pirates,
That Power Girl team is so good, I might buy that book with no idea who Power Girl even is.
It seems most of the news that broke from the Con was from DC. Most of the Marvel news were Secret Invasion Tie In stuff. I heard a few things swirling around on the floor.
One of the representatives said the Jeff Lemire (who’s nominated for Eisner’s this year for Essex County) is going to be working on a Vertigo book (creator owned I think) followed by another Graphic Novel with Top Shelf, following the conclusion of Essex County. The last part of the Essex County Trilogy is due out in October.
Mark Evanier is in talks with DC to do a Kamandi book. Hopefully with the "prequel" in Countdown 06 and 05 and the special, this might come to fruition. Who really knows.
@Kate – Grrrr… jealous now! Just kidding, I’d heard it was meant to be great, can’t wait now!
Didn’t Johns already write a Power Girl book that was penciled by Adam Hughes or something? I could have sworn I’ve seen a trade that features her with all her breasted glory pouring from the cover.
I thought the Apes thing was good for a chuckle, never made the comparison to all of last years Zombie business though. My reaction was more like "really?" when he confirmed it was for real. But if it turns out to be a fun read then good for Marvel, just as long as 09 isn’t saturated with Ape Variant Covers.
@Unoob – Who was giving those away?
Marvel Apes? Seriously? A new low has been reached.
I find the ape thing hilarious. So much controversy. Let them have fun.
ifanboy is officially on my shit list. what a bunch of douchebags for what they done to my pal Wombat from CheapAssGamer.Com
No news that I can find anywhere on the web about the Virgin-Dan Dare-Garth Ennis panel. Did this actually go ahead ???
I doubt there was much news coming out of the Dan Dare panel, but man, I wish I could have gone to it.
@ Neb – Johns and Connor did a Power Girl arc for JSA Classified with Huges on covers. It was the first arc of the series and I do believe there is a trade of it out there. It basically set up PG’s status quo and who she was.