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New York Comic Con: Day 3! MORE WINNING.
What a great con, and what a great experience. Everything was just easy and pleasant and low-stress. There were on moment when we were worried there wouldn't be room in a panel for us, and one minute where we were worried an artist we were waiting for would run off for a while, and both turned out fine! We only had to wait on a couple lines, and they were well worth it. Most of the people that we wanted to talk to only had minimal lines when we were going to them. Everyone was really, really pleasant and friendly and nice to us. Money was spent, but not so much where I ever felt concerned about how much, nor was there anything I wanted but felt I couldn't get.
I got to the Con a little bit before the time Katie and I planned to meet, which ended up being a bit before her because her train had been running slow. It was fine because we could never find a schedule of panels and I forgot to look things up beforehand, so I spent the time going down to the area where the panel rooms were and checking the schedules posted outside each room. Of course ours was literally the last room at the end. XD I felt good because the panel we had decided to go to, Green Lantern at 50 Years, had a shorter line than the panels we'd eschewed - the Penny Arcade panel and the Neal Adams panel (remember, we got to speak to all three people involved in those panels on Friday). Of course, it was also in a smaller room (note foreshadowing).
I also ran around to see if there were any other rooms in other areas in case there was a panel we wanted to go to later. I stumbled across the Dollhouse line in the process. XD In fact, I stumbled into the Dollhouse line - it was circling a room and I ended up in the midst of it. We waited on line to get into some huge panels at San Diego but we were both really happy not to do so here! So, again, feeling renewedly glad to be going to the GL panel.
Of course, by the time I got Katie and we bought Oreos, the line was much longer!! XD But it did get long behind us, so we were towards the middle? It was intense! They'd given us a really small room, it was kind of weird. But a staff member (Christine? Maybe?) managed to squeeze us all in, with some people sitting on the floor. Len Wein (!!!!!) led a round of applause for her.
And the panel was fantastic. I'm actually not even that much of a Green Lantern fan. Certainly not a Hal Jordan fan, who is the basic GL and is the person who's been GL for 50 years. Er, start to finish. There were some years in there that he was dead and stuff like that. Apparently he's been up to a lot lately? That we don't know about? Come back from the dead and all this crap. ::shrug:: What made the panel awesome was the panelists! Len Wein - someone who has just worked on a lot of classic comic books, a major writer (and editor, I've found) from a really classic generation of sort of late silver age writers. Katie and I are HUGE FANS just based on his appearance at one of our favorite memories of San Diego - the ill-fated creators vs. fans trivia contest (the questions went missing). He was super charming and funny and adorable. MORE ON HIM LATER. So then there was Marv Wolfman, who I mostly know from his long run on Teen Titans. And the quote "I wrote 10 good years of comics on Titans. Unfortunately, it was over the space of 16 years. . ." which i think summarizes Teen Titans, his run on it, and his adorable attitude nicely. BONUS: he has an awesome and wholly unexpected Brooklyn accent!! :D It made him a joy to listen to. And there was also Joe Staton, a classic artist who I'd definitely heard of but couldn't really place. He was also incredibly adorable! At one point the moderator (who was great as well, Robert Greenberger - not sure who he is but he was very, very knowledgeable and did a really good job) joked to Joe that he should draw 22 pages of a new comic idea by Monday, and Joe said, "I always have!" and everyone applauded his reliability. :)
The only disappointment was that Denny O'Neil, who came up in my previous entry because of his legendary collaborations with Neal Adams on Green Lantern and Batman, was supposed to be there and was not. Instead was Geoff Johns. He's a super-hotshot author at DC now and one of the main reasons I'm not reading DC anymore. Even before he ran all the titles into the ground and made all the characters suck, I just didn't like his work. So. . . not awesome. XD But he left early for a signing! Which was great, it just left the three old-timers. Very nice.
The lack of Denny also allowed Marv to voice his criticism of Denny's legendary "social issues" Green Lantern - Green Arrow team-ups. They're full of Bob Dylan quotes and the two of them travel the country fighting social injustice instead of supervillains. They recently reprinted it but the 1992 reprint that I have (originally published in the early 70s) was titled "Hard-Traveling Heroes". (More on that later!) Anyway, Marv said that he thinks comics that deal with issues are great, but it shouldn't be the entire content of the comic. That GL just became an "issue of the month" comic and it made it weak. I can definitely see his point. But it works well as a trade paperback, so it never bothered me. If I'd been reading Green Lantern each month I can see where I might have stopped buying it.
The panel also made me really appreciate Hal Jordan more. What it taught me is that Hal Jordan is a character who most clearly arose out of Julius "Julie" Schwartz's love of classic 1940s and 50s science fiction. You can see the science bent in all of his silver age revivals of the characters - Barry Allen (the Flash) the police scientist, Ray Palmer (the Atom) was also a scientist, the powers are science-based. . . but Hal is the one who really flew through outer space, dealing with aliens, etc. I've always been a huge Flash fan so GL was just in the background. But I was definitely more of a Kyle Rayner girl than a Hal Jordan girl. Kyle became GL after a terrible crazy destruction of Hal Jordan's character, where he went crazy, killed loads of people, and died. I blame Frank Miller for this but some people just blame the early 90s in general. What was awesome was that all of the panelists just said "That was a huge mistake" when asked about it. (Which is, of course, what DC is doing with their characters now - going really dark and against type.)
Anyway, there was a vaguely anti-Kyle sentiment among the crowd but the panelists weren't. They clearly are all really attached to Hal Jordan (having written him for years and sort of grown up with him) but they said (I think Len said, actually) that some people really like Kyle because he's their generation's Green Lantern. And I was like "That's me!! :D" I mean, I didn't interrupt the panel to say this. But it felt fun to be part of a generation of comics fans? Or something. Anyway, I love Kyle and I think there were more good stories to tell about him as Green Lantern and the whole Ion thing was a mistake. He was a good character with a nifty life behind the mask.
I took a break from writing this to talk to my dad about the Con - my dad is a huge comics fan, and i was able to get into them by reading his collection. :D We're really on the same page about the way comics these days are going - or at least, DC. So we sort of whined to each other about that, which was fun (and makes me feel justified XD) but then we talked about how great the Con was and everyone at it. :D
Anyway, the panel just was awesome because they had really good attitudes about the character and the writing. They really like him, and they want to write good, interesting, fun stories about him. The fact that the Green Lantern Corps as newly revived are now allowed to use terminal force came up, and Len Wein said "Well, it's not the type of comics I like to write. . ." And I was like "THANK YOU LEN WEIN." (Again, I did not say this out loud.) But yeah, it was just really nice to hear.
There were also some jokes about the fact that in Len Wein's run on the comic he had Hal Jordan retire and made John Stewart (possibly more recognizable from the animated Justice League show?) take over. It was just temporary. Poor John Stewart. Anyway, it was funny because we were in a panel in honor of Hal Jordan and they were like "So. Len." And he was like "Whoops!" and then he tried to pin it on Marv. XD
Jesus Christ, that was long.
Conclusion: It was an awesome panel! Really interesting and entertaining. It was funny being the outsiders. Katie and I sort of sneered at a lot of the stuff that most of the people there were particularly excited about, and really happy about Kyle Rayner and any time the Flash was mentioned. XD
After the panel we decided to just troll the Con floor a little bit before lunch. Again, my recollection of chronology leaves something to be desired. XD I'm positive, though, that this was when we met PETER DAVID!!
Peter David is the writer of my favorite comic book series of all time, Young Justice. Note icon. The quote is from an early issue, it's when they're being named. Someone called them the Young JLA or something, and Impulse says, "No. . . we're young, but just us." "Ahh, Young Justice! Cool!" ^_^ Anyway, I looooove YJ. It was cancelled after only 52 issues, or so. And it was pretty much consistently great. It was around during the time when the US was starting to get embroiled in war with Iraq and DC did this huge "Our Worlds At War" event that I hated, so the one or two YJ issues that involved that were kind of bad, but apart from that they were all fantastic. Which is rare (actually there was also a weird thing with zombies but it was still pretty okay). It was an incredible creative team writing just the kind of comics I like to read.
We saw Peter's (or PAD, as he is sometimes known) table on Friday but he wasn't there and there was a note with the times that he would be around. So we were ready, and I brought my trade paperback of the first seven issues of YJ to get him to sign. We went over when he got out of the panel, and he was there with his wife and with his adorable child, who was set up next to him drawing pictures. So cute! So we go up to him and when I whipped out my copy of YJ, he was very pleased, because you can see that I've read it. A lot. It's in good shape, but it definitely is showing a bit of wear and tear. So he said he likes it when he's given well-loved comics to sign, and I was really happy. :D I'm definitely not the type to buy an extra copy to keep pristine. XD
I also said that it was my favorite comic ever, and he said that he loved it and he misses it. And I said I miss it too, and still feel sad thinking about how it was cancelled. It was really, really nice to hear that he also thought it was great and felt good about his work on it and loved it. :D And I was so happy to get to tell him how much I adore it.
I can't remember if we went to lunch after that or if we did other stuff first. Let's say we went to lunch. XD It was Subway, and it was delicious. I got a meatball hero and we talked about Len Wein and Sho.
Oh wait!! First we bought comics! After the panel we thought "we'd better get some Len Wein comics, we're way too enthused about him not to have read anything he's written." Which is a good point!! So we went to the booths selling back issues to see if we could find any of his Green Lantern run and we had total success!! Most of them didn't have the author on the cover at that era, either, but his totally did. XD I don't know if they started when he started or if he's just that special. Or both! Anyway, they were in a bin where everything was priced individually and some stuff was as much as $12. But the two comics I found didn't have a price on them, so I asked the guy how much they were. He said "hmm. . . I'll give you a good price for them!" And said $3 each but then gave them both to me for $5. Which is a great price! (obviously not as good as my prices yesterday but these comics were older and more Wein-tastic.) So that was really nice, and we were very happy to have found such good Len Wein comics!
I also came prepared with my trade paperback of "Hard-Traveling Heroes" - see above. XD I actually wrote a paper about it in AP English and got a 95% on it and was incredibly happy to get to write about comic books. And I adore the art. So to get such a legendary artist to autograph such a legendary book was something I was really excited about.
But we weren't sure if Neal would be there - he had a panel earlier so he might not have come back to the floor afterwards, or the panel might have caused there to be huge crowds. But nope! He was right there and there was a nice sign saying it cost $5 to have him sign things not bought at the table (very reasonable). Seriously, guys, bringing your much-read and worn comics to the creators, they love it. When I pulled out my 1992 reprint of Green Lantern-Green Arrow (published when I was 6 years old), Neal Adams said, "Well look at you!" :DDD And he signed it and looked at the cover, where they're punching each other, and said "They don't look like heroes to me!" which is ADORABLE but I didn't quite hear him so I didn't react fully. XD
I am so amazed that I have that signed by Neal Adams. It's too bad Denny O'Neil wasn't there for me to get a complete set but that's ok. It's already more amazing than I could have imagined. Reading that, it really does seem. . . legendary. And now I've met one of the creators and gotten it signed. The fact that it is the copy that I've read and reread makes it even more exciting, somehow.
For a while we sort of wandered the Con. We went back to the Yatterman booth - very quiet now. Watched a bit of the clip they were showing and picked up some pamphlets. Tried to get a Central City Track T-shirt but they were sold out. No big deal. If I find myself lusting for it, I've ordered stuff from Graphitti Designs online before.
We went to another big t-shirt booth to look for a present and they didn't have anything, but the salespeople were really helpful! And the salesguy was the same size as the person we were buying for and helped us figure out the size. . . which unfortunately they didn't have for the shirt we wanted. Still, they were nice.
We also went to the table of the creators of a fairly new comic, Tiny Titans, in which the Teen Titans are. . . tiny. And go to elementary school together and have tiny adorable adventures! In one story, Beast Boy buys a puppy and then turns into a puppy so they can play together. Katie was interested in buying the trade, and the person manning the booth told us that if we came back later, the creators would be there.
At some point we checked out the autographs just to make sure we weren't missing anyone awesome. Amber Benson, who played Tara on BtVS, was there - her line was huge, which is fine. But what's weird is that earlier, when I was walking around the panels looking for Katie, I really thought I walked past her. Her and Adam Busch, who played Warren. I don't know. . . he wasn't there so it was probably just people who looked like them. There were a lot of bearded, chubby guys with glasses, and a lot of bearded, skinny guys with hipster glasses (Adam Busch is the latter). (Although he is from Long Island. . .) Anyway, those are the two main types of dudes found at the NYCC.
Eventually we wound our way back to the Artist's Alley, where we checked around a little bit and noticed that TODD NAUCK WAS THERE!! Todd Nauck is the artist who collaborated with the abovementioned Peter David on Young Justice!! I LOVE HIS ART. SO MUCH.
We'd gotten to meet him at San Diego and he drew Secret for us and we chatted for a bit. . . but now I had my YJ trade! It was amazing! We had no clue he was going to be there cos we're clueless but I was so excited to get both creators of my favorite title to sign the tpb. SO EXCITED!!
So we got on line, but it was quite long. This is because Todd recently drew a story in which Spiderman meets Barack Obama. So he's quite the hot topic. XD And he was sketching for people so the line didn't move at all. Still, we were chilling.
Then, we we were talking about if there was anything else we wanted to do, and we were saying the people at the panel said they'd be on the Con floor later. So we thought we should look for Len Wein, of course! Especially now that we had something for him to sign! Wein is pronounced Ween, btw. Like weaning a child off breastmilk. Anyway!
JUST AS WE WERE SAYING WE SHOULD KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR HIM, KATIE SAID, "THERE HE GOES! HE'S WALKING RIGHT BY!"
SERIOUSLY.
WHAT THE HELL.
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kegom, you were apparently so right about Katie! And also possibly psychic. Granted, Len is easy to spot - he was wearing a sort of. . . outback-ish type hat? It had those little sunglasses that you can clip to your glasses clipped to the brim, as well, which is rock solid awesome. STILL. SERIOUSLY. As we were saying "We should keep an eye out for him."
So we're like "!! What do we do?" So I sent Katie off to follow him, cos he was on the move, so maybe we could track him to a table. And she runs back and says "he has a table right there!! And he just got there so there's no line or anything!!"
No one had gotten behind us on the Todd line so we quickly dashed over the Len. :DDDDDDD SO AWESOME. We got there and paused, smiling at Len and each other, because Katie forgot that she had the comics we'd bought in her bag, and I was waiting for her to get them. And she was waiting for me to get them out. So she was like "oh, I have them!" and we all laughed. Then, as we extracted them from the little comics baggies, we told Len that we really enjoyed the panel this morning. And he was all "oh, thanks!!" and we said that in fact, we were so interested in the panel that we had to go and buy some of his Green Lantern comics immediately after. He was really pleased and flattered. We can't remember exactly what he said but something along the lines of "Wow! That's great!" :D It was awesome!! One of the comics was one of the first ones with John Stewart, so he turned to the person who was keeping him company and was like "See, this is where I replaced Hal Jordan! Look, that's Hal on the cover getting pushed aside, and that's John Stewart!" It was really cute. :D My hands were shaking a bit putting the first comic back in the bag. Len reached for the second but then was like "Oh, wait - I don't take things out of the plastic!" I was struggling with the bag so we were like "good policy!" and Katie got it out for him. It was just awesome. it was probably the best interaction you can have with a creator whose work you haven't read. XD We think we created the impression that we'd read his other work but just not the GL stuff. We didn't want to say "we just think you're hilarious and awesome" because it'd be weird. But we're total Len Wein fangirls.
So, that was amazing. And we went away giggling and excited and so happy, after joking and talking about meeting Len Wein all weekend. It was really even better than I could have imagined. So great.
And no one had gotten on the Todd line while we were gone! Of course, it wasn't moving at all. . . then he finished up with the sketches he'd been doing and announced something about having to go for a bit? And something about autographs but not sketches. He apparently needed to get refreshment, but also he had to talk to Peter David. We were like "!!!" and someone said "Are you working with him again?" but apparently a friend of his is a big fan of a Star Trek novel that PAD had written and Todd promised to get it signed. WHICH IS SO CUTE.
So we weren't really sure what was going on, and the woman in front of us had 20 copies of the Obama book to get signed, and the guy in front of her wanted a sketch, so we were like "D: Just want an autograph!" and they both made sure Todd noticed this and he stayed to sign my YJ before I left.
I think he also mentioned something about me bringing my book. XD And he asked where to sign it and we were like "Actually, we got Peter to sign it before so if you could sign with his. . ." ^_^ Anyway, he was incredibly, incredibly nice. He's a total cutie and so sweet - we remembered him being really sweet from San Diego, as well. (Where we got to meet his adorable wife, too.) But yeah, even though he'd just said he was about to run off, and he'd clearly been doing this for a while and was hoping to wrap up, he really went out of his way to make Katie and I not feel like he wanted to rush through it. He asked our names, and shook our hands, and we were able to tell him how much we loved Young Justice and he said he really loved it as well. :D Which was, much like PAD saying he missed it, so nice to hear, just that they feel really positive about the comic too.
It was great, and lovely, and well worth waiting for. I've said this about everyone, but Todd is another stand-out cutie. He gave us his card with his website and social networking sites on it, too. ^_^
Then we went back to the Tiny Titans table, in the hopes that the creators would have returned. They had, but there was a line, and sketching was happening that made it go slow. So we decided to return to Terry Moore, where we would actually buy something. XD We got the second pocket book. . . randomly. We were standing in front of the table pondering silently and he was like "Hey. . .?" and I was like "We're, uh, buying a pocket book, just not sure which one." XD It was a bit of an awkward-bomb, but cutely. So he signed it for us and was generally adorable, and his wife was running around too. ^_^ And I said I love Francine and he said, quite seriously, "I love her too." It was sweet and also really interesting.
We then went to the Midtown Comics booth, where we bought the Tiny Titans tpb for 25% off! They'd run out by the authors but it wouldn't have been discounted, so, win. Then we returned and there was only one person on line. One of the authors was gone, but we got a sketch from the other! :D Katie had him draw Captain Marvel, her favorite character. He's the guy who says Shazam? I have an icon of him straddling a giant bullet. XD Anyway, the sketch was ridiculously cute. He colored it with crayons!! We later checked the comic and found out that he's not even the artist. He's the author only! So. . . seriously impressive, cos he drew a goddamn adorable Captain Marvel. The Captain is the only character in comics with a distinctive face, it's so cute. :D
OH SHIT. I forgot Zander Cannon. XD I'm sorry Zander! I'll edit you in later. You're hot!
And I think that was actually pretty much it. Thank god, because my arm's been really hurting me. I'm hoping it's just sore or I slept on it funny and not a weird repetitive stress injury. . . in my shoulder? Probably not. XD Anyway, yes. I just wanted to save all the awesome details. I think I got everything. . . it's certainly fucking long enough!!
Basically, it was just utterly lovely. Everyone was so nice to us. They seemed really pleased to be there, signing and meeting fans. I didn't make a fool of myself. Everything was easy. Everyone was amazing. I got to meet some of my comic creating heroes. I got my favorite title signed by its creators, probably my favorite creative team of all time.
I was worried because I'm not keeping up with comics these days, you know? I thought, "what if there's nothing for me there?" But actually, all it meant was that I had no interest in anything at the DC booth. The creators are still the creators, and they're awesome. And the history is always there, and the back issues will always have good stuff in them. Comic Con is a fun place for a comic book fan. :D We were just so lucky that so many people that we really love were there and were so accessible. (Katie and I think this is partly because so many manga fans were there and were not competing with us for their attention. . .)
San Diego was really about the panels and the experience as a whole and taking in loads of different booths. New York was a lot about meeting people and getting comics I love signed by people I admire. Both were just utterly amazingly fantastic, and I'm so glad that I got to go.
I got to the Con a little bit before the time Katie and I planned to meet, which ended up being a bit before her because her train had been running slow. It was fine because we could never find a schedule of panels and I forgot to look things up beforehand, so I spent the time going down to the area where the panel rooms were and checking the schedules posted outside each room. Of course ours was literally the last room at the end. XD I felt good because the panel we had decided to go to, Green Lantern at 50 Years, had a shorter line than the panels we'd eschewed - the Penny Arcade panel and the Neal Adams panel (remember, we got to speak to all three people involved in those panels on Friday). Of course, it was also in a smaller room (note foreshadowing).
I also ran around to see if there were any other rooms in other areas in case there was a panel we wanted to go to later. I stumbled across the Dollhouse line in the process. XD In fact, I stumbled into the Dollhouse line - it was circling a room and I ended up in the midst of it. We waited on line to get into some huge panels at San Diego but we were both really happy not to do so here! So, again, feeling renewedly glad to be going to the GL panel.
Of course, by the time I got Katie and we bought Oreos, the line was much longer!! XD But it did get long behind us, so we were towards the middle? It was intense! They'd given us a really small room, it was kind of weird. But a staff member (Christine? Maybe?) managed to squeeze us all in, with some people sitting on the floor. Len Wein (!!!!!) led a round of applause for her.
And the panel was fantastic. I'm actually not even that much of a Green Lantern fan. Certainly not a Hal Jordan fan, who is the basic GL and is the person who's been GL for 50 years. Er, start to finish. There were some years in there that he was dead and stuff like that. Apparently he's been up to a lot lately? That we don't know about? Come back from the dead and all this crap. ::shrug:: What made the panel awesome was the panelists! Len Wein - someone who has just worked on a lot of classic comic books, a major writer (and editor, I've found) from a really classic generation of sort of late silver age writers. Katie and I are HUGE FANS just based on his appearance at one of our favorite memories of San Diego - the ill-fated creators vs. fans trivia contest (the questions went missing). He was super charming and funny and adorable. MORE ON HIM LATER. So then there was Marv Wolfman, who I mostly know from his long run on Teen Titans. And the quote "I wrote 10 good years of comics on Titans. Unfortunately, it was over the space of 16 years. . ." which i think summarizes Teen Titans, his run on it, and his adorable attitude nicely. BONUS: he has an awesome and wholly unexpected Brooklyn accent!! :D It made him a joy to listen to. And there was also Joe Staton, a classic artist who I'd definitely heard of but couldn't really place. He was also incredibly adorable! At one point the moderator (who was great as well, Robert Greenberger - not sure who he is but he was very, very knowledgeable and did a really good job) joked to Joe that he should draw 22 pages of a new comic idea by Monday, and Joe said, "I always have!" and everyone applauded his reliability. :)
The only disappointment was that Denny O'Neil, who came up in my previous entry because of his legendary collaborations with Neal Adams on Green Lantern and Batman, was supposed to be there and was not. Instead was Geoff Johns. He's a super-hotshot author at DC now and one of the main reasons I'm not reading DC anymore. Even before he ran all the titles into the ground and made all the characters suck, I just didn't like his work. So. . . not awesome. XD But he left early for a signing! Which was great, it just left the three old-timers. Very nice.
The lack of Denny also allowed Marv to voice his criticism of Denny's legendary "social issues" Green Lantern - Green Arrow team-ups. They're full of Bob Dylan quotes and the two of them travel the country fighting social injustice instead of supervillains. They recently reprinted it but the 1992 reprint that I have (originally published in the early 70s) was titled "Hard-Traveling Heroes". (More on that later!) Anyway, Marv said that he thinks comics that deal with issues are great, but it shouldn't be the entire content of the comic. That GL just became an "issue of the month" comic and it made it weak. I can definitely see his point. But it works well as a trade paperback, so it never bothered me. If I'd been reading Green Lantern each month I can see where I might have stopped buying it.
The panel also made me really appreciate Hal Jordan more. What it taught me is that Hal Jordan is a character who most clearly arose out of Julius "Julie" Schwartz's love of classic 1940s and 50s science fiction. You can see the science bent in all of his silver age revivals of the characters - Barry Allen (the Flash) the police scientist, Ray Palmer (the Atom) was also a scientist, the powers are science-based. . . but Hal is the one who really flew through outer space, dealing with aliens, etc. I've always been a huge Flash fan so GL was just in the background. But I was definitely more of a Kyle Rayner girl than a Hal Jordan girl. Kyle became GL after a terrible crazy destruction of Hal Jordan's character, where he went crazy, killed loads of people, and died. I blame Frank Miller for this but some people just blame the early 90s in general. What was awesome was that all of the panelists just said "That was a huge mistake" when asked about it. (Which is, of course, what DC is doing with their characters now - going really dark and against type.)
Anyway, there was a vaguely anti-Kyle sentiment among the crowd but the panelists weren't. They clearly are all really attached to Hal Jordan (having written him for years and sort of grown up with him) but they said (I think Len said, actually) that some people really like Kyle because he's their generation's Green Lantern. And I was like "That's me!! :D" I mean, I didn't interrupt the panel to say this. But it felt fun to be part of a generation of comics fans? Or something. Anyway, I love Kyle and I think there were more good stories to tell about him as Green Lantern and the whole Ion thing was a mistake. He was a good character with a nifty life behind the mask.
I took a break from writing this to talk to my dad about the Con - my dad is a huge comics fan, and i was able to get into them by reading his collection. :D We're really on the same page about the way comics these days are going - or at least, DC. So we sort of whined to each other about that, which was fun (and makes me feel justified XD) but then we talked about how great the Con was and everyone at it. :D
Anyway, the panel just was awesome because they had really good attitudes about the character and the writing. They really like him, and they want to write good, interesting, fun stories about him. The fact that the Green Lantern Corps as newly revived are now allowed to use terminal force came up, and Len Wein said "Well, it's not the type of comics I like to write. . ." And I was like "THANK YOU LEN WEIN." (Again, I did not say this out loud.) But yeah, it was just really nice to hear.
There were also some jokes about the fact that in Len Wein's run on the comic he had Hal Jordan retire and made John Stewart (possibly more recognizable from the animated Justice League show?) take over. It was just temporary. Poor John Stewart. Anyway, it was funny because we were in a panel in honor of Hal Jordan and they were like "So. Len." And he was like "Whoops!" and then he tried to pin it on Marv. XD
Jesus Christ, that was long.
Conclusion: It was an awesome panel! Really interesting and entertaining. It was funny being the outsiders. Katie and I sort of sneered at a lot of the stuff that most of the people there were particularly excited about, and really happy about Kyle Rayner and any time the Flash was mentioned. XD
After the panel we decided to just troll the Con floor a little bit before lunch. Again, my recollection of chronology leaves something to be desired. XD I'm positive, though, that this was when we met PETER DAVID!!
Peter David is the writer of my favorite comic book series of all time, Young Justice. Note icon. The quote is from an early issue, it's when they're being named. Someone called them the Young JLA or something, and Impulse says, "No. . . we're young, but just us." "Ahh, Young Justice! Cool!" ^_^ Anyway, I looooove YJ. It was cancelled after only 52 issues, or so. And it was pretty much consistently great. It was around during the time when the US was starting to get embroiled in war with Iraq and DC did this huge "Our Worlds At War" event that I hated, so the one or two YJ issues that involved that were kind of bad, but apart from that they were all fantastic. Which is rare (actually there was also a weird thing with zombies but it was still pretty okay). It was an incredible creative team writing just the kind of comics I like to read.
We saw Peter's (or PAD, as he is sometimes known) table on Friday but he wasn't there and there was a note with the times that he would be around. So we were ready, and I brought my trade paperback of the first seven issues of YJ to get him to sign. We went over when he got out of the panel, and he was there with his wife and with his adorable child, who was set up next to him drawing pictures. So cute! So we go up to him and when I whipped out my copy of YJ, he was very pleased, because you can see that I've read it. A lot. It's in good shape, but it definitely is showing a bit of wear and tear. So he said he likes it when he's given well-loved comics to sign, and I was really happy. :D I'm definitely not the type to buy an extra copy to keep pristine. XD
I also said that it was my favorite comic ever, and he said that he loved it and he misses it. And I said I miss it too, and still feel sad thinking about how it was cancelled. It was really, really nice to hear that he also thought it was great and felt good about his work on it and loved it. :D And I was so happy to get to tell him how much I adore it.
I can't remember if we went to lunch after that or if we did other stuff first. Let's say we went to lunch. XD It was Subway, and it was delicious. I got a meatball hero and we talked about Len Wein and Sho.
Oh wait!! First we bought comics! After the panel we thought "we'd better get some Len Wein comics, we're way too enthused about him not to have read anything he's written." Which is a good point!! So we went to the booths selling back issues to see if we could find any of his Green Lantern run and we had total success!! Most of them didn't have the author on the cover at that era, either, but his totally did. XD I don't know if they started when he started or if he's just that special. Or both! Anyway, they were in a bin where everything was priced individually and some stuff was as much as $12. But the two comics I found didn't have a price on them, so I asked the guy how much they were. He said "hmm. . . I'll give you a good price for them!" And said $3 each but then gave them both to me for $5. Which is a great price! (obviously not as good as my prices yesterday but these comics were older and more Wein-tastic.) So that was really nice, and we were very happy to have found such good Len Wein comics!
I also came prepared with my trade paperback of "Hard-Traveling Heroes" - see above. XD I actually wrote a paper about it in AP English and got a 95% on it and was incredibly happy to get to write about comic books. And I adore the art. So to get such a legendary artist to autograph such a legendary book was something I was really excited about.
But we weren't sure if Neal would be there - he had a panel earlier so he might not have come back to the floor afterwards, or the panel might have caused there to be huge crowds. But nope! He was right there and there was a nice sign saying it cost $5 to have him sign things not bought at the table (very reasonable). Seriously, guys, bringing your much-read and worn comics to the creators, they love it. When I pulled out my 1992 reprint of Green Lantern-Green Arrow (published when I was 6 years old), Neal Adams said, "Well look at you!" :DDD And he signed it and looked at the cover, where they're punching each other, and said "They don't look like heroes to me!" which is ADORABLE but I didn't quite hear him so I didn't react fully. XD
I am so amazed that I have that signed by Neal Adams. It's too bad Denny O'Neil wasn't there for me to get a complete set but that's ok. It's already more amazing than I could have imagined. Reading that, it really does seem. . . legendary. And now I've met one of the creators and gotten it signed. The fact that it is the copy that I've read and reread makes it even more exciting, somehow.
For a while we sort of wandered the Con. We went back to the Yatterman booth - very quiet now. Watched a bit of the clip they were showing and picked up some pamphlets. Tried to get a Central City Track T-shirt but they were sold out. No big deal. If I find myself lusting for it, I've ordered stuff from Graphitti Designs online before.
We went to another big t-shirt booth to look for a present and they didn't have anything, but the salespeople were really helpful! And the salesguy was the same size as the person we were buying for and helped us figure out the size. . . which unfortunately they didn't have for the shirt we wanted. Still, they were nice.
We also went to the table of the creators of a fairly new comic, Tiny Titans, in which the Teen Titans are. . . tiny. And go to elementary school together and have tiny adorable adventures! In one story, Beast Boy buys a puppy and then turns into a puppy so they can play together. Katie was interested in buying the trade, and the person manning the booth told us that if we came back later, the creators would be there.
At some point we checked out the autographs just to make sure we weren't missing anyone awesome. Amber Benson, who played Tara on BtVS, was there - her line was huge, which is fine. But what's weird is that earlier, when I was walking around the panels looking for Katie, I really thought I walked past her. Her and Adam Busch, who played Warren. I don't know. . . he wasn't there so it was probably just people who looked like them. There were a lot of bearded, chubby guys with glasses, and a lot of bearded, skinny guys with hipster glasses (Adam Busch is the latter). (Although he is from Long Island. . .) Anyway, those are the two main types of dudes found at the NYCC.
Eventually we wound our way back to the Artist's Alley, where we checked around a little bit and noticed that TODD NAUCK WAS THERE!! Todd Nauck is the artist who collaborated with the abovementioned Peter David on Young Justice!! I LOVE HIS ART. SO MUCH.
We'd gotten to meet him at San Diego and he drew Secret for us and we chatted for a bit. . . but now I had my YJ trade! It was amazing! We had no clue he was going to be there cos we're clueless but I was so excited to get both creators of my favorite title to sign the tpb. SO EXCITED!!
So we got on line, but it was quite long. This is because Todd recently drew a story in which Spiderman meets Barack Obama. So he's quite the hot topic. XD And he was sketching for people so the line didn't move at all. Still, we were chilling.
Then, we we were talking about if there was anything else we wanted to do, and we were saying the people at the panel said they'd be on the Con floor later. So we thought we should look for Len Wein, of course! Especially now that we had something for him to sign! Wein is pronounced Ween, btw. Like weaning a child off breastmilk. Anyway!
JUST AS WE WERE SAYING WE SHOULD KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR HIM, KATIE SAID, "THERE HE GOES! HE'S WALKING RIGHT BY!"
SERIOUSLY.
WHAT THE HELL.
kegom, you were apparently so right about Katie! And also possibly psychic. Granted, Len is easy to spot - he was wearing a sort of. . . outback-ish type hat? It had those little sunglasses that you can clip to your glasses clipped to the brim, as well, which is rock solid awesome. STILL. SERIOUSLY. As we were saying "We should keep an eye out for him."So we're like "!! What do we do?" So I sent Katie off to follow him, cos he was on the move, so maybe we could track him to a table. And she runs back and says "he has a table right there!! And he just got there so there's no line or anything!!"
No one had gotten behind us on the Todd line so we quickly dashed over the Len. :DDDDDDD SO AWESOME. We got there and paused, smiling at Len and each other, because Katie forgot that she had the comics we'd bought in her bag, and I was waiting for her to get them. And she was waiting for me to get them out. So she was like "oh, I have them!" and we all laughed. Then, as we extracted them from the little comics baggies, we told Len that we really enjoyed the panel this morning. And he was all "oh, thanks!!" and we said that in fact, we were so interested in the panel that we had to go and buy some of his Green Lantern comics immediately after. He was really pleased and flattered. We can't remember exactly what he said but something along the lines of "Wow! That's great!" :D It was awesome!! One of the comics was one of the first ones with John Stewart, so he turned to the person who was keeping him company and was like "See, this is where I replaced Hal Jordan! Look, that's Hal on the cover getting pushed aside, and that's John Stewart!" It was really cute. :D My hands were shaking a bit putting the first comic back in the bag. Len reached for the second but then was like "Oh, wait - I don't take things out of the plastic!" I was struggling with the bag so we were like "good policy!" and Katie got it out for him. It was just awesome. it was probably the best interaction you can have with a creator whose work you haven't read. XD We think we created the impression that we'd read his other work but just not the GL stuff. We didn't want to say "we just think you're hilarious and awesome" because it'd be weird. But we're total Len Wein fangirls.
So, that was amazing. And we went away giggling and excited and so happy, after joking and talking about meeting Len Wein all weekend. It was really even better than I could have imagined. So great.
And no one had gotten on the Todd line while we were gone! Of course, it wasn't moving at all. . . then he finished up with the sketches he'd been doing and announced something about having to go for a bit? And something about autographs but not sketches. He apparently needed to get refreshment, but also he had to talk to Peter David. We were like "!!!" and someone said "Are you working with him again?" but apparently a friend of his is a big fan of a Star Trek novel that PAD had written and Todd promised to get it signed. WHICH IS SO CUTE.
So we weren't really sure what was going on, and the woman in front of us had 20 copies of the Obama book to get signed, and the guy in front of her wanted a sketch, so we were like "D: Just want an autograph!" and they both made sure Todd noticed this and he stayed to sign my YJ before I left.
I think he also mentioned something about me bringing my book. XD And he asked where to sign it and we were like "Actually, we got Peter to sign it before so if you could sign with his. . ." ^_^ Anyway, he was incredibly, incredibly nice. He's a total cutie and so sweet - we remembered him being really sweet from San Diego, as well. (Where we got to meet his adorable wife, too.) But yeah, even though he'd just said he was about to run off, and he'd clearly been doing this for a while and was hoping to wrap up, he really went out of his way to make Katie and I not feel like he wanted to rush through it. He asked our names, and shook our hands, and we were able to tell him how much we loved Young Justice and he said he really loved it as well. :D Which was, much like PAD saying he missed it, so nice to hear, just that they feel really positive about the comic too.
It was great, and lovely, and well worth waiting for. I've said this about everyone, but Todd is another stand-out cutie. He gave us his card with his website and social networking sites on it, too. ^_^
Then we went back to the Tiny Titans table, in the hopes that the creators would have returned. They had, but there was a line, and sketching was happening that made it go slow. So we decided to return to Terry Moore, where we would actually buy something. XD We got the second pocket book. . . randomly. We were standing in front of the table pondering silently and he was like "Hey. . .?" and I was like "We're, uh, buying a pocket book, just not sure which one." XD It was a bit of an awkward-bomb, but cutely. So he signed it for us and was generally adorable, and his wife was running around too. ^_^ And I said I love Francine and he said, quite seriously, "I love her too." It was sweet and also really interesting.
We then went to the Midtown Comics booth, where we bought the Tiny Titans tpb for 25% off! They'd run out by the authors but it wouldn't have been discounted, so, win. Then we returned and there was only one person on line. One of the authors was gone, but we got a sketch from the other! :D Katie had him draw Captain Marvel, her favorite character. He's the guy who says Shazam? I have an icon of him straddling a giant bullet. XD Anyway, the sketch was ridiculously cute. He colored it with crayons!! We later checked the comic and found out that he's not even the artist. He's the author only! So. . . seriously impressive, cos he drew a goddamn adorable Captain Marvel. The Captain is the only character in comics with a distinctive face, it's so cute. :D
OH SHIT. I forgot Zander Cannon. XD I'm sorry Zander! I'll edit you in later. You're hot!
And I think that was actually pretty much it. Thank god, because my arm's been really hurting me. I'm hoping it's just sore or I slept on it funny and not a weird repetitive stress injury. . . in my shoulder? Probably not. XD Anyway, yes. I just wanted to save all the awesome details. I think I got everything. . . it's certainly fucking long enough!!
Basically, it was just utterly lovely. Everyone was so nice to us. They seemed really pleased to be there, signing and meeting fans. I didn't make a fool of myself. Everything was easy. Everyone was amazing. I got to meet some of my comic creating heroes. I got my favorite title signed by its creators, probably my favorite creative team of all time.
I was worried because I'm not keeping up with comics these days, you know? I thought, "what if there's nothing for me there?" But actually, all it meant was that I had no interest in anything at the DC booth. The creators are still the creators, and they're awesome. And the history is always there, and the back issues will always have good stuff in them. Comic Con is a fun place for a comic book fan. :D We were just so lucky that so many people that we really love were there and were so accessible. (Katie and I think this is partly because so many manga fans were there and were not competing with us for their attention. . .)
San Diego was really about the panels and the experience as a whole and taking in loads of different booths. New York was a lot about meeting people and getting comics I love signed by people I admire. Both were just utterly amazingly fantastic, and I'm so glad that I got to go.
New York Comic-Con
All the best--
-- Len Wein
Re: New York Comic-Con
I actually read the Green Lantern books on the subway trip home because I couldn’t wait! (unfortunately, Katie hasn’t gotten to read them since I ran off to Brooklyn with both of them. Eventually I guess we’re going to split them. :D) They were great – I was not at all disappointed! I’m clearly clueless about that era, so I wasn’t expecting Hal Jordan to continue to appear to shadow John Stewart’s progress. It made for really interesting reading. It felt really. . . fresh, I guess, seeing John take on the role, and learn his limitations. I loved the image of him emptying the floodwaters into people’s individual pools.
In addition to what seemed to be one of John’s very first issues (I don’t have the numbers on me because I’m at work) where he fights Major Disaster, we also got an issue from a few months later where Eclipso steals the solar jet, which was fascinating. I’ve only run into Eclipso here and there in comics and he seems like a great villain. Strange, somehow, even for comics. So that was a lot of fun to read as well.
I wish I could give you a more articulate take – I don’t have the books with me, and the surprise of seeing you leave a comment has made many of the details fly from my memory! (Basically, this has made for a fairly unproductive morning at work.) I do remember the name Tawny Young, though. It also seemed to have a good balance of scenes in and out of costume, which I like.
Overall, I was left wanting more! I’m definitely going to have to see if I can track down more issues from that time. I want to fill in the holes in the stories (I clearly missed a lot of solar jet stuff) and generally just read more about John as GL.(It’ll give me something new to search for, since I was able to complete my long-standing quest for Robin back issues on Friday.)
Thank you so much for helping to make our Comic Con experience so wonderful, and thanks for writing such great comics!
- Laura
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On the plus side, my stop motion animation professor drops random comic book artist names occasionally, and i recognized one because of you.. except I don't remember who it was. But I was like "OH YES, I KNOW THAT NAME. :D"
ANYWAY, I'm so glad you had such a good time!! I completely agree with getting artists to sign well read things opposed to special unread copies. It's so much more meaningful.
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!!! That's really exciting! What artists have I mentioned? Um. Well, Darwyn Cooke. XD And Barry Kitson? And Todd Nauck, of course. Mike Mignola? Gil Kane? Scott McDaniel?
People were talking about Con experiences at the forum I was telling you about just now before I said I was going to bed and then noticed I still had this open. XD And they were saying they didn't like it when people brought 30 separate issues of a comic to be signed, because they have to wait while this is happening, and what's even worse is that sometimes they're just selling them on ebay. The latter is so horribly obnoxious I don't even want to talk about it. But the former, being a really huge fan and getting 30 things signed? It seems pointless to me. It's amazing to have the signatures on those comics, it makes them feel really special. But what was most amazing was meeting the people! Not the actual act of signing, that's more of a commemoration! (It's a totally different feeling when friends have given me things they've gotten signed for me, so I'm not sure how the two theories blend, but still!) A few of your favorite comics, yes, but if you're getting a creator to sign 10+ things, you aren't just being rude to the people behind you on line, you're making each signature less meaningful. I think!