WONDERCON ‘08: FOR THE LOVE OF COMICS PANEL - NEWSARAMA
Posted by Chris Mosby on 25th February 2008
It is about time that DC listened to fans again. They should bring back the letter column!!
I am also glad that I am not the only one that wants to pretend that Bruce Jones’ run on Nightwing never happened!!
WONDERCON ‘08: FOR THE LOVE OF COMICS PANEL
Report by Ian Brill
A strange listing in the WonderCon programming book was a panel on Sunday entitled Sunday Conversations: For the Love of Comics which promised Dan DiDio and friends talking about why the love this medium. Before the panel started DiDio, with DC cohorts Fletcher Chu-Fong, Jann Jones, Mike Carlin and Trinity artist Mark Bagley on the dais behind him, asked the audience to move forward so a conversational tone could be struck. That’s just what happened as a relaxed and free-wheeling discussion about childhood memories and recent favorites arose.
DiDio noted how for a few years DC has had panels announcing their forthcoming books and plot threads. Now they wanted to see if they could do panels without the hype machine but where they can just talk comics, fan to fan. The proceedings opened up with DiDio asking the crowd what their first comic book was and who had been collecting comics the longest. The answers were varied but the crowd soon got in synch with each other, trying to remember if they ever read the comics being mentioned by others. When one audience member remembered reading Superman vs. Muhammad Ali the crowd let out an appreciative “oooooh.”The loose atmosphere of the panel gave the industry professionals a chance to recount anecdotes they would never share at a more structured presentation.
Bagley told of how he got his start at Marvel through, of all things, the Marvel Try-Out Book from the ‘80s. He was 27, working a construction job, married and with child. He didn’t want to hit 30 and still be running around conventions with a portfolio. When he first saw the Try-Out Book he thought it was just a cash grab from Marvel but his friend Cliff Biggers (retailer and co-publisher of Comic Shop News) convinced him to give it a shot. He came in first place out of 90 entries, although Bagley admitted he was mostly up against 12-year-olds.Once he got to Marvel, along with Doug Hazelwood who won the inking portion of the contest, he had trouble actually getting any work. He eventually had to confront then Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter. Arching his neck to look Shooter in the eye he asked him when he’s going to see some gigs. Shooter remembered who Bagley was and gave him a shot. It was, of all things, on one of the New Universe books all of which were that were in the process of crashing and burning. It wasn’t much but from that start Bagley was able to quit his job at Lockheed Martin and support his family by being a comic book artist.
Later in the panel Bagley noted how great it was to finally being able to talk. The last DC panel he participated in he only said a few words about Trinity and wasn’t able to speak at length like the did Sunday
DiDio turned the discussion to the present asking the crowd why they continue reading comics. The answer was still tinged with nostalgia as many people said they follow characters and titles through thick and thin out of loyalty to the books they grew up reading. Some fans expressed that although over the years they have to suffer through some lesser stories (one audience member who was a major Daredevil fan recalled the stories where Matt Murdock was given sight and did jobs for S.H.I.E.L.D.), but they wait for that moment when things will finally be better in their favorite title.The panel really proved itself to be a real conversation and not a stealth hype session when DiDio asked the question what was the most ridiculous thing the audience had ever seen in a comic. Blog@Newsarama’s own Carla Hoffman said that the issue of Nightwing where Jason Todd becomes some kind of shape-shifting monster was the strangest thing she had encountered in a book. Neither DiDio nor anyone else at DC tried to convince her otherwise. DiDio instead quipped “that’s the best thing about these comics. We pretend that stuff didn’t happen!”
DiDio and Carlin said that one of the great things about superhero stories is the silliness. DiDio’s reign at DC might be seen as one ushering in an era of darkness into the stories but he said he loved really silly stories like the Bob Haney Super-Sons tales. He has even been trying to get a trade of those comics out.
Another issue facing many comic books readers today discussed at the panel whether to stick with monthly comics or switch to trades. DiDio surveyed the crowd, asking which of the readers buy comic book every Wednesday and which wait for the trades. Most of the crowd seemed to still be buying single issues but many, especially some of the older fans, had switched to trades so they can get the complete story in one sitting.
When the fans buying single issues talked about their experiences the discussion turned to delays and art changes in books. The DC people were candid in telling the crowd that a problem that they run into is that some artists need to schedule their work better. A lot of them will take multiple jobs, from comics to trading cards and beyond, because as freelancers there’s the fear that money might dry up for a period of time and it would be nice to have a lot of paychecks coming in at once.Bagley expressed concern about artists who work so hard to make all of their penciling work so beautiful that it takes forever and there’s no room left for work from the inker or letterer. For DC this means that fill-in issues have to be run but it was noted by panelists and audience alike that a single issue story can be a refreshing break. Every comic is someone’s first and a simple fill-in story might hook someone.
The conversation felt like it could continue for hours but after only one it was time to quit. The convention itself was ending soon. DC seemed please with their little experiment, Carlin declaring that was his favorite panel in 15 years.
WONDERCON ‘08: FOR THE LOVE OF COMICS PANEL - NEWSARAMA
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