Overthinking Comics

SDCC@Home has been an interesting experience. The plus side: a lot of time for panels! The negative side: None of the usual con hang out time with friends.

Some of my buddies and I tried to fix this today, and we got together on Zoom to talk comics and watch a panel or two together.

It kind of worked, and we eventually abandoned the idea of watching panels and talking at the same time, and we just spent some time talking comics.

I poured myself a beer and spent some time hanging out with friends, just like at the con, except, well, very remote.

I also tried to navigate the virtual convention floor, but with diminished returns. I was hoping to find some comic dealers that may be running some convention specials, but did not find them.

Anyway, onward, to the panels!

Jim Lee Artist Edition Panel

I am a big fan of the Artist Edition books published by IDW. I don’t have them all, I pick and choose the ones that really jump out at me. I have a couple of the EC Comics Artist Editions, a Jack Kirby Artist Edition, the Dave Stevens Rocketeer book, and most recently, the Dave Cockrum X-Men Artifact Edition.

In this panel, Scott Williams talked about how much of an influence Barry Windsow-Smith was on their early stuff. They went up into the Marvel offices and saw Weapon X pages and were blown away by them.

Jim Lee makes a special appearance in this panel, and he tells some stories about breaking in to comics, and his first work on Alpha Force. Jim also talked about his collaboration with Scott Williams, and how much trust he puts into him as an inker.

Jim talks about looking back on his X-Men work from today’s perspective, and how much it is a relic of the time. He compares his work then to his work now, and points out some of the things he did back then that he wouldn’t do now. Plus, he talks about how exciting of a time in his career that it was when those books came out.

Mostly, if you are a fan of Jim Lee’s work, and want to hear Jim Lee and Scott Williams talk about their art, this was an interesting panel.

Nuclear Blast: Roger Miret from Agnostic Front

This wasn’t an official Comic-Con panel, but instead a livestream on The Nuclear Blast Twitch.tv channel.

Roger Miret is the guitarist of old school New York Hardcore Punk band Agnostic Front. He spinned some vinyl, talked about his record collection, and talked about some good hardcore.

When Roger got to talking about the old days of Hardcore punk, that got really good. He talked about a lot of the creativity and different directions that hardcore punk took in the early years before a lot of the look and feel for hardcore was really established.

Plus, he just talked about some records he likes, and that’s cool for a fan of hardcore like myself.

This livestream also highlighted a drawback of this format: the first 10 or 15 minutes of this stream had no audio while Roger worked on troubleshooting the streaming software.

Very Punk Rock.

Gender, Race, and Comic Book Coloring

What an interesting panel! This is all about the history of coloring comics, and various quirks in the way that comics were colored in the past. The panelists explore the way that comics coloring technology has impacted the final result on the printed page, and how this has developed over the years.

I am going to reprint the add copy for this panel, because it does a good job of explaining what this panel was all about:
Did you know that comic book colors used to be hand-separated by an army of women in Connecticut? That “benday dots” are named after a real person? Or that there’s a technical reason African-American skin tones look wrong in old comics? Geek out on the hidden corners of comics history, from the Golden Age up to today’s digital era, and learn about the craft of coloring with color artist Marissa Louise (Amethyst), comics creator Mildred Louis (Astrea’s Nexus Studio), researcher and essayist Zoë D. Smith (University of Chicago), and master letterer/former DC production artist Todd Klein (Sandman). Moderated by author Anina Bennett (Boilerplate).

The panelists share are a lot of examples that show how comics were colored and printed back before computers came along to improve the process:

• One example shows how much the newsprint that the comics were printed on effects the final product, especially compared to the original color guides.
• Another example shows the various levels of success in reproducing African-American skin tones in older comics, from horrendous to vaguely successful. They go into the details of why this is the case as well.
• Yet another example shows how the same color chart looks drastically different when printed on the original reprint vs reproduced digitally.
• And still yet another example showed the same portrait of Robin, colored by nine different colorists. This example shows just how much impact the coloring has on the final product.

This was another process-oriented panel, similar to the “Making A Comic From Start To Finish” panel from yesterday. Similarly, I really enjoyed this look into the process of making comics.

Bill & Ted: Face The Music

I saw Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure when I was ten years old. And then many times after. I have been a fan ever since.

So… I am excited for this movie. I want to see this. Very much, I want to see this.

This is also the type of panel I would never see at Comic-Con, because of Hall H.

If you have been to Comic-Con, Hall H needs no introduction. For those that haven’t: The San Diego Convention Center is divided into 8 sections, labeled Halls A through H. During the convention, Halls A through G are the continuous show floor, but Hall H is partitioned off into a 5,000 seat auditorium. This is where all of the biggest Hollywood panels take place, and famously, the lines to get in are a 24-hour operation, and require camping out overnight to get into the Hall for the first panels.

I, as a rule, avoid this. The comics are the draw for me at Comic-Con, so camping out overnight and sitting in an auditorium all day to see the latest and greatest from Hollywood is not what I am there for.

This panel is what I always imagined these types of panels would be. The actors, the director, the writers all tell fun anecdotes about the creation of the movie, how it came to be, how they prepared for the roles, what the movie means to them.

You know, it was a ton of fun. This highlighted the benefit of ComicCon@Home, all of the giant panels that I would usually miss, or never even make time for, are easily accessible.

I think that you probably know if you want to see this movie, probably from the title alone. If you want to feel excellent and party on for 45 minutes, tune in to this panel.

Be excellent to each other!

How Do Ya Figure: A History of Comic Con Exclusive Action Figures

Given my recent interest in Action Figures, this panel is very aligned with my current interests.

The panel started off with some cool history:

• The first mainstream action figure exclusive at San Diego Comic-Con
• The first time a character was exclusively released as an action figure at Comic-Con

After that, however, the panel sort of meandered. Some other toy creators joined in the conversation. It picked up a bit when Randy Falk from NECA joined to talk about some of the exclusives NECA has released.

So, this didn’t quite cover what I hoped it would, but it had a few interesting tidbits.

Saturday Wrap Up

Another benefit of SDCC@Home is that I have time to write up all of these reports in a timely manner! Usually, this would be Saturday night, the last chance to go out to con bars and have a few drinks with friends.

I miss the socialization, but am very thankful to SDCC for putting on this event so we can get some of that Comic-Con good feeling from the safety of our homes.