Posts Tagged ‘LBCC’
In San Diego, Geoff Johns mentioned we’d be seeing a new speedster. For two months I went on and on to anyone who’d listen about how the new speedster had better be a girl, and how come we don’t really have a girl speedster?, and HEY! SHOULDN’T THE NEW SPEEDSTER BE A GIRL?!
Two months later, at Long Beach Comic Con, I poked my hand in the air and asked:
“So, the new speedster you mentioned in San Diego, any chance it will be, you know, NOT a boy?”
Johns leaned into his mike.
“Definitely a girl.”
Or something like that, I was too busy spazzing out. But here we are. Flash: Rebirth #5 has finally made it’s way to the shelves.
Wally got a new costume. Whatever. Little Irey’s the new Impulse! Liberty Belle seems to be embracing her speedster roots!
Rob and I have been discussing the various DC “families” quite a bit lately. The Batman family is the most diverse, gender-wise (Barbara, Kate, Stephanie, Selena, Renee, Helena, and I’m sure Cass will show up again one of these days.) Superman’s got, um, Kara. The Green Lantern Corps has thousands of female members, but as far as the 2814 family goes it’s pretty much just Carol. Wonder Woman doesn’t really have a “family” in the sense that the other four do, and until recently the Flash Family women were just the wifeys. Joan, Iris, and Linda are some of the best written wives in comics, but speedsters they are not.
Still, you can’t just go creating female characters for the sake of having female characters. Part of the fun of Marvel and DC Universes is the rich history, the Big Picture that all these little stories are told against. Any new hero, male or female, needs to feel organic – there’s got to be a reason for them to exist. Thanks to Tim Burton, Batman: The Animated Series, and now Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, the Dark Knight has been the most popular DC character of the past few decades by a big long shot. Subsequently, the Bat family universe has grown by leaps and bound since the eighties.
Superman and Wonder Woman? Not so much. Yes there’s Connor and Krypto and Kara (and Karen? sort of.), and Cassie and Donna, but when you compare these relatively small posses to the massive Bat-family, the Green Lantern Corps, or the ever expanding Flash Family, Kal-El and Diana don’t have too many mini-mes. Those two are the platonic Zeus and Hera of the DCU, to replicate them too many times would negate their entire mythologies.
I’d certainly like to see fewer derivative female heroes in comics, but we need more women saving the world, period. They’re more likely to stick around if they’ve got a real place in the Universe, which is why the Bat-family women have 
managed to not only remain integral to Gotham, but to the DCU as a whole, even carrying their own titles. Bringing in more female heroes by using the existing hero families as a jumping off point is the easiest way to get more women into comics and keep them there, on the page and in real life.
But here’s why Irey’s a big deal. Jay was your grandad’s Flash. Barry was dad’s. Wally was ours. If the tradition continues, Iris West just might be The Flash to my kids. Now that’d be something.
The absolute best thing about the new Long Beach Comic Con was the MASSIVE artist’s alley, which took up most of the exhibition floor. We picked up a couple of little sketchbooks and went ’round collecting cool sketches from artists we like – some big names, some little ones. Check ‘em out (and click to enlarge)!
The Flash and Wonder Woman by Drew Johnson, who pencilled Rucka's Flash/Wonder Woman team-up!
Batwoman by Dustin Nyugen, currently working on Streets of Gotham
Optimus Prime by Livio Ramondelli, Wildstorm concept artist.
Batgirl by Phillip Tan, currently working on Batman & Robin
Baby Beast by J.J. Kirby
Batwoman by Joel Gomez
Detective Chimp, also by Joel Gomez
Martian Manhunter, by Doug Mahnke, currently on Green Lantern
Spider-Woman by Ray-Anthony Height
Captain America by Edward Nuñez Jr.
Spider-Man by Michael O'Hare
Doctor Fate, also by Michael O'Hare
Lieam by David Petersen
Spider Jerusalem by Darick Robertson
Another Lieam by David Petersen, this one was done at the Comic Vine party on Friday night.
We picked up this awesome sketch of Jughead slugging Galactus at the Comic Vine party, but we don't know who drew it!! Who are you, you mad genius?
Well, Long Beach Comic Con is over and, I gotta admit, it made for one hell of a weekend. So much awesome sh*t went down, I barely even know where to begin.
HIGHLIGHTS, Y’ALL:
- At the Boom! Studios panel, they announced a bunch of titles we’re really psyched about! Dingo (by Michael Alan Nelson), the Anchor, Nola, Incorruptible, several Disney titles (but no Darkwing Duck… yet)!
- Scored many awesome sketches: Batwoman and Detective Chimp by Joel Gomez, Martian Manhunter by Doug Mahnke, Spider-Woman by Ray-Anthony Height, Captain America by Eddie Nuñez, Spider-Man and Doctor Fate by Michael O’Hare, Lieam by David Petersen, and two which totally get their own bullet point!
- Darick Robertson did a sketch of Spider Jerusalem for both Maggie and Rob! His son also sketched us a sweet Batmouse and got himself an awesome David Petersen Mouse Guard
sketch! Geek faces were had by all!
- Maggie held a copy of X-Men #1 for a long, long time and got a copy of Spider-Woman Vol. 1 #1!
HIGH FIVES FIVED HIGHLY:
- Darick Robertson (okay, technically a hand shake) and son (TOTAL high five)
Today was mostly spent geeking out amongst ourselves but, man, it was full of unexpected events. Especially listening to Darick Robertson give a really great constructive critique to an aspiring artist while we chatted with the younger Robertson, who drew us a cute little Batmouse and absolutely freaked when David Petersen sat down on the other side of his Dad.
“Son, do you know who this is? He writes and draws Mouse Guard!”
“AWESOME!”
Seriously, what a cool kid. We are all due for a rest, though. In the meantime, here’s some photos of what totally happened, you guys.
This is the face of "We can just not pay rent this month. Or all of next year. Right?"
Darick Robertson's awesome kid, busying himself while Dad worked.
Batmouse by young Owen Robertson.
Darick Robertson signing Rob's copy of Transmetropolitan Volume 1
Awesome, right?
We’ll be posting photos of all the cool sketches we collected this weekend a little later, so stay tuned! The guys from comicimpact.com did a quick little interview with our very chatty editor, Maggie, so we’ll be sure to send you their way when it goes up in a few days!
- In: Conventions
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Day two of LBCC! Lots of important news was broken, lots of crazy moments were had, lots of drinks were downed. Let’s just effin’ get to it!
HIGHLIGHTS, Y’ALL:
- Jon and Maggie both met Stan Lee and got autographs (on the Amazing Spider-Man #41 and #71! Spidey vs. Quicksilver #71 went off to CGC to get slabbed and graded, 1st Appearance of Rhino #41 was a little beat up and is now proudly on display in their living room)!
- Rob figured out what his holy grail of comics is and bought Firestorm the Nuclear Man #1-4, went to the Boom! Studios Party, and traded Mark Waid his copy of #2 (with weird reader survey in it) for Waid’s personal copy of both #2 and #5! That’s a whole run! (UPDATE: Ten days later, Rob’s got the full Firestorm run, and Mr. Waid posts scans of the weird survey to his blog.)
- High Five! contributor Hava got her convention cherry popped and saw her comic bro-crush, Geoff Johns!
- At DC Nation, they announced that Johns’ new Flash run will have a Wally West co-feature, that Dan DiDio and Phillip Tan are taking over the Outsiders, and that the new Speedster is a girl (something Maggie has desperately wanted to happen)!
- Aforementioned Boom! Studios Party was tame, but fun! So much Sam Adams October Fest is in Rob’s belly!
HIGH FIVES FIVED HIGHLY:
- Geoff Johns (again)
Yeah, so we only high fived one dude who we also happened to high five yesterday. To be fair, we were busy being all awesome and hobnobbing with people whose books we love. Plus, Jon and Maggie had non-con business to attend to and Rob had to show Hava the ropes! Rob is tired of typing in the third person! Picture time!
Maggie and the Littlest Deadpool.
Maggie & The Man signing Spider-Man #41, 1st appearance of Rhino!
Lookit the pretty!
Day one of Long Beach Comic Con was short and sweet (to say the least). For only technically being open for four hours today, there was a crazy amount of shit that we managed to accomplish.
HIGHLIGHTS, Y’ALL:
- Both Los Angeles and Long Beach declaring October 2, 2009 to be Stan Lee Day (and he thought he “was just here to cut a goddamn ribbon”)!
- Having Geoff Johns sign the Firestorm variant for Blackest Night #3 which, apparently, he never saw before!
- Maggie holding her holy grail of comics, the Flash #123!
- Having a ridiculously long conversation with J.J. Kirby about Kilowog and the X-Babies (complete with a sketch of Baby Beast)!
- Scoring a gigantic free sketch of Lieam from Mouse Guard by David Petersen!
- Picking up a copy of Wonder Woman #214 (Flash & Wonder Woman team up!) and getting it signed by artist Drew Johnson (who also agreed to an interview)!
- Not drowning in a sea of poor hygiene and actually being able to walk from here to there (take that, SDCC)!
HIGH FIVES FIVED HIGHLY:
- Geoff Johns
- Mark Waid
- J.J. Kirby
As I said, cut us some slack for not doing that much. It was the short day! But here’s hoping tonight’s Atomic Comics karaoke party (even a hot Wonder Woman couldn’t talk too many nerds into getting on stage with a live band, bless them) doesn’t hold a candle to tomorrow’s Boom! Studios shindig. Oh, tomorrow’s going to be one full fucking day. At least it’s close enough to home that I can actually spend tonight in my own bed (instead of the backseat of a Yaris, which is what I did at SDCC this year).
Jeph Loeb reads the Proclamation of Stan Lee Day!
"These things are a lethal weapon!"
Not gonna lie, I thought she might make a run for it.
Please, please don't photoshop Geoff Johns.
We really, really need to know who drew this.
That’s all for today High Fivers! We’ll be back tomorrow with reports from DC Nation and 50 Questions with Mark Waid! If you’re in the LA/OC area, admission is only $25 for a one day pass tomorrow, come hang out! And at the end of the weekend, we’ll post all the cool stuff in our sketchbooks!
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High High Fivers! We’re off to the First EVER Long Beach Comic Con tomorrow, here’s our plan for the weekend:
Friday: We’ll spend Friday checking out the exhibit hall, getting the lay of the land and hitting Long Beach’s gigantic artist alley. Maggie will probably hit up the Comics on Comics panel at five, and we’ll most likely be at the Comic Vine party Friday night – but I’m pretty sure that’s a dry party so we probably won’t be there for long. Seriously, unless someone spikes the punch we won’t make it til 11:30.
Saturday: Holy moly, Jonny and Maggie are gonna meet Stan Lee. Yeah, I’m freaking out too. That’s in the morning, hopefully we’re out of there in time for DC NATION at noon. Then we’re off to 50 Questions with Mark Waid (he did a practice round on his podcast, check it out!), Rob will most likely attend the Berkeley Breathed panel, and then J & M are out of there by 4, our cousin is getting married!
Sunday: Boom! Spotlight at eleven, we’re hoping for juicy details on Waid’s newest title, Incorruptible. Then maybe the Story Structure and development panel with Jeph Loeb.
The panels at Long Beach are only about 45 minutes each, I’m a little worried that they’ll all run over their alloted time, but maybe the event planners have overtime built into the schedule. If you’re local and want to go, weekend passes are $45 and day passes are $25, you can pick them up in person at the Long Beach Convention Center.
And of course we’ll be twittering the whole thing, so be sure to follow us if you’re not already!
If you find us running around at the show and you’re an out of towner, give us a high five and we’ll tell you where the good bars are, because we’re helpful like that.
Robert Bazz
Brendan K.
Maggie_C
ianchant
Preston Wheatley
HavaB
