Bloggers recover from NYCC bender

Wow, I've just started getting the weblog feed while I am overwhelmed with 200 or so posts, I see a lot more gossip and turmoil than my normal looks at my blogroll and the occasional jaunt to newsarama or The Beat.

Can someone in the know lay out which three female bloggers ? I guess one is Ronee (popcultureshock?) Heidi (The Beat?) I try to read the positive women bloggers at Comics Fairplay and Shelly's

And my beloved Gail Simone and Rick Olney (who is he? as a con organizer, I saw this about his cancelled con)

Another good thing is reading many NYCC blogposts as we all recover from that weekend bender. Started working on some panel notes.

Phillygirl and I rushed up to Paul Dini to tell him how she would skip class and watch Batman: The Animated Series, and how we love Harley Quinn. He was polite, and perhaps overwhelmed by two fangirls, but I was glad we met him.

Me and Ms. Simone

Phillygirl with Nick Brendon!

My Friday began with an early morning train ride into the city-- and the train died 2 stops from home. After half hour of 'rebooting' the engine, the train was put out of service and we were put out on a cold windy platform. We crossed the tracks and I did get on one of the new double decker trains, but my plans to go to the 10 AM library panel were shot to hell.

It was a breeze to get in on Friday, all professionals only. I stopped by the DC booth right inside the door, but then went to the 11 AM Formats and Genres panel for librarians. In fact, I spent most of the day in panels- also the Comic Bloggers Panel (Heidi from The Beat, Joanna D Carlson, Ron Hogan from galleycat, and Chris from Comics212. As a blogger, I felt like the bit part actor to the megastar. After sitting behind him for an hour, blogfriend rab from Estoreal and I caught up.

Saw some of the Marvel Initiative panel-- was great to see Dan Slott and Mike Oeming so high profile. Didio's DC Nation was the normal loud and fast sideshow.

I picked up the daily sheet of signing for the DC booth...and there it was..Gail Simone at 6:30 PM. I had been checking the NYCC site, and she was never listed, and knowing she is a West coaster I was surprised, and thrilled.

When I met her, rab from Estoreal wanted to be present "just to watch this". I was third in line, and told her I was so excited to meet her I could just cry. She was so nice, signed my one BOP that I bought (with about 100 of her comics at home!), and took the pic on my previous post.

While she was signing, rab took me over to her husband Scott- and awww- he said that she won't let him read a lot of blogs because of trolls that trash her, but he can read mine, and that it's funny! I'm so glad to see our talented Gail has such a nice, funny, and attractive husband!

Within the next few days, I'll finish with my panel notes, sightings, and pictures.

Rucka NY

NYCC beetle

Comicontinuity NYCC

My brain is so full of NYcomiccon events and people, it's hard to even start. Let's start at the end of the continuity and work backwards. It's like the multiverse at these shows; everyone has a completely different experience of what they see. There were three floors- special events and panels on the ground floor, the main exhibit hall on 2, and artist alley and special guest signings on 3.

View my NEW YORK COMICCON- FRIDAY-PHOTOLOG

The last thing Phillygirl and I did was finally get up to Rags Morales in artist alley. I introduced her, he was sketching. But we had a fun few minutes of talking, and his art for Batman/Wraith Child (?) is so amazing. The level of detail of buildings and faces-- I think he said Bedard is writing it. He should be at Wizard Philly where it might be easier to spend time. Next to him was Ethan Van Sciver, sitting with Brian Bolland. Rags said they caused the traffic jams around him. Ethan said life in Florida is good, and I met his very nice wife Sharis. He did remember I was a librarian (and a redhead). Too bad there wasn't more time. I do think the artist alley allowed me only to see people I intended- them, Mike Oeming, Colleen Doran- and I did not get to visit or find new indie people to support.

The Beat: Artists Aerie upstairs is VERY crowded. Mixed reports on how people are doing — popular artists doing better than non-popular. No surprise there.

5PM
DC's crossing over panel A very adult and thoughtful panel regarding mainstream attention and crossovers from the comic world. Next door the Venture Brothers panel (friend RAB from Estoreal was there) kept howling in laughter through the walls, but we were having a smart and sometimes funny discussion on a panel that included Brian K. Vaughan, Paul Dini, YA Author Casey (and new Minx author for The Plain Janes), Percy from hip hop with his autobio GN Sentences coming, and Marc from EW.
I broke out in a cheer when the subject turned to libraries-
As graphic novels are the fastest growing part of young adult libraries and she is a young adult writer, Castellucci sees comics as a perfect place to continue to reach young readers, something she is “very passionate about"

And BKV went on to talk about how of course we are concerned with the direct market, but libraries are really the place of discovery for many titles and said
Vaughan believes that Runaways is more mature and darker than Ex Machina or Y the Last Man. He then said, “It was unthinkable to me to find graphic novels in libraries,” and got several laughs by comparing the spread of graphic novels to spread of a pink eye infection.

Spent time on the exhibit floor, looking at publishers tables and figures and picking up goodies.
DC puts together a great presence and show. Each day they have a printed schedule for the signings, and a board that updates changes. They give out tons of free pins (although those damn things pop off all the time), posters, and the staff at the DC booth is always very friendly and decent. Marvel's booth always seems rather deserted besides at signing times; great posters and figures, but they don't have staff that mills about and are very stingy with giveaways. I did not get to a single signing at the Marvel booth- didn't even get to talk to Dan Slott.

3 PM Phillygirl meets Nicholas Brendon (Xander)! She paid for the Xander military action figure, so I hung out and watched the signing panel while she was waiting. A great pic of the two of them on her camera, I'll post soon. Xander was wearing a porkpie hat, shades, and a short sleeve shirt that showed his muscles. I believe the platinum blonde next to him was his twin. It was crazy hot upstairs. It was the special signings, gaming area. I walked past Peter Mayhew (Chewy), Gary Coleman, and Hayden from Heroes was behind curtains there.

1 - 2 PM The Stephen King Dark Tower panel While we were told in the morning that all special events tickets were sold out, a nice volunteer around 12 gave us two orange tickets to get in. We sat in the 2nd row, far right, and were able to watch Stephen come out. He was thinner and grayer that the years of seeing his book jacket image prepped me for, but when we he spoke or answered questions, it was the cadence of his characters "you gotta get over this spoiler shit" "I listen to a lot of rock n'roll, man". The Q&A and the panel was a level of gushing I haven't seen-- amazing that he remains as humble and grounded after hearing person after person tell him is a singular genius or changed their life.

10 AM
Buffy the Vampire Slayer panel
Disappointing in most aspects. Nicholas (Xander) wasn't there, Bianca (Kendra) and Juliet Landau (Drusilla) were rather quiet, leaving the other characters - Larry, Clem - to fill in the gap. The thousands of people in line would have liked to get into the panel instead of wait in line for 2 hours; we got lucky and went into to the bathroom and just walked over into the special events room. One fault of the con is how the special events panels were run, and tickets distributed. No one understands that you can go into a panel with your badge without waiting in the incredible lines for the exhibit hall. Good signage for the other panels, and printed in the program though.

I did get up and ask about Joss Whedon, saying we comics fans love him, and I asked if he was strict with the script or let them ad lib, and wanted to hear stories about him. After some a long pause, Juliet did say some interesting things about how "the words were the words" but he allowed a lot of freedom in movement, but that Buffy was such his singular vision, he even approved hair and wardrobe while writing and directing the show.

PW Friday professionals and public at 4 PM

Saturday afternoon post The Beat
Apparently a lot of people tried to get in without standing in line this morning and were upset that they had to go back outside and wait, but we haven’t heard of any major disasters.

More to come from the redhead's adventures in comicland. It's a very special post when I discuss meeting Gail Simone on Fri, and chatting with her attractive and funny husband Scott. So glad they made their first visit to NYC! Me and Gail!

Rucka fri

Much beat street

After a long, good day at the New York Comiccon with Philly Girl, I am beat. My feet are tired, back and I have piles of comics, posters, and shirts all around the living room.
I have to share all the artists and writers I met or met again at the con when I'm coherent. We did get a ticket to the Stephen King The Dark Tower panel, and PhillyGirl met Nicholas (Xander from Buffy).
Yesterday I met Brian Wood at the Vertigo table, told him how much I liked DMZ, and Local, and Demo. Photo here!

Mcniven

GAIL SIMONE!

DC panel

Eko

Comic bloggers

Marvel

DC booth

All special tix gone

Toys and Beers

The first New York Comicon Feb 2006 , Friday, Day 1, see my flashback pictures and posts - (scroll to the Feb 24 - 26th posts).
Thought I'd share a a few other pics from last year, when 33,000 people went to the NYCC.

Dale Eaglesham:

Steranko:

And me getting free drinks and food at the preview Toy Fare, invite from local comic store owner Chad!

Catching up on Mystery in Space 6. MiS5 was another entertaining story of Comet infiltrating a restricted lab, with psychic assassins, talking dog Tyrone, control chips in brains, and getting stranded on that rock again. Good stuff, with an action driven story spiced with humor.

The Dark Tower art is breathtaking. The story is new to me, but Peter David began the scaffold to build. Look forward to seeing where this goes.

First person fangirl

Just a few more days to the New York Comicon! The guest list continues to expand. I will try to share my experience there by taking some camphone pics and posting them to the blog, starting this Friday into Saturday. I'm going to be zonked out and have lots to share, pics and summary, afterwards but at least you can get a first person view while I mingle and swoon at the NYCC.

It has been so cold here, I've been watching a lot of Tivo (Gilmore, Veronica, Greys, D Housewives, Colbert, Daily, Lost) and DVDs. A coworker really wanted me to watch Kingdom of Heaven about the crusades, with a lot of Orlando Bloom LOTR-type fight scenes. I also watched The Meth Epidemic, a very interesting Frontline show about the rise of meth and the influence of the pharmaceutical industry.
I saw a post on a blog recently about Entertainment Weekly being a comic friend; recently there are articles on DMZ, comic sales, graphic novels, and this latest one on the Dark Tower series. Fingers crossed I get one of the 'golden tickets' into the King panel on Sat. I've been reading King novels since I was about 11; I'm a librarian; and a comic fan-- shouldn't I get extra points?

Post V day

A day late, but still one thing that made me happy for Valentines Day. Atom Eve and Invincible at the end of a sweet scene, where he flies to Africa to see her, she comforts him about his mom, and he stammers a word or two until they just kiss. What will happen with girlfriend Amber? I mean, he has powers and he's getting run down by her little college friends. With obvious bias, I think in this series it's exactly like Spider-Man-- the writer wanted us to like the blonde, but the redhead has much more personality and depth and the fans like her more. So go, Eve, get you some!

Make sure you didn't miss the V cards at Polite Dissent

Hope you all had a good V Day (even with an ice storm here, mine was good). One week until the NY comicon-- it's hard to think of all the artists and writers and the daily adds of guests.

Spidey's load

Marvel is really bonkers regarding Spidey these days. In Spider-Man: Reign, Peter finds he has killed Mary Jane with his 'radioactive fluid'. Really? I know Quesada and the editors at Marvel have been wanting to jettison the marriage-- but biohazard spunk? A new low for a beloved character, and Marvel. I think I'd like to add that fluid to the Cup-O-Joe.

Bryan pointed out this much better fate for Mary Jane: as little red-riding hood.
SPIDER-MAN FAIRY TALES #1
Written by C.B. Cebulski & David Sexton
Art and cover by Ricardo Tercio
In the tradition of X-Men Fairy Tales, Marvel makes its move on melding more modern myths, starting with Spider-Man! Our friendly neighborhood becomes a quaint village and Mary Jane fills the shoes of another famous red-head in this premiere issue as the tale of Little Red Riding Hood is retold with superhero sensibilities!

Recent reads:
DMZ 15 continues with an insurgent storyline, involving US peacekeepers, the Army, and UN. "Trustwell Corporation. Terrorism for hire. Stumbled onto a big and difficult story." I guess I miss the more photojournalism aspects of the story , while Matt is in deep cover. My enjoyment of this comic is waning.

She-Hulk 15
"Hope it's you Bruce. I'm Hulk-lite. Hulk with half the calories." Jennifer struggles against Hulk villians, like the Abomination, and as a S.H.I.E.L.D agent.

Fell 7 was a single police interview room story, with a scumbag murderer getting off due to a defense lawyer. I did like the appearance of a redhead DA- Templesmith's art and is so dark and scratchy, with some shocking color as contrast.

Walking Dead 34 has Rick, Michonne and a few from the Gov camp on route to the prison. Things have changed there, as the final panels show. Next issue should reveal more, but while I'm interested, on WD it's more a mild interest.

Spi-Dog

Spi-Dog in the New 2007 Toy Fare preview
Just put in this week's comic order, and it's a paltry 3 titles. It's actually nice to have a break on both the brain and wallet. I'm sure I'll come home with stacks from the New York con to be snowed under!

I want to promote the Comic Blog Legion. I hand code all the bloggity goodness there; please comment or email me if there is blog you have or know of that should join our legion!

There is a new Comic Weblog from Tales from the Long Box. I just asked for RF to be added to get the latest from me...

Read Loren's post on I didn't think it was possible to make Power Girl's boobs bigger!. And Batgirl gets the Power Girl and Catwoman ridiculous proportions too. How can she work in the library- those things need their own shelving cart!

1 inch wallop

Heroclix army invades! How many redheads can you spot and name?

And, great news, Fredocat was released and is home recovering!

Books: Skylight Confessions by Alice Hoffman
Alice Hoffman is one of my favorite authors, and two years ago I saw her keynote at the NJ Library Association conference. And met her in the autograph line; she was funny and bright.

This is a dark book, and the characters aren't loveable. But the lead character, a redhead, haunts her ex, who hadn't done right by her. Dishes break, soot is left behind, and many birds are entwined in the story. According to my Irish book, in pre Christian times birds were thought to be intermediaries between this world and the otherworld.

Strange Piece of Paradise
I'm a True Crime fanatic, thanks to my mother's influence. Currently reading this memoir/true crime story:
Start this book, and you won't stop...In synopsis, Strange Piece of Paradise sounds like pulp fiction: 1977, two Yale students-hopeful and buoyant-embark upon a bike trip across the country's "most scenic blue roads" only to be brutally attacked at a campsite by a psycho stranger in cowboy boots who drives off into the desert night.

I have my stack of comics, and I've only read the 52's. Dark Tower, Jack of Fables, and nine others await!

SuperKitty

All: please wish good thoughts for my poor kitty, Fredo, now at the animal hospital. He has to stay a few days. He's just the best kitty.

I like seeing the comments to my previous post on where people get their comics. Comment if you haven't yet!

Worst. Cover. Ever part 9
A real eye-lemon from Liefeld at Mark Engblom's site.

Another insider comic blog
called ComicMix.com-- although it currently says "belted with gamma rays".
Comicsmix will offer "the latest talking points in the entertainment universe." He says the site's comics coverage will focus on how the medium is growing beyond the hardcore comics fan and attracting general readers.

Hey! Some actual reviews:
Just picked up 52 weeks 39 and 40, but did catch up to 37. Just did the math and realized by the end of 52, I will have spent $130 this year on this comic. There should be some trade in where I get one bound book for giving my 52 floppies in. Or DC should make a board of all of us who bought every issue. Issue 37 was the Supernova revealed! issue. Booster unravels the story from how the lab had clues everywhere to what was going on with Skeets. His arrogance was exaggerated, and jealousy at Supernova to misdirect. Huh. As we all know with comics, hang on and dead is never dead. Usually.

I also liked the Ollie and Dinah discussion that references her going "East to learn new skills", a tie-in to Shiva and Birds of Prey (and an insider conversation I understood! Yes!). And Animal Man was left behind, left for dead, but dead is never dead...

Birds of Prey 102
The Lois Lane and Barbara Gordon sit down was good, with Lois fishing for info, but leaving wtih "someone powerful seems to rather dislike you." Misfit Batgirl tries to run home base, and ends up just jumping wildly into the pic. Not sure what to think of her, but she does add comic relief. Manhunter is questioned. The team is just beginning, and I don't yet have a feel for all the characters. But Simone can make me root for them, I know it.

New Lost tonight.

Hey there little girl, do you like comics?

Two posts on comic sales from two of my favorite male bloggers, who are not creepy-

Profits of doom Rab has a great analysis and historical summary that includes: The typical DC superhero book seems to be orbiting in the range of 20,000 to 40,000 in sales. In the early Seventies -- when I was a child and therefore everything about life was perfect -- Jack Kirby's "Fourth World" books (New Gods, Mister Miracle et al) sold in the neighborhood of 200,000 to 300,000 copies and were cancelled as failures.

Peripheral Vertigo from Mark Creators like Brian Wood weigh in. I only scanned the beginning, but one quote that stood out was "In 2007 having to trek to a comic book store and buy a comic every month is insane, ". My comic store can be insane, but that's due to personality not business model. I know people who have subscription services and get shiny bagged and boarded shipments to their homes. That could cost less, but then I don't support the local comic stores with my money. Because it usually takes me several weeks to get there, I'd probably read comics on a more timely schedule with delivery.

How do you get your comics? Comic Stores, Subscription, Wait for trades?

I don't read Supergirl!

Every day the NY Comicon explodes with more goodness! I have only scanned the panels, but favorites from DC Nation and Vertigo are there, along with a comic bloggers panel that discusses "insider" blogs and newcomers, and many panels for librarians (rock out!).

Sorry for the lack of real blogging. Excuses include mom visiting, busy at work, hotel swapping for the MidJersey Comicon, SuperBowl watching and a girls night out. Should be back on track now.

I feel on the "outside lookin' in" on the Supergirl Berganza and blogosphere discussions. I don't, and never have read Supergirl. In her current incarnation: think she's too skinny, reveals too much skin, wears a very outdated ice skating skirt, and is one of the overcrowded field of blonde teenage characters. I'll take Stargirl.

I'm 1.5 weeks behind on getting comics, but have enjoyed the latest Birds of Prey, Catwoman 63, DMZ 15, and She-Hulk 15. More later...

Xander and Drusilla at NY Comicon

I am a huge Buffy fan, like most of the comic world. I adore Xander (except when he cowarded out and left Anya at the altar). And I am so geeking out because not only will Nicolas Brendan be in NY, but also Juliet Landau (Drusilla) and Amy the witch and Larry. This con is becoming a bit more San Diegoish with all the non-comic book media {Buffy does have GN's and figures}, but in this case, I'll take it.

I'm sure I won't even get close enough to see him and that can suck more than him never being there. At Wizard last June I had to settle for just seeing Geoff Johns and Jim Lee from a distance because you essentially have to decide to wait in line the whole day just to get a chance to wait in another line.

Phillygirl is a huge Buffy fan too. We went out for her early birthday bowling last night at a swanky new bowling alley. My score was seriously bad.

New ref book