From: [ric k j] at [rice.edu] (Rick Jones)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.info
Subject: Mr Jones Goes To San Diego Pt 1 (Wed-Thu)
Date: Sun, 21 Jul 96 03:13:35 GMT

[I tried posting this from blkbox.com, but it vanished into the ether.
Let's try again.]

			Mister Jones Goes To San Diego


SPOILER WARNINGS: There are going to be spoilers in here.  I'm not going
to blurt out everything I learned reading preview copies, but I am going
to report on the general stuff that was revealed in panels.  Deal with it,
fanboys.  If folks are curious about what I saw in preview copies of DC
stuff, send me email.

I've never been to a *major* comic con before.  Local cons, sure, where
I'd dive into the quarter boxes like a dolphin doing tricks for
fishy-treats, and *if we were lucky*, we'd get a real, honest-to-god pro
there.  Mostly, Houston comic cons are a large dealers' room, where the
fanboys are quickly and quietly parted from their hard earned shekels.
For the past two years, I had been going to GenCon, but GenCon '95 was so
dissappointing (I don't play collectable card games - and I couldn't swing
a cat without hitting the durn cards) that I considered spending my
vacation days elsewhere.  Then, when Greg "Elmo" Morrow started working on
me to go to SDCC with him, I was a pretty easy mark.  Besides, I'd never
been to California before.


			WEDNESDAY: Changes In Longitudes


Anyway, with a spring in my step and cash in my wallet, I flew out to San
Diego.  Greg and Michael Grabois had gone ahead to do some sightseeing in
SD, but my vacation time was limited, so I just left on the Wednesday
before and left Monday after.

The flight up was downright pleasant.  Anyway, the cool breezes of San
Diego greeted me outside the terminal (cool for me, the weather reports
talked anbout how hot it was - in the 80's - Houston's a paved-over swamp
so it was downright cool to me), and I took a cab (after giving up on the
hotel shuttle) to the hotel.  I met up with Michael, who then took me
across the street to Horton Plaza - a gorgeous 4-story outdoor mall near
our hotel.  The only drawnback is that it's not intuitive as to how to get
from floor to floor.  Greg and Michael dubbed it the Escher Mall.  Being a
former Whovian, I called it Castrovalva.  I spent about an hour or so in
the Horton Plaza Hologram Store, and saw the amazing advances in
holography in the last few years.  It used to be a simple 3-d image, or
maybe one that changed as you moved from side to side.  Now, the movements
are fluid, so that the images fluidly transform into each other, and
there's multi-color holograms as well.  Amazing stuff.

Sated and amused, we returned to the hotel room where Greg awaited.  Next
step was off to the shuttle to the convention center, to pick up our
Steenkin' Bodges.  We ran into a bunch of people (unlike many con reorts,
I'm not going to list everyone I met, mostly because I have a horrible
head for names).  Then, it was off to dinner, and then Elayne's party.  We
quickly overflowed her room at the Clarion and were graciously moved into
one of the big meeting rooms by the friendly staff.  This let Steve and
Elayne ween out of their own party at a semi-reasonable hour (but I guess
that's what happens when you get old :> ).

After talking comics (gee, there's a suprise) and schmoozing for a while,
the Rogues Gallery Revenge Squad (the renamed Black Ink Irregulars) and
others began firing Silver Age trivia questions at each other, and we kept
at that until late at night. If it had been more general trivia, I might
have had a chance, but I was very much outgunned by Encyclopedia Galloway,
as was most everyone else there.  Thus began the "tradition" of not
getting enough sleep.


		Thursday: Grumpy Old Farts Like Me


Thursday Morning, Greg and I went for breakfast at the Cinnamon Roll Shop
in Horton Plaza for their amazing cinnamon rolls (ummmmmm.....) and then
it was off to the con.

GenCon's a zoo. SDCC is Jurassic Park.  Herds of galloping galominus in
search of Silver Age deals wandered the plains, foraging amongst the
booths and giggling at the taped over naughty bits in the art shows. The
Dealer's Room was easily 1 1/2 times the size of the one at GenCon, and
did not have the TSR castle in the middle to break the rows up.  The crowd
was about as dense, but the space was larger.

I'd have to say, overall DC had the best "booth".  There was a place for
heavy duty lines for Waid and Ross to sign Kingdom Come books, but there
was also a big table with lots of preview copies, and other pros sat
behind those tables where we could chat with them.  And, the video wall
played the occasion episode of Animaniacs or Freakazoid (comics related
ones, natch) in between cycles of the extended DC add.  You could walk
through the booth, look at neat stuff, and get out again quickly.  I
usually wandered in the DC booth 4-5 times a day, to see who was there,
and add signatures to my sketchbook.

Marvel, on the other hand, was a constant line to snake through and
get stuff signed.  One of the exterior walls of their booth was a video
wall that showed Marvel promo stuff, including a brief bit for the new
Hulk toon.  And, according to one pro, the moving lights shining down on
the signing table was about to induce epilepsy.   I might have gone in to
look at stuff, if I had been able to, but I hate long lines.

I zoomed past Image (though I did stop at Homage to look at what's there).
Interestingly enough, there were no bimbos in costume this year - for any
company, as far as I could tell.  A good sign, though it's more likely I
just didn't see 'em.

I did notice, looking at the new Captain America poster, that Bucky's a
girl.  Now, I heartily approve of more women in comics (okay, where's the
check, Elayne?), but a teenage female sidekick named "Bucky" just
sounds... well... dirty to me.  Maybe I'm just a freak.  Also, it seems
that Sue Storm broke her spine and got a really bad wedgie in the FF's
crash.  That's gotta hurt.

PANEL: DC Comics / Art and Storytelling
(Kelly Jones, Dan Jurgens, and Steve Dillon)

Basically, a discussion of how artists tell stories.  However, since it's
hard to do so without being Scott McCloud or having slides, they mostly
talked about the state of art in comics today.

The gist of it is: there's a lack of craft in the comics industry that's
been growing in the last few years.  "Hot" artists are going for the money
shot, and not paying attention to the flow of the story.  And there's a
severe dearth of inkers coming up the pike.  Nobody wants to ink these
days - somewhat understandable, but a good inker can make or break
pencils.  Not only that, but good editors are getting harder to find.  It
used to be that the editors were folks who used to write or draw - now
it's just as likely to be some guy who used to work in a comic book store.
The other big gripe is that artists are getting more worried about their
action figure lines than the lines on the page.  During the comics
explosion a few years ago, pretty much any chimp who could draw a good
panel was given a comic, a huge check, and then we never heard from them
again.

Most of the audience just nodded and agreed with the panel, myself included.

PANEL: An Homage To Nobility In Comics
(James Robinson, Brent Anderson, Kurt Busiek, Parl Smith, and Terry Moore)

FYI, Paul Smith (like Gil Kane) looks like he drew himself.

Anyway, I didn't catch it until Greg pointed it out to me, but these are
all the Homage Comics folks. It's okay, because I'm going to be getting
everything Homage has on it's plate right now (all 3 of 'em, two of which
I was already getting before Homage formed).  Anyway, the topic was about
nobility in comics, and how it's mostly gone these days.

Like me, they were grumpy about how comics were more and more about guys
putting on tights and shooting each other with Big Guns and vague
motivations.   As Kurt said, the X-Men used to be about putting on an "X"
and showing the world that not all mutants were Magneto.  Now it's just
about poorly drawn lines in the sand and the line between good and evil
mutant is harder and harder to see.

All of them want to put a more noble aspect in their characters.  Kurt's
doing it with Astro City.  He pointed out that, after #1 came out, he got
letters wondering when Samaritan was going to go postal on us.  Kurt: "He
doesn't *have* a breaking point - that's the point."  Folks like Samaritan
are heroes, and heroes don't crack.  He also wondered, when did calling
someone a Boy Scout become an insult?

On a slightly different tack, James Robinson believes that heroes should
have flaws (i.e. Hourman's addiction to Miraclo in Golden Age) to make
them more human, but that the true nobility comes in doing the right thing
at the right time. In the end, heroes do the right thing, even if they
stumbled along the way. *But*, he and Paul Smith are working of a series
of mini-series (because of Paul's slow output) called "Leave It To
Chance", about a family of occult protectors of a city. The role of
protector has been handed down from father to son for hundreds of years,
but now, the Protector has a daughter.  He figures that it's not too bad,
she'll grow up, and he'll train *her* son.  The daughter - Chance, a
teenage girl, (drawn in the Kitty Pryde mode, not the busty Image
Cheerleader) has a different opinion. She and her familiar (a small dragon
named St. George) are going to prove to her father that she's got the
right stuff.  It sounds like a lot of fun.  If Robinson, Smith or Mike
Mignola are out there: Hellboy - Leave it to Chance Crossover.  Think
about it!

[As a side note, I'd like to congradulate Greg for not strangling James
Robinson or even frothing during the talk.  Greg's still very bitter over
Robinson's handling of the Golden Age characters.]

And, even farther down the spectrum was Terry Moore, who did believe that
there is a breaking point (i.e. the first Strangers in Paradise arc
stemmed from one scene: Francine's nervous breakdown in the park - what
would cause it and what would come out of it), but that the comics
industry has gone way out of line when it comes to the violence in comics.
He writes more realistic stories about people in the real world (or at
least the world of crime fiction), but believes that heroes should indeed
act like heroes.

PANEL: VALIANT HEROES RELAUNCH
(Fabian Nicieza, Kurt Busiek, Doug Wheatly, Jeff Gomez, Art
Somethingorother, and Kevin Macguire)

Now, Elyane said that Fabe is usually a lot more upbeat at these talks.
If that's so, I now know where Speedball came from.  He was already
pretty bouncy - I shudder to think what it'd be like if he was "on".

Anyway, the old Valiant Universe is getting relauched in a new one.  For
those of you who were fans of the old Valiant stuff, the links between the
new and old universes will be explained, starting in the X-O Manowar/Iron
Man crossover.

Anyway, here's the new titles.  I wrote down the writers, but not the
artists.  That shows my prejudice, and the fact I can't take notes as
fast as Fabe zings out the creative teams at Warp 3 or so.

X-O Manowar: Starting in October, Waid and Agustin

The alien suit of armor has been bouncing around since caveman times.
Putting it on gives you all kinds of powers, but you eventually become a
"Kentucky Fried Person" as it burns you out.  The last guy to wear the
suit was a Nazi in WWII, and after he went foom, the Americans studied it,
trying to stop the KFP problem.  In the present day, a crack programmer
thinks he has it licked, and the govt is ready to give it a try.  I am
assuming that things go wrong.

Shadowman: Starting in November, Mature Readers, Garth Ennis 1-4, Delano 5+

This one was already in the works before the reboot.  Dead folks wait
around in the Deadside before going to their final reward or punishment.
Some of them escape the Deadside (which is rather like a beat up old bus
station) and go back to the land of the living.  The guy who brings 'em
back dead is Xero, the Shadowman.

Ninjak: November, Kurt Busiek

It's Spider-Man meets the Last Starfighter, meets Mortal Kombat.  Denny is
your average 16 year old who spends too much time playing Acclaim's hot
new video game, Ninjak.  But there's a story hidden in the Ninjak game,
and when Denny solves the puzzle, he gets the ability to transform into a
handsome, _adult_, butt-kicking martial arts master of mayhem.  But he
also has to stop the "Dark Dozen," the villainous servants of Lord Akuma.
On his side is the centuries old monk who now works for Acclaim, and used
the video game as a way to find a Chosen One to stop Lord Akuma.  Oh, and
Denny has to deal with Acclaim's lawyers who want him to cease and desist
since he's violating their trademark.

Turok: December (quarterly), Fabian Nicieza

Centuries ago, Turok, a Native American tribesman (I didn't write down the
exact tribe but it's a real one, unlike Chakotay's Generic Indian Tribe)
accidentally opened up a gateway to "The Lost Land" a temporally squajed
up place that's home to sentient dinosaurs.  With the gate open, the dinos
can come to Earth.  The descendants of Turok have dedicated their lives to
stopping the invasions.  Enter Joshua, a college student about to get an
offer from a professional baseball team.  He discovers all that family
destiny stuff was true and has to fight intelligent dinos.

Troublemakers: December, Fabe

A drug company got tired of making band-aids and new cough syrups.  So
they went into genetic experimentation to make a better person. Their
creations just hit puberty, and chaos ensues. Fabe described it as "The
Challengers of the Unknown meets the Power Pack."  Every issue is a
self-contained story, as the Troublemakers go out to investigate
paranormal stuff for the company.   They are: Blur (who controlls the
EMF, and can mentally link into machines, including the security cameras
in their HQ), Rebound  (who controlls gravity and was described as Calvin
with superpowers), Calamity Jane (who has luck powers that she can't
control too well), and XL (who is like the old JLA villain Paragon -
anything you can do, he can do better).

Magnus - Robot Fighter: January, Tom Peyer

Magnus is the "ultimate Luddite".  In the far far future, humanity turned
Earth over to the machines, and sat on the couch to watch TV for the rest
of their lives.  A bunch of people who think that's wrong  gave Magnus
super powers, and sent him back in time to prevent it. Once he's here, he
has to figure out what he needs to do to stop his timeline from occuring.

Eternal Warriors: February  (Quarterly), didn't write down the writer

Essentially, it's the Nine Princes of Earth.  There is this huge
dysfunctional family of Immortals who are shaping Earth's development.
Some want to rule humanity, some want to let them die.

Quantum and Woody: February, Priest with Mark Bright on pencils

They're the dysfunctional Batman and Robin.  Two childhood friends who
grew apart come back together as adults to solve their parents' murder.
In the process, they get super-powers, but have to touch their
technobabble bracelets once every 24 hours or they'll die.  Eric decides
to put on a mask and become "Quantum."  Quantum then asks Woody what he
wants to be called.  Woody gets right up in Quantum's face and shouts
"WOODY!"  Apparantly, Woody's role in the Valiant Universe is to rag on
all the other heroes.  Should be funny.

Trinity Angels: March, Kevin Maguire

A famous archeologist accidentally opens a Pandora's Box of "gremlins"
who are spirits that possess folks and turn them into super-villains.
The three daughters of the archeologist are also given powers by the
MacGuffin so they can recapture the gremlins.   It's on a slow enough
schedule that Macguire can hopefully keep up. (*cough*Strikeback*cough*)

Bloodshot: March, Lem Kaminski

It's Terminator meets Frankenstein meets Oliver Stone.  A guy is killed
for getting too close to a conspiracy.  But he comes back due to (and I
quote) "internal submicroscopic yat-a-ta yat-a-ta."  Bloodshot's out to
discover who he was, and what's going on.

In addition to the Valiant Heroes re-launch, Acclaim is also reprinting
Classics Illustrated, and handling the license properties Sliders,
Waterworld, and Quantum Leap (written by Waid).  They're also doing a
crime fiction line:  Armed and Dangerous by Bob Hall, Gravediggers by Mark
Moretti (about unsolved crimes from the NYC police files) and Grackle.

LEGION DINNER

After that, I braved the dealers room, schmoosed with people, and went to
the Legion dinner, at some yummy California Pizza Place.  (Special Kudoes
to Sidne Ward for being the unofficial organizer of the dinner - not to
mention most of the other unofficial rac get-togethers over the weekend.)
We dashed back to the Convention Center to catch the fireworks, and missed
'em all.  We wandered the pier for a while, and then sat down in some
hotel's Lounge to discuss the Legion.  For the most part, that is.  My new
definition of hell is, at 1:00 AM, being trapped between Greg and David
Goldfarb while they discuss Sailor Moon and Japanese linguistics.  Love ya
guys.  :>


--
Rick Jones              "You want to tell me who to shoot?"
[r--k] at [blkbox.com]         "Christ, I don't know. Everybody but me, I think."
[M--r--k] at [aol.com]                 --Hawk & Spenser, Valediction
http://www-ece.rice.edu/~rickj/