I was in attendance at Fan Expo Canada and it was interesting to see what the big two, not three, were up to. Unlike years before it they had a defined DC and Marvel booth.
Marvel was reviewing portfolios and had full coverage in the live – blog area on Marvel.com. They had a few Marvel artists on site as well as Joe Quesada Editor in Chief. Joe gave a few workshops through the weekend and I attended as many as I could. The general feeling is that Marvel is excited and thinks that Web and motion-comics is the path to the future. Have you seen a motion comic yet? It’s pretty cool; you should definitely check one out at Marvel.com. Also it was strange to note that in the guide it tells us that C.B. Cebulski – X-Infernus, I would rather have seen C.B. Cebulski – Marvel Talent Scout. The reason is simply because I like Marvels ideals and concepts on bringing in new talent. I think that C.B. is making himself as visible as possible and has been extraordinarily helpful in helping people into the comics industry. There weren’t too many good giveaways at the marvel booth, but there was tons of music and flashing lights.
DC was not, as far as I was aware, doing any kind of portfolio reviews. Leading the team they had Dan Didio, Executive Editor with many artists signing. They are not taking the same approach as Marvel, and for that I applaud them. Their booth was quieter but offered tons of giveaways. Notably a look into Blackest Night zero issue, Wednesday Comics some cool buttons that I have come across before. The Blackest Night was a fun read for my train ride home and you know its going to be fun to look at when artist Ivan Reis is supplying the artwork. If you haven’t heard about Blackest Night yet, go and pick it up. Wednesday Comics was one of the best things, for me, about the convention. Wednesday Comics is, for those don’t know, a variation on news print comics. It’s exciting to see DC comics experimenting with variations on the print styles.
With Marvel moving to Digital and DC Moving the other way, we as the consumer will have so many options, the fact is soon it won’t be about Marvel or DC its going to be a format war. Is that bad? No. Does that mean I wont be a DC fan in love with Marvel? No. All it means is that I win, you win, Marvel wins and DC wins. The future of comics looks really good. This convention proved that in more ways then was intended I’m sure.
Oh ya!
There were other people at the convention besides Marvel and DC! The Bruce Campbell was there, Roger Corman, Linda Hamilton, Lenard Nimoy, Max Brooks, Dave Thomas, Leslie Neilson, Billy Dee Williams and quite a few more. I am sure they were terrific. I was there for the comics.
Benton Sartore on 
Merin on 
Evan Henry on 
See, this kind of stuff just leaves me more anxious. While it’s exciting to see experimentation with publication mediums in both traditional and digital ways, great comics are ultimately about one thing: great story-telling. It seems to me that over the last few years that central concern is being lost, especially where the big two are concerned, in a mire of distractions ranging from new technologies to profit driven gimmicks. I want to hear less from the big two about technology and distribution strategies, and more about how they are planning to renew focus and the quality and cohesiveness of their story-telling.
Besides I, for one, think motion comics are a big rip-off. Digital comics are one thing, and using the computer and the internet to improve the comic reading experience are good goals, but motion comics are a gimmick.
Crossgen tried to “enhance” digital comics by adding sound effects and voices. That’s called really poor animation, folks. If you are going to animate something, go full-bore and animate it well. Otherwise comics are visual, not auditory, media.
Motion comics are the animation quality of the really old Marvel cartoons (when Captain America throws his mighty shield) – and they are even released on DVDs. Films, you know video shown on the big screen, are called MOVIES, or MOTION PICTURES, because they are moving pictures. Motion Comics are, really, animated pictures – hence animation.
Lameness.
Scott Kurtz of PVP linked awhile back to this guy displaying what he thought could be done with the web and the digital medium for comics to enhance them. Basically it allowed some cool tricks with pacing and reveal – how comic creators typically use the space between panels (the gutter) and the end of the page / top of the next page for suspense / reveals (cliffhangers) can be morphed with a sort-of slide-show approach, where instead of turning pages with a traditional comic the reader online clicks the next button, and doing so allows so many options, like adding the next word balloon to an already revealed panel for dramatic effect, or adding the next panel to the page, or adding an element to a panel that wasn’t there previous, as well as just turning to the next “page.” This, to me, is staying within the boundaries of what is a comic book without trying to do cheap-ass animation.
I wasn’t going to go into it, but I definitely agree on the gimmicky pointlessness of motion comics. And on a marginally related note, did anybody catch how Superman doesn’t have a Russian accent in the beginning of the Red Son motion comic, but picks one up somewhere along the line? They’re not even trying to make these things good.