@@@@ Con Report from WIZARDWORLD CHICAGO! @@@@ BATMAN: GOTHAM KNIGHT DVD Review! @@@@ RIP Michael Turner @@@@

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What’s SHOOT THE MESSENGER?

Well, AICN COMICS: SHOOT THE MESSENGER is your weekly one stop shop for comic book news that’s dropped in the previous week. Thanks to Newsarama, CBR, Wizard, etc. for reporting it as it breaks. Click on the links for the original stories. This column cuts the crap to run down all the vital information for those of you who don’t follow it as it comes in, and serves it all up with that special ingredient of @$$y goodness. It’s also the place for interviews, previews, and special reports.

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Hey folks, Ambush Bughere with an extra special SHOOT THE MESSENGER Column. This past weekend, Sleazy Gand I had a chance to check out WIZARD WORLD CHICAGO at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL (just outside of Chicago). The weekend was filled with highs and lows, twists and turns, heartwarming hellos and heartbreaking goodbyes. If you guys are looking for a straightforward, snooze-inducing bullet point account of the weekend, I suggest you turn back now.
We’ve got ‘em here at the top for you no bullshit types, but we like to take you through the experience of the con because we know you all couldn’t be there, so we offer the next best thing. Here at AICN Comics, our con reports have been more experiential than anything else. We have fun at these things and try to let you know what that feeling was like. Sleazy and I wandered the booths, the artist alleys and the various panels given by the best and the brightest of the comic book industry. Sleazy’s going to handle the news that dropped at the Con first, so I’ll hand it over to him.

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Sleazy G here. One of the biggest problems I’ve had with Wizard World Chicago the last couple of years was a noticeable dearth of talent. Thankfully, that pattern didn’t hold up this year, with regulars like Bendis and Dan Didio, but also with first-timers like Gail Simone and Guest of Honor Warren Ellis. Unfortunately, moving WWC to a weekend much earlier in the season than San Diego meant we didn’t get much in the way of big news or announcements at the panels. Here are some of the highlights of what was announced:

MARVEL

@ Marvel is bringing artist Luke Ross on board CAPTAIN AMERICA starting with issue #43, but he won’t be replacing Steve Epting—they’ll be alternating story arcs.
@ We’ll be seeing Danny Ketch vs. Johnny Blaze in the pages of GHOST RIDER.
@ Jason Aaron will be writing a Wolverine miniseries.
@ Abnett and Lanning have signed exclusively with Marvel.
@ Magik will be returning later this year.
@ ULTIMATE ORIGINS will feature the first appearance of the Ultimate Watcher.
@ A new team book will be debuting this winter written by indie fave Johnathan Hickman and focusing on Nick Fury’s new team, the Secret Warriors.
@ The SECRET INVASION: INHUMANS miniseries will focus on Medusa’s quest to find out what’s happened to Black Bolt since the one in The Illuminati has been revealed to be a Skrull.
@ There will be a one-shot (jokingly referred to as “The Illuminaughty”) featuring a brain trust of villains, including The Hood, Dr. Doom, the White Queen, Namor, Some Dude (possibly Pete Wisdom?) and Hot Chick Loki. No indication of exactly what this one’s about.
@ Marvel has been publishing the ongoing webcomic SECRET INVASION: HOME INVASION by Ivan Brandon three days a week and will continue to do so.

DC

@Over on the DC side there was even less news—much of it was touting current projects we saw announced a year ago, including the FINAL CRISIS tie ins: REQUIEM, following up on the punki…err, death…of Martian Manhunter; ROGUE’S REVENGE, following the Flash villains; LEGION OF THREE WORLDS by Johns and George Perez; REVELATIONS by Greg Ruck and Philip Tan (look here for The Spectre, The Question, and the Spear Of Destiny); and SUPERMAN BEYOND, a crazy-ass 3D trip through the multiverse by Gran Morrison and Doug Mahnke.
@ There will also be 3 JSA Kingdom Come-related specials by Geoff Johns, Alex Ross and Peter Tomasi.
@ Batgirl will be getting a miniseries by Adam Beechen and Jim Calafiore which explores where she stands on her own and with the rest of the Batman family.
@ Jai Nitz will be writing an EL DIABLO miniseries which will be a contemporary take with a new character. Phil Hester and Ande Parks will be on art.
@ There will be a Vertigo JOKER graphic novel by Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo.

Dark Horse

@ Sadly, Dark Horse had almost no presence at the con. There was a floor booth, but no panels or guests of note. This was pretty disappointing, especially with HELLBOY 2 being released in a matter of weeks. Considering the number of strong titles they release and the fact they have a major motion picture debuting, I was hoping for a much stronger showing from them.

Avatar

@ As far as indie publishers with a strong showing go, though, Avatar came out guns blazing. Despite a rough early Sunday slot with only a handful of attendees, they’ve got a lot of projects from major writers coming in the next year or so. Here’s a quick rundown:
@ Ivan Rodriguez has committed to Ellis’ DOKTOR SLEEPLESS through at least issue #50, so that book’s not going anywhere—and the initial arc will be collected in trade this fall.
@ Ellis’ ANNA MERCURY has been selling so well there will be a second volume in early 2009. Additionally, his WOLFSKIN series has an annual being released next week and a six-issue mini turning up at the end of the year. Tack on the new NO HERO ongoing series due to start in September and the upcoming trade paperback collection of the FREAKANGELS ongoing webcomic and there’s a lot of product from Ellis on the way.
@ Additionally, the new Garth Ennis Western STREETS OF GLORY will be wrapping up soon, followed shortly by his new horror project CROSSED, which Ennis has said is the most disturbing thing he’s written. Which is really saying something, y’know?
@ Max Brooks, author of WORLD WAR Z, will have a miniseries based on his ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE called RECORDED ATTACKS. It’s going to be coproduced with and published by Random House, which is a pretty impressive collaboration.
@ Alan Moore will have several projects with Avatar next year, including a full-length original graphic novel, but no real details are available yet.
@ Additionally, also in the “details to follow” department, Christos Gage will be working on his first project for Avatar. When I asked whether this would be a mini or an ongoing, I was told “yes”, which suggests we’ll be getting a pretty solid dose of non-mainstream work from one of the top new talents in the industry.

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Now that I’ve gotten the news out of the way, let’s talk about the real highlight of the convention: the people. I’ve been going to this show for half a decade now, and I’m continually impressed by the fact that even creators whose work I don’t like manage to consistently come off as intelligent, entertaining, and funny. The panels are always fun because they give us some perspective into the creative and business sides of the industry. Getting to see people like Gail Simone, Geoff Johns and Brian Michael Bendis fielding questions and cracking jokes is always fun. I would have been nice, though, if these panels were more informative. A few years ago you could count on several big announcements, but lately it’s been more about promoting books we’ve known about for months. As a fan, though, there’s no resisting the draw to go sit in on another panel in the hope you’ll hear one little slip that makes it all worthwhile.

One of my favorite panels of the Con happened on Friday. Dubbed Bendis Vs Johns, two of modern comics most powerful voices were to debate about their thoughts on the industry and their thoughts of each others contributions. I’m sure that debate would’ve been pretty fascinating, but Bendis and Johns upped it a notch by asking Gail Simone, CJ Cebulski, Ethan Van Sciver, Brian Reed, David Finch, & Oliver Coipel up to join in. What happened was one of the coolest things I’ve seen; a respectful debate about the goods, the bads, and the uglies of today’s comics. Sure jabs at each others books were lobbed here and there. And depending on which side you lean on, Marvel came off as either snarky or strong, while DC exuded either sincerity or a weak argument. From my vantage point, the Marvels definitely were smug about a lot of stuff, preferring to answer in a less serious manner and often making fun a bit of the way DC’s panel answered their questions with all seriousness and earnestness. But maybe I;m a bit biased. The important thing is that this was a decent debate – one where each party showed some respect to the other. Maybe a lesson could be learned from this interaction by those who get into such heated Marvel vs DC debates on messageboards and talkbacks.

The absolute highlight of WWC, though, was exactly what you’d expect it to be: the Friday night event with Warren Ellis. Ellis doesn’t do conventions often, so I couldn’t believe I was lucky enough to get to see him in my home town. A late night event was clearly the right format for a creator like Ellis. He went on around 9:30 Friday night and went on (with a couple of breaks) til nearly 1 AM—an impressive run to say the least. Ellis opened with a couple of readings from his first prose novel, CROOKED LITTLE VEIN, and then proceeded to talk about…well, about whateverthehell, really. He took questions from the audience, and for the most part answered them, but took the long way around doing it. Warren Ellis is, as my great-aunt would say, “a real character”. He was funny, he was profane, he was drinking…come to think of it, we were all drinking. Getting pissed with one of the top creators in the industry, laughing my ass off and being in a whole room full of people (shit, a thousand, maybe? Several hundred for sure) who were all loving it as much as I was made for the best time I’ve had at one of these things by far.

If I could suggest any one think to Wizard, in fact, it would be to do one event like this every year at Chicago. Most of the convention events end early—6 or 7 o’clock. Having one event designed for adults—a place where we can interact, have a coupla beers, and enjoy ourselves—seems like a really good idea. Get one or two keynote speakers, throw open a bar or two, and let people loosen up a little. No restrictive scheduling or having to worry about offending parents because of what their kids heard—just a chance for everybody to let loose and have some fun with it. I know that’s kind of what happens in the hotel bar, but why not just say fuck it and throw a Wizard party? Have some fun with it, y’know?

There’s no question this year was a significant improvement on the two previous when it comes to talent, quality panels and guests. Avatar bringing Ellis over was a major coup and a huge step in the right direction. If Wizard doesn’t see the success of that and capitalize on it down the road, they’ll have really missed the boat. I had a much better time than I have in a while. I’d just like to see a return to more of the cool news announcements that get the fans so jazzed up about attending.

And now, Bug will ramble incessantly about his inane Con experiences.

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Day Two started out as a blur. I hadn’t counted on drinking as much as I did at Warren Ellis’ chat, so needless to say, the bright sun of morning wasn’t a welcome sight. I woke up to an email in my inbox telling me that Aspen Studios artist/founder/creator Michael Turner had succumbed to cancer in the wee hours of the morning, putting a somber tone to the day. Throughout the rest of the con, various panels took moments to reflect on Michael’s work – posting his lush pin-ups and sharing personal memories. Turner worked with many, many folks in the industry and from the amount of people from Marvel, DC, and all of the others who shed heavy tears during these moments of silence and reflection in these panels, it seemed that this great loss was a shock to everyone who knew him and those of us who enjoyed his work. Didio announced that Geoff Johns left the con early to go be with Turner’s family and Aspen cancelled their panel scheduled for Saturday afternoon. A bit nauseous and overcome with that empty feeling I get whenever comic bookdom loses one of its greats, but still ready to press on, I downed breakfast, met up with Sleazy, and began our second round.

Gail Simone, Aaron Lopresti, and Greg Rucka held a panel talking about all things Wonder Woman. I caught the last half of the panel, but it seems as if the Amazonian Princess is in the right hands. Gail said that Wonder Woman has become one of her favorite characters and she was dedicated to doing the girl right and making her comic popular again. Rucka appeared a bit salty while talking about his run on the title and DC in general. There have been rumors that Rucka hasn’t been too happy with DC proper due to editorial intervention and the usage of characters like Batwoman and The Question (both of which he has big plans for). Maybe I was reading into it, but Rucka seemed more than a bit peeved about the decision to have Diana murder Maxwell Lord and said that looking back, it may have hurt the character in having her do that. Rucka also added that he was very pleased with the way Simone is portraying WW as an adventurer. These little panels focusing on individual characters in the DCU seemed to be a new thing this year to the con, one of the many improvements to the programming this year.

At noon, Sleazy and I split off. The Sleaze-Man headed to the DCU Crisis panel, while I checked out Max Brooks’ panel on his upcoming book with Avatar Press – THE ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE: RECORDED ATTACKS, supplemental and original material expanding on snippets from the end of his widely popular ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE and WORLD WAR Z. Brooks didn’t really throw out any info that he haven’t heard before. Brad Pitt’s production company bought the rights to WORLD WAR Z, BABYLON 5 and THE TWELVE’s J. Michael Straczynski is going to be writing the adaptation, and he didn’t know when the film would shoot, but did offer that it was on the fast track to being made. Max is the son of comedic guru Mel Brooks and he has definitely inherited his pop’s funny bone. He kept the crowd entertained with his musings of past con experiences with hard core zombie fans, the reasons he came up with his book in the first place, his favorite zombie film (the original DAWN OF THE DEAD), and his first zombie movie (an Italian zombie film that mixed real cannibalistic footage with Giallo-made zombie action that he caught on late night cable when he was 12). Brooks was a genuine fan of horror and sci fi and a certified geek of the highest order. The guy was a class act and I couldn’t help but feel I was in the presence of an individual who will be one of the greats in horror/sci fi some day.

I met back up with Sleazy and checked out the SECRET INVASION panel. Still a bit bleary, I let Sleazy handle the note taking, so I’ll let him pass on the info dropped there. The only thing I have to add about that panel is that in the preview pages of a future SECRET INVASION book, Nick Fury is carrying a gun the size of a telephone pole. It’s goofy as hell, but looked pretty damn fun.

While Sleazy oogled and creeped out Missy Peregrym during her Q&A (I did no such thing—she seemed like a really nice, down to earth, slightly goofy chick--Sleazy), I decided instead of having to choose between watching the maintenance staff try to unclog every toilet in the convention center from the scourge of fanboy loose bowel syndrome or watching the founders of Image congratulate each other and talk about BloodShatter and WulfFist and that one issue #1 of that book that had the guy with small feet and big pockets and splash pages (both of which are of equal entertainment value), I took to the floor and bought a lot of shit. Having a panel meet and recollect fondly the single worst decade of comics just didn’t feel very appealing to me, so I decided to drop some money on the convention floor.

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That’s right, folks. It’s time, once again, for…

BUG’S SWAG BAG!

I picked up quite a bit of merch this year at the con as I wandered the booths and tables of the artists alley and retail area. In no particular order, here’s what I got…

One CD-ROM of every issue of the original DEADWORLD series (can’t wait to dive into that one)!
One deck of FRIDAY THE 13TH playing cards!
One Bowen Designs YELLOWJACKET Bust (which pisses off Sleazy because he hates the character, but he’s wrong because besides his tiny black man-panties, he’s got one of the coolest costumes around) that I got cheap from The Collective of Oshkosh, WI !
One Exclusive First Look of Avatar Press’ THE ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GUIDE: RECORDED ATTACKS autographs by writer Max Brooks!
Issues #5 & 6 of THE SEAN WARD ELECTRIC COMICS FREAK-OUT!
One Con Preview of Marvel’s upcoming adaptation of STEPHEN KING’S THE STAND (which looks to be frikkin’ sweet)!
One issue of PEEP #1 from Planet Doom Studios which looks to star a murderous baby chicken!
ZOIR #1 & 2 of Geekocracy, plus copies of MASON #1 & 2, and a preview of as book called BANG! All of which looks to be quirky indie fun!
PRODUCT OF SOCIETY #1 by Cheese Lord Comics!
CODENAME: POWER numbers 1 (two books, both listed with a number one on the cover) from Respark!
WEAPON BROWN looks to be a work of genius mixing Charlie Brown with Wolverine’s origin (can’t wait to read that one!) from the guys who brought you the twisted DEEP FRIED!
Finally, I plan on growing out my beard and becoming a warlock after reading Avatar Press’ ALAN MOORE’S WRITING FOR COMICS!

All in all, not a bad haul for this con. Look for lots of this stuff to be reviewed in future Indie Jones sections of our Wednesday AICN COMICS REVIEWS column.

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Joey Q had other commitments this year, so the cup was passed to Bendis for a CUP O’BENDIS to finish off the day. Most of the news talked about in that panel was already revealed earlier in the day. Bendis’ new SECRET WARRIORS with Nick Fury looks kind of interesting and he hinted that a DR. STRANGE comic may appear after SECRET INVASION. What I took from this panel, though, was a certain amount of humbleness and sincerity from Bendis that I hadn’t seen in previous cons. Bendis is doing a pretty good job with SECRET INVASION and he seemed especially touched by all of the compliments and comments from the crowd. Bendis, although still with his own faults and peculiarities, has grown as a writer and as a representative of Marvel. He seemed downright awestruck and teary-eyed at the end of this panel and it made me respect him more than I had. I like this more genuine and fan-appreciative Bendis than the “man on defense mode” guy that has shown up to previous cons.

Food and alcohol took precedence over the premiere of BATMAN: GOTHAM KNIGHT. The film was going to be rebroadcast on Sunday, so Sleazy and I went to Gibson’s Steak House across the street, ate, drank, and returned to the Hyatt Bar to see who we could see.

And this, my friends, is the place to be at the cons. If you wanted to chat with a creator, but were too hesitant to do so at the con proper, add a little alcohol and those social anxieties slide away like urine across the back floor of a parking garage. It was good to toast and drink with both fans and pros alike. Sleazy and I talked until the wee hours with all sorts of people in and out of the industry. Special thanks to William Christensen of Avatar Press who proved to be a real class act and a fun guy to chat with to boot.

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When the alarm went off to alert me that there was one more day of the con, I groaned and considered ignoring Sleazy’s wake-up call. But I decided that one more day couldn’t kill me. It was to be a short day and the main reason I wanted to go back was to see the BATMAN: GOTHAM KNIGHT cartoon movie.

BATMAN: GOTHAM KNIGHT DVD

Utilizing different animation styles and writers Brian Azzarello, Alan Burnett, Josh Olson, and Greg Rucka, producer Bruce Timm has yet another winner of a Batman cartoon on his hands. Structured as a series of short stories much like THE ANIMATRIX, GOTHAM KNIGHT is tied together loosely by a plot involving a thief in black, a gang war between the Russian and Italian mobs, and officer Crispus Allen’s growing trust of the Batman character. But for the most part, the stories stand up on their own.

I liked the “Blind Men & the Elephant” meets ROSHOMON motif of the first segment where a group of children describe stories involving and revolving around their experiences with Batman. Although the Batman himself was personified as somewhat blocky, I liked the different interpretations of the character from Man-Bat-like creature to an armed robot.

The rest of the stories were fun as well. Segment two involves Crispus Allen and is nicely characterized, but choppily edited and sometimes sacrificed logic for coolness of the scene. The final seconds of that one has Batman leaving two wounded “but safe” police officers without a car in the middle of the worst neighborhood in Gotham.

There’s a cool segment where Bruce learns a lesson about utilizing too much technology. I especially liked the armor-like Bat-suit in that one with the manga-esque big, shiny eyes. This was a very well thought out morality tale.

There’s a nice sequence where Bruce Wayne learned how to block out pain in his world-quest he took before becoming Batman. This is a poignant tale where the driven Wayne proves to be too much of a negative force for the positive teachings his instructor is trying to share with him.

Batman also faces his share of villains. Killer Croc, the Scarecrow, and Deadshot all make an appearance. Deadshot’s episode is an especially nice action yarn casting Deadshot as a cracked mirror image of Bruce Wayne. Croc and Scarecrow’s sequence is a nicely paced horror yarn.

There were a few things that puzzled me, though. This film was supposed to bridge the gap between the two BATMAN films. It’s definitely set in the BATMAN BEGINS universe, but I’m not sure if it really fits in between the films. Also, there are quite a few references to what seemed to be the Joker serum with many of the nameless hoods sporting stretched grins. This is a theme that really isn’t dealt with, so I don’t know if this was a stylistic issue or a foreboding snippet of things to come. The way the stories are set up, it works as a series of loosely based shorts, but less so as a complete piece. The final action filled Deadshot sequence is an exciting way to end the “movie,” but it does little by way of wrapping up themes presented in previous entries. The animation is top notch. The writing is strong. And there’s a whole lot to like. The film definitely satiates my appetite for BATMAN until the film hits theaters and even made me anticipate it a bit more if that is possible.

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Once the credits rolled, Sleazy and I decided to call it quits on the con. We were in a bit of a daze after all of the info, sights, sounds, and smells that goes along with packing a bunch of fanboys in one small area.

This year’s WIZARD WORLD CHICAGO was definitely one of my better con experiences. There were some thrilling events like the Johns vs. Bendis debate, some events that brought us all together like the passing of Mike Turner, and the fun that goes along with taking a whiz beside an old dude in a Granny Goodness costume. Wizard gets a lot of flack here at AICN occasionally, but they put together a good one this year. Although not a lot of news was dropped, there were enough creative panels and fun things to take part in to make it all worth it. Thanks to Wizard and everyone we talked with at the con. We’ll see you next year.

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Let’s just dedicate this week’s ??? FOR BLAH, BLAH, BLAH to a discussion of Mike Turner’s work…
RIP Mr. Turner.
You will be missed.