Welcome, welcome to
our recap of the events of c2e2 day 1. Not a lot happened on the first day so
rather than a bunch of little posts we're compiling it all into one big post.
Although you'll probably not find it too long either. To kick off the day Kevin
and I and all the other registered professionals, meaning exhibitors, panelists
and press were invited to walk around the sales floor for the first four hours
of the day. This was fun in the fact that we had the opportunity to see the
booths before the crowd and map out where everything was.
Mattel Booth
A booth we spent a lot of time at was Mattel's booth. Mattel was displaying a
lot of new action figures from Ghostbusters to He-Man and WWE. The largest
display though came from the Green Lantern movie. Let me just say that if you
were looking forward to buying these figures in Ryan Reynolds likeness, then
you'll be happy. Because a vast majority of the figures look like him and don't
have a mask on so they can show his beautiful face, which is apparently a
selling point of the movie now. Personally I thought the figures were terrible
and that several of them looked like they were crafted in the 80's. There's
this really sucky airplane made of green plastic that in particular looks
80's-ish. I'm not sure what they were trying to do with it. If they're saying
that in the movie Hal Jordan isn't good at making constructs so he creates
really awful looking planes and such, or if they were trying to show that it's
not a real jet. Either way I was applaud by how terrible it was.
To continue on the GL figures, the only ones that didn't look bad were the
super deformed ones. Although they all look like they're busting disco dance
moves. There are larger size movie figures that were terrible in craftsmanship,
just in the fact that they looked like the movie version of the characters
which suck. There's a Broccoli Man in there who I'm sure is from the comic at
some point since he looked familiar, but I don't know why he would be picked
for a figure when there are so many characters in the GL universe to pick from.
Also not a single female character was present. I didn't even see Carol Farris,
so if little girls want a figure to play with I guess they're out of luck. As
for the He-Man figures they were actually pretty cool. They've but a lot of
detail into the characters and did a great job of keeping them true to their
roots.
DC Comics Green Lantern Panel
What do you get when the Godfather of all current Green Lantern
stories doesn't attend a panel about said character? A pretty uninformative
panel. In attendance for the Green Lantern panel at DC was mic host Eddie
Berganza doing his best to keep the panelist and crowd in attendance
laughing. Joining him was current Green Lantern artist Dough Mahnke, current
Green Lantern Corps artist Tyler Hickman, Brightest Day artist Ivan Reis and
Joe Pardo and Christian Alamy.
The panel ran pretty
long and not a whole lot of info was given out. Several fan questions were shot
down, more than likely due to them hitting the nail on the head. That happens a
lot at these panels; a fan has a question that they can't answer because the
comic is going to answer it very soon. When the panel was asked their favorite
Lantern Christian recited the Green Lantern in French his native language. Ivan
Reis was asked to do it in Portuguese and he and artist Joe struggled through
until giving up at the end. Reis admitted that he doesn't read the book in his
native language since the comic is so far behind.
DC Nation Panel
At the DC Nation panel which is the customary panel to kick off all DC panels
at a con, Co-Publisher Dan Didio was back as MC and was joined by Bob Wayne,
Paul Cornell, Scott Snyder, Gail Simone, Bill Willingham and George (last name
not given). The panel was fun from the beginning as are most DC Nation panels
as Dan asked if he had forgotten anyone and a fan in the audience raised his
hand. Dan called him up on the stage and that's where he remained for the rest
of the panel. As you can guess that was George, he had the crowed until he said
go Sox (referring to the White Sox) and was booed by Cub fans which made up a
majority of the audience.
They kicked off the panel talking about the return of the letters page in the
back of DC comics. Dan said that they dropped it because we live in a world of
instant response, but that they found fans really liked taking the time to
write in and give their comments so it's coming back to all DC books. One fan
said that he had had a letter published in every series of DC comics since 1977
and Dan said he was going to keep his streak alive. Next they moved on to
Flashpoint after touching on Brightest Day. They talked about the cancelled
books one of them being Dan's own Outsiders book. One fan (who worked in the
press) said he loved his Outsiders book and Dan gave him a big man hug. Another
fan asked if Flashpoint was going to be like Zero Hour and Dan asked him if he
liked Zero Hour. The fan said he liked Zero Hour and so Dan said that it was a
little like Zero Hour.
He continued to say that Flashpoint was a lot like an elseworlds book that fit
into the DC universe and that's why they liked it. An important tid bit is that
Booster Gold's book will be the only one to reflect the changes in Flashpoint.
Also on Free Comic Book Day there will be a preview of Flashpoint in the back
after the original Green Lantern story. One fan asked if Dan would take a loan
out to help him buy all the Flashpoint books and said it in a very snarky way.
The fan went on to asked why they publish all the tie-ins if they don't mean
anything to the main story. Dan gave a very honest answer saying that they are
in the business to produce as many quality books as they can and that you don't
need to buy the tie-ins to get the overall story from Flashpoint, but that if
you want to enrich the story you can get the tie-ins. Personally I think that
Dan was right and that the fan has a collectors mind set where if he's going to
get one of the books he has to get them all.
There was a question of more Wednesday comics and bi-weekly comics to which
both answers were basically we'll see. A female fan asked if they were every
going to print Blackest Night in trade paper back because she doesn't want hard
covers and doesn't feel that it’s fair to have to wait for the story. Bob and
Dan teamed up on this one and said that the heart of the business is in the
month issues and that the pacing of everything comes from there. They give the
monthly issues time to sell, then the hard covers then the trades and that it
boils down to how the business works. Not the answer she was looking for I'm
sure, but it's the truthful one.
Bob Wayne then plugged DC Online the video game and Action Comics #900. Action
Comics has been consistently published since 1938 so the fact that it’s
reaching 900 is a big deal in comics in general. They talked about dropping the
comic code and the rating system they're implementing. And then touched on
Vertigo titles such as American Vampires and of course Fables since both
creators where on the panel. Overall it was a fun and great panel and gave the
audience a chance to interact with DC, which is always surprising and fun to be
a part of.