Day 2 of the Denver Comic Con saw more disgustingly long registration lines, more costumes, more awesome stuff for sale, more interesting educational panels, and more nerdy excitement. The convention had at least matched, probably outdid, the attendance numbers of the very first New York Comic Con. Hopefully this bodes well for the continued growth of the DCC. Day 2 brought more indications of serious logistical failings on the part of the DCC management, but luckily nothing approaching catastrophic. By the end of the weekend they had run out of printed programs, and had nearly run out of day-pass wristbands. Actual attendance at least tripled, and possibly quadrupled the expected numbers. Geeks from all over the midwest traveled in for the Con, I heard reports of people traveling from Wyoming and Texas to attend.
It’s probably safe to assume there will be a Denver Comic Con 2013 next year—assuming the world doesn’t end in December, of course—and that many of these logistical hiccups will be smoothed out by then. Read on for a brief take on a few panels I attended.
New Horror and Urban-Fantasy Literature
Being the artsy-fartsy creative-type nerd that I am, the genre writers panels grabbed my interest. The first was a panel on the future of Horror & Urban Fantasy Literature with a variety of authors for panelists including: Carrie Vaughan, “Kitty Norville” series; David Boop, “She Murdered Me With Science”; Betsy Dornbusch, editor at ElectricSpec; Stephen Graham Jones, horror author and creative writing professor; and Jeanne Stein, “Anna Strong” series. (Keep an eye out for a full panel report soon.)
The panelists discussed a range of topics. They started by mentioning some of their favorite authors and books in the genres. Next they discussed genre as a marketing tool, as an author’s toolbox, and spoke on the need for genre cross-pollination. Boop even claimed, “Genre is dead,” and we are “Living in the age of the Tag.” There was a hesitant consensus that a lot of innovation is first done in the world of short fiction. Jones phrased it well, saying, “If a short story fails, I’ve only wasted an afternoon and I can move on, but if a novel fails I’ve wasted months of my life.”
They had a lot of advice for aspiring writers, and spoke about what trends they see coming up in the worlds of horror and urban-fantasy. Most of them agreed that angels and demons seem to be the new up-and-coming theme, and Boop predicted that our current state of heightened political and economic awareness will probably find its way into upcoming fiction, and science-fiction in particular. Vaughn said she had seen a post online that most agents are no longer interested in urban-fantasy, or at least in what urban-fantasy has come to mean—read: modern romance with supernatural elements—and encouraged everyone in the room to spread their wings and try weird, new things.
Eisner Award Creators: Comics’ Best in One Room
Further compounding Denver Comic Con’s logistical issues, at the next panel I attended, called “Eisner Award Creators: Comics’ Best in One Room,” the four panelists were only told that they were taking part in the panel about an hour before it was supposed to happen. They had no time to prepare so it was a bit of a rudderless, meandering affair. Panelists included: Ben Templesmith, “30 Days of Night”; Matt Kindt, “Super Spy”; Peter Gross, “The Unwritten”; and Mike Baron, “Nexus.”
As it turned out, Mike Baron was the only panelist who had won an Eisner (in fact, he’s won two), but each of the others have been nominated for Eisners, and various other awards as well. They agreed that being nominated was a good feeling, it was like a stamp of quality. Or in the words of the ever-cheeky Templesmith, “I like being nominated, it means you’re not total crap, you know?” They discussed the actual Eisner awarding process for a while, including who gets to vote, and how the smaller publisher guys tend to be at a disadvantage because the bigger companies might be encouraging their employees to vote a certain way.
When an audience member asked if being nominated for an Eisner opened doors in the industry, Templesmith replied, “It means you can switch from the chicken-flavored Ramen to the beef-flavor.” Jokes aside, publishers love to plaster “Eisner Nominated/Winner” on the covers of everything. They all seemed to agree that everyone should be reading the graphic novel series “Prophet” which is a reinvention of an old 90’s character in name only. They also encouraged people to check out Scott Snyder’s “Batman” books.
They shared their origin stories in the comics industry, and just like every time someone asks the old, “How did you get into the industry?” question, everyone’s route was completely different. The overall message seemed to be: if you want to be making comics, start making comics. (This sentiment would echoed again in the “Writing for Comics with the Pros” panel on Day 3.)
An audience member asked about digital distribution and the panelists discussed the pros and cons. Baron was particularly insightful, “I’m torn about it. A comic book is a thing you hold in your hands. Comic people are often collectors as well as fans. It’s not just the story, they want to have that artifact in their collection. If they’re fine with having a file on their iPad, then power to them, but I imagine print comics will never go away. Both because of collectors, and because of the physicality of holding a comic book in your hands.”
In an interesting analysis, Kindt commented on a change in the writing of comics. Specifically the move away from writing for a satisfying, 24-page monthly. “Everyone seems to be writing for the trades now, and the old monthlies kind of feel like an outmoded form of storytelling. I’ve been trying to think about what a 24 page monthly can do that a graphic novel cant, and that’s hard. There’s a big difference between sitting down and reading 300 pages of a series compared to reading a little bit each month. I kind of wish comics were like that again, when I was a kid you’d pore over an issue for thirty days until the next one came out.” They all seemed wary of the motion comics thing, Gross said, “I think our art has evolved beyond cheap animation, that’s another thing altogether. But hopefully with the new, digital format we’ll bring in new readers.”
I Am Geek, Hear Me Roar
This was a panel on the role of gender in the increasingly gender-neutral nerd and geek cultures. Panelists included: Lisa Manglass, a Health Physicist and Environmental Consultant; Kylee Lane, found and CEO for Luxury Lane Soaps, a very successful company; Laura Keeney, a nerdy journalist; Melinda Catherine Gross, an actress, stunt woman, and fight choreographer; Kimie (no last name given), a teacher at a school for gifted students; and moderated by Tara Quick an owner of two businesses. Each panelists—with the exception of Kylee Lane—readily self identified as geeks, and spoke about their love of things from sci-fi to home car repair, science to comic books, and video games to horror movies. (Keep an eye out for a full panel report coming soon.)
Most of the conversation, including plenty of audience questions, revolved around the utility or obsolescence of the term “geek girl.” The argument regarded the needless addition of the word “girl” to a term that should, by all rights, be gender-neutral by now. “We don’t call you ‘geek guys’ but we do use the term ‘geek girls,’” said Quick. Lane obviously disapproved of its use, saying “As long as we keep saying this, we’re going to perpetuate it, and keep separating ourselves.” Some of the other panelists gave soft counters. Keeney replied, “I agree, but since it was odd for so many years for girls to be into these kinds of things, we had to learn that it was okay to be a geek and a girl. … I refer to myself as a geek girl at times because I’m proud of it. Both my femininity, and what I’m into.”
A female audience member commented on the strange duality of the geek girl issue. Especially how geek girls online are either treated horribly, or fetishized and fawned over. Because of these, she said that she calls herself a “geek” and refuses to add the “girl” on the end. A male audience member spoke up, giving a lighter take on the usefulness of the “geek girl” term, saying, “Growing up as a male nerd, we still get this sense that a lot of girls won’t be interested in us because girls aren’t into these kinds of things. So it’s nice to know that it’s not just me and my nerdy male friends and that there’s this larger world of geekdom complete with women.” Everyone laughed.
Some folks complained about the hyper-sexualization of women in comics, video games, and movies. It was refreshing to hear Lane reply, “Well, that goes both ways. Have you seen what Superman wears?” The conversation then turned to the fact that you don’t need to strip away people’s sexuality entirely in order to find gender equality.
Quick brought the question to the table: is there even a point in having a panel like this? Most seemed to agree that it was still a conversation worth having, but maybe we should be talking about the next step, rather than the current state of the culture.
What the panel was called:
Battlestar Galactica Universe w/ Aaron Douglas
What it actually was:
Aaron Douglas and Paul and Storm poke fun at Wil Wheaton.
You may have heard that Wil Wheaton cancelled his appearance at the DCC at the last minute. Aaron Douglas (Chief, Battlestar Galactica) was slated to fill in for the time slot originally assigned to Wheaton. There was some confusion and the panel started late, so it was a short one, but it started off hilarious and didn’t stop delivering until we were ushered back into the hall. Paul and Storm started with a Powerpoint slide show about Wil Wheaton’s life and most famous roles, but with Aaron Douglas’ adult face Photoshopped onto every picture of Weaton from “Stand by Me” to “Star Trek” to “The Big Bang Theory” to “Eureka.”
The banter between Douglas and the comedy duo was priceless, but unfortunately it wouldn’t do justice to repeat it in prose. You had to be there—and if you live in the area, you should have been there. Suffice it to say, Aaron Douglas is a hell of a funny guy, and charming to boot—albeit a little pandering. In one notable moment, Aaron Douglas asked everyone in the room to text an ASCII picture of a penis to Wil Wheaton.
Then Douglas told a series of hilarious stories from the set of Battlestar Galactica, including numerous impersonations of Edward James Olmos, which Douglas does quite well. The best story was about the boxing episode of Battlestar Galactica, which if you don’t remember, involved a variety of crew members boxing each other. Olmos’ Adama, and Douglas’ Chief duked it out in the episode as well, but it turns out things got surprisingly physical on set as well. After Douglas accidentally socked Olmos square in the face—which he claims was Olmos’ fault for leaning in when he should have juked, as per the choreographer’s instructions—Olmos stepped back and said, “So that’s what we’re gonna do, eh?” and proceeded to beat the hell out of Douglas, even when the camera was rolling. Douglas had no choice and started fighting back, and at one point in the scene, Chief has Adama up on the ropes and is going to town on his midsection. According to Douglas, he wasn’t holding back, “I’m not kidding. I wailed on that old man.”
Coming out of that panel, my cheeks hurt from laughing for thirty minutes straight. It was a great way to close out the day. Keep watching the feed, Day 3 coverage and in-depth panel reviews are just around the corner.
[Connor Cleary is an author, video game columnist and critic, and a freelance web-slash-graphic designer. He is a reviewer at GameShark and an occasional opinion and analysis columnist at Gamasutra. His freelance design business is Four Stair Multimedia and Design. You can follow Connor @The_Blue_Key, or at fb/TheBlueKey, or check out his writing archive on tumblr, The Blue Key.]