The Cool Kids Table Vs. Halloween

YO!

As Ben already ably pointed out in his post from the actual holiday, we do it up right for Halloween in CKT country. And aside from our erstwhile editor's own foray into Tony Starkdom, the rest of the blog had a weekend full of playing dressup like children and eating like 40,000 Butterfingers (forget you, R.L. Stein!). Below, we get into each of our experiences on All Hallows Eve, and for more rad costumes, be sure to check out the contributions of our pals Mel Caylo, Ryan Penagos and Chris Ward.


Kiel!

Squeezing one last drop out of the year of Scott Pilgrim, I dressed up as Bryan Lee O'Malley's hero with an eye towards seeing how many people actually knew who I was dressed as (turns out...about 10!).


Is it just me, or is like 83% of the fun of Scott Pilgrim cosplay the act of poorly recreating poses from the book's covers?


My girlfriend Jami ended up going as Ramona Flowers, which it turns out is a much more recognizable look for party people to latch onto. She was a total trooper, even though she was ready to burn that wig by night's end.


There weren't a ton of other comics folks on the prowl at the three parties we hit up on Friday night, but one of them did have a lone copy of Blankets sitting next to a "Peanuts" Jack-O-Lantern. Instant photo op!


I took more than a few pics of the sword because it cost about $40 to make, and unlike the Plumtree t-shirt and the six XL women's winter coat from Old Navy, I'm never going to have any use for it ever again. The nice thing about the sword though is that when people did recognize who I was, they'd instantly go, "Holy shit! You earned the Power of Love!"


Our gimmick for the night was that whenever someone recognized who we were, we gave them chocolate coins. As you can tell, we had quite a few left over at the end of the evening.


This has almost nothing to do with anything else in this post, but I had to share the raddest costume I saw all night: a couple dressed as Finn and Pricess Bubblegum from "Adventure Time!" They were super keen. There was also a girl at the first party dressed as Tank Girl, but I forgot to get that pic loaded to this computer. I promise to put it on Tumblr later.


Rickey!

Here's me dressed as Pee Wee Herman. We went to a party on Saturday and then to the [infamous NYC] parade on Sunday. It was freezing and didn't seem organized in ANY way, so we wandered around for about 2 hours trying to find a place to stand. When we finally found a place, which was the run-off of the end of the parade, the organizers started cutting the parade at a block earlier than us, so we had to go in search of another spot to stand. But all the avenues were barricaded, so it was like they didn't want anybody to get in to see the parade. Later, as we were trying to cross an intersection about 2 avenues away from the parade, the cops closed off the pedestrian walkway, trapping about 150 people on each corner. This drunk idiot started shouting at the cos and then some younger guys under him started at him to stop screaming in their ears and then a fistfight broke out literally RIGHT next to us. It was nuts. We ended up having to walk over to Union Square to catch a train all the way back to where we started so we could catch a train home cause the cops blocked every sidewalk heading in the subway's direction. I was like, "Hey, can you tell me where I can catch a train form here if the sidewalks are all blocked off?" and the cop I spoke with was like, "Uh...To be honest, we're closing off this whole neighborhood cause the crowds are turning into mobs."

So we walked way way out of our way to get home.


Kevin!

Every year, me and a few of my friends attend Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween event at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. It's a pretty rad tradition where Disney dresses up the Magic Kingdom all Halloweeny and there are special parades and fireworks and such. Tons of people show up in costume and it's a bunch of awesome fun every year. Also when we attend, me and my friends dress in themed costumes – previous years including Peter Pan and Disney Villains, and this year being Princes and Princesses.


As you can see, I totally went with a Beast costume from my favorite Disney film of all time, "Beauty and the Beast." Originally I tried to order a costume, but that fell through pretty hard. Thankfully, my mom and sister totally kick butt and made this costume entirely from scratch. My mom found a suit jacket, altered it to add coat tails, added the gold trim and replaced the regular buttons with gold ones. She also stitched frills to a white dress shirt and made the gold vest. My sister painted the horns and added a clear strap so it fit on my head and she made the gloves with acrylic claws, which she painted brown. My contribution included owning black slacks and picking up fangs from the store to give myself Beast's under bite. Whoo! So, yeah. My mom and sis are awesome.


Anyway, pictures include all of us all pimped out in our Princes and Princesses gear, some fun shots with my friend Amanda, who dressed as Belle, and a totally badass image taken by my friend Bridget (Aurora) of us all in shadow. Enjoy the pics and I hope everyone had a Happy Happy Haaalllllloweeeeen!

My Five Favorite NES Games

Due to personal circumstances, I may be the only dude in the geek universe who didn’t get to see Scott Pilgrim vs. The World this weekend, but I’m super-psyched to get to the theater hopefully next weekend. So as not to feel completely left out, however, I thought I’d bust out a list of my five all-time favorite video games for the original Nintendo Entertainment System, many of which influenced big chunks of both the Scott Pilgrim series and film.

I was the kid who was always about a generation behind when it came to video games. When everybody else had an NES, I had an Atari; when I got my NES, other folks had moved onto Genesis or Super Nintendo; I finally got an N64 in like 2003 when my buddy Matt got bored with his and let me take it to college. None of this ever really bothered me, though, as I had plenty of friends who had the latest goods and it was fun to head over to their houses and check out the latest (even though it always sucked when their moms would yell at us to get some fresh air).

By the early-90’s when I did pick up my first NES, I already had a bunch of titles I wanted to grab myself or borrow from pals. Later on, in college, my main man Jordan brought his system to school our sophomore year when we were (practically) neighbors and he had about a zillion games, so that was a whole new renaissance. From both those eras of Ben’s gaming, here are the five elite jams (and my memory is crap, so as soon as I publish this I’ll remember a dozen others I loved; I’m already wondering if I should have included Nintendo Golf, Double Dragon, Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out, Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six…).

5. BUBBLE BOBBLE
This was a crazy little game I used to play with my little sister in one of our major sibling bonding experiences of our early years.

You and whoever you played with (it was definitely way better as a two-player game) were two little dinosaurs who could blow bubbles (hence the name) and then use your noggins to move said bubbles around or pop them, solving puzzles and defeating bad guys. There were hundreds of levels to wade through and tons of neat variations that made for a fun lengthy gaming experience and a swell way to kill an afternoon.

4. SUPER MARIO BROTHERS 3
There’s no way you can chalk up the weirdness of the Mario Brothers franchise to just Japanese culture or whatever. Super-powered plumbers in a land of evil turtles who get special powers from mushrooms and flowers? I’m sorry, but there’s definitely more than meets the eye to all that, and some day I hope there’s a tell-all on where the heck it came from.

But regardless, pretty much every game in the series from the 80’s to today is a winner and great fun to play. Especially in the early games—the even-weirder-than-usual second one aside—there was a pretty consistent formula of straight ahead challenges and kinetic fun that carries through to the most recent installments.

Super Mario Brothers 3 is the one I most fondly remember with crazy stuff like the raccoon suit and the sprawling level maps; definitely a prototype of many great games to come.

3. ZELDA II: THE ADVENTURE OF LINK
Years later, I’d whittle away countless hours of my life playing A Link to the Past in my friend Matt’s basement for Super Nintendo, but Adventure of Link was the first Zelda game I really dug and one I’d rediscover years later as a college student.

Most Zelda games appeal to my love of mythology and appreciation for puzzles and other challenges that made you think beyond just jumping on mushrooms or punching bad guys. I never really appreciated the first Zelda because the bird’s eye view was a bigger knock for me than it probably should have been, but this one was mostly side-scroller, so I was all good. I also really liked being able to upgrade my different attributes as Link by beating different levels, something that wasn’t commonplace in games back then.

The other cool thing about Adventure of Link was that I turned out to be insanely good at it when Jordan and I popped it in, so I earned my amigo’s respect.

2. TECMO SUPER BOWL
Football has always been one sport I really enjoy watching and part of me would have loved to have played, but I was both too scrawny and pretty terrible at it, so instead I ended up a wrestler since there you’re always up against guys your own size no matter how tiny you are.

However, football video games have always been the refuge of “love-but-can’t-play” types such as myself, and Tecmo Super Bowl (not just Tecmo Bowl, there’s a difference) remains for me the bar by which all others are judged.

Even back in 1991, most football games were already starting to adopt the QB’s eye view look, but as an avid side-scroller man, I appreciated Tecmo stacking the linebackers on top of one another and keeping it looking like Mario playing football. It certainly made it easier for me to perfect my “run all the way back out of the Shotgun and throw a Hail Mary” strategy as Jim Kelly that I still use to this day playing Madden. TSB allowed crazy junk like that as well as 50-yard field goals and more.

TSB was also one of the very first game to actually work with the NFL to license team and player names, so you didn’t have to ID your guys by just numbers and suffer through generic colors to label your squad. It also made it much more satisfying when you could knock Phil Simms out of action on a nasty blitz. The regular season mode was ahead of its time and you could also pull lopsided trades to create dream teams and enjoy awesome cut scenes whenever you notched a touchdown.

1. MEGA MAN 3
I had the sort of bizarre relationship with Mega Man 3 only a 9-year-old with the beginnings of future anxiety disorders can have with a video game.

It was prominently displayed for months at Wellesley Video (my local video store pre-Blockbuster Invasion) and I wanted to play it in the worst way, but I didn’t have a Nintendo at the time. When we finally got an NES, my parents got me Mega Man 3 as a Christmas present (I think) and for some reason I got really scared and didn’t want to take it out of the package. So it sat in my attic or something for weeks and we ended up giving it away to one of my cousins or something—to this day I have no idea when 9-year-old me was thinking or why this went down the way it did, but oh well.

Down the line, I ended up renting the game, as despite the weird trauma, it remained my holy grail of gaming (clearly my parents were very patient people). I spent hours navigating its extremely tricky challenges and somewhat sluggish controls (man jumping was hard), but it was super-rewarding when I finally got the hand and started taking out Robot Masters.

Years later, Jordan and I would go nuts trying to blast our way through the entire Mega Man series anew, and again I remember the third game, with the debut of Rush and Proto-Man, plus some truly great bosses like Spark Man, Gemini Man and of course Hard Man, standing out.

Even though it could be frustrating as hell, I definitely dug on the fact that Mega Man was more difficult to win than a lot of other NES games of the time. I was also grateful that it was among the first to have a password function—basically the first iteration of a save feature—so you didn’t need to beat it all in one sitting (which would have been nigh impossible, but most early video games did indeed demand just that). I also loved the cartoonish yet cool look of the characters—very comic book-y and indeed very Scott Pilgrim these days—as well as there being a back story I could latch onto with Dr. Light, Dr. Wily, the mysterious relationship between Mega and Proto, et al.

So it took a bit of a lengthy and strange path to find its way to me, but I would say Mega Man 3 is probably my favorite NES game of all-time.

Kevin's Excellent San Diego Adventure

Man oh man, I have been a bad blogger. But I'm here now, ready to blog--hopefully on a more regular basis--and for this particular entry, I'm taking a cue from my fellow Cool Kids and talking about my personal Comic-Con experiences. Now, I've worked a number of conventions before, but this one really took the cake for a number of reasons, a few of which I will list below. So come join me as I go back in time to my weekend at Comic-Con International in San Diego!

CELEBRITY SIGHTINGS
Part of the whole San Diego experience is running into celebrities. As a reporter, it's hard not to geek out when I talk to someone that I really adore or who influenced my childhood in some way, shape or form. For example, I recently interviewed Lisa Henson, the daughter of Jim Henson, and it took all my energy and composure to not suddenly shout out, "I totally love the Muppets and everything your dad did totally rocked my entire childhood life! I still own a Muppets blanket and I'm going to see the theme to Muppet Babies right now!" At conventions, it becomes a little easier to geek out a bit because I'm usually lost in a crowd as they take the stage. But with a convention like San Diego, you're just as likely to see a celebrity on stage as you are standing around the hotel lobby--as evidenced by Kiel's post where he was lucky enough to run into Charlie and the Waitress... that bastard. I kid. Kiel's awesome.

Anyway, so here are some of my cool celeb moments. Thursday was officially my day of the con. That day, after doing my usual comic panels, I made my way into Hall H. I got there early, so I was able to get into the RED panel and get a good seat up front. For those who don't know, RED is an upcoming movie based on the graphic novel by Warren Ellis and Cully Hamner. The movie stars Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, Mary-Louise Parker, Karl Urban, John Malkovich and Morgan Freeman. Willis, Mirren, Parker and Urban were on the panel and let me tell you, it was glorious. Helen Mirren is the Queen, so what more can I say there? Urban is a new guy to the field, but I've loved him in everything he's been in, especially his recent role as Doctor "Bones" McCoy in Star Trek. Mary-Louise Parker, I mean, how can I not have a crush on her? She is stunningly beautiful and looked just as amazing in person. However, the real cream of the crop for me was Bruce Willis. Die Hard was the first Rated-R movie I ever saw, sneakily viewing even though my parents told me to go to my room as they watched it downstairs. Willis was extremely cool and laid back on stage. He definitely seemed like an awesome guy, which made me happy.

After that came the Expendables panel, another joy for this little blogger as on the stage was Terry Crews, Steve Austin, Stallone, Dolf Lundgren and Randy Couture. I'm a huge fan of Terry Crews--as his roles are always completely insane and hilarious. Thankfully, he's apparently just like that in real life. He walked out onto the stage, opened his shirt, got up onto the table and started making his pecs dance. It was exactly something you'd expect him to do. The best part of this panel though was seeing Stallone work. I'm a huge fan of his and watch Rocky pretty much religiously. Heck, the Rocky theme is on my iPod for when I go to the gym. Besides seeming like a totally nice dude, Stallone was HILARIOUS. He cracked a lot of jokes and got along really well with the guys on stage. I really wish I could have met him in person, but I feel like that would be one of those moments where I'd lose my cool and start gushing. Then he's probably punch me out. But then I could tell everyone Sylvester Stallone shattered my jaw. Hmm... Note to self, fight Sylvester Stallone the next time I see him.

Alright, so back to reality. Right after the Expendables panel came the panel I was probably most excited for: Scott Pilgrim vs the World. Now, this got me crazed with excitement for a number of reasons. First of all, I love Scott Pilgrim. It's probably one of my favorite comics ever... EVER. Secondly, Edgar Wright. I love his films and love his friendship with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. I always felt those guys go everywhere together and this panel sort of proved me right. More on that in a bit. Finally, I probably have the biggest crushes ever on Anna Kendrick and Mary Elizabeth Winstead--and BOTH of them would be on stage for this panel. It's literally more than I could ever ask for from one panel. So, yeah. The panel was filled with a number of guests, pretty much the entire cast came out. However, at one point when introducing the panelists, Wright--in his awesomely British accent--said that Simon Pegg and Nick Frost would also be in this movie. Sure enough, Pegg and Frost walked out. It was a very, very awesome moment. And while I later found out they were here to promote "Paul," I still like to believe that they'd have come to San Diego anyway just to chill with Wright. Anyway, Wright corrected him and said that they were also not in the movie, and the two walked back off stage dejectedly. As for one last note, Brandon Routh is a giant, giant man. I know that he played Superman and Superman is a big dude, but Routh TOWERED over the rest of the cast. It was pretty ridiculous. They looked like children next to him.

That was it for Thursday as far as celebs go. Over the rest of the weekend I saw one or two here and there. On Friday, I was standing outside my hotel and noticed a huge crowd next to me. I look over and literally right next to my shoulder is Ian Somerhalder. I was like, "Is that freaking Boone??" Ends up it was the cast of Vampire Diaries just hanging outside the hotel, taking pictures with fans. Later that day, I was walking toward the elevators with my buddy Jim Gibbons and he was like, "Hey, it's Guillermo Del Toro." I moseyed on over and debated running up and saying something to him, but I ended up chickening out. For those wondering, I probably would have sounded something like this: "Holy crap, dude! Hellboy! Pan's Labyrinth! The Orphanage! Those movies rocked! And now Haunted Mansion?! My friend Amanda freaking LOVES that ride since she was a kid and she officially pooped herself in excitement when she found out!" It probably wouldn't have gone over well. Saturday, I experienced a sexy sighting as the show floor began to shut down. I had sneaked my way over to the Marvel booth to say hello to Ben, but there on the giant golden throne of Asgard was Adrianne Curry dressed as Leeloo from the Fifth Element. That lady loves to pose to pictures, let me tell you. Sadly, I did not have my camera on me, but the fifty other gentlemen around me did. Lastly, on Saturday night, I was chilling at the Hyatt bar drinking with my buddies when someone bumps into me. I turn around and I see walking away Joel McHale from the Soup. I was a little sad he didn't apologize for bumping into me, but then again, I'm glad he did because now I can tell that story. Also, he is a very tall and lanky man.

Well, that's it for celebrity stuff. It was pretty awesome to be able to see a lot of people that I'm very big fans of and one day, hopefully I'll be famous enough to hang out with them--especially Anna Kendrick and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. They're adorable. In part two of my San Diego memories, to come very soon, I'll hit on more Scott Pilgrim and my own personal favorite aspect of Comic Conventions.

San Diego: What Kiel Wrote!

San Diego, man. Woof. What a long, strange, tiring, exciting, stabbing thing. As normal, I thought I'd take the massive gap in posting the collective Cool Kids underwent because of the show as a cue to fill up our corner with some ego stroking in the form of posting all that I wrote over the past week for CBR. But before I got to patting myself on the back, I wanted to note the following:

1 - For all my coming congratulatory bullshit, there is absolutely nothing that I did this weekend or ever will do at any show that will hold a candle to the unstoppable reporting prowess of Team CBR. At the end of the weekend, our on site panel coordinator – and all around chipper dude – Seth Jones sent out a text to the 30+ staffers we had on site thanking them for their hard work, and in it he said simply, "Best crew ever...I want you ALL back next year!" I couldn't agree more. At the risk of sounding like a total dickcheese, I take an extreme amount of pride in the fact that CBR probably covers this show with more depth and passion than any other media outlet – not just comics press or nerd press but ALL press. If you doubt me, check out our Comic-Con coverage index where the team delivered more reporting on panels than you can even imagine with more pouring in every day for this week and likely into next. Having so many people who were professional, timely, thoughtful and smart made what little I had to do administratively a breeze, and I swear to God I've never seen Jonah Weiland so laid back around late July ever. Thanks so much to everyone who kicked in.

2 - Holy fucking shit, Robot 6 and Spinoff Online! I would honestly be a hot mess if it weren't for the ladies and gentlemen behind those blogs, you guys. Every time I had some con-related news come across my desk last minute where we were all freaking out, I'd e-mail the Robot 6 crew and they'd not only respond immediately with a "YES!" but in some cases would actually say, "We were already chasing that." Can you fucking imagine how awesome those guys are?!?! They broke a lot of news on the show itself all by their lonesome and gave more better round ups of the breaking news of the show than any blog on the internet. Amazing, amazing, amazing, A-MAZE-ING, you guys.

And Spinoff? I can honestly say that when Jonah and I dreamt up the idea of a bigger media blog for the CBR network while doing drunken girly phone chats one night, there's no way we imagined it'd be as strong as its been in its brief life under Graeme, Kevin, Josh, Erik Jeffrey and the rest of the crew. We wanted to make a place on CBR that could expand out our coverage of other media that our readership seems to dig without sacrificing one iota of our comics coverage or comics focus, and I think we've done exactly that...and when I say "we've done" what I mean is "they've done, but it's so nice they put my name on that site too." Super aces, bros.

3 - Finally before I link to something that more than three of you want to read, I just wanted to say that I got back from this San Diego more excited about my working future and my future in general than I've felt in a long time. So everyone who hung out and said nice things and kept my positivity up all weekend...basically to all my friends at the show: THANK YOU. I went into this year's show not knowing what experience I wanted from it but walking away with the best one possible, and that was hella keen.

OK, so...content!


* I don't want to foist every piece of pre-con news that I worked on upon y'all, but in the ramp up to the show, there were a few legitimately newsworthy stories and/or just plain fun interviews I got to do that were tangentially tied to the con. For one, I was happy (and a little surprised) to be the only person to reach out and get comment from Jimmy Palmiotti and Larry Young as two of the principals in this coming Kickstart Comics company that's going to be hitting comic shops and Wal-Marts later this year. I know a lot of people throw automatic sneers at any company run by Hollywood folks, but my view is always that if someone is paying creators to get comics done, printed and sold, they deserve a shot to talk about that process in a forum where their potential readership can come and get facts on the product.

On the flip side of that particular story, it was nice to speak to Mark Waid and Matt Gagnon about their changing roles at BOOM! Studios. For being a place whose name carries "the S word," BOOM! has pretty much proven its commitment to comics first, and I'm always glad to see more healthy players of that stripe in the market.

Finally, there were a shit ton of product announcements and product announcement interviews from me in the ramp up to the show, but if I had only one to steer you towards, it'd be this one with Scott Snyder on his upcoming Detective Comics run. I don't know how well it reads through in the final copy, but I haven't spoken to any creator who was as flat out enthused over his new gig that Snyder in I don't know how long. It's nice to see new guys who are fucking hungry in comics, you know?


* Once I landed in San Diego on Tuesday morning, things pretty much started to fall on me left and right. For one, Jonah hatched some hairbrained scheme to get me onto the floor of the show before it opened (my brief photo set is here), and I'll admit it was kind of fun in its fake clandestined-ness. I think aside from all the other awesome perks, fans who want to become professionals should chase that brass ring with the knowledge that when they get that coveted exhibitor badge, there are few things more creepy awesome than walking the floor of Comic-Con when it's totally fucking empty of people.

The other major bit of Tuesday insanity for me was the fact that despite traveling to the show on little to no sleep, I'd committed to doing the latest of our new "Marvel T&A" column for the Friday of the show. We didn't want to miss a week so early in our new weekly column for any reason, so I called up Tom Brevoort from the Taxi stand of the San Diego airport for what I thought would be a ten minute "what do you do when everyone else is at San Diego?" chat and ended up with over 40 minutes of Q&A. If you're at all interested about the inner workings of Marvel Editorial over the product discussion these things usually gravitate towards, you may want to check that out. Also: Brevoort owes me a dollar for including that "T&T" gag in there.

* Once CCI gets underway, the majority of my time doing "live reporting" – that is to say I cover some of the bigger publisher panels as they happen while trying to lose neither my mind or my tenuous wireless signal. I can't complain about it really as doing a panel live means one hour of stressful typing followed by zero work on my part. It's honestly a sweet gig, and I hope that in the rush to catch as much of the news and quote people as accurately as I can, what I produce somewhat resembles readable prose rather that some kind of strange fanboy bulletpoints that need to be decoded by the message board kids. Anyway, the lion's share of these reports included: The first DC Nation panel, the Geoff Johns spotlight, the Marvel Avengers comics panel and the famed Cup O' Joe panel.


* And as part and parcel of that panel coverage, I also spoke to writer Jeff Parker about his plans in taking over Marvel's Red Hulk character with his "Atlas" artist Gabriel Hardman. To be honest, I wrote that story from a couch in the lobby of my hotel at four in the morning during a night of restless, stressful insomnia, so if it makes no sense please don't blame Parker.

* In between that, I found a moment to interview DC co-publisher Dan Didio about the whole "Alan Moore doesn't want Watchmen back or to write a sequel" thing. I mean, I got as much out of DDD as he was willing to give on the subject at least. I honestly don't know what to make of that whole story or even if it's that big of a story, but I'm always interested in hearing the big whigs talk about their big plans – even in vague terms – so it was an interesting thing in that respect at least.


* The other big chunk of my week was spent diving head first into Scott Pilgrim madness. It's kind of insane to me that one of the first things I did as a web reporter on comics was to interview Bryan Lee O'Malley about the release of the series' third volume, and since then the bond I've made with those books and that particular piece of my work life has been an incredibly satisfying and...I don't know? Humbling? experience. I'm going to miss waiting for new books in that world terribly, and I can't think of a better way to have ended my run following them than by live reporting on the star-studded movie panel and then on O'Malley's own comic-themed spotlight.

* I should also mention even though they're not up that for the first time this year, Jonah tapped me to do some of CBR's "Boat Show" video interviews. I hadn't done anything of the sort since the very end of my Wizard tenure where the process of talking to people at the New York Comic Con was as humiliating and degrading work experience as I've ever been through and made me want to stab an ice pick into my inner ear so I wouldn't be able to stand up straight in front of the camera anymore. Anyway, doing it for CBR was a much more pleasant experience, and in the weeks ahead you can all be on the lookout for video of me embarrassing myself in conversation with the aforementioned O'Malley, writer Kieron Gillen and the tag team supreme of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning.


* If I could point you towards just one thing I wrote at the show you should check out (or the one thing you probably already have), it'd be my writeup of Grant Morrison's spotlight panel. Jonah very smartly didn't make this one a live affair as trying to encapsulate Morrison's thoughts on the fly would do the writer and his fans a real disservice. I hope I was able to cram as many of the interesting ideas, news and quotes I heard in that hour into my final report. and if nothing else it seems to be getting linked around a lot, for which I'm very grateful.

* Saturday evening at the show, some poor kid in Hall H got stabbed in the eye – a fact I learned while sitting in another panel taking notes, which I then had to leave to rush across the con to cover. Incidents like that are never the most pleasant things to write about, but I hope the report I filed with quotes from the police and Comic-Con's David Glanzer helped keep discussion of the event grounded in fact rather than wild speculation, despite the highly surreal factor that came in when I was asking questions of said police alongside local news stations, Entertainment Weekly and the Washington Post. Of course, that wasn't nearly as surreal as typing up said police quotes about the stabbing while sitting next to Todd MacFarlane on the couch on the CBR Yacht a half hour later. Saturday was fucking weird, man.

* I wrapped my on site reporting of the show with a brief chat with Glanzer about some of the events and issues that had sprung up during the week, and you can read that here. I hope to get David back on the phone for one more Con wrap-up talk this week, and I'll have two more panel reports hitting in the days ahead: A Mike Mignola spotlight and one about Paul Dini and Phil Hester's respective new Cartoon Network projects. Please be on the lookout for all of that in the days ahead, and see you next year!

Our Comics Decade: 2009

Ben
In 2000, I walked into a comic shop for the first time in years, not really sure what had happened to the characters I had once loved and unsure if these trips would be a regular occurrence.

Nine years later, not only had I immersed myself in the comics industry about as thoroughly as one can, I was going to be responsible for putting one of those bad boys on the shelves.

Editor Bill Rosemann was one of the first guys I became real friendly with at Marvel upon becoming their company contact. It made sense, as Bill had recently inherited the cosmic titles from the departing Andy Schmidt and thus held the fate of Nova and the Annihilation franchise in his hands, but he was also just an outgoing, welcoming dude who was always happy to talk comics. To this day, Bill remains one of the most enthusiastic folks at Marvel, a guy who genuinely enjoys being able to work in our medium and who has guided those aforementioned space-based books to levels of success never before seen by the company. Bill’s also a fellow pro wrestling fan, so we hit it off pretty immediately and are never at a loss for things to talk about.

I had actually interviewed for the position of Bill’s assistant editor only months before I got the Marvel.com offer in 2007 and was pretty sure I was going to get it, but ultimately did not. Still, Bill and I vowed we would work together some day beyond just the capacity of me e-mailing him for art to run a story on the new issue of Guardians of the Galaxy (and now would be as appropriate a time as any to mention that I am 95% sure Bill stole the idea for Darkhawk to be part of a secret society of Shi’Ar assassins from an e-mail I sent him without necessarily realizing it, a claim writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning back up as they say he presented it to them “seemingly out of nowhere,” but that he still half-heartedly denies).

Once Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited got up and running and particularly after we worked with Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Francis Yu to produce the official prologue to Secret Invasion, I was consistently on Bill’s case that we should do some sort of digital “extra” for one of the cosmic events. I pitched stuff like doing a Front Line-esque series for Annihilation: Conquest and a series of one-shots highlighting solo members of the Guardians of the Galaxy, but for one reason or another road blocks always came up.

In late 2008, Bill let me in on the plans for the War of Kings event and I finally had my opening; I suggested that since the series would have such a huge cast, an accompanying online series would be the perfect opportunity to spread the wealth of the spotlight and he agreed. The only hurdle was that both Bill and his assistant, Michael Horwitz, were too busy with the print end of the project to handle the full brunt of this idea, but with a sly smile I suggested that perhaps I could be of assistance. Bill and the powers-that-be agreed to let me and Michael do the day-to-day on what would come to be known as War of Kings: Warriors (a title Bill enjoyed coming into my office and yelling out ala the 1979 movie’s battle cry) while he supervised closely.

(In the interest of full disclosure, Michael ended up doing way more than I did on the back-end both because he actually knew what he was doing and because he’s awesome, but still, this was my shot at the big-time and I was very excited.)

We decided we would focus on four characters over the course of what would be two regular-size comics, but come out as eight bi-weekly installments online. I let Bill choose the stars of the books and he went with Gladiator, Blastaar, Lilandra and Crystal (I of course could not help but chuckle to myself on that last one as I can’t stand Crystal, but never let Bill know that).

I proposed two writers who I was eager to work with and who I thought would be good fits for the project: Christos Gage and Jay Faerber. As I’ve recounted before, I had met Christos back at WonderCon in 2006 and stayed in touch during his rise to prominence with books like Avengers: The Initiative, while Jay had made e-mail contact with me after I complimented his Image series, Noble Causes in a Wizard online review and we’d also kept up with one another. I was looking to get both guys doing some digital work and this presented the perfect opportunity. Chris is a natural with larger-than-life action and digs big monsters so Gladiator and Blastaar were his, whereas Jay knows his way around the ladies (when it comes to comic book characters…and life), thus we gave him Crystal and Lilandra.

On the artistic side, as Bill had far more experience with Marvel’s stable of talent there, he mostly made the selections, but I was certainly pleased with who he got; Mahmud Asrar would handle Gladiator—kinda neat because he normally did Dynamo 5 with Jay, but here he’d work with Chris—Adriana Melo was on for Crystal, and Carlos Magno came aboard for Blastaar. Originally, Timothy Green II was lined up to finish things off with Lilandra, but when he had to bow out due to scheduling issues, we were fortunate to land Ramon Perez.

When it came to the stories, I was more hands on plotting some than others. From when the project was conceived and Bill let me know we’d likely be using Gladiator, I locked in on wanting to tell his origin, going so far as to do the research on all his prior appearances both to make sure the story wasn’t already out there and to get the facts on his background straight. Chris was very onboard and we were both pretty jazzed to get the opportunity to give the back-story on a character created back in 1977 by no less than Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum. I gave Chris my idea, he refined it, and we went back and forth a few times, and then brought Bill into the mix. Bill made the great note that Gladiator should be really be a tragic but heroic figure ala Red Star back in New Teen Titans #18 by Marv Wolfman and George Perez, a story we both loved, and we were off to the races.

Chris pretty much knew what he wanted to do with Blastaar already (“He’s a space barbarian…it’s not difficult to find something cool there”), so the next character I really ended up digging into was Crystal with Jay. Since he’s actually quite a fan of the character, Jay shot some ideas my and Bill’s way and I initially suggested he play off her history with characters like the Fantastic Four and Avengers—after the decision to tell Gladiator’s origin, the plan became to set all the stories either in the immediate or distant past—but Bill wanted to play more with her current status quo. Jay came up with a neat idea to do a sort of CSI mystery where Crystal got to show off her elemental powers in a new crime-solving way and I helped him smooth it out and we were ready to go.

With Lilandra, the direction I gave Jay was that it might be neat to do something set in her childhood explaining why she was always so different than her violent siblings and he kinda took the ball from there; the most important thing we agreed on was that this was a character who had always only been somebody’s girlfriend and we needed to show her as a hero. As Lilandra ended up dying in War of Kings and Warriors ended up being her last real starring role, I thought the story took on an extra element of poignancy.

With the plots in place, Bill gave me a crash course in the process of editing a comic book. I learned in short order how to give art notes, make corrections between pencils and inks, place lettering balloons and much more. Needless to say I gained an immense amount of respect for the guys and girls who do this for a living as it is not easy work at all and it’s rare when editors get recognized for their labors unless something goes wrong. As comic book editor has always been a dream job of mine, the experience was both rewarding and also somewhat telling as I enjoyed it but am not sure I have the stuff to do it on a regular basis; time will tell I suppose, but my hat is off to editors.

Bill and I pretty much supervised Gladiator, the first story, and then a good deal of Crystal, before Michael took the lead on Blastaar and especially Lilandra. For the most part, everything went smoothly, although Michael negotiated a few potholes here and there with the grace and dignity only an 80-pound man can muster (I love Michael Horwitz).

I actually caused one “not funny at the time but looking back now, sure” hiccup myself with the covers of the books. At the time, we were not sure in what form these comics would see actual print, though we knew they likely would; however, we were announcing them at the New York Comic Con and wanted some sort of cool art to show off, so Bill put that on me. He had referenced me the talented Jeff Renaud, who has since become quite the accomplished cover artist for Marvel, who I commissioned to produce four painted pieces of the stars of our series that could serve as covers to the individual books and also be put together as one teaser image. Jeff did a tremendous job and the pieces came out great, but one of the Marvel Vice Presidents calmly explained to me later that it probably wasn’t the best idea to shell out a tidy sum for covers of online books when we could have just Photoshopped something out of the interior at for free; well, it ended up fast-tracking the books to print so we wouldn’t waste the covers, so you live, you learn!

One very cool part of the War of Kings: Warriors process for me was getting to promote the book via websites I had relied on to catch me up with comic goings on over the decade prior like Comic Book Resources and Newsarama. I also got to appear on my first panel as a member of Marvel at the aforementioned New York Comic Con, which was a cool 180 from sitting in the crowd at San Diego listening to Geoff Johns, Brad Meltzer and Judd Winick and deciding I wanted to do this for a living five years prior. I thought I handled myself well, but love that the only sound bite of mine that really got quoted was when I joked that we might see the characters from Sean McKeever’s Inhumans series as “cannon fodder” (sorry, Sean).

Months came and went, the series went up on Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited to some fanfare and then the day arrived when I could walk into Jim Hanley’s and purchase multiple copies of War of Kings: Warriors #1 with Gladiator streaking skywards on the covers and “Ben Morse” listed inside as an editor. For the little kid who used to hitch rides from his mom to New England Comics in Brookline and even the college student who used to rush to Sarge’s every Wednesday, it was a feeling that could not be matched. Seeing Warriors debut on the Diamond sales charts at #87 was just icing on the cake.

Every year over the past 10 has given me at least one huge reason to be excited as a comic book fan and proud as a member of the industry; I can only hope that holds true over the next decade, and frankly, I’m feeling pretty good about it. See you in 2020!

Rickey
When the decade kicked off, I was 17, and the book I'm closing out this writing experiment with is a title I completely wish I'd read back when I was still too young to buy cigarettes: Black Hole.

When it comes to universally acclaimed, genre-defining books like this subtly dark look at high school, I'm swimming in excuses for why I haven't read them yet. Love and Rockets, all of Bone, Epileptic, Claremont/Byrne's X-Men...the list goes on and on and regrettably on. As recently as October 2009, Charles Burns's Black Hole was on that list until I was heading to Ben's wedding and needed something to read on the train ride up to the ceremony. I had the hardcover edition on hand cause I bought it a few years back and it just sat on my shelf. I chose the hardcover cause my softcover versions of fat collections have a tendency to lose their cohesiveness on the spines and burst apart when I'm around 3/4 of the way through. It held together like the motherfucking Enterprise during a Klingon fleet attack, though.

Knowing that Burns started the book in 1995 and finally collected it in 2005 (its own little decade) is so stunning because his ink-thick, moody style stayed mirror-image consistent THE WHOLE TIME. I don't think I've ever done anything the same for more than 5 years, much less 10. But there they are. All the creepy teens with their horrific STD that causes them to mutate until the ugly truths of who they really are begin to surface as lesions and tails and odd-pattern baldness and skin growths and, in some cases, murderous tendencies. Like trying to explain where you've been to your parents after a hotbox session driving around your cul-de-sac, details of some occurrences in the book aren't 100% clear to readers or the characters. I'm paraphrasing way too heinously, but it's a frightening lesson about life's futility and capacity for triumph, and I can't recommend it highly enough - especially for anyone looking to give a teenager a gift or curious to re-identify with their own teenage years.

But even beyond just identifying with the story, the realization that I can still find surprises in comics - no matter how cynical I can be about them or how much I learn through work and my own genuine rabid fandom - like I did here excites me to no end. There are thousands and thousands of books I haven't read yet even though I've been reading for over 2 decades. And even if I read for 200 more, I still couldn't finish it all. So leaving the 2000's and entering the 2010's, that's the lesson I'm taking away from Black Hole and every other book I've stumbled across in my whole life: Good or bad, I have no idea what's next. But rest assured there IS something next. And that unknown void is ELECTRIFYING as shit.

Kiel
Is it weird that none of us have written about Scott Pilgrim yet?

Look, the five volumes Bryan Lee O'Malley and Oni Press released over the past few years collectively make "the book of the decade" as far as I'm concerned. Do I need to go over the reasons why? OK. Fine. It's funny. It's exciting. It tells a story that's perfect for comics in a way that could only really work as comics. It's cool and nerdy and full of silly pop culture stuff but not in the way that's all "Hey everybody, I'm making a Stone Roses reference. Bad ass, right?" all the time. Most importantly, Scott Pilgrim is built on characters who feel and act like real people with real emotions who really fuck up. And even though you get a little mad at them for being them, you still love the lot of exaggerated brush strokes and the not-so real world they live in. They're your friends.

But I'm not sure that's why I'll remember 2009 as the year of Scott Pilgrim. Because as good as the books are (which you can read about...um...everywhere else on the internet), what really heightened the Scott Pilgrim-iness of the past five years and last year in particular was the passionate, buzzy, "let's dress up like Scott and Ramona" outpouring of excitement that's accompanied each new volume with more and more fervor.

Damn near a year ago from when I'm writing this post, the fifth volume – "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The Universe" – debuted at New York Comic Con, and as someone who was around, I can attest that it was mega, super duper fun. The gang at Oni and O'Malley went out of their way again to make the book's release an event no matter where you were with the tricked out foil cover on the first printing but even the little "this weekend only" touches like the multiple signings and parties and the goofy pink wrap-around on the book helped make people who already really wanted to read that book get their hands on it even sooner (as impossible as that may sound). It was more like they were throwing a party that selling a product.

For me it was fun too to be there and talk to O'Malley for a minute specifically about all that stuff and then watch Jonah chat him up on video like he did the SNL dudes or Chuck D or whoever. Scott Pilgrim is one of the few things where I worry that my covering it will just come off as fanish wanking, but I hope that we did a nice job of sharing that legitimately buzzy, newsworthy craziness of the book owning (pwning?) that show for people who were waiting for copies to get mailed to the Des Moines Borders to pick it up.

I never got way into the thrill so many had following the final Harry Potter volumes hit the stands, but I'm more than pumped that Scott Pilgrim scratches that "read it at midnight on Rickey's couch where I'm sleeping for the weekend of the show and then e-mail all my comic buds to discuss it ASAP" itch. I don't know if I've enjoyed all that stuff more than the Scott Pilgrim books themselves, but some days it feels really fucking close, you know?

And next year, it'll kick up to a new level I'm sure. The final book. The movie full of hip and gorgeous young people doing back flips. The video game. I've been preparing for Scott Pilgrim to hit bigger amongst the people in my life (and in the world) who aren't following comics all day for a while. I've loaned the books to my buds. I bought my 14-year-old brother (who loves video games and whose occasional comic buying is centered around things like Death Note and Bleach) that Borders three pack of the first books for Christmas. I want to see the comics crossover in a way that'll in some respects take the community and love and madness comics folks have built around a really great story out of our hands.

It might not happen of course. The movie might do just all right despite what we all expect to be rave reviews. The books might see a tiny but unspectacular bump in book store sales. The youth of America may not spontaneously start wearing Sloan t-shirts everywhere and saying things like "If your life had a face, I would punch it" at the dinner table to confuse their parents. But things will still be different once the book's run wraps, and for now I'm just really glad to have been along on the ride to see what happens.