We assumed the crowd would be larger Saturday, but this is getting ridiculous. New York Comic Con rolls onward, dragging us in its wake. Here are a few shots from the floor Friday, taken before the masses overran the Javits.
No wonder he looks so good using his powers – Heroes star Milo Ventigmilia is no stranger to the comic book store.
So, what’s in his brown bag each week? We catch him on the floor of The New York Comic Con to find out.
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When you attend some of these publisher panels, you’re usually shown a few slides and given a brief description of upcoming titles — kind of like someone reading the Diamond Previews catalog out loud. So, instead of just parroting the entire affair, I’ve assembled an account of what you need to know about Friday’s "Vertigo: Welcome to the Edge" panel at New York Comic Con.
Before we get started, I just want to note that the room was surprisingly packed. Being a fan of the Vertigo Comics imprint, I’ve attended a few of these over the years and they’re usually well attended, but not crowded. Maybe this one is the exception because New York is the home of literati?
Here are my notes from the panel:
Karen Berger, Executive Editor of Vertigo Comics, takes the stage. Instead of introducing the panelists in order, she starts with Grant Morrison in the middle. The benefits of being a comic book rock star, eh? Introductions follow with Amy Hadley, G. Willow Wilson, Joshua Dysart, Jason Aaron, Brian Wood, Brian Azzarello (big applause, even a few yells), David Tischman and Russ Braun. Mark Buckingham arrives just in time and gets a big reaction out of the audience.
House of Mystery – Berger explains that this project will not be an anthology. It’s about a waitress stuck in a mysterious house with strangers who tell their stories, illustrated by a different artist every month. So basically it is an anthology — with a framing device. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
Madame Xanadu – The mystic DC character finally receives an origin. Since she’s nigh immortal, her stages of life take decades. Puberty must’ve been hell. [Sidenote: This news was responsible for Olivia Newton-John’s "Xanadu" getting stuck in everyone’s head later at the ComicMix HQ.
To coincide with the start of the New York Comic Con, Sega released the demo for the Iron Man movie videogame over Xbox LIVE. Marvel had the demo running at their booth. Watching the attendee reaction was Michael McHale, Senior Producer for the game. He took some time out to give us some new info.
When asked about the long list of videogames based on movies that fail to live up to the hype, he simply responded, "I don’t think anybody sets out to make a bad game."
To prevent the curse of bad movie-based games, Sega took advantage of the fact that Marvel was producing Iron Man themselves and got access to the materials earlier to allow for a longer development cycle than is usual for licensed games. For instance, early on they got the suit CGI models Industrial Light and Magic created for the movie — so the suits in the game are the same ones in the film.
The challenge for the game was, since Iron Man is pretty versitile, they had to make huge maps for him to fly around in but make them detailed enough so when he hovered or landed it still looked decent.
"You get to take on the mission objectives in any order you want," said McHale. And his abilities also make the game unique. Asked what games it compared to, McHale briefly mentioned the Superman Returns game, but the speed reminded him more of the Ace Combat jetfighter series. "I don’t think there’s another game like it to be honest."
"We definitely go beyond the film," he continued. "About 30-percent of the content is based on the film. The rest is drawn from the Marvel Universe. You battle aganst guys like Titanium Man, Whiplash and other famous villains. We’ve got factions like A.I.M. and the Maggia involved. Lots of fun things drawn from the comic books."
We kick off day two of the show direct from The Big Apple with a rundown of today’s big stuff including Stan Lee again, Peter Parker hanging out with Eli Stone and a sneak preview bonus for Lucasfilm fanatics! Plus, can you imagine the Top 10 Plants In Pop Culture?
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As I sit here, it’s Monday. TCM is kindly running The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca so I have snappy dialogue in the background. The sun is bright, my blueberry bushes are full of flowers, and it looks like it’s going to be a beautiful week.
However, as you read this, a momentous event is occurring. It’s my birthday. I’m 55 years old. When I was a child (until I was 31, at least), I thought 55 was old. People I knew who were that age had grown children, and were either biding their time towards retirement or starting out on new careers. How could they do it, I wondered, when so much of their life was over?
It’s a good question. How can I do it? I don’t feel like I’m 55 (see Column #47). More to the point, I’m not sure what 55 feels like. I don’t know what it looks like. Do you see women of a certain age in the media? Yes, you do. However, most of them have had so much cosmetic surgery, or Botox, or hair-dye, or liposuction, that there’s no way to see what they really look like.
In fact, I don’t have the personal medical records of famous women my age. It may be that Katie Couric or Diane Sawyer, for example, just naturally looks the same as they did 15 years ago, with no gray hair and full cheeks, while Tom Brokaw gets white hair and laugh lines. For women, wrinkles prevent one from delivering the news. Goldie Hawn is older than I am, but you can’t tell by looking at her recent photos. (more…)
Here at ComicMix HQ, we’re located down the hall from the Star Wars changing room, so we’ve seen more Slave Leias and Stormtroopers in one day than the average person sees in a lifetime. Take that, average person!
With that in mind, here are some of our favorite photos of the costumed masses at this year’s show:
Comics legend Neal Adams was on hand at New York Comic Con today to talk Batman with the ComicMix TV crew. Our intrepid man on the scene talks him up about his upcoming secret Batman project, as well as all things Dark Knight…
New York Comic Con is in full swing… is it a bad sign that I’m already exhausted? Today’s "Changing Face of Online Journalism" panel featuring yours truly seems like it went well. Our "Spot the Slave Leia" drinking game also seems to be going over well — or at least that’s what the police seem to be telling us.
So, while we sort out all of this nonsense, here are some photos from Thursday and Friday (captions to be added at a later sober point):
Action figures are always hot collectibles, but now they have shrunk! What’s the deal with these “minimates” and why are they so hot?
Direct from The New York Comic Con, we have the answer!
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Columns / Glenn Hauman / News
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