Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Nineteen San Diego Comic Con Panels In Audio As Well As The Eisner Awards

Jamie Colville, bless his cotton socks, recorded the audio from nineteen panels from as well as the . And here they all are. You can see pictures and as well.



(50:52, 46.5mb)




This was moderated by Rik Offenberger from the website. On the panel was Albert Ching (), Glenn Hauman (), Tanya Tate (), Rich Johnston (), Alan Kistler (), Heidi MacDonald (), Chris Thompson (), Holly Golightly (), Josh Waldrop (), J.C. Vaughn () and Bryan Young ().

The group was there mainly to answer questions for creators/publishers in the audience. They started off by going down the line to explain the best way to be contacted if you are looking to get your work promoted. They also gave advice on what not to do like using exclamation points in a press release. They had talked about when not to be contacted (eg right now, as they are at a convention and theirs are piling up) and how much lead time is required for types of coverage. Kickstarter was a big topic as everybody gets swamped with pleas to promote Kickstarter campaigns and why they rarely do them. They also talked a bit about sending them PDF files.



(46:48, 42.8mb)



This was an interview of Dan Parent by Rik Offenberger and Chris Thompson. Parent started by talking about reading comics as a kid, how we went to the Kubert school and how that lead to a job in the Archie Comics production office. He said he worked there for 10 years getting a good on the job education, including the switch to a more digital form of

producing comics. He talked about pitching stories while at Archie and how many of them were rejected at first (and for good reason). Eventually he started getting stories approved

and he talked about some of the stories that got a lot of mainstream media coverage. Regarding stories they talked about the move to doing longer stories and using the parent

characters more. Regarding art Parent talked about working with Dan DeCarlo and drawing clothes on the female characters. They also talked about the Veronica solo series he pitched and has been successful with Archie and the Kevin Keller character and how he came about. His work outside of Archie was talked about, including Felix the Cat, Barbie Comics, Carney Comics and Bratz. The audience asked questions about Archie's Madhouse, his favorite Archie characters, artists outside of Archie he's currently reading. Dan mentioned Archie's 50th Anniversary year is coming up. Some outside of comics stuff has come up, including his being on the Weakest Link and Who Wants to be a Millionaire TV shows. He also told a funny story about being in Tijuana once.



(42:40, 39.0mb)



This was moderated by Titan Comics senior editor Steve White. The reason Roman was "REBUILT" was due a bad accident he was in about a year ago. He was hit very hard by an SUV and said they measured the distance he flew to be 15 feet. His leg was broken and had to be reattached to him. He has lost some of the bone in his leg and now needs a walking stick to get around. Roman talked about the time it took him to recover. He says since being hit has made him more motivated to get work done. He showed art on 3 new projects he is currently working on, this including a graphic novel called Monocle, a superhero book called Stringbean (it's very dark and strange) and a TV show called Battleboy. He had also talked about Lenore and upcoming plans for her and any other media possibilities with the character. He revealed that other strange things have been happening to him that could have seriously injured or killed him since the accident.



(53:35, 49.0mb)



On this panel was a who's who of long running podcasters. Moderating the panel was John Siuntres (),

on it was fellow podcasters Brian Christman (), John Mayo (, Heidi MacDonald (), Jimmy Aquino (), Conor Kilpatrick () and Ben Blacker (). The group had talked about digital comics and argued about digital vs print sales. They had also talked about comic book movies. Heidi brought up at the big 2 are not creating major artists anymore. They also talked about 'event' comics. The group talked about sponsorships (one major sponsor was there in the audience) in terms of making money from the podcast, the length of their shows, how open podcasting is now and how professional one has to be to do the show. The group ended the panel by talking about what comics they are enjoying now.



(53:38, 49.1mb)



The panel was moderated by a very hungry Tom Spurgeon (). On the panel was Heidi MacDonald (), Tony Isabella (), Alexa Dickman (), Rich Johnston () and Graeme McMillan ().

There was a very large audience and Tom joked about the panel being a pre-show for the next panel (Mega64: Decade of Perfection) which got the audience laughing. The group introduced themselves particularly to the crowd who were not familiar with them. Tom had received some questions from his readers and asked them. Among the topics talked about writing in a way to generate hits from search engines, (eg using words like exclusive, which generate traffic) or topics that they might not normally cover and how it may compromises their writing. Lots of discussion was around those that have writers contributing to their blog. Among the topics for them were letting contributors develop their voice, how much they pay their writers and if it's hypocritical to write negatively about companies exploiting their talent while they pay their own writers little to nothing. The amounts being paid to contributors was revealed and what other forms of compensation they are getting. For those that work (or had worked) in print how writers got paid was discussed. The group also talked about creator rights issues, gender issues, creators in need and they also took questions from the audience.



(51:39, 47.2mb)



Mark Evanier interviewed Tony about his career in comics. They talked about his getting involved in comic fandom, his comic reading as a kid, particularly FF annual #1, his love

of giant monsters, his living in New York City and the seedy hotel on Times Square he lived in. He spoke about his editorial work at Marvel, writing books under tight deadlines

when other people blew them, his favorite artists to work with, in particular Frank Robins and Eddie Newell, him getting a chance to work with Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby. Tony

revealed that he wrote a large, multi issue Captain America story only to later find out that Kirby had already been hired to take over the book after a few issues. He also spoke

a bit about co-writing with Bob Ingersol. He said said he would have loved to have more time on Daredevil and Ghost Rider. He said his original champions pitch was Iceman and

Angel buddy book with them on the road getting involved in certain situations. Said he would still liked to have written that. Tony also won an inkwell award for his work in comics and Tony gave his love to the convention for having him as a guest.



(52:58, 48.4mb)



Moderated by his daughter/agent Silvana Frontera. Jose talked about differences between European and US comics. How he worked on superheroes except for the Flash. He didn't want to draw him. He loves doing Westerns and the Lone Ranger in particular. He did a number of other media type adaptations over many years, including the Beatles Yellow Submarine, Monkee's Comic Book, Transformers and NFL Superpro among others. He said he liked working on the Monkee's because he can be comical and not be so strictly on model as he was with other books.

Jose revealed that his father wanted him to be a lawyer and was worried that he would be poor as an artist. When he got his first cheque he gave it to his father and he never cashed

it, he saved it as a symbol of his son having made it and making good living. Jose talked about learning under Carlos Clemen (a famous Argentina artist). He would move to Brazil to work. His wife had a uncle who was an US citizen and asked him if he'd like to come to USA, he said yes and came over. He also told a story about almost getting drafted to go to

Vietnam, he told them he was married with 2 kids and they put him at the bottom of the list to put into service. He said he is happy for comic book conventions because 8 year olds do not know what comic books are, that blew his mind and he knew comics were in trouble then. He said he finds artists today too similar in style and colourists don't believe that white is a colour. He talked about his love of Joe Kubert and working as a teacher in his school. He talked about his former Dell editor/writer DJ Arneson. He said Dell/Western destroyed all the original art, but he knew a kid who spoke Spanish in the production dept and he snuck him some of his art back, he mentioned getting some of his Turok art, but he didn't get any of his Lone Ranger which is disappointing for him. He also said credits were not allowed in those books but he would sneak his name in the rocks of Turok. Jose was asked about his relationship with editors. He mentioned Paul Levitz came by and asked him how he was doing earlier which he thought was very nice. He told a funny story about a kid who wanted a transformers sketch at a convention but he couldn't remember how to draw the character. As he was drawing the kid kept correcting him and a reporter was nearby and wrote a story in the paper about a kid teaching him how to draw, which was embarrassing at the time. He said when he was drawing Transformers he was given the toys to help towards refrence but he had to keep his grandkids from playing with them. He felt the superheroes today have bodies that are too super. Said Superman gets his powers from another planet and doesn't need Arnold Schwarzenegger's body and Batman is an intelligent detective. Said they have him flying and super strong now. In regards to working digital, he only uses computers for reference photos. Regarding inkers he liked, in named Al Williamson in particular. He said for a while he wasn't inking his work and Al called him and asked why. He said he didn't know why and it wasn't his decision, but he would ask that his pencils would go to him. So he called his editor and asked for Al and then Al got Transformers pages to ink. Al hated them, only did 5 or 6 pages and quit. Jose would have liked to ink his own work but he couldn't justify the time to do it. He mentioned doing some work on a new Transformer book but couldn't say what. Jose also got an inkpot award from the Comic Con organization.



(46:55, 42.9mb)



Kim Thompson was a long time co-owner/editor of Fantagraphics who recently passed away due to cancer. On the panel was Eric Reynolds, Gary Groth, Diana Schutz, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez. Gary talked about Kim first getting involved with Fantagraphics. Diana talked about first meeting Gary and Kim. She said Kim would later reach out to her and other women, asking them to contribute to the Amazing Hero magazine, which was very rare at the time. Hernandez Bros and Eric talked about meeting Kim and working with him. Gary talked about how he, Kim and Harlan Ellison met in order to try and make up after the lawsuit, but Harlan did not like Kim's review of Frank Millers work and they instead got into a huge argument over it. Diana talked about working with Kim over the last few years doing translations. Gary talked about how they all lived in the Fantagraphics house and Kim used to regularly work in his bathrobe. He would always be wearing shorts or sweatpants unless it was something super formal. Gary said Kim had knowledge about what was good cartooning. The group talked about Kim not having any guilty pleasures and loved Brian De Palma movies. They all said he was always working, including late at night or very early in the morning. Gilbert thinks there would be no Vertigo or many independent publishers around if it was not for Kim's groundbreaking work wih Fantagraphics. Eric talked about Kim championing some artists, including Jason which he wasn't convinced would do so well.



(49:22, 45.1mb)



On the panel were Jon B, Cooke, Elliot S! Maggin, Paul Levitz, Martin Pasko and moderating the panel was J. David Spurlock. Carmine Infantino was a long time extremely important artist, editor and publisher, much of his work for DC Comics. Elliot talked about Carmine patching up the many fights he and Julie Schwartz had. Both he and Martin said Carmine wasn't pretentious. Elliot told a story about Carmine and Julie getting into an argument and Julie said "I was here before you and I'll be here after your gone!" and Carmine just laughed, he didn't let stuff said during heated arguments bother him. Paul talked about how after the 1966 Batman show started to drop in ratings nobody at DC had any idea of where to take the company. Carmine provided DC with a direction and really experimented in ways that publishers didn't do prior to that. Today publisher's experiment the ways Carmine did back then, trying all sorts of new ideas with different creators. Martin talked about Carmine's cover design and David said all the DC covers were pretty much laid out by Carmine from when he was art director and on up. David mentioned that as Carmine moved up the ladder at DC, he kept doing his old jobs. One time an HR person within the company was reviewing who did what within the organization and they told Carmine he did the work of 5 people. David revealed that Stan Lee had offered Carmine a job in the mid 1960s and DC promoted him in order to keep him. Martin and David talked about the many behind the scene changes that Carmine was responsible for that he doesn't get credit for, both small and large. David said one of them was ordering his artists to update their swipe files so that females were not drawn with 1950 s style clothing. They talked about how many artists got their start at DC comics, with

Carmine liking their art and telling editors to get the artist a script. Paul talked about how when Carmine took over, he broke down the BS formality at DC at the time and made it

much more open and about creating good comics. He said Carmine made DC more open to fans and solicited their opinions, much more than Marvel did at the time. Elliot talked about him suggesting DC do a Superman movie and writing a pitch, Julie disagreed, thinking superheroes were over and he went to Carmine. Carmine sent Elliot and another writer to talk with Mario Puzo about it. Paul revealed that in the early 60s, Carmine won the best artist in fandom awards 4 times in a row and people don't realize how popular he was with fans during that time. David said Carmine really went to bat to hire Kirby back, despite resistance within DC and he went to bat for many other artists as well. David and Martin said Carmine was really influential and that Bernie Krigstein and John Romita learned from him.



(49:18, 45.1mb)



This was moderated by Leigh Walton. Jeff talked about getting into comics, his autobiographical books and how they started. He said people in his life don't appear to be too bothered by their depiction because he makes himself look very unflattering. He talked about the style of art he chooses for which project. He talked about Bighead and how it came about.

Leigh gave the reason for the small sized Jeffery Brown books and why they are all different sizes. They then talked about his Star Wars books, Darth Vader and Son, Star Wars: Vader's Little Princess and they revealed a new Star Wars: Jedi Academy book and showed a video trailer for it. His next autobiographical book is about his wife's pregnancy and his relationship with his father. His father is a minister but he is no longer practicing religion. They talked about his use of colour on the books. They gave a handout showing a sample of his upcoming work to those the audience that asked questions. Jeff revealed he wants to do a book about the business side of comic art. He is also a teacher and those types of questions get asked a lot by his

students.



(48:58, 44.8mb)



Moderated by Mark Evanier. On the panel was Sergio Aragon s, Paul Levitz, Marv Wolfman, Tom Yeates, Jon B. Cooke and Russ Heath. The panelists signed 3 books about Joe Kubert byBill Schelley which would be auctioned off for Hero Initiative. The panelists talked about Joe and what they liked about him. Sergio was always amazed on how fast Kubert drew and he was drawing realistically. Paul said his funeral drew such a large crowd they had to borrow police from 2 nearby towns, considering the burial was done by Jewish traditions (where it's done fairly quickly) it was an amazing crowd of people that showed up. Many more would have showed up if there was more notice. Marv talked about Joe teaching him about how to pace a story by taking one of his stories and ignoring his art direction and drawing it his way. He said Joe went over the art and explained what he was doing and why and that was an enormous eye opener for Marv and it taught him a lot about writing. Marv also told a story about art that needed to be inked right away to make deadline and the only pen in the area was a lettering pen, which has a very fat nub and is not something you draw or ink with. Joe made that pen sing and did a great job of inking despite the tool not being fit for the job.

Marv also talked about when he was an assistant editor under Kubert he would often have to completely re-write Bob Kanigher stories for Joe. Tom Yeates said he met Joe before he

started the school and connected with him right away, Joe then called him up when he was starting his school. While Tom was there he started getting work and tried to draw like Joe

in terms of surface detail, but found it wasn't working and he learned from Joe about the under the surface detail that makes his drawings work. Jon talked about Joe using the school to give back to creators as Joe had started when he was 11 and learned from multiple artists while sweeping floors at a comic sweatshop. Russ mentioned Joe gave hard backslaps and told some funny stories about Joe. He also said that inking Joe was very hard. Sergio told a funny story about how Joe said he was going to take his 5 kids, wife and mobile home and go on vacation. Sergio told him he should go to Mexico and drew him a map of Mexico and everywhere they should go and how they would get there. A few months later Joe told Sergio that he had actually used his map to go into Mexico and thanked him for it being so accurate. Sergio was stunned that he would go into Mexico with his family just based on his drawn map. Mark Evanier told an early San Diego con story about Joe doing a fund raising sketch for the con and a friend of his was too late to bid on it and lost it (price $300), Mark talked to Joe and he quickly did another sketch that was even better than the first one and the winner of the previous sketch wanted the new one instead. Marv and Paul said Joe was also a very good businessman too, something that was pretty rare back in those days.

(55:38, 50.9mb)



This was moderated by Mark Waid. Russ talked about where he grew up and his early influences. He mentioned his father was a cowboy among his many other jobs, but as a result he

watched a lot of western related serials. His father would tell him that if the actor was wearing a flowery shirt or something that the character wasn't a real cowboy. Russ took from that that when writing/drawing fiction you need to be true to whatever you are depicting. He said he got started in comics when at 16 his father took him to Holyoke and he was given a script, but was told he couldn't draw it in pen. He had to buy a brush and after a few days he figured out how to use it. This stunned Mark as some artists take years to figure out how to use a brush. Russ talked about joining the air force. He mentioned he was in and out of high school as he did not have good marks. He said prior to drawing for a living he was a lifeguard and ran a scuba diving club. He did some advertising work, but then had a wife and kid and needed more money. The advertising paid $35 a week, he was looking for work during lunch hour and found Stan still working. Stan offered him $75 a week to draw for him, which he did. Russ liked doing westerns but didn't like doing Batman because of all the straight lines on the buildings. Said he knew Harvey Kurtzman from Marvel as he was doing the 1 page Hey Look! gags. They had lunch together a couple of times and that lead to Harvey giving him some work at EC comics. Russ talked about Kanigher and not in a positive way. He said he was also friends with Ross Andru and Gray Morrow. He talked about moving to California in the 70s and working in animation. He also worked on Annie Fanny for Playboy while in the Playboy mansion. He was going to quit Annie when Hugh called him up, doubled his salary and offered to pay him to move to Chicago, which he did. He also told a funny story about sabotaging Will Elder's paint pants. He talked about Archie Goodwin and said he was a very good editor and visual writer. He mentioned on an script Archie drew stick figure layouts of his story. Russ didn't look at them and drew his own stick figure layouts. When he was done he compared the two and found all but 1 of the layouts matched exactly and there was about 40 panels. Of newer artists he likes Adam Hughes. Russ also answered questions on National Lampoon, inking Micheal Golden and other artists in general. He also told about becoming fast friends with Dave Stevens when they worked together at Hanna-Barbera.

He said they both caused chaos there.



(53:09, 48.6mb)



This was Conway doing a Q&A with the audience. Among the topics he answered questions on were the creation of the Punisher, the bridge Gwen Stacy was thrown off and the snap sound effect, how he got into Marvel, DC comics being like Mad Men TV Show in the 60s, how he broke into DC comics, how he then got into Marvel comics and some of his reasons for going back and forth between the companies. He revealed after Gwen's death he didn't read any fan mail or do conventions for a long time, why Gwen never came back, the Clone storyline, villains who were often throw aways like The Grizzly, the issues comics are facing today, how Phantom Stranger at DC was his first regular gig, his moving into writing TV and films.

He also said that after writing Law and Order Hollywood thinks he can't write superhero movies. He is now writing a YA novel, he also told a funny story about the Spider-Mobile, both how it came about and it coming back one day in an unexpected way.



(1:20:25, 73.6mb)



Moderated by Mark Evanier. On the panel was Tony Isabella, Val Mayerik, Elliot S! Maggin, Martin Pasko and George Perez. They talked about their 1st pro sale, when they felt they

made it, "Oh Wow!" moments on working with their heroes. They explained was different about their generation from the previous one. Martin talked about a sad story of meeting a poor Bill Finger who told him to "always get the credit." The group talked about royalties. Mark Evanier told a funny story about being the 1st person to use express mail for DC. The group talked about how express mail changed the industry in both good and bad ways. Mark also told a funny story about being in a strip club with other artists that were also using Fed Ex.

The group also talked about sexism in the industry back then.



(47:47, 43.7mb)



Moderated by Deb Aoki, on the panel was Brigid Alverson, David Brothers, Chris Butcher and Shaenon Garrity. The group talked about the best manga in various categories and where it could be bought at the con (or seen online). They were fairly quick as they ran through the titles and Deb had a dinger if the people talked too long. They had all taken turns talking about their favourite books, sometimes 2 people would talk about the same book. They had pointed out that Fantagraphics is not publishing any bad manga right now. When they went through the worst list some of the best books were on that list too which generated a crowd reaction and debate among the panelists. They also had an under rated section too. Towards he end they were short of time and really rushed through the last of the books. .



(50:36, 46.3mb)



Moderated by Heidi MacDonald, on the panel was Jeff Trexler and Brad Ricca. They talked about how the lawsuits became part of the superman mythos now. Ricca talked about how Donenfeld actually had published the Lone Ranger but the creator took it back and thinks that had a lot to do with Donenfeld wanting to own and keep Superman. The group talked about what if scenarios. Jeff talked about the early 90s settlements between Siegel and Shuster families that are at this time in effect (and might remain that way). Brad also talked about Joe Shuster's last years and how it wasn't all doom and gloom. He had been married once (but divorced, his wife was into a cult) and had a girlfriend. Also on the panel and spoke towards the end was Peter M. Coogan, who said he had some some research for the DC side. Also in the audience was Wayne Smith, Senior Vice President, Senior Litigation & Chief Patent Counsel at Warner Bros. Entertainment Group of Companies and Lillian Laserson, Senior Vice President and General Counsel of DC Comics Inc. Lillian gave a what if senario at the end of the panel believing that if Siegel and Shuster not sued DC in 1947 they would have been treated the same way Bob Kane was treated and Bob died a very wealthy man. [Jamie's note: This is bullshit in my opinion and other comic historians I've talked to also do not agree with this scenario.]



(52:36, 48.1mb)



DC Editor Mike Carlin moderated the panel and joked at the beginning it was the spotlight on Dan Jurgens panel (who was in the audience). Jerry talked about where he grew up, his doing finishes on other artists pencils, getting penciling work, also inking John Byrne's pencils, always needing to be working and says it throws you off your rhythm to take a few days break. He talked about periods where he got really swamped, one time he had to do Fantastic Four, Superman and Crisis of Infinite Earths #5 at once. He talked about working on the Superman relaunch with Byrne and Marv Wolfman. How he took an active role in plotting Superman, then took over writing it. Carlin said the 'weekly' Superman books were a real team effort where everybody pitched in, he mentioned Roger Stern was really strong and keeping continuity straight and clear for everybody across all the books. Ordway revealed that Byrne was originally going to do Shazam. He had done colouring for the books and used watercolour on the covers. He also explained his process for creating a comic.



(52:53, 48.4mb)



This was also moderated by Mike Carlin, who again joked this was the Jon Bogdamov panel. Jurgens talked about growing up in a small town and occasionally hanging out with Curt Swan. He loved the 60 s Batman TV show and was introduced to comics by seeing his friends read some after it. The first comic he bought was Superman. They talked about his family's reaction to becoming an artist. He said when he was a teenager he loved Simonson's Manhunter and wrote and drew a Manhunter story. He sent it to DC and somebody sent it to Simonson. Walt wrote Jurgens a letter asking if he could keep the story in exchange for a Manhunter drawing. He agreed and Simonson sent him a really great full colour large sized drawing. Jurgens revealed he showed his work to Mike Grell when he was in the area, and Grell suggested him to DC as a replacement for him on Warlord. DC had him and another artist do a 5 page tryout and he won the job. He talked about how he got to start writing and how he got the Superman job. He also talked about the creation of Booster Gold. They then talked about the Death of Superman and one of the reasons it was done was do to a negative reaction to not getting to do the Lois Lane marriage and the popularity of Image Comics. They said that all the drew designs for Doomsday and voted and Jurgens design had won the vote. They talked about the major media coverage the story got and how they originally planned to bring Superman backed got changed to something more epic in nature. The destruction of Coast City was volunteered by the editor of Green Lantern who very much wanted to tie into what was happening with Superman. Louise Simonson suggested doing the different Superman when they did the return and Jurgens agreed to let his Cyborg version become the bad guy. Jurgens talked about what it's like seeing Booster Gold on TV and also his Marvel work. Along them was Superman with long hair after he returned, the red underwear, if death of Superman will be adapted into other media Armegeddon 2001 with Monarch and working digitally. He says he still sends the physical boards to inkers to work on and will continue to do so until he can't any longer.



(47:43, 43.6mb)



The fans were Peter Svensson, David Oates and Tom Galloway and the pro's were Len Wein, Elliot S! Maggin and Martin Pasko. The question asker was Derek McCaw. I was asked to be the official score keeper. The topic was characters celebrating their 50th anniversary. Tom Galloway was in top form this panel and answered a lot of the questions

single handedly. Len answered some correct questions on the Pro side and Elliot S! Maggin answered one question in a hilarious, not the answer we were looking for way, but we took as true. All throughout the panel the jokes were flying fast and furious. In the end the Fan side one 360 to 110.



WILL EISNER COMIC INDUSTRY AWARDS FRIDAY 2013 (JULY 19)



(2:40:55, 147mb)



The 2013 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards was held in the Indigo Room at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront.

The welcome was done by Jackie Estrada, Eisner Awards Administrator.

Among the presenters are Kayre and Bill Morrison, Maurice LaMarchie, Lauren Tom & David Herman, Chris Hardwick, Milestone Media founders Denys Cowan, Michael Davis and Derek T. Dingle, Edward James Olmos, Becky Cloonan, Ellen Forney,

James Marsters, Robert Ben Garant, Thomas Lennon, Neil Gamian and Jonathan Ross. The Bill Finger Award was presented by Mark Evanier. The Spirit of Comics Retailer

Award was presented by Joe Ferrara. The Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award was presented by Ruth Clampett. Maggie Thompson did the Memoriam.

The Winners can be found at the .
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