Events and Convention Coverage

      I am a rather large, overweight, geeky, African American male who does not know much more about fashion beyond what he likes to see a hot girl wearing, which usually is not much. But this guy has suddenly developed an interest in the high stakes highfalutin world of high-fashion. Makes as much sense as anything.

Actually, I am way more into woman’s fashion than one would think. I absolutely adore woman’s shoes, particularly Cavalli’s, Jimmy Choo’s, Marc Jacob’s, and Pedro Garcia’s. I am not completely ignorant of fashion, but I am not nearly knowledgeable enough to cover a fashion show, which is why I was the perfect person to do so. This isn’t E, or TMZ, this is NPN, and we give Fashion a completely Non-Productive treatment!

The full title of this production was the “Forever21 & To Be A Star ‘Walk on Water’ Fashion Show”. The “Walk On Water” part was quite literal, as the entire affair was being held on a boat; a boat-restaurant to be exact. The location was Pier 66 in Manhattan, aka the Frying Pan Restaurant, which in actuality is a converted fire-boat. It was a combined effort between the retailer Forever 21 and a new reality show entitled “To Be A Star”, which chronicles the lives of 6 women who are basically running a gauntlet of mentors in the Fashion and Entertainment field in order to become famous all in the span of 3 months. Easy right? The event was co-hosted by Kimmie Smith, editor-in-chief of the lifestyle and fashion website Kitten Lounge, who I will get to in a minute.

First of all, the models. Now I did not meet any of the models who actually did the walking, but I have found that if you go to any social event in New York City, there is a good chance that 1 out of 4 women there will be an aspiring, current, or ex-model. True to form, I met many such women at this event. Contrary to what you would believe, most models are quite down to Earth, and not bat-shit insane. Of course, you would think this because of Reality TV. Reality TV seems to know that the two easiest groups to make look insane are Black people and Models (and, by extension, Black Models). Models are easy to make look crazy because they are usually not eating a lot, hence their blood sugar is low. Anyone whose blood sugar is low is inherently moody, so there you go. And Black people are easy to drive insane if you put them in close spaces with insane people who we cannot escape (which has been the formula of every Real World season since its inception).

But I digress. The people at this event were fun and easy to talk to. “To Be A Star” is expertly executively produced by Jason Metz. Veronica Lee Anne is the publicist and event planner who made the most of the scenery, personnel, and fantastic ideas that made the night a huge success. Trust me, event planning is only slightly easier than, say, planning a large scale amphibious invasion of Europe, and Veronica is one of the best. She is the one who had the great idea to have 12 women sashay down a moving catwalk and call it Walking on Water. I thought that title was particularly witty and incredibly daring. I know people think that Modeling is easy, but it isn’t so easy when you are in heels and the runway is moving beneath your feet…

Trust me.

In any event, everything went off without a hitch, and when the show got to the last two themes of the night, “Club Wear” and “Red Carpet Ready”, the women looked Absolutely Fabulous. What was my contribution to the evening’s events, you ask? I sat off to the side (starboard or port, I’m not really sure) looking for something free to drink, and chatting up the pretty girls next to me. But I also had my trusted assistant Chantal take some great footage, and did a dynamite interview with Kimmie, who is a wonderful person. For the full experience, go listen to the 06/14/10 episode of the Alter Negro Show (http://www.non-productive.com/podcasts/index.php?id=296). We will have more Video here soon, but until then you can follow these links to find more info about the, well, everything!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/to_be_a_star

http://www.youtube.com/tobeastaracademy

http://www.facebook.com/tobeastar

            I had avoided Anime conventions for a pretty long time now for a host of reasons. The last one that I was really invested in was Otakon back in 2004. I thought I had stopped going because I had outgrown going to conventions, but I have been going to Comic Book and Gaming conventions pretty religiously since then, so that wasn’t it. I only recently was able to nail down why I have avoided Anime Cons so stringently for the last few years, and it actually did not take very long for it to hit me at all once while I was at NYAF. My revelation actually started slightly earlier this year, at AnimeNEXT in Somerset, NJ. I didn’t attend because I had a bad feeling about it, but I met up with some friends who were there. Just being outside of the place confirmed my bad feelings… I felt incredibly creepy being there. Whether I was creeped out by the people there, or creeped out by my own presence amongst a bunch of 16-year-olds I wasn’t sure, I just knew I did not want to be there.

            Flash forward to the New York Anime Fest, and I am experiencing something of the same feeling, but far more deluded, probably because the space was bigger and less… intimate… than a hotel. Over the course of the weekend that same creepy feeling came back though, and this time I knew it wasn’t me because there were lots of people there my age or older, so I didn’t feel like the creepy old guy at the kiddie pool. It took me some time to process where this feeling was coming from, but I figured it out. What should have been a fun and enjoyable safe place for kids and grown-up kids, had a not-so-thinly veiled subculture of BDSM and Pornography to it.

            To anyone who is familiar with Anime, the sub-genre of Hentai is no secret. It was no secret to me before this; I love hentai. It is basically animated hardcore pornography. I knew it would be there, in face I was counting on it. What I wasn’t counting on was the seeming fact that hentai is so accepted nowadays that it was being sold pretty much side-by-side with regular anime. There were a fair number of children present at the Anime Fest; not a huge number, but some. Such children, who were probably there to enjoy Pokemon, Bakugan, or whatever their favorite anime is, where definitely exposed to a level of overt sexuality that they should not have been. That overt sexuality is now, for whatever reason, irrevocably joined at the hip with anime and the Otaku who love it. The people who religiously go to anime cons, I have observed, are generally very young, have boundary issues, engage in significant attention seeking behavior, and are for the most part hypersexual. The environment of a Con is like a pressure cooker for acting out on sexual urges due to the presence of half naked cosplayers, readily available hentai, and two factors that I have only noticed recently.

            Two more subcultures have found a comfortable glen in the Otaku Forest, one being the LGBT community, and the other the BDSM community (for those of you who are acronym-impaired, LGBT = Lesbian, Gay Bisexual Transgender, and BDSM = Bondage Discipline Sado-Masochism). When walking through the vendor area of the con, there were lots of thing for sale that, well, should not have been on sale considering the alleged focus of the audience. Handcuffs, corset’s, PVC gear, and leather wear are sort of incongruous for a Convention that’s supposed to be all about Japanese animated cartoons. There were a lot of Victorian and Steampunk clothes and accessories available as well, but there were marginally acceptable reasons for those wares to be available. I don’t know if the presence of all the bondage stuff is a symptom or a manifestation of the overtly sexual nature of the crowds that attend Anime Cons these days.

            Speaking of overtly sexual, there is apparently a helluva lot of hooking up going on at Con’s, something I am probably jealous of because I never got to do any of that when I was these kids ages. There has almost always been a lot of gender neutrality in anime, and now yaoi and yuri has exploded as well. Yaoi is romanticized boy/boy anime, and yuri is romanticized girl/girl anime. It’s not quite hentai, it’s more rated R than X usually. The yaoi and yuri fans are, shall we say, not shy about showing their enthusiasm for their favorite anime, and they advertise so loudly at Cons. It is a common sight to see people, usually under the age of 20, at cons with signs saying “Yuri Kisses Wanted”, “Yaoi Kisses Wanted” and of course, the ubiquitous “Free Hugs”. The most disturbing part is that a lot of the people with these signs are really young or really young looking, and they don’t really care who they get attention from. It makes me uneasy to think of what kind of picnic an anime con is for a pedophile, and even more uneasy to think of what every other person my age is thinking of me for being there… because that’s what I am thinking of them as well…

            An anime Con today is equal parts Gay pride Parade, Social Networking Party, Geekfest/Otaku-Orgy, and Miscellaneous whatever you want to fit in there. At the end of the weekend, I was glad that I went, and I would do it again. I felt very weird being around so many underage same sex kids making out, but you know, you get used to anything after a while.

I went to the New York Anime Festival under the pretense that I was going to re-connect with anime. I had let my interest in the genre lapse, and to be honest, I missed it. I missed my Naruto, I missed my Bleach, I missed my Bebop, and I missed my FullMetal Alchemist. So I wanted to go to NYAF to get all of this back, to find out what was going on in the world of anime, and for once, to be caught up with, for lack of a better phrase, the new shit, instead of constantly playing catch-up.

This was my intent.

As you may have guessed, what happened was nothing like that. Not only did I not become the up-to-date anime savvy otaku that I had intended to, I actually regressed in my knowledge; that is I began a love affair with all things old school. When I say old school, I mean my appreciation for the anime that I originally liked came back with a vengeance. I longed to see Voltron, Project A-Ko, Gunsmith Cats, Ranma… hell, maybe even a little Golgo-13. What I wanted to see the most, however, was Robotech. Yes, I am a lapsed Robotech fan, and that weekend I was brought back into the fold, largely through the efforts of a man named Kevin McKeever. Kevin works for Harmony Gold, the fine, fine people who have always brought us Robotech in America. He is a Robotech missionary, getting the word out that the Robotech Defense Force is back and better than ever. I was completely unaware of this. As Kevin said, there were a couple of different types of Robotech fans; the new generation, who only knew about Robotech from the latest movie “Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles” (which is available on Hulu and you should go watch immediately), and there were the “lost fans” people like me who watched the original Robotech series, and maybe even the Macross sagas, but knew nothing of all the new developments going on. What completely leveled me was the news that there is a new full-fledged live-action Robotech film in the works. That blew my mind.

If you recall, in “Independence Day” with Will Smith, there are a couple of gigantic air battles between the USAF and the Alien Fighters. Both of these battles took place with the backdrop of a giant alien starship in the background. When I watched that, all I could think was “wow, this looks exactly like what a Robotech movie would look like”, except, you know, the F-18 Hornets didn’t transform into Giant Robots. The failure of machines to turn into giant robots is endemic in our military, and something needs to be done about it immediately… but I digress. The point is in my mind the groundwork for such a movie was laid way back then. Only now, when Warner Bros. is realizing that they have milked Harry Potter for all it’s worth and hey! People seem to like Giant Robos, has a Robotech movie been floated down the river. Robotech was my, and a lot of other people’s first introduction to anime, maybe other than Voltron. I remember vividly the first time I saw it because it was a cartoon where people actually died… and stayed dead… like for real… no coming back! This was definitely a watershed moment in my life. Robotech is, to paraphrase Mr. McKeever, an animated Soap Opera in Space with Giant Transforming Robots. Think Battlestar Galactica with more believable acting.

Robotech is ripe for spinning as many stories as possible, and Harmony Gold is determined to make sure that Hollywood doesn’t spin straw into crap. They want to spin that straw into, well; Gold, and they are doing everything possible to make sure that happens. Kevin did a great job of getting that point across, as during the two Robotech panels that he did, he was peppered with doubts and misgivings from an audience that had obviously seen the Transformers and G.I. JOE movies. This was an audience that had seen those movies and were, let’s say, less than pleased. Basically, I think we are all a little gun-shy about having our favorite series and memories brought up and “re-imagined” into unrecognizable crap. Kevin is very good at his job however, and I think all of the fans present left feeling reassured that Harmony Gold would do it’s level best to make sure that no movie put out would be bereft of story, character, and plot. Warner Bros. did an admirable job with the HP movies, so there is some reason for optimism in this area.

Long story short, the Anime Fest brought about a lot of feelings in me, some great, some… well, fairly uncomfortable, and I will definitely get to those stories as well. But for three days, I was living in the days of Robotech, Irresponsible Captain Taylor, and the days when anime didn’t consist almost solely of soul-rending emo-madness that made one want to cut themselves (Deathnote, Berserk, Battle Royale, I’m looking at you…)

SPOILER ALERT: Specific scenes from the movie are discussed in the text that follows.

Two weeks ago I watched the Watchmen. I sat in the movie theater with someone who’d never read the graphic novel on my right, and someone who had devoured it as I did on my left.

It is two weeks later. I am sitting on my couch. I am thinking about how disappointed I am by the film. It is six weeks ago. I am sitting in a room watching the Watchmen panel. Watching David Gibbons’s enthusiasm emanate from his eyes as he speaks of the un-filmable film. Delighting in the excitement coating his voice. Realizing how very emotionally invested I am in what’s coming. The film is waiting for me six weeks in the future.

Two weeks ago I am sitting in a movie theater. I tune out the nonsense on the screen that encourages me to purchase branded soft drinks and buttery popcorn or watch shows about manly men who fall trees for a living. I am distracted by the memory of the first time I saw the Watchmen trailer and the subsequent birth of my anticipation.

Admittedly, I have been counting down to the film’s opening for some time. I didn’t want to be an apologist for it, but I did not want to condemn it as many did (and many tend to do) before even seeing it. I knew about the controversial decision to change the film’s ending—that is, to leave out the giant squid—which did inevitably upset many purists who believe comic-book film adaptations that do not religiously follow the source material automatically fail.

Regarding the giant squid (which came up at the Watchmen panel at the con) I felt more than a little relief that, for me, it would not be like watching Stephen King’s It all over again. Tim Curry made me feel unadulterated fear during almost the entire movie—fear that unexpectedly turned to bewilderment as I blinked at the giant spider. While I was ready for the possibility of not loving Watchmen, or perhaps even hating it, I certainly did not want to be embarrassed for it.

Furthermore, I’m not a purist, so I understand that certain elements of the novel would fail on-screen; I was ready to forgive the necessary changes that would allow Snyder to translate onto film the graphic novel’s essence. Sacrifices had to be made to keep the film’s pace and length within agreed-upon limits—Snyder would have to truncate and adapt certain scenes and leave out characters that furthered the plot in the novel so beautifully. So long as he captured the novel’s essence, I would continue to keep an open mind about everything else.

Settling into my seat, I found I was pleased with the way Snyder handled the opening. He introduces all the characters in a solid way that I felt would sit well with mainstream audiences and hard-core nerds alike.

The middle part of the movie was not bad. Given the time constraints and the number of characters involved, I realize it’s nearly impossible to make them all three-dimensional, but had I not read the graphic novel, for example, I don’t think I would have appreciated Laurie’s frustration with Jon when she leaves him.

I also question their decision to not let us see more of Hollis Mason—again, I understand certain characters had to be left out or handled as marginal ones, but Mason is more integral than, say, Silhouette—but, hey, they had to make sure to throw in as many hot Silhouette scenes as possible since she’s into chicks and that’s hot.

Similarly, I felt Snyder’s handling of the prison psychiatrist could have been tighter. I agree that we don’t need to see the turmoil between him and his wife, but I wish we could have gotten a better sense of how he becomes increasingly unnerved by Rorschach. I mean, come on: This is Rorschach!

Certainly, many of the scenes featuring Rorschach are nicely executed, particularly the ones of him in prison (even with the tweaks Snyder makes to help bridge gaps caused by having left out scenes from the novel). Still, I really liked how we flash back and forth between Kovacs and Kovacs’s childhood memories when the prison psychiatrist administers the Rorschach test to him. Jackie Earle Haley’s cold, steady eyes as he answers the psychiatrist in that Rorschachian monotone made me squirm with delight.

Unfortunately, I felt Snyder botched Rorschach’s prison-escape scene. When Laurie and Night Owl find Rorschach, he excuses himself nonchalantly to, presumably, use the bathroom. Laurie expresses frustration because she and Night Owl have just risked everything to rescue him and she cannot believe he’s slowing them down just to use the bathroom, and taking his time at that. The film misses this point of this moment entirely. In the scene, Laurie and Night Owl stand right outside the bathroom door, which swings open, revealing, of course, the real reason Rorschach goes inside. I understand that Snyder had to deviate from the source material so that in the film, Rorschach retrieves his face by the time his fellow Watchmen find him; to keep exactly to the novel here would have messed up the film’s pacing. But making that change did not necessitate having that bathroom door swing open. Had the film successfully established the tension between Laurie and Rorschach early on, the scene would have made sense and kept to the source material’s essence.

The scenes depicting Jon’s accident and Dr. Manhattan on Mars are something to behold on screen—as many people have already pointed out, they are lifted faithfully from the pages of the source material, as are many of the scenes from the beginning and middle of the film. In all, however, the middle part of the movie left me flat. The dialogue added to help explain portions of the novel that were left out was oftentimes incongruous and made me wince a few times. There also needed to be more character development—which by no means requires one to include every single scene from the source material—to make me care about these people. Somewhat distracting during a few of the scenes was the soundtrack. For example, I found it jarring to hear “99 Luftballons”—a song I love—when Laurie goes to met Dan for dinner.

Still, I remained hopeful as the film drew toward what I feel is the pivotal moment of the graphic novel: the faceoff between Manhattan and Rorschach. Watching it unfold on screen, I immediately noticed that the two were not standing in the correct positions—that is, they were flipped. Thinking it was not a big deal and checking my tendency to nitpick, I then stared bewildered and with much chagrin as Nite Owl pops up and joins them.

What follows from the point Rorschach dies can be described only as non sequitur—all included to help explain Snyder’s choice to include a character in a scene in which he does not appear in the source material. Indeed, at the precise moment where Snyder should have stuck closely to the source material, he deviates from it. Up to that point he had been sticking somewhat closely to it—indeed, during moments where he needn’t have done so.

Manhattan and Rorschach, who to me are the two pillars of the graphic novel, have fought on the same side despite being polar opposites. The god acts for the greater good and is not quite as detached as he seems to be (and as many think he is). The psycho is unyielding even in the face of Armageddon (but perhaps despite his inherent creepiness is not so lost a cause after all).

Everything has come down to these two, and while technically still on the same side, their philosophical differences have at last caught up with them. They both know what must happen, and it cements and defines them. They do not and should not have an audience.

Having Nite Owl watch and then scream out a la lame Darth Vader makes absolutely no sense. Further, I still question how in Nite Owl’s grief-stricken rage, rather than charge at Manhattan—or, more realistically, fall to his knees helplessly, since I don’t think Nite Owl would be so foolish as to engage Manhattan—he instead runs back inside to pummel Ozymandias.

Snyder robs this pivotal moment of its essence, and it is his questionable alteration, sloppy and utterly unnecessary, that made me apathetic about the remainder of the film. By the time the credits rolled, I felt nothing but disappointment. The un-filmable film proved itself to be un-filmable.

The room where the Dark Horse panel would take place was empty when I arrived, and since there were no convention ushers around, I slipped inside and grabbed a seat from which I could take photos of both the projection screen and the panelists.

The room started to fill up shortly afterward. Dark Horse publishes a sizable list of titles, including Buffy, so I was not surprised to find a few frantic Buffy fans in the row in front of me. They were asking others seated near them if they knew what had happened in the most recent issue. They had not purchased it because they expected to buy it at the convention, but had then discovered it was not available. Failing to find someone who could fill them in, one of them got on his cell phone and started making some calls. While I was watching the guy pace back and forth, announcing loudly into his phone that he would put his friend on the line so she could get the summary for all of them, I noticed a couple make its way toward the front with an adorable little girl. This being Dark Horse, the publisher of comics like Hellboy, Sinfest, and Solomon Kane, the family seemed a little out of place.

The panel, made up of Dark Horse president Mike Richardson, Dark Horse publicist Jeremy Atkins, and Goon creator and writer Eric Powell, filed in and launched into their presentation. Richardson opened with a little Goon history. The comic’s first issue was originally published in March 1999 by Avatar. Powell left Avatar shortly thereafter and began to self-publish it. Richardson took notice, and although Dark Horse had originally passed on the comic, picked up the title in 2003. The comic’s paranormal slant and violent story lines make it an ideal Dark Horse title. The tenth-anniversary issue, which hits comic shops in March 2009, will be a reissue of the March 1999 cover.

When asked about story lines, Powell said that he prefers to tell stories visually instead of relying too much on narrative. He believes that the less you say, the better. Indeed, Powell came across as a rather quiet man, though a friendly one, as I discovered a few hours after the panel had finished, when I approached his booth with a friend of mine who requested a sketch and an autograph.

Richardson and Atkins then took a few non-Goon-related questions, most of which ended up coming from the Buffy fans. The guy who had been pacing back and forth with his cell phone tried hard to get spoilers, but did not succeed. Richardson said, “My, you’re inquisitive,” at which point Atkins directed the audience’s attention to the screen. We enjoyed a great slideshow of the different titles Dark Horse publishes, including Rapture, Domo, Umbrella Academy, BPRD, Witchfinder, Conan, Kull, and Beasts of Burden.

Beasts of Burden was the last slide in the presentation. Though it was art from the book, rather than the cover, it showed only the book’s canine characters. Written by Evan Dorkin (of Milk and Cheese fame) and drawn by Jill Thompson, Beasts is a four-issue series that tells the story of stray dogs and cats that fight supernatural powers. Richardson then called our attention to the family of three I’d noticed before the panelists arrived. Turns out it was Dorkin with his wife and little daughter.

Invited to join the panelists, Dorkin made his way up and effectively stole the show with his deadpan humor. He talked a little about Beasts, and pointed out that Thompson’s paintings of the animals are meant to be realistic and ordinary, not anthropomorphic. He also explained that when the strays fight against monsters, things get very, very bloody. Not surprisingly, and to the delight of most of the room, he talked a little about Milk and Cheese, and then busted our chops for not buying it often enough to keep him going.

When Richardson started talking a little more about Beasts of Burden I found myself still watching Dorkin (and tuning Richardson out). Dorkin was mouthing “I love you” and making funny faces at his little girl. Here was this personable and funny man, who was sharing a delightfully warm and sweet moment with his little girl—the same man who gave us the Dairy Products Gone Bad. Dorkin then turned to Richardson and asked him how much Dark Horse would charge for Beasts of Burden. Before Richardson could respond, Dorkin added: “Are you charging regular prices, or are you going to rip them off the way Marvel does?” When the audience laughed, me included, Dorkin turned to us and without missing a beat said, “Oh, shut up. You all paid four dollars for those books.” Not to worry, Marvel sympathizers. Dorkin did not leave DC out. “The Flash comes back and all is ruined. Thanks A LOT, DC!”

When the panel ended, I found myself wanting to get my hands on a copy of Beasts of Burden more than I wanted to go see Eric Powell sketch. I loitered for only a minute or two, watching Dorkin lean in chat with Powell and the Dark Horse guys—his wife and daughter already standing by and waiting. What had been a pretty mellow panel had been injected with a nice dose of humor and energy. It was a pleasant surprise for me, and for the better part of the audience.

Securing a spot near the front of the line, I waited patiently for convention volunteers to usher us into the room for the panel on Batman: The Brave and the Bold. I was especially excited about attending this panel because I’ve loved the Batman since I was a wee thing. As a little girl, I would rely on my cousin for summaries and occasional peeks at his books (since I could not get my own). I have since seen everything from Adam West’s campy Batman show to the serious Animated Series Batman (which I would race home to catch). I got to see Keaton’s Batman in the movie theater, suffered through the rubber nipple fiasco, and became absolutely addicted to Nolan’s Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Given my preference for a darker, brooding Batman, I was curious to see how I’d react to a more whimsical hero, who was not campy like West’s, but certainly lighthearted and humorous.

The panel consisted of Michael Jelenic (story editor, The Brave and the Bold), James Tucker (producer, Brave and the Bold, Legion of Super Heroes, and Justice League), Ivan Cohen (executive editor for DC Comics), Phil Morris (voice of Vandal Savage on Justice League, voice of Imperiex on Legion of Super Heroes, John Jones/Martian Manhunter on Smallville), and Todd Casey (writer, The Brave and the Bold).

The Genesis of The Brave and the Bold came about when Tucker decided he wanted to work on a new Batman show, different from the brooding Batman that many of us have grown accustomed to seeing—a throwback to the vibrant fifties-era Batman. Visually, he wished to convey what he thought Super Friends should have been and was not. Tucker added that when he was five years old, he thought Super Friends was the greatest thing he had seen, and as he got older he realized it was far from great. Still, he wanted to capture the look of Super Friends and produce a cartoon that made viewers feel what he felt as a five-year-old. To do so, he would have to present characters who take the situations in which they find themselves seriously, even though some of those situations are a little silly and even absurd. Indeed, Jelenic and Casey draw inspiration for some of the more absurd and fun story lines from the covers rather than the stories in the books.

Despite being a kids’ show, Batman: The Brave and the Bold is not infantile, so adults can enjoy it, too. Casey confessed that when he first started working on the cartoon, he thought it was a little too silly and contributed to the more serious story lines from earlier in the season. He later wished he had worked on the more lighthearted ones and admitted that he experienced a few, “I wish I’d written that one” moments.

Speaking on behalf of DC, Cohen said that he is happy to see the show use comic book characters that people who don’t read comics are not used to seeing or may not even know, such as the Blue Beetle and the Atom. It’s marketing genius, actually, since by using such characters, the cartoon encourages this particular segment of viewership to visit their local comic shops and bring themselves up to speed on character origins. Tucker was particular pleased with using the Blue Beetle since he really wanted a neophyte who was not Robin.

Morris, who will be the voice of grim gunslinger and antihero Jonah Hex, explained that since this is not the dark Batman we are used to seeing (read: the Animated Series Batman voiced by Kevin Conroy), it makes playing Hex an especially refreshing experience. Hex views Batman as “silly and almost foppish, [which is] nice because you’re not used to seeing people react to Batman that way”. The Brave and the Bold Batman is voiced by Diedrich Bader.

Regarding Aquaman, Tucker said: “He doesn’t know that people thought he was lame. He’s never seen Super Friends. Once we saw that Aquaman was not ashamed of himself, we weren’t, either.” I, for one, am happy to see Aquaman reclaim his legacy. It’s about damned time.

Saving the best for nearly last, the panel screened Deep Cover for Batman, in which Batman and Owlman (Batman’s Crime Syndicate counterpart) switch places when Batman tries to stop the Syndicate from taking over the world in an alternate Earth. Tucker explained that the episode is actually a little darker than usual; however, one could still appreciate the show’s general lighthearted tone in the humorous dialogue. At one point, Batman says, “[This alternate Earth is like] a funhouse mirror… of evil”, and the audience laughed gleefully. I could not suppress another laugh when one of Owlman’s cronies whines, “Who IS that guy?” And the scene cuts to the caped crusader, who without missing a beat, answers: “I’m Batman”. The episode airs on February 27, 2009. Fans can also expect Huntress and Black Canary to make appearances in Season Two.

It was an impressive costume: Whoever the poor soul was, he must have been sweltering in his Mad Scientist getup, complete with animatronic chicken. He walked around and was a good sport about posing for pictures, and then took his place in the insanely long line for the Robot Chicken panel.

Moderated by Keith Crofford (executive vice president of Adult Swim), the panel consisted of Seth Green, Matt Senreich, Brecken Meyer, Kevin Shinick, and Geoff Johns, all of whom immediately noticed the Mad Scientist and took a few moments to compliment him and make him stand up for the entire audience to appreciate. After marveling over his animatronic chicken, the panelists thanked him for wearing the costume (and added a quick thank-you to another audience member dressed as Anakin Skywalker—“for killing all those kids”).

Despite their fame, they remain down-to-earth, as shown by the the manner in which the five interacted with one another and with the audience. These guys don’t let their evident friendship keep them from criticizing one another’s pitches—a point they addressed again when they discussed the writing process. Furthermore, there’s something to be said about their informal working style—there is much in the way of office shenanigans, as shown in a clip they aired once the panel got officially underway. In it, Kevin Shinick was challenged to eat a dozen doughnuts in thirty minutes, and succeeded.

Even with Crofford moderating and attempting to keep things formal—by comic convention standards, of course—it is clear that this team shrugs off formalities. Indeed, they remained informal and interrupted themselves a few times to goof around with the audience. When we heard loud cheering filtering in from another room, for example, Green stood and asked us to cheer loudly several times so we could beat them. The audience happily obliged and Green declared our room the winner.

The team writes five episodes and in five weeks, then breaks down the five episodes into smaller bits. All five panelists agreed that the channel flips pose a greater challenge to write, since they have ten seconds to convey a joke successfully. Green shared that they had a contest once to see who could write the most channel flips in eight minutes. Meyer chimed in to say they were “total shit”, though Green added that a few were actually really funny.

Meyer also shared that sometimes it’s frustrating to pitch an idea he feels is funny to Green only to have it axed. Despite their long friendship—“We’ve been friends forever. For like one day!”—Meyer made no bones about his desire to kill Green when he pitches an idea that Green seems to think is funny, only to have it rejected.

When asked how they come up with their material, they all agreed that the one source they keep turning to is a hardcover copy of Lee’s Guide to Action Figures from 1992. It’s been with them since they began working together—and keep in mind that it took four years for Adult Swim to pick up the show from its original Web format.

On working with George Lucas, Green shared that Lucas did say no to a few skits, including a scene that had Han and Luke in an alley. Han says, “Let’s blow this thing and get out of here”. According to Green, Lucas said, “Can we maybe get rid of the blow job joke?”

Anyone who watches the show knows that these guys certainly push the envelope. Green explained that sometimes it’s a matter of writing a few outrageous skits that they know will definitely be turned down so they can keep a few that may have gotten the ax otherwise. He also joked that because of Robot Chicken and all the things he knows he can get away with using, Green feels as if he can take pro bono work on all matters related to free speech and fair usage.

The lighthearted group wanted to stay an extra ten or fifteen minutes so all the audience members could ask their questions, but were not allowed to do so, given the time constraints of the convention. The panel, therefore, drew to a close with Green saying much to the audience’s delight: “Let’s blow this thing and get out of here”.

Look for ten new episodes of Robot Chicken to air on Adult Swim beginning April 26, 2009.

I suspected that a few of the people already in line—only about twenty-five or so when I approached—were probably there to see Milo Ventimiglia, what with him being one of the stars of Heroes. My suspicion was confirmed when I asked the young woman in front of me, “Is this the line for Top Cow?” and received a blank stare. “Top Cow?” I repeated, which served only to confuse her further. At last, “Are you here for Milo?” Score.

Convention(al) Mishaps

While in line, I wasn’t worried about the possibility of being shut out. As it turns out, the room was already more than halfway filled with people who had attended another panel in the same room and had opted to remain. Despite my excellent spot in line, I ended up being one of the last to get in, and somehow managed to get a coveted aisle seat so I could move up and down the sides snapping photos without disturbing any of the audience.

It wasn’t a terribly large room, and it was a good thing that the stars of the panel were running a few minutes late, since the moderator and Top Cow publicist Filip Sablick could not get the audio (for the slideshow of previews) to work. After some tinkering, and after the remaining panelists filed into the packed room, the panel discussion got underway.

Roll Call

Joining Sablick were Matt Hawkins (president of Top Cow), Milo Ventimiglia and production partner Russ Cundiff, Berserker writer Rick Loverd, and artist Jeremy Haun.

Forget Lunch, Let’s Do Breakfast

Cundiff and Ventimiglia met with writer Rick Loverd over breakfast to discuss Berserker or a project involving zombies. They decided to work on Beserker, a book about people who have an ancient Norse power and awake from blind rages to find themselves surrounded with the mangled corpses of strangers and loved ones alike. Ventimiglia points out that Loverd and Haun are both quite mellow and yet here they are writing and drawing gory material. When asked where the pair gets their ideas, they answer: “Mostly breakfast meetings”.

You Know, for Adults (Sorry, Kids)

“There will be lots of blood. Lots.” Haun explained that while drawing some of the gorier panels he just flicked his brush to convey all the blood splatter. It’s not a comic for kids, by any means. When these characters go berserk, readers see the unrestrained id and everything it is capable of doing.

Serious Business

Ventimiglia and Cundiff are adamant about putting out a comic book that comic book people appreciate. Ventimiglia shared that when pressed about a movie and other related projects, his response was: “Let’s do a kick-ass comic first, and the rest will come later”. For this team, the comic book is not a pilot, and not a marketing tool intended to generate some money but that exists mainly to promote bigger projects (think movie and video game). Ventimiglia, whose father used to take him to comic shops when he was a kid, genuinely seems to care about the book, and the panelists’ excitement for Berserker was palpable.

Going Berserk

The characters in Berserker were born with this terrible power and are left trying to figure out what is happening and why. Despite the unchecked violence prevalent in the book, the panelists explained that Berserker is not like Saw. These characters have hearts, and they show remorse when they realize they are the perpetrators of these frenzies. They can’t control who they kill or who gets killed when, say, they grab a car and swing it around once or twice before hurling it off in any direction. They remain haunted and tortured by their actions.

Why Norse Mythology?

While readers won’t see Odin, those of us familiar with Norse mythology will easily pick out parallels. When asked by an audience member why they decided to take elements of Norse mythology, the reply was: “Because the Greeks were pussies… and the Romans took from the Greeks”.

I’m Sold

Issue Zero was available for purchase at the convention and serves as a prologue. Expect Issue One to be available in June, to be followed by five more issues that will (they hope) release monthly and (relatively) on schedule.

Exactly one hour before the panel was supposed to begin, the frazzled convention volunteers ushered the enormous crowd into the room. I took my seat and looked around, noting the room was already very nearly filled. They opted to go against the usual procedure of letting the line snake around, and and instead just let us in since there were so many of us; however, when I got up to peek outside, a new and long line, just as long as the one I had been in, had already formed. Those at the front of the new line had a chance of getting in and filling what few seats were left, but I don’t even want to think about how upset the rest of them were.

The panel consisted of Doc Hammer, Jackson Publick, and the last-minute addition of Michael Sinterniklaas; they opened by promoting the upcoming release of Season Three on DVD, March 24, 2009.

Guys We Can Hang Out With

I had never seen an episode or even heard of the cartoon until a friend of mine held up Season One and popped in a DVD. It took one episode to hook me, and I devoured the rest of Season One while cackling with glee. So much was my love for its cleverness and goofiness that I ran out to buy Season Two. Naturally, we also watched the Director’s Commentary for both seasons and quickly decided that these guys—Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick—were the sort of people geeks like us could hang out with.

So I could not help but smile from ear to ear when Hammer said, “Let’s watch the DVD together, like we’re at my house!” The panelists then showed us some funny teasers from Season Three, and it became difficult to hear because the audience was unable to contain its laughter, especially when Hammer added at the end of the aired clips that the menu for the DVD is annoying.

From the Peanut Gallery

The moderator, executive vice present of Adult Swim Keith Crofford, tried to keep things orderly, and welcomed audience members with questions to form a line behind a microphone. Inevitably, some of the questions elicited groans and eye rolls from the audience, and a small number of people heckled, threatening to make a chaotic mess out of the Q&A portion. Through it all, the trio maintained a great sense of humor, and by having fun and remaining at ease allowed the rest of us to have fun, too.

Projection Much?

Regarding H.E.L.P.eR., Hammer quips, “You are attaching your own lives to H.E.L.P.eR. if you like him because he doesn’t do anything!” I grinned sheepishly as I scribbled down notes in my pad; Hammer’s comment had been spot on, since while watching episode after episode with my friend I had often expressed sympathy for the mothering robot.

On Brainstorming

It all starts with this great joke and it pitters down to two people talking. Sometimes, Hammer and Publick explain, the conversation between two characters takes over and the original joke gets lost.

Juicy Tidbits

We will see King Gorilla again but probably not for Season Four. Same goes for Dr. Henry Killinger. Hunter Gatherer, however, will be all over Season Four, as will a little more about the history of the Guild of Calamitous Intent. Expect also for Triana and Dean to get down and dirty (we’re talking full penetration). I’m especially looking forward to the voices of Kevin Conroy, John Hodgeman, and Seth Green.

Attention, Whore

During the Q&A, there was a young woman who decided to put Sinterniklaas on the spot and ask him out for a drink and perhaps some dinner. He was clearly put off, and finally semi-agreed after Hammer and Publick ribbed him jovially and egged the young woman on. She then pointed out that she was the very last person to get in (security sneaked her in after the panel had already started) and, therefore, did not have a chair; so she asked the trio to give her one of their extra chairs from the panel. As far as I could tell they did not. None of her questions was actually related to Venture Bros., which incited some heckling from the peanut gallery. I was too far away to throw my shoe at her.

Get Me My Blue Windbreaker!

After the panel discussion ended, the trio took a quick break and came back in to sign autographs for about an hour or so. I was lucky to be sitting in the second to last row of people who got to get in line—the rest of the room was turned away because of time constraints. Once I was ten people away, I snapped as many photos as I could and groaned at my camera’s dying battery. Once I was standing in front of Doc Hammer, I slid a Venture Bros. postcard to him so he could sign it and quickly shook his hand.

“I want you to know that I have everyone I know saying ‘Speedsuit’ and ‘Blue Windbreaker’”.

He chided me for not saying “Blue Windbreaker” correctly and made me say it a la Dr. Orpheus; I happily obliged. I shook Publick’s hand after getting his signature, as well as Sinterniklaas’s. While we were exchanging a few words, I heard Hammer say, “Blueeee Windbreaker! Now you have ME saying it!” Grinning like a silly fangirl, but saying nothing more, I waved at them and slowly exited stage left, while staring at my postcard bearing the trio’s signatures. Go Team Venture indeed.

It was no surprise that despite getting there early to secure a good spot in line, I found myself at the back of one that had already wrapped back on itself twice. I chatted with a guy dressed up as Superman, pausing when approached by passersby who wanted to know if this was indeed the line for the Watchmen panel. Their groans made me laugh and think, “Well, what did you expect?”

The panel, put together by Titan Books, consisted of Dave Gibbons and Clay Enos and was co-moderated by Steve Daly (senior writer for Entertainment Weekly magazine) and Sara Rosen (director of photography for Women’s Health). Daly opened the panel by making a crack about whether the audience was familiar with Watchmen, at which point Gibbons added that anyone among us who had not yet read the graphic novel would be thwacked with a copy of it at the end of the panel discussion.

Clay Enos was the unit photographer on the film; he had never worked on a feature film before, so he did not know what to expect. Since he is a portrait photographer, he began taking shots that lent themselves perfectly for the beautifully put together Watchmen: Portraits, which features stunning black-and-white shots he took while on the movie set. Titan Books took notice of these portrait shots, taken throughout the course of the entire film, serving as an excellent catalog, and approached Enos about publishing them in book form.

Dave Gibbons’s book is even more amazing still. Gibbons kept all the sketches he drew while he was working on the graphic novel and decided to put these together for his new book Watching the Watchmen. He wanted readers to have the sense that they were going through his filing cabinet. Chip Kidd photographed the sketches and indeed gave them that sense of tangibility, photographing them not as artwork but rather as if they were three-dimensional objects—complete with coffee stains, giving them the texture Gibbons wanted to capture.

The discussion turned to the violence in Watchmen and how Gibbons handled it when working with Moore on the graphic novel, as well as the manner in which he felt it translated onto the big screen. Gibbons explained that violence should be depicted realistically, without having to resort to sound effects. Adding sound effects to, say, the moment Rorschach breaks a man’s finger while questioning him would take away the “impact of the moment”. He added that another reason why the violence works so well in Watchmen is that there are few occurrences of it in the novel (as well as the movie, of course) but they are vivid enough to resonate with readers (and on March 6, 2009, viewers, too). The movie takes violence to the limit, and Gibbons asked us to consider “Dr. Manhattan’s ability to do blood-curdling things with his powers”—I cannot wait to see how this plays out in the movie. Gibbons ends this part of the discussion by stating his pleasure at receiving the R-rating, since keeping it PG-13 would have meant losing much of the novel’s essence.

The discussion switched back to Enos, who explained that he was on the set every single day of shooting, even though unit photographers are never expected nor required to be present for more than a couple days a week. He was expected to take about 15,000 shots and ended up taking closer to 45,000 during the more than 100 days of shooting. He explained, too, that he took all the photographs that will appear in the film, including the coveted photo of the Minutemen, which, according to Gibbons, captures so well the golden age of superheroes. A fun trivia bit: look for Enos’s likeness used in the advertisements for the Veidt Method (he also appears in the Vietnam flashback scene, and boyishly described how fun it was to smear mud on himself and shoot a machine gun).

Gibbons shared that he did experience a bit of a surreal moment when he first visited the set and found all the actors in costume waiting in one room. Here were the people he dreamed up (visually, of course), talking among themselves and all turning to him when he walked in. Gibbons felt like he was “Dad, coming for a visit”.

Inevitably, the subject of possible prequels and sequels came up, eliciting a few groans from the audience (I managed to suppress my own). Gibbons said that someone who no longer works at Time Warner suggested in a meeting that included Alan Moore and Gibbons the possibility of further movie projects featuring the Comedian and Rorschach’s journal. Gibbons, who normally is reserved, could not help himself but giving the person a dirty look, and adds that it was nothing compared with Moore’s look. I do not believe for one second that Gibbons exaggerated when he said the temperature in the room dropped considerably. No, the book thought un-filmable was not un-filmable after all, but that is it. If another Watchmen movie is made, Gibbons will have no association with it, nor will Moore, who has expressed clearly that to add more to Watchmen will serve only to dilute it.