Boston Con Report

[langur88]

from comicbookconventions.com

 

CBC @ Primate Promotions Show

 

Who needs to go all the way to San Diego when you've got a homegrown show right in your own backyard?? But it seems that buzz surrounding Comic-Con International stretched all the way across the country to New England as there were many new faces seen browsing the long boxes and talking with artists at Boston's longest running comic book show.

 

The headlining guests were legendary Batman writer/editor Denny O'Neil and artists Norm Breyfogle (Batman, Anarky, Of Bitter Souls) and Rick Leonardi (Nightwing, Uncanny X-Men). Not to mention tons of local artists including Rich Woodall (Johnny Raygun), Scott Wegener, Hannibal King and Greg Moutafis (The Rookie).

 

Breyfogle and O'Neil participated in a Q&A session hosted by Matt Herring of Matman Comics (who also recorded the panel for his podcast "Secret Identity") and Will Murray of Starlog magazine. The first question asked was about their opinions of the current incarnation of Batman. While Breyfogle admitted he is not very familiar with the current continuity, O'Neil said that he is often asked the question by his students and that Batman has evolved a long way from from he had worked on the title. O'Neil went on to say that it's risky to go too far into the dark zone and that he would not choose to work on that vision. He also remarked that this generation of creators has a pessimism to their work due to the world they have grown up in.

 

But that is almost a polar opposite from where the character was when O'Neil first started on the book. O'Neil said that after 1945 the creators lost the original vision that Bob Kane and Bill Finger had for the character. According to O'Neil, he never should have been allowed to attend civic functions and carry a platinum police badge. "He may as well have been a cop."

 

Breyfogle complimented O'Neil on bringing Batman back to his roots while O'Neil returned the favor by calling him the best visual narrator in the field. Breyfogle remarked that his biggest influence on Batman was allowing his expressions to seen through his cowl. One of the toughest challenges was not imitating his predecessors since he had wanted to draw the title since kindergarten. When asked about the fans' reaction to his re-design of Robin's costume Breyfogle said it was almostly entirely positive. But he was embarassed because he had said in an interview years before how much he liked the classic Robin costume because it was such a great contrast to Batman's.

 

O'Neil spoke at length about many of the social issues he had addressed in his comics. He felt particularly proud of the issue entitled "Seduction of the Gun" which helped change gun laws in Virginia and a Superman comic that was written to instruct children all over the world about the dangers of landmines. While a has a policy to not re-read his old work because the mistakes will just leap off of the page, O'Neil said he did read his run on Green Lantern/Green Arrow when it was released in a hardcover edition and while it was good that the material still stood up as relevant to the current audience it's bad because we're still dealing with the same issues: racism, the environment, drugs are still all issues that haven't been solved.

 

Finally, when asked about the current state of the medium both Breyfogle and O'Neil agreed that the casual audience is dead due to factors like the death of the "pass along" market where it was taken for granted that readers would trade or give away their comics to fellow fans whereas now they put them straight into a mylar bag and store them away. O'Neil stated that his mantra was that every issue had to be accessible to new readers but none of the creators of his generation had grown up as fans like today's are. Breyfogle remarked that it is easy to see how readers become invested in characters due to the solitary process of reading comics that lends itself towards insularity.

 

They both also said that they missed the single issue stories. O'Neil mentioned that during his tenure as editor of the Bat-titles he tried a year's worth of short stories which resulted in their worst sales year ever.

 

(The panel can been seen in its entirety here: http://secretidentity.podomatic.com/)

[JuliusSeizure]

I was there and had a good time. My 'prize purchase' was a VF copy of TTA #98. I wanted to get a high grade copy (yeah, yeah, VF is high grade to me!) of that particular issue because I'm working on the run and love that blue-tone cover. Anyway, at $24, I'd say not such a bad deal.

 

The B&B quest continues as well - I picked up a #59 in mid-grade from Jim Payette. Also finished my (Kree) Captain Marvel run with a Fine-ish copy of #21 from Cole's. Missed Ted, but I guess he was in SD.

 

I also got beautiful copies of Justice League #74 and Detective #477 for 5 bucks each. The 'Tec has got to be at least NM-, unless I missed something. When I saw how nice it was I was almost afraid to read it!

 

Other than that, I filled in a few inexpensive holes here and there, and picked up a few single-digit Invaders in the dollar boxes, thanks to a thread on this forum that got me excited about the title. Gotta love Roy Thomas revisiting the Golden Age!