I am afraid his response will be, “What the heck were you doing watching Princess Diaries 2?”

Fan Expo is actually five smaller conventions that have merged together to form one larger beast. There’s the Canadian National Comic Book Expo, which interested me the most, but there is also the Canadian National Science Fiction Expo, the Rue Morgue Festival of Fear (based in the horror genre), the Canadian National Anime Expo, and the Canadian National Gaming Expo. The five groups mingle together on one large convention floor. They are not segregated with walls, but you can certainly tell when you’ve passed from one area of the convention to another.

Because of the five areas of interest, Fan Expo is actually quite large, with a predicted attendance of 50,000 people. I don’t know if they hit that target or not, but I can say that it was very crowded. There were lines of people everywhere and the convention floor was often difficult to negotiate through.

I didn’t take many pictures, partly because the costumed folk were dominated by the people from anime, which I don’t know anything about. There were very few comics based costumes, and not even as many Star Wars as I would have expected, considering that the 501st Legion of Stormtroopers and other Imperial characters was supposed to be holding a large meeting there. I did take a little bit of video, as you can see above.

Partly because the panels seemed to be heavy on the Marvel end of things instead of DC, I ended up choosing to spend my time waiting in line for autographs from comic creators (shown in the video above) and elbowing my way through the crowd looking for bargains in the back bins. I regret that decision a little, because the panels at these types of events are great ways to get a little more familiar with the creators. For example, I feel like I learned a little bit about Frank Quitely while watching his body language while I was in line, and it was interesting hearing his Scottish accent when he signed my All-Star Superman (he joked that it was nice to only sign one book, since most fans were pushing the 5-book limit with each request). Other than that, though I didn’t learn much about him. Comic Book Resources has reports from at least two of the panels: One from Marvel’s C.B. Cebulski and one from Greg Pak announcing a new mini-series called Warbound which will follow World War Hulk. I really should try to get to at least one panel at the next event like this that I attend. After all, my feet could have really used the rest.

Also in Toronto this past weekend were film crews working on the Incredible Hulk. I didn’t see any of them, but a blog here has a few pictures of vehicles being used.

At times McDonald’s offers two sets to choose from- the “boy toys” and the “girl toys.” I won’t begin to suggest that this practice is very un-PC of them. It’s been my experience that my daughters really do want Barbie toys over Matchbox cars, and I’m sure parents of boys experience the opposite. You can argue that we’ve programmed them that way, but that’s not my point either.

Somewhere along the line, some executive decided that superhero toys must be “boy” toys, so the Legion of Super Heroes cartoon tie-ins are promoted as such. The counterpoint to the boy’s choice now are stuffed animals tied to the Build-A-Bear Workshop stores. I think it could be argued that both the Legion and the animals could have been designed and promoted in a way to appeal across the genders, but there’s more that bothers me.

Since the decision was made that the Legion was going to be for boys, only the male members of the Legion were manufactured. Thus, we have Superman, Lightning Lad, Brainiac 5, Timberwolf, and Bouncing Boy, but there is no hope of getting a Saturn Girl, Phantom Girl, or Triplicate Girl. They are also offering three villains- Mano, Tharok, and Validus. It seems absurd that their packaging identifies each one as a member of the Fatal Five, but there are only three of them. Of the two that are missing, I’m guessing the Persuader’s axe looked too violent for a Happy Meal, but the Emerald Empress was almost certainly left out merely because she’s a girl. Girls are too icky, apparently.

For more of picures, click on the Extended Entry, below. I should have some edited video done in the next few days too.

Click on the pictures for larger versions.

Friday, July 27

Harley Quinn, who was waiting at the DC booth to meet Paul Dini.

Old School Cylons. Their costumes even made that eerie humming sound.

Jeph Loeb and Brian Michael Bendis at the Marvel Booth.

Brian Michael Bendis.

Jeph Loeb

Large mysterious box at the Marvel Booth, marked “Stark Industries”. It’s contents would be revealed on Saturday.

Old School Batmobile- the real one.

Warner Bros. booth.

Me and Liana K., aka Power Girl.

Life-size Chewbacca at the Lego booth.

Vixen, and others, waiting for the DC panel.

DC panel. Dan Didio at the mike.

Grant Morrison, after the DC Panel.

Cool group of DC characters.

Saturday, July 28

Me with one of the “cheerleaders” at the Heroes booth. Note the Tim Sale art in the background. It rotated through the weekend.

Props used on Heroes including Isaac’s pallette, the 9th Wonders comic, and the replica sword Hiro stole.

Props used on Heroes, part 2, including the glasses worn by Mr. Bennet, some “Vote Petrelli” buttons, Dr. Suresh’s book, and various items from Las Vegas.

Greg Horn

Zatanna

The Doctors.

DC Panel from Saturday.

Birds of Prey’s Nicola Scott and Gail Simone, after the DC Panel.

Mary Marvel and some guy (not me) with an appropriate shirt.

Mary Marvel and Knockout (Liana K. again) who stood guard at the DC panel.

Robin and Batgirl.

Batman and a young Robin.

The Stark Industries box at the Marvel booth contained Iron Man’s M1 suit for the upcoming movie.

Close-up of the Iron Man suit.

Pirates of the Caribbean.

Elizabeth. She was with the group in the previous picture.

Spidey and Electro.

J.G. Jones

Tim Sale, at the DC Booth.

Kurt Busiek.

Rorschach.

Mark Sparacio.

As I wrote before, when you’re actually here, you’re only able to see a tiny little bit of everything going on, and the people reading on the Internet at home are the ones getting the big picture and all the breaking news. Since there’s not much in the way of news stories breaking from the con that I didn’t get from the Internet, I thought instead that I would share a few tips I’ve learned after coming here the past two years.

1) Come with a plan. If you know anything about Comic Con, you have to know that there is no way to "see it all." I find that the times that I’ve got some sort of a goal in mind are much more productive and fun than the times that I’m wandering aimlessly not knowing what I’ll see. I read the schedules online as they were released in the weeks before the convention. I picked up and studied the huge catalogue-like Events Guide on Preview Night. I used the daily bulletins each time, and double checked DC’s schedule on the monitors at their booth.

From these sources, I made myself a list each day. I had a few programs that I might be interested in, and one "must see" each day. On Friday it was the DC Nation panel, and on Saturday, it was the session on NBC’s Heroes. I had a list of times when I might be able to catch some writers and artists for autographs, and I had brought along about twenty or so books I might want them to sign. I had the convention copy of 52 that J.G. Jones had signed last year and I hoped that I would be able to get the rest of the team to sign it and maybe another of their own books too. I included two long-shots, Neil Gaiman and Stan Lee, just in case. I had a list of booths and their floor numbers that I wanted to check out. And of course, I had my want list for the back issue bins.

2) Throw the plan away. Or at least , be ready for it to be flexible, and be ready for a few disappointments.

I stood in line for almost an hour on Friday for a drawing for a ticket to have Neil Gaiman autograph, but I was one of a few thousand trying for one of one hundred tickets. I knew going into it that it would be unlikely. From the 52 crew, Mark Waid was not at the Con at all this year (in spite of or because of the fact that Boom Studios was announcing that he was going to be their new editor-in-chief) and Grant Morrison was not signing at the DC booth when I was there. Some people caught him after the DC panels, but I wasn’t able to. On the other hand, I got both Geoff Johns and Greg Rucka to sign, so I’m halfway there.

I was far more disappointed that I didn’t get in to see NBC’s Heroes session. It started at 12:45, so I figured I’d get in line at about 11:30. Actually, it was closer to 11:00 when I joined the line and there were already two or three times the capacity of the enormous room waiting in front of me. As the guy ahead of me observed, it was probably because they had announced that practically the whole cast was going to be on hand instead of listing them as "surprise guests" in the Events Guide. I waited until about 1:00 when it was clear that there was no hope of ever getting in. On the other hand, I got to see some of the props from the show at the Heroes booth, including "HRG’s" glasses and the replica sword that Hiro stole.

When I couldn’t get into the Heroes session, I had a back-up and went to the DC panel instead. When I found creators signing that I didn’t have a book for, I was able to visit the back issue bins and find an appropriate one at very reasonable prices. In that way I was able to get Tim Sale, Bill Willingham, and Greg Horn’s signatures on significant books.

While I was looking for the booths that I definitely wanted to see, there were lots and lots of booths that I could browse along the way.

I got in line for the masquerade around 6:00 on Saturday, so I actually had a ticket for the 8:30 event on Saturday, so I was able to see the Comic-Con tradition in person. Actually, I ended up watching most of the costumes on the big screens because I was still quite a ways back and one of the ushers seemed to always be standing in my way.

3) Bring a camera and batteries. I love taking pictures and video. I managed to get pictures of many (but not all) of the creators I met. I got video of Mike Mignola, Bruce Timm and Seth Green this way and a little bit of Tim Sale doing sketches for other people. I snapped some pictures of Jeph Loeb and Brian Michael Bendis, as well as the Iron Man M1 suit for the movie which was displayed at the Marvel booth after they opened the giant shipping crate from Stark Industries that was hiding it most of the time. Someday, I have to get a camera that takes both video and stills, so I don’t have to switch back and forth and I can lighten my load a little.

And then of course, there’s the costumes. I love seeing the people who dressed up, and in spite of what my wife says, I’m not just looking at the girls (well, not exclusively anyway). They range from the very hokey to the fabulous. There are some really great ones and everyone seems ready to get there picture taken. Surprisingly, there were quite a few people that I recognized from last year. I mentioned Lianna K as Power Girl previously. She was in a Knockout costume on Saturday– I mean, she was dressed as Knockout. She was actually called up to the front of the DC panel to stand guard on one end of the stage while "Mary Marvel" in her new black outfit was guarding the other. But there were other people I recognized as well, including a group who came as the Justice League each year, but many of them had new characters this year.

(As I wrote previously, I won’t be able to post any of these pictures for about two weeks when I get home. Please leave a comment below if you want me to. Otherwise, I won’t bother.)

4) If you’re coming with someone, have a way to get in touch with them. It’s so easy to get separated in the mobs of people. Last year, I spent half of a day with a friend, but we got separated and it was hopeless to try to find him. He had a cell-phone, but I didn’t. Although my wife didn’t come with me, she was able to find me quickly each day to pick me up because we both brought walkie-talkies. I left the masquerade about half-way through last night in order to be out on Harbor Blvd. as she drove by.

For more on my time there, including notes on the Birds of Prey and Teen Titans panels I attended, click on the extended entry.

I have no idea what the attendance was for the Saturday I was there, nor what the organizers of the convention were hoping for. To me, there seemed to be a lot of elbow room, and I mean that in a good way. This con made me feel comfortable while I was browsing through the many back issue bins and let a person really get a chance to talk to the creators that they wanted to. At the very least, I didn

And I guess this means that the Zorro series from Papercutz will be ending too. While I enjoy Papercutz’s Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew graphic novels their Zorro just didn’t appeal to me.

• Of course, DC’s official 52 website is http://www.dccomics.com/sites/52/.

• Newsarama has weekly interviews with 52 creators. Previously, they have talked to Steve Wacker and sometimes some of the writers. Since Wacker’s departure, the columns have continued, so I expect they will keep going for the remaining weeks. These interviews offer the best teasers and the most insights on previous stories. For example, it was here that I realized that the story of the three space-stranded heroes– Starfire, Adam Strange, and Animal Man– is a riff of Homer’s Odyssey. The most recent installment for week #22 is here.
• Comic Book Resources hosts The 52 Steps, a weekly article by Justin Eger. His write ups include a lot of background as obscure characters appear. The article seems to be posted by Saturday or Sunday each week. The most recent installment is here. His past articles are conveniently archived at the bottom of the page.
• 52 Pickup is a blog by Douglas Wolk. It tends to be the first of these articles to appear each week.
• Major Spoilers is a blog by Stephen Schleicher. It is not specifically dedicated to 52, but most if not all of the issues have been covered here.
• Wizard Magazine hosts 52 Roundup. Although I have not been following this one, its past articles are conveniently archived, so I may just go back through them some night.

I’ve been excited about 52 since its announcement, and was pretty much committed to buying each issue from the start. I’ll have to admit, though, that checking in at sites like the ones above is helping me sustain my interest and pique my curiousity in the developments.

I discovered this a week too late to post it on the anniversary, and honestly, I have not had a chance to go read it all myself. It’s over a hundred “pages” long. At this point, I can at least say that it appears to be a compelling presentation of the material, if nothing else.

Why did he do it?

The episode shows a lot of promise. Visually, it took a lot of cues from the recent Plastic Man comic book by Kyle Baker. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the series was picked up by Cartoon Network.

[...aaaaaaand it's already been removed by YouTube. Sorry folks. - Ye Ed]

If you are interested in my view of the con and the panels I attended, click on the Extended Entry.

(I didn’t see Kistler there. We were probably near each other more than once, but we’ve never met. In the crowds that were there, it shouldn’t be surprising.)

The first panel I went to was Spider-man Then and Now. Like practically everyone else in the room, I was there for a chance to see Stan “The Man” Lee in person. He is just like you’d expect– full of Stan-isms and humor. He stole the show from the rest of the panel.

The Superman Through the Ages Panel featured one Lois Lane (Noel Neill from the classic TV series), two Jimmy Olsens (Sam Huntington from the current Superman Returns movie and Marc McClure from the earlier movies), and Jack O’Halloran (Non from the movies). The main attraction was the sneak peeks of director Richard Donner’s cut of Superman II. His version of the movie, or a close approxmiation of what it was intended to be, is expected to be released on DVD in November. This version restores scenes filmed with Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder but not used in the version that was in theaters. Richard Donner also said that he will be writing a Superman story with Geoff Johns for Action Comics 844.

I got to the Bruce Timm retrospective, where he broke the news that he “does not hate Superman.” “Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet,” he said. He said he could not say anything yet about the project that he was working on next, but as he said this a large image of the Superman logo appeared on the screens. It was dripping in blood and suggested the Death of Superman story. “Where did that come from???” asked Timm, jokingly.

After that, I got a look at the upcoming Legion of Superheroes cartoon and heard many of the cast members give their take on their characters. It will feature a young Clark Kent who knows he has powers, but he is just learning what they are and how to use them. The Legion has brought him from the past to help them with a problem they have and in the process, teach him about what he is capable of. He will be called Superman, not Superboy, in the cartoon. The Legion fans present seemed enthusiastic about what he saw and heard.

On Saturday, the DC: One Year Greater panel featured the writers of just about every major DC book. It was here that the official announcement was made of DC’s new direct-to-DVD program for animation. Three programs are in the works: New Frontier (with Darwin Cooke and Stan Berkowitz), Superman vs. Doomsday (which Bruce Timm is directing), and a New Teen Titans story (which Marv Wolfman is involved with, along with Tom DeSoto of the X-Men movies). The slide that was shown as the New Teen Titans was being announced said “The Judas Contract,” but it was unclear if that was the actual story that was going to be adapted or if it was just a convenient picture to show the characters. Either way, when asked, Paul Levitz said that the look of the Titans will be getting away from the anime look of the TV show. These three titles are “just the beginning.” Levitz said that they plan for many more projects in this line that will adapt the greatest stories of DC’s history for the fans.

Also at the DC panel, Dan Didio asked fans, “Would you be interested in an All-Star Wonder Woman?” When applause followed, he asked “Would you be interested in an All-Star Wonder Woman with Adam Hughes involved?” When cheers erupted, he said, “Sounds good. We’ll bring it up.” Make of this what you will.

I finished my time at the Con on a lighter note and attended Oddball Comics with Scott Shaw! Even though I had seen many of these covers before on his website, I was laughing out loud at his commentary.

As others have said, when you’re at the Con, you can get tunnel vision in all of the confusion. People reading news on the Internet have a much better overview of what’s happening. I can’t believe some of the things that I *didn’t* see. I’ve got photos, too, but I’m typing at a hotel computer and I can’t seem to upload any yet. I’ll be home in about a week, and I’ll try to do them then if anyone is still interested.

“Krrish,” the flying superhero whose new movie is currently popular in India, has had to make a statement to ask people to not imitate his stunts. At least two people have hurt themselves, including a 24-year old man who lept from a theater balcony.

“The action scenes are meant to be enjoyed, not imitated. Please do not indulge in these stunts,” wrote Hrithik Roshan, who plays Krrish.

More can be found here, in an article from Reuters.

For years now, I’ve had a love-hate relationship with Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise. The title has had some of the best moments I’ve ever read in comics, but has also managed to drive certain plot elements into the ground, through repetition and over-analyzing. Which really is something that most of the mainstream superhero books we all enjoy are guilty of…but the long and the short of it is, SiP is not supposed to share that much with mainstream superhero titles.

With less than ten issues remaining in the title, Moore is trying to put a lot of dangling plot threads together in just under a year, as well as coping with the new and predominant story that one of the book’s main characters has massive brain trauma and will likely not live to see the end of the series.

Again, for most sci-fi books, that’s not particularly uncommon. But it’s been more than a dozen years now, and none of the main characters in SiP has ever bitten the bullet. What started out with three main characters, and an antagonist in the person of Francine’s ex-boyfriend Freddie, has developed into a title with a half-dozen “main” characters (though it still centers firmly around the original 3) and a handful of ancillary characters (these are the “expendable” ones whenever the organized crime factor returns to the story).

For those who haven’t read the book, or haven’t read in a while, the long and the short of it is that there are three friends who had lived together for years: David, who has a thing for Katchoo; Katchoo, who has a thing for Francine; and Francine, who’s had things for a string of bad men. Usually her love (which is a confused and confounding kind of love) for Katchoo will bring her out of a relationship before anything too tragic happens to her, but recently, a fight with Katchoo and the Right Guy at the Right Time all converged, and Francine married rich doctor Brad Silver, brother of the fictional “rock legend” Griffin Silver, whose lyrics have been sprinkled throughout SiP since long before Brad was a gleam in Terry Moore’s eye.

This issue centers mostly around Francine, who is home with her husband while a variety of other characters have been thrown into a frenzy by last issue’s revelation of an impending death in the series. The other characters are making a variey of plans–some productive, some just seemingly random–while Francine sits alone at home with her thoughts, missing her absent husband, who spends 18 hours a day at the hospital where he works. When she finds a cell phone in his pocket that she doesn’t recognize, though, Francine becomes suspicious. One thing leads to another, and your first impression is given validation–her perfect husband is cheating on her. Discovering this, Francine shatters the phone and then drives off into the night–she wakes up alone, somewhere (presumably a hotel), and has a spectacularly high number of missed calls and messages on her own phone–not just from the cheatin’ hubby, but from her mother, Katchoo, David and everyone else ever associated with Francine. “What did you do?” She asks, “Tell everyone we know?”

And then, when walking down the street a panel later, she sees a newspaper headline that, while it’s unclear at present how it might impact the story, it’s clear will change the dynamic of the book for the remainder of its run. It’s a twist that you never see coming, and it doesn’t seem particularly contrived. The realization of what it means for the characters (starting with, “So they really weren’t calling about the girlfriend at all!”) hits the reader slowly after taking in the final panels of the book, and I was left with the feeling the SiP #82 is possibly the best single issue of an ongoing comic that I’ve read since at least Identity Crisis.

The result was Booster Gold, introduced as America’s first "corporate superhero." He was one of the good guys, and couldn’t be bought—but he certainly didn’t object if people wanted to pay for the stuff he was already doing. The character, of course, was prominently featured in the Giffen-DeMatteis "International" era of the Justice League, and though his personality has changed a number of times over the years, his first appearance in 52 #1 this week harkens back to his early appearances in Booster Gold, which ran for 2 years in the mid-80s.
One of the most interesting aspects of examining Booster Gold closely, is getting to see Superman, who guest-stars in issues 6 and 7, drawn by Dan Jurgens for what may have been the first time. Five years later, Jurgens would forever cement his role in comics history by being the main writer/artist behind the Doomsday!: The Death of Superman storyline and its follow-ups. He also became the creative face of DC for a few years, spearheading projects like the Tangent Comics fifth-week event in 1997 that reinvisioned the entire DC Universe, keeping nothing except the character names the same, and of course writing and drawing 1994’s Zero Hour: A Crisis in Time, which attempted to "clean up" some of the continuity mess left after Crisis on Infinite Earths. Seeing the "early" Jurgens Superman was a little jarring—his Superman is iconic and definitive to many readers of my generation, and the difficulty he seemed to have in presenting the Man of Steel (it seemed as though, rather than drawing him as a real person, Jurgens was trying to depict Superman the way that Curt Swan might have drawn him around that time). By the time Superman appears again in issue 22 (separating a sparring pair of Boosters—something that a lot of Internet pundits are guessing might be an issue during 52), he looks substantially different. John Byrne’s Man of Steel had taken place in the interim, and the post-Byrne interpretation of Jurgens’ Superman feels much more like "home."

Booster Gold was a very interesting book—influenced by the unusual titles that were making waves at the time (ads inside the issues advertised Watchmen, Dark Knight, the Giffen-DeMatteis Justice League and Batman: Year One), Jurgens tried to craft a character more fully realized than many of the black-and-white, good-and-evil superheroes who dominated the Silver Age. The fact that Booster still exists and is used regularly while other characters introduced at the time (Wild Dog, anyone?) vanished into obscurity is a testament to the fact that, despite its relatively short life, this title managed to do something right. Booster, though greedy and self-absorbed, was also introspective and constantly working to learn his place in the universe. Each event that took place in the series moved him one step closer to being the hero that he could be—culminating with a final tragedy in issue 20 that would haunt Booster’s (non-bwah-ha-hah) appearances in other books for years to come.

One of the weaknesses that Jurgens displayed on Superman—his inability to create particularly interesting villains—was fully evident here, as well, and that’s certainly a weak point in the series. Still, Booster and his supporting characters—who went through the trials of fame, the abuse of endorsees and finally a giant corporate swindle that left the hero bankrupt at the end of the series—were enough to carry the book, even when losers like Blackguard (last seen in I Can’t Believe It’s Not the Justice League, as Guy Gardner’s co-owner of The Dark Side bar) were the headlining foes.

Even after the series’ cancellation after 25 issues, Jurgens still managed to keep Booster a vital force in the gritty world of the late ‘90s DCU. During the Doomsday storyline, Booster’s best friend in this century—Blue Beetle—was gravely injured and Booster’s powers were taken away. Even while he was no longer a productive member of the Justice League, Jurgens had him guest-starring there and in Superman fairly regularly (I remember thinking as a young man that Booster got way more play than some "cooler" characters, and wondering why). His characterization, though, has been all over the map, owing to the fact that Jurgens always wanted to tackle serious issues with the character while Giffen and DeMatteis—who used him mostly as a comic foil for Blue Beetle—are widely acknowledged as doing as much or more than the character’s actual creator in defining how he’s viewed by the readers.

With his role in 52 still very much up in the air and the possibility that he may be the next to fall prey to what seems to be the Justice League International Curse (which has so far claimed the lives and/or characters of Ice, Ralph & Sue Dibny, Max Lord and Blue Beetle), this quaint and fun superhero romp is a great thing to look back on—to see a time when, even though he was adding new layers of complexity to the superhero genre, things were somehow much simpler for Booster Gold.

I don’t know how it got there, but almost all of the last episode of the series has been posted at YouTube. The episode is called “Destroyer.” I’m guessing that the minute or two of story that usually appear before the main theme are missing. Furthermore, it is the second episode of a two part story, so we’re picking it up in the middle. It’s not impossible to follow though.

You’ll get no spoilers from me. Watch at your own risk. I’m almost sorry I did because now I’ve got that much less to look forward to. However, the episode itself is just about everything you’d expect. It’s big- grandiose, even. It’s got everybody in it and then some.

I will SO miss this series. It’s the only thing I HAVE to set the VCR to tape. Heck, it’s one of the few things that I even watch regularly at all. *sniff*

Check out the preview of the Justin experience at http://www.pvponline.com/justin/.

Secondly, there is a casting call for DC Superheroes for a new travelling stage show.

Now is your chance! Carpe diem!

(Why does the second item make me think of the Adam West era “Legends of the Super Heroes” show and the accompanying superhero roast? Even with an Ice Capades feel, though, I’d still probably take my kids to see it.)

Augie De Blieck Jr. has written a review of this storage system in his Pipline column at Comic Book Resources.