Fan Rants

This week Johnny and I went to C2E2, the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo.  I’m severely disappointed because we weren’t able to drink as much as we wanted.  This is because we were working.  I know, you’re thinking “when has drinking at work ever been a problem?”  Well, hindsight is 20/40, especially when you’ve been drinking in the morning.  We really had a great time at the convention and were sad to leave.

We spent 4 lovely days in Chicago, taking in the sights and reporting our findings on the website.  I do hope you’re reading the website… You can follow the podcast at @fantsinpants where there are links given out to new articles as they’re posted along with my comments and banter and digital belches, OR if for some unknown reason you don’t like to hear me rant at celebrities and talk about the book I’m reading on the crapper, you can follow @fanrants and just get link updates.  Either way, follow one of them… It really is the best way to see what we’re doing AND get in touch with us.

Johnny and I picked up some pretty awesome swag at the convention, and we plan on giving most of it away!  You will either need to check back here, or follow one (or both) of the above twitter accounts for details.

Music this week was very graciously provided by the band The Browncoats.  We met them at C2E2 and they agreed to let us use their latest CD, Space Age Loser, as the backing music this week.  They were SUPER nice guys and thier version of The Hero of Canton is great! The whole CD is great!  PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE support them!! You can hear them at The Browncoats Webpage.  Please go buy their stuff.

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I am at the Bill Willingham panel right now and I am stoked. Bill has been a comic creator for just about forever. Currently he is best known for his Fables series from Vertigo Comics, a DC Comics imprint. Fables for me is a Gateway Comic, in the sense that I can give it to a non-comic book reader and they will come back wanting more and more. In fact I have done that and have no shame for it!

Today he dropped some great news (spoilers ahead).

The upcoming Fables issues will be all about Rose Red and her recovery after loosing Boy Blue. This story arc will go for 5 issues and finish with Rose leading the animals of the farm into battle.

Another excellent bit of news is that there are two busts coming out, one for Bigsby and one for Snow. Both were shown to us and look great. Also they are putting out an updated Fables Covers edition collecting the first 75 issues. This is great news as the last covers edition is long sold out.

We also got a sneak on the next Jack of Fables storyline with a cover showing the Page sisters all in Charlie Angels battle poses. The real huh moment on that cover was due to one of the sisters cradling a baby, but who’s baby is it? Bill was not willing to revel that.

One of the questions asked of Bill was which Fables characters do you like to write about the most, he said Snow and Bigsby. This shouldn’t be a big surprise to the fans of the book, but one thing did strike us as odd, he said that Snow White was to be married in an upcoming Fables issue. But she is already married to Bigsby…dang him and his vague spoilers!

There were a lot of Wizard of Oz fans in the audience and they asked if they would be seeing more of their characters soon. Bill stated that Dorothy would be showing up soon in a big way later on and other characters would continue to be seen in the books.

Sometime last year we got news out of Hollywood that ABC had picked up the writes to Fables for a TV show. Unfortunately when Bill was asked about that he said that there is no news on the TV series and in fact made it sound like there was SO much dead air about it that its like it never was talked about in the first place. Guess we shall see.

His first prose novel based on the Fables universe came out last year with Peter & Max. He said that Peter will be showing up in the Fable comics in the future. Oh, and the next prose Down the Mysterly River was sold to Tor books recently. It is actually an old book that he had published a long time ago that he picked back up and rewrote. It’s about Max the Wolf, a young man who is sent to the wrong afterlife due to his name causing him to be mistaken as an animal. So its off to the animal afterlife for him. It’s a Young Adult book and sounds interesting. It is not tied into fables, but there are some pinpoint (non official) connections.

This was by far one of my favorite panels just because I am in love with the material so much. Here are some links for fans to check out!

Fablestown message board – clockworkstorybook.net

twitter: billwillingham

Well it has been an exhausting day at McCormick Place. Not only at the convention center but around town. And we really haven’t stopped until this weeks podcast was finished being recorded around 2am this morning.

The day started out well with a good breakfast and a lovely trip on the local bus to the convention center. Okay, strike that last part…our bus had someone previously throw up on it and it was NASTY smelling. But at least the breakfast was good before that. Welcome to Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (that’s me with my arms raised)!

I ran through most of the panels we attended today in individual posts. Overall we were impressed with the various companies and what they had to offer. All the comic publishers had some type of freebie to hand out. And DC really broke the bank by handing out about 15 of their newest comics, very cool!

At the Marvel booth we were graced by their editor in chief Joe Quesada. He was busy with an interview at the time but was very friendly with the fans. Oh, and they had some booth babes handing out comics and even Spider-Man showed up for a bit!

The Dark Horse booth had a special BPRD event going on, the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense from the Hellboy universe. We got honorary agent badges and pins. They also had Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy and Guy Davis, one of the major artists in his books, signing items. Great couple of guys. Another cool item they had at the booth was a mini-bust from the TV show Dexter showing Dexter looking at a piece of evidence while holding a knife behind his back. This statue will be released this fall.

On one side of the show they also had two vehicles on display, the classic Batmobile and the Delorian from Back to the Future. Very cool displays even if poor Batman looked quite cold in this tights.

Kevin entered a raffle for a custom tattoo to be inked on Sunday. Unfortunately he did not win, but the money went to charity so its still kinda a win…even if it was my $5!

After a long day of hanging out at the convention center we headed out for some time on the town. I have to say Chicago is definitely growing on me, hope to spend more time here in the future.

Tonight we had a sneak showing of next weeks Cleveland Show from Fox. After the showing the voice talent came out for a Q&A with the audience.

Mike Henry, voice of Cleveland Brown as well as a number of the voices on Family Guy…Deaf Guy, School Counselor, the creepy pedophile and many more is hilarious. And Kevin Michael Richardson, voice of Cleveland Jr and many more is equally funny. Oh, and for the record, Mike is the white guy in the picture.

It seems that they have quite a few good ideas for the upcoming season and have the ratings to keep the show on the air. Including a guest appearance by Kayne West on a couple of episodes.

The guys had a lot of fun with the crowd and were happy to do most all of the voice requests from the audience. They also busted into song a couple of times for the audience, so amazing!

We are treated to the creators of the hilarious web comic, Cyanide & Happiness today. They were joined on stage by the comedy troupe Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Theater. Including some great laugh out loud cartoons based on their strips and the SMBC live action shorts.

If your sense of humor is off kilter, be sure to check them out!
Cyanide & Happiness: EXPLOSM.NET
SMBCT: SMBC-THEATER.COM