Fan Rants

Coming this October to DVD, Talking with Gods: the Grant Morrison Documentary. If you’re not familiar with Grant, he has written and reworked many of the classic DC heroes like Animal Man all the way to Superman. He set a new dark tone for Batman with Arkam Asylum and recently set the DC universe with the Final Crisis storyline.

Today we got a special presentation of this upcoming documentary. On hand were the producer, director and principal photographer.

The documentary will be sectioned into three parts, focusing on his early career in the 70s, his odd ball crazy psychedelic writing of the 90s and then his recent work with DC Comics.

They wanted to do this documentary to explain how his life and history are intertwined with his comic writing. And while he comes across as a chaos magician it is really just his special view on life that makes him so appealing.

We were treated with several clips and it was like a lite appetizer before an awesome meal. Just tempting you for the later feast to come. It features extensive interviews with many top comic book creators that have worked with Grant over the years. And of course, plenty of interviews with the subject himself.

One of the surprises for the film makers was that Grant works non-stop. He has a great work ethic and is down to earth about his creations. Very committed to his work with a great aura about him.

Grant seemed bemused that someone would want to do a documentary about him. But he agreed, for one reason to put the facts right about his life. Many rumors are out there about extensive drug use, of which are put to rest.

Really looking forward to learning more about this iconic writer, October can’t get here soon enough! Oh, and for next year they have a new documentary that they just started working on: Warren Ellis – Captured Ghosts!

Today was a full day for us, and it started out as a big pile of poop! And really not talking about Kevin this time.

First I cost us about an hour by having to head back to the car after getting half way to McCormick Place on the subway. My old age is creeping up on me since I had forgotten my badge and the flyers for Fan Rants there. Not only that but I dropped my phone and lost the battery cover onto the train tracks. Definately not a good start for the day.

But once we got back on the train we ran into one C2E2 fan heading into town from the airport. Obviously it was a treat for the Cub fans heading to the game and the business people heading to work to find a Ghostbuster on the train with them.

After a very meandering journey from the Blue Line to McCormick Place, involving a nice walk and a bus ride, we arrived ready to have a great time. And Kevin was already beaming with his fancy Press Pass swinging around his neck.

We headed to the special Kick Ass autograph session and were lucky to get the last 2 passes to get in. Maybe our luck was changing after all! We also ran into a couple of really cool guys in line who had shared some of our DragonCon adventures in the past. Not that we had known them before, but we do now. In fact go check out evilsteveproductions.com and give them some support.

The autograph session went quick with everyone being greeted by Aaron Johson (Kick Ass), Chloe Moretz (Hit Girl) and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Red Mist). Very pleasant kids, I wish them the best in their upcoming careers.

For the next few hours we just wondered the exhibit hall and took in some of the costumers and checked out the warez for sale. All the major publishers were on site pushing their comics and toys. There is a nice artist alley setup with a plethora of famous and not so famous comic artists. And a good selection of your favorite webcomic publishers are on hand.

One interesting thing that I have not seen at other cons is a section for Tattoo artists to setup and sell their services. I think this is an awesome idea as there is a great crossover traffic between the fans.

We caught a couple of panels near the end of the day, but by that time we were exhausted. But no matter how tired we are right now…Saturday should really put us through our paces.

OK, here are the blunt points and tiny bits of info we got today. We did a lot of wandering around… there wasn’t much that WE heard that got us terribly excited. Sure, some news came out. I just did a little search and nothing major and earth shattering. So what did we learn?

Well, we saw an OFFICIAL Doctor who 10th doctor replica jacket being sold for $300. Yeah, we thought “what the f*ck” too.

My favorite web comic, Cyanide and Happiness have a second book coming out. They say it’s due at the publisher in two days and they’re way behind.

I spoke with Jacen Burrows, artist from the great comic “Crossed”, and he says the continuation, “Crossed: Family Values” (released by Avatar Press), is way way darker.  David Lapham “has some kind of family issues”.  I could tell he was impressed.  The new book launches next week.  I took a peek at it and it looks great!  We may have a special C2E2 exclusive copy to give away later!

Johnny did a great write up on the Mike Mignola panel we attended.  If you haven’t read it already, you can find it here.

We also attended a panel about movies being made from comic books.  The main news out of there (and keep in mind these were not Marvel or DC people) was that a lot of the smaller publishers were selling rights and being culled for their stories.  They said to keep an eye on Blood Fire Comics’ “Kinder Goth”, which is in the works to become an animated series.

That’s all from today! Keep an eye here for more news (like a day 2 wrap up) and you can see me tweeting like mad on twitter by following @fantsinpants.

Awesome panel with Mike Mignola here at C2E2. Mike told us about an upcoming Hellboy comic centered on the American West and a 2 part Abe Sapian series based in Russia.

One of the questions brought forward was why he hasn’t done more with the Asian mythologies, of which he commented that it was very alien to him. In fact the recent comic with Hellboy in Japan made him realize he didn’t know how to draw a Japanese door! He feels that he needs to find the right artist for these stories. One of which he wants to base in China.

Some of the upcoming Hellboy stories will take place in that 50 year span where he roamed the world, before the prophecy came about on his destiny. This is excellent news as Hellboy comics have been absent from the book shelves over the last couple of years.

One thing he emphasized over and over is that he is doing his best to keep the Hellboy movie universe and comic universe very separate. He firmly believes that what Del Toro does with the films are very different than the comics. Obviously the Liz/Hellboy relationship are very different in the two, I hope he keeps to his guns on this.

Mike is expanding his art line on his website, www.mikemignola.com. He will be providing more limited edition prints and sounds like we have a lot to look forward too.

Only a few more days till we hit the road for Chicago and the great C2E2 conference. Should be a good time, even with a 10+ hour road trip to get there. That and being stuck with a vegetarian with gas problems means a large part of the drive having the windows down.

Anyone else going? Would love to meet up with some locals.