Being a dad, I don’t have the luxury to see movies on a regular basis. I can count the number of flicks I sat through at the theater on one hand in the last year since my son was born. But one movie that I was lucky to check out recently was Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman: The Secret Service based on the comic series called The Secret Service by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons.
If there was one comic book convention that you have to visit to boost your nerd street cred, then that’s easily San Diego Comic-Con or SDCC, for short. Most people will comment how crowded this convention is and how difficult it is to obtain tickets to the show. But what most people don’t understand is the commitment that countless nerds go through each year to ensure they walk the convention floor or sit in the elusive Hall H. I’m going to give a short run down on my journey back to SDCC 2015 after a year away, caring for my nerd-in-training baby boy, Aiden.
As a fan of this convention, there’s sort of an insanity that comes with trying to go to the show every year. If you were lucky enough to go to the show the previous year, SDCC started a Pre-Registration period where those guests can attempt to get badges for the following year. The caveat is you are required to keep last year’s badge and input your unique ID into the system. This is the first chance guests have to get the 4-day plus Preview Night badges that almost always sells out first. Now, the entire stock of tickets aren’t sold during this period because they need to allocate supply for the Open Registration period which allows anyone try for badges as well as both the Creative and Trade Professional registration periods.
When I visited my college town of San Luis Obispo during Christmas last year, I noticed that a new comic shop had opened up in downtown called Dr. Cain’s Comics and Games. Of course, I had to swing by and check it out and it was actually stocked with a formidable amount of comics, trade paperbacks, and games. As I was perusing the aisle of new releases, I picked up a 3rd Printing of Thor #1. I had heard about this new Thor being a woman which the idea was intriguing to me, but I hadn’t picked it up when it was first released. What amazed me was that the issue I was holding was the 3rd Printing!
Recently, DC Comics released a teaser image of David Finch’s new Wonder Woman costume which will debut in Wonder Woman #41 in June. The new costume will be another attempt at updating Wonder Woman’s look from the iconic “Linda Carter” costume that fans are familiar with and love. Ever since DC Comics went down the The New 52 journey in 2011, several characters have gotten a new look like Supergirl, Superman, Harley Quinn, and Batman. Personally, I supported the costume refresh because Jim Lee helmed a bunch of them, more specifically the Justice League, adding his hard lines and artistic style in droves.
He posted,
I rarely comment about comic book industry matters on my personal FB page, but I gotta say, shoulder pads, especially big bulky metal ones NEVER look good on women. Everything about them is unfeminine and lacks style. No grace to this approach at all.
And on a side note, I find the continued knee-jerk reaction to internet message board critics demands to keep female heroines covered from head to toe in fabric an overreaction. She’s an Amazon Warrior, she’s NOT in the *Taliban! unsure emoticon
Now, I’m a huge fan of J. Scott, like a little overly infatuated with him and his art. I do believe he does make some good points but at the end of the day, as long as Wonder Woman is still her badass self oozing Amazonian flair and the God of War tendencies, then I’ll be a happy comic reader.
The Webster Dictionary defines “variant” as
one that exhibits variation from a type or norm
And, it states that “variation” means
something that is similar to something else but different in some way
As a comic book collector, variants aren’t just an expensive single issue. It’s a way to follow your favorite artist. From personal experience, anything J. Scott Campbell draws, I’m going to try to purchase it. I’ve followed him from his days drawing Danger Girl to penciling covers of various Marvel issues including The Superior Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man double-spread and some one shots like John Carter of Mars and Thor.
Nothing thrills me more than visiting my local comic shop every week and picking up the latest and greatest issue from the various titles on my pull list. It’s like Christmas morning every time where a glimpse into the ongoing story is revealed. But sometimes with how some titles are published, the wait can be unbearable. Take for example Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead. Image Comics releases this title every month, therefore, I have to wait a substantial amount of time to continue the ongoing epic. And sometimes it’s tough to remember what happened in the previous issue. Yes, there’s a section at the beginning of the issue to remind me of the major points but it’s still consuming a chunk of the story every month.
With the advent of Netflix, binge watching became relevant. I, for one, fell into this statistic when my wife and I watched the entire 6 seasons of Lost within a week’s time. Yeah, it was like being unable to put down an engrossing book but with an entire television series. There’s just something satisfying to continue watching a tv show from start to finish, of course, with the hope to get all your questions answered. I’m not going to weigh in on what I thought of the ending of Lost or of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, for that matter, but you get the picture, right?
With an onslaught of upcoming comic book movies on the horizon and a ton of rumored properties being adapted from the pages of a comic book to the silver screen, the only thing a comic fan hopes is that the portrayal of their favorite character isn’t construed into something that falls short. I can reference a few of movies that didn’t go as well as the big studios hoped, the most glaring one being Green Lantern starring Ryan Reynolds. And if you’re an older nerd like me, the glaring one from our childhood was Daredevil starring Ben Afleck.
I mention those movies and leading actors because I’m sure that any comic fan has an opinion on which actor or actress they would like to take on the mantle of their favorite superhero. And if you’re like me, and not a Hollywood casting agent, our choices will probably never come true but we can always speculate and hope. Fan casting is something that I enjoy because I’m purely motivated by the source material whereas Hollywood studios factor in a lot of other things in their decision to cast an actor for a role. I’m not saying that they are to blame for when movies flop at the box office. There are a lot of factors but we’re only human and finding someone to blame for the catastrophe of a movie that X-Men: The Last Stand, the 3rd X-Men flick, was, helps me sleep at night.
