San Diego Fallout

Lots of interesting comic book projects were announced or fleshed out more at the recent San Diego Comic Con. I'm pouring over the reports and stories from the convention looking for what's in store for the industry over the next twelve to sixteen months - and what I might want to add to my buying list.

First up is some new projects from the fertile mind of Grant Morrison. In the near future, Morrison will be launching some new works through DC Comics. One called Seven Soldiers and the other will be the initial arc of the new JLA: Classified series. You can learn all the gritty detail in this interview he did with Newsarama.

Seven Soldiers looks impressive mainly because of the scope of what Morrison is trying to do. 30 issues divided into two bookends with the remaining 28 issues broken up into short miniseries - all with a common thread running through them. What gets me excited about the project is this quote from Morrison, "The fun really starts when you combine all the books like a 30 piece jigsaw to reveal the epic story behind it all, with a cast of hundreds, criss-crossing and affecting one another's lives. I think it adds up to the most intricate and ambitious single superhero story anyone's attempted."

It's that kind of big thinking and fresh approach to comics that have made Morrison a superstar with the industry. The guy is easily one the most creative writer working in comics today and I'd love to sample more of his works, especially Seven Soldiers.

Another interesting announcement was Warren Ellis on Iron Man and Ed Brubaker on Captain America. Iron Man and Capt are two of the Marvel heroes that I've found interesting, but never found the comics being produced very entertaining. Except for a short stint in 2000 when Kurt Busiek was on Iron Man and Mark Waid was scripting Captain America, I've never regularly read these titles.

Ellis is an interesting fit for Iron Man. He definitely has a more sci-fi slant to his choices in writing assignments lately and he's always been big on international conspiracy / shadow governments elements in his stories that if brought to the world of Tony Stark and his robotic suit could make for an intriguing series. I've just soured on the guy recently - grown tired of his holier-than-thou attitude towards readers.

Brubaker is a huge favorite of mine. Sleeper and Gotham Central are two of my favorite books, and I loved his writing when he was on Batman and Detective Comics. If anyone can breathe life into the Captain America comic, it would be him.

Is it enough to get me to pick up either of these books? Maybe. It always comes down to the economics of the situation. How can I spend my limited comic funds and get the biggest entertainment value. If these guys are delivering big, there is a possibility. Maybe it's waiting for trade paperback collections of their initial runs. We'll have to wait and see.

There was more talk about the Space Ghost mini series from Joe Kelly and Ariel Olivetti which I am looking forward to. It's not the campy Coast to Coast take on Space Ghost that has played well on Cartoon Network, but rather a serious re-visioning of the character as a pulp-style hero. The Space Ghost character has always appealed to me and I'm eager to see how he turns out in Joe Kelly's hands.

Though some of the news that I was most excited about was the announcement that Judd Winick (yes, the guy from Real World: San Francisco) would be taking over permanent chores as writer of Batman and will be joining by Doug Mahnke on art. This is great news. As much as I've enjoyed the stories from the revolving creative teams on Batman over the last two years, it will be nice to have one writer and artist settle down and spin fun tales of the Dark Knight on a monthly basis.

I have been enjoying the story arc Winick is currently writing for Batman, so I welcome his style on the title. Having one permanent writer will also benefit the book in re-establishing the mega-fiction aspect of an ongoing comic book title. "Mega-fiction" is a term the former writer, Batman group editor, and living comic book legend Denny O'Neil termed back in the 90's when he steered the entire Batman comic book franchise for DC Comics. Mega-fiction is kinda like the stories in soap operas - there might be beginnings and ends to smaller stories, but they all tie together to form a much larger story. One that can't be contained in a single show or book. It becomes a story the lives and breathes and is constantly changing. That's what I want from a Batman book. All the mini-series are fun, but I want them to fit together as part of the bigger picture. Not exist within a vacuum - not if their being published as part of the ongoing Batman monthly.

I just realized that I've been rambling on here for almost 45 minutes. Just writing and writing and writing about things my sister and my wife are just going to glaze over anyway. It's 1pm and I've got to get back to work and prepare for some meetings so I'll stop with my SDCC debriefing for now and set this post to the side for proofing later this afternoon when I get a break.