Adventures around Comic-Con '06 - Part Three
TelltaleGames
Former Telltale Staff
With the panel and press appointments out of the way, Saturday and Sunday gave Jake, Doug, and me an opportunity to kick back and enjoy some of the entertainment Comic-Con has to offer. Early on Saturday we made a surprising discovery: the Flight booth (where Jeff Smith, Bone colorist Steve Hamaker, and a number of other talented comics whose work we admire had been spending much of their time) was right around the corner from Steve Purcell's booth. For those who don't know, Flight is a collection of comics, sort of like a short story anthology. The third volume has just been published, and is receiving a lot of critical acclaim. I tried to get Flight at Barnes and Noble last weekend but they didn't carry it (their graphic novel section was overrun with manga), so I was psyched for the opportunity to buy it and have it signed by some of the authors included in the anthology.
Several of the Flight artists, including Jeff (whose work is featured in Flight volume 2) were going to be speaking on a panel at 12:30, so we decided to mosey on up. On our way we came across Top Shelf Productions, the publisher of Owly, which is a favorite of Heather's. Owly is a very sweet comic about a friendly owl and his best friend Wormy, who go around doing nice things for others. (That comes off sounding much more simplistic and Sesame Street than it really is.) The characters speak with icons instead of words, and although they're simply drawn the expressions on their faces are spot on. Heather was too busy making sure Sam & Max stays on schedule to join us at the convention, so we got her an Owly book she doesn't have yet, and the artist Andy Runton signed it. I read it cover to cover on Saturday night, and liked it so much that Sunday I went back to get one for myself.
The Flight panel was led by Kazu Kibuishi, Flight's Editor / Art Director, and included some big names in the comics industry (such as Jeff, Scott McCloud, and Bill Plympton), as well as several emerging artists whose participation in Flight marked the first publication of their work. Kazu started the talk by saying that the graphic novel is the only segment of the book industry that's really growing right now, and it's growing at an amazing rate, but most of the new graphic novels coming onto the market are manga. This statement is certainly supported by my experience at Barnes and Noble last week. Since manga has been popular in Japan for decades, it comes out of a well-established, big-budget industry where a whole team of artists could be working on just one title. This makes it very difficult for independent comics to compete in the graphic novel space. (Funny... sounds suspiciously like the game industry.) Flight offers a solution by giving new artists a way to get their work in print without having to complete a full-length graphic novel.[readmore]
Later in the afternoon, we went by the Flight booth again because Jeff was signing copies of The Dragonslayer, the latest of Scholastic's Bone reprints, which has only just become available. I bought one (all warm and fuzzy with the knowledge that the proceeds would go to support the Flight project) and got his signature, as well as Steve Hamaker's. I also took a better picture of the future Bone covers that I mentioned in the last blog. While we were waiting in line to see Jeff, a couple walked by and paused in front of the booth. "Hey, Bone," the girl said to the guy she was with. "My cousin's making the game version of that." I caught her eye and handed her a postcard: "You mean this game?" It turned out her cousin is Daniel Herrera, one of Telltale's artists. Small world! So, Daniel, your cousin Julia says "hi"...
Having satisfied our thirst for comics, we headed over to the game section of the show floor, which was considerably louder and more crowded than the rest of the convention. We checked out Capcom's booth in hopes of seeing the new Phoenix Wright game, but the people ahead of us spent about 15 minutes playing with it and by the time it was our turn we weren't really interested anymore. (The bit that we did see appeared to be more of the same spikey-haired goodness of the last game.) Then we happened across the booth of Alien Hominid developer The Behemoth, where they were handing out headbands sporting Alien Hominid antennae. Jake and I joined two other guys to play a demo of their new multi-player platformer, Castle Crashers, which was a lot of fun.
On our way out of the show, I got my picture taken in front of an Emily the Strange poster that I'd noticed as soon as we came in Thursday morning and had been meaning to get back to ever since. Unfortunately I wasn't able to keep a straight face, but if you'd just spent the last four days of your life navigating through crowds of people dressed like Batman and Tingle from Zelda and Jedi knights with Jack in the Box heads, you probably wouldn't be able to, either.
So that's a wrap on Comic-Con '06. The first thing on my to-do list when I get in to the office on Monday (after posting this blog, of course): reserve a booth for next year!
Several of the Flight artists, including Jeff (whose work is featured in Flight volume 2) were going to be speaking on a panel at 12:30, so we decided to mosey on up. On our way we came across Top Shelf Productions, the publisher of Owly, which is a favorite of Heather's. Owly is a very sweet comic about a friendly owl and his best friend Wormy, who go around doing nice things for others. (That comes off sounding much more simplistic and Sesame Street than it really is.) The characters speak with icons instead of words, and although they're simply drawn the expressions on their faces are spot on. Heather was too busy making sure Sam & Max stays on schedule to join us at the convention, so we got her an Owly book she doesn't have yet, and the artist Andy Runton signed it. I read it cover to cover on Saturday night, and liked it so much that Sunday I went back to get one for myself.The Flight panel was led by Kazu Kibuishi, Flight's Editor / Art Director, and included some big names in the comics industry (such as Jeff, Scott McCloud, and Bill Plympton), as well as several emerging artists whose participation in Flight marked the first publication of their work. Kazu started the talk by saying that the graphic novel is the only segment of the book industry that's really growing right now, and it's growing at an amazing rate, but most of the new graphic novels coming onto the market are manga. This statement is certainly supported by my experience at Barnes and Noble last week. Since manga has been popular in Japan for decades, it comes out of a well-established, big-budget industry where a whole team of artists could be working on just one title. This makes it very difficult for independent comics to compete in the graphic novel space. (Funny... sounds suspiciously like the game industry.) Flight offers a solution by giving new artists a way to get their work in print without having to complete a full-length graphic novel.[readmore]
Later in the afternoon, we went by the Flight booth again because Jeff was signing copies of The Dragonslayer, the latest of Scholastic's Bone reprints, which has only just become available. I bought one (all warm and fuzzy with the knowledge that the proceeds would go to support the Flight project) and got his signature, as well as Steve Hamaker's. I also took a better picture of the future Bone covers that I mentioned in the last blog. While we were waiting in line to see Jeff, a couple walked by and paused in front of the booth. "Hey, Bone," the girl said to the guy she was with. "My cousin's making the game version of that." I caught her eye and handed her a postcard: "You mean this game?" It turned out her cousin is Daniel Herrera, one of Telltale's artists. Small world! So, Daniel, your cousin Julia says "hi"...
Having satisfied our thirst for comics, we headed over to the game section of the show floor, which was considerably louder and more crowded than the rest of the convention. We checked out Capcom's booth in hopes of seeing the new Phoenix Wright game, but the people ahead of us spent about 15 minutes playing with it and by the time it was our turn we weren't really interested anymore. (The bit that we did see appeared to be more of the same spikey-haired goodness of the last game.) Then we happened across the booth of Alien Hominid developer The Behemoth, where they were handing out headbands sporting Alien Hominid antennae. Jake and I joined two other guys to play a demo of their new multi-player platformer, Castle Crashers, which was a lot of fun.
On our way out of the show, I got my picture taken in front of an Emily the Strange poster that I'd noticed as soon as we came in Thursday morning and had been meaning to get back to ever since. Unfortunately I wasn't able to keep a straight face, but if you'd just spent the last four days of your life navigating through crowds of people dressed like Batman and Tingle from Zelda and Jedi knights with Jack in the Box heads, you probably wouldn't be able to, either.
So that's a wrap on Comic-Con '06. The first thing on my to-do list when I get in to the office on Monday (after posting this blog, of course): reserve a booth for next year!
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