C2E2 Impressions, Day 2, Part 1

They just opened the doors for the show, so rather than wading through the insane line/crowd of people, I thought I'd take a few moments to check out the press lounge and add a few more notes to follow-up on yesterday. (Before I totally get overwhelmed and forget everything!)

I was able to attend two of the panels from the Institute for Comics Studies. One was a screening of White Scripts and Black Supermen, a documentary on black masculinity in comic books that I'd been wanting to see for a couple years now. I was somewhat disappointed that director Jonathan Gayles was unable to attend, but I was really pleased to see the final film and how well it turned out. I highly recommend seeing it if you're able. The other panel was a discussion on the "funding, production and distribution of comics is changing" featuring a few of the commentators seen in the film, as well as Ashley Woods and Jiba Anderson. Between the two panels, they provided a very insightful look at some of the image and messaging challenges that black creators and characters have faced over the past several decades. Also, apparently Tony Isabella created some character called Black Lightning a little while back.

The final panel I attended was on digital comics with Mark Waid, comiXology's John Roberts and others. Not surprisingly, there was a lot of love for digital comics and, perhaps less surprisingly, not very much "Why the hell aren't more people doing this?" I give Waid a lot of credit for diving in as deeply as he has, and for putting his money where his mouth is on this. I don't agree with all of his thinking on some points, but good on him for charging ahead despite, as he admitted repeatedly, that he has no idea what the hell he's doing. The big announcement, which you may have seen elsewhere by now, is the addition of a children's line of comics for Thrillbent. Pretty much everyone in the room agreed that The Phantom Lemur was the best title ever, and I can't say I disagree with them.

I didn't get to spend much time on the show floor. I did get a chance to talk briefly with RJ Casey of Yeti Press and my old friend Matt Geuther of DumpsterWear. Both said they were having a pretty good show thus far for just being a Friday afternoon. I'll try to do some more follow-up later today or tomorrow.

OK, time for me to see if the line in has died down yet! More later!

UPDATE: Nope, I still have to wait in line.

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