Twenty-Five Days Until Comic-Con

That's right: Twenty-five! I never feel like New Year's Eves occur close together but Comic-Con Internationals, which occur no less frequently, somehow barely leave me time to unpack from one before it's time to pack for the next one.

I will be hosting eleven panels at Comic-Con this year and appearing on at least three others. The convention will begin posting the programming schedule on its website on the Fourth of July and we're not supposed to announce events, room numbers and times before then. I think it's okay though for me to say that eight of my panels will be ones I hosted last year in the same rooms at the same times.

I think it's also okay to mention that late Saturday afternoon, the wonderful Trina Robbins and I will be interviewing the also-wonderful Joye Murchison Kelly, who is this year's "alive" winner of the Bill Finger Award. The award goes to a writer whose contribution to comics has not been sufficiently recognized and/or rewarded…and no one qualifies more than a lady who ghostwrote Wonder Woman in the forties for the character's co-creator, William Marston and worked alongside the other co-creator, Harry G. Peter. This is the first time she has ever set foot in a comic book convention so this is a very special event, indeed.

And now with a slightly fatigued tone in my voice, I would like to address a complaint that I hear about Comic-Con, mostly from folks who are in roughly my age bracket and who share my great interest in the history of comic books. It usually takes the form of lamenting that there's nothing on the Comic-Con schedule for them; that it's all about movies and TV shows and gaming and what there is about comics is about the current ones, about which these people could not care less. I have three things to say about this gripe…

  1. Yes, Comic-Con has changed from the old days. Most things do and much of what's changed about Comic-Con is what has changed about comic books. Yes, a lot of the con is about movies and TV shows. Well, guess what: A lot of what DC and Marvel do is about movies and TV shows. Neither one is even a comic book company anymore. DC Comics and Marvel Comics are now DC Entertainment and Marvel Entertainment, and comic books are just one arm of each company. And you can't expect those companies (or any business) to not push current product.
  2. If you think there aren't any items on the schedule about past comic books, you aren't paying much attention to that schedule. How many Annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panels do I have to moderate? I heard the same complaint back when I hosted Golden Age Panels and Silver Age Panels, back when we had the personnel to fill them. Now, I host an annual panel on comic books of the seventies (it's Friday morning this year, BTW) and there are plenty of others with which I'm not involved. I don't know the rest of this year's schedule but I'll bet there's one about the works of Will Eisner and many about comics that are not current.
  3. Which brings me to my complaint. It's the people who complain there isn't programming about comic book history and then when we do events about old comics, do not show up to support them.

A few years ago here, I told this story about a guy who was wailing to me about a lack of any programs about old comics.

[He] was upset that so much of the Comic-Con wasn't about comics and he felt, I guess, that I'd concur and would rush off to do something about it…maybe throw Robert Downey Jr out of the hall or something. Instead, I told him about that great panel we did on the Golden Age of Batman with Jerry Robinson, Sheldon Moldoff and Lew Schwartz. If you're interested in the history of comics, it doesn't get any more historical than that. I then said to this fellow who was complaining about the con not being about that kind of thing, "I didn't see you there."

And so help me, he replied, "I couldn't be there. I had to get in line to see the 24 panel with Kiefer Sutherland."

Yes, yes…I know a lot of you can't afford to go to Comic-Con and many of you want to attend but are unable to secure memberships.  I'm talking now about people who are at the con, don't show up for panels about the History of Comics and then complain to me that there aren't any or ask where they can find a transcript or whether it'll be on YouTube. I wish you folks who are so inclined would express that more in the only manner that means anything at conventions: By showing up.  Conventions do not program for empty seats.

Saturday at the con, Trina and I are interviewing Joye Murchison Kelly, the secret writer of Wonder Woman in the Golden Age. How's about if we pack that room for her?