San Diego Comic-Con 2013 pictures (part 2)

Photos by Orion Tippens

Occasional caption text by Mike Hansen

Dustin Nguyen (Li’l Gotham) rocks the stage.

I saw The Wolverine

by Mike Hansen

Probably my favorite of the international posters, even if the tagline is as cheesy as U.S. posters: “Fugitive, Hero, Legend.” Really? “Inmortal,” indeed…

They finally got the claws right.

Every X-Men film has its nitpicky moments, giving long-time comics readers like me something to complain about (in the right company). The first couple of X-Men films get a pass, because they were at the very beginning of the superhero-film wave that didn’t really get going until the first Spider-Man movie. Both of them have a lot of good visual and character moments, but watching them now reveals a lot of stuff that would make me cringe if they were made in 2013. The near-franchise killer (despite its initial box-office success) X-Men: The Last Stand is still nearly unwatchable for me, with its odd and pointless creative choices. Likewise X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which clearly owed its limited success to the last bit of goodwill fans had for the material (not to mention the rough cut’s leak, marking the beginning of the end for MegaUpload and making it really damn tough for me to complete my AC/DC bootleg collection – but I digress…).

I usually like teaser posters more than later ones. For me, less is more.

X-Men: First Class was a big step back in the right direction, with its bold and ballsy 1960s Cold War setting and the kind of reboot no superhero franchise in any medium had seen yet: nailing down the premise’s origins in a specific time in history, despite the unofficial Marvel “ten-year rule” for its oldest characters (i.e., as of 2013, the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man got their powers in 2003 – even though their first appearances were in 1961-1962). This kind of thinking has also led to creative disasters like DC’s New 52 reboot (although one of its few good ideas was Grant Morrison’s run on Action Comics featuring the early days of Superman), so it can be a fine line to walk between respecting and adapting source material, and just doing overpaid fan fiction. First Class also had that great, super-brief scene with Wolverine, one of the few times I’ve seen a scene designed as fan service really work. (Will its other choices, like an early furry Beast and using Cyclops’s brother, make sense in the long run? Time will tell…)

I think this poster was for the Japanese market. I dig it, especially its similarity to the new X-Men: Days of Future Past teaser posters.

The Wolverine has none of the problems of previous X-Men films. It’s a tight story set (mostly) during just a handful of days, some time after the events of The Last Stand (none of which are directly referenced, other than that Wolverine killed Jean Grey and is now haunted by this). The story is mainly

News: Some people still buy back issues (at least Walking Dead, but probably not Deadpool)

by Mike Hansen

Who wants some freshly baked bread? Mmmm.

A few weeks ago, a grade-9.9 copy of The Walking Dead #1 sold for over $10,000. That is INSANE for any comic under 50 years old, much less one from a decade ago – I mean, even a 9.8 copy of Giant-Size X-Men #1 is offered at only $4,000 at Lone Star Comics! The Walking Dead is one of the few series that still has demand outpacing supply, despite the zillions of reprints in various formats (including Walking Dead Weekly, which even included the original letters pages!). I have a feeling that there’s a small group of very rich comics collector/investors out there buying this, probably the same folks who have been pushing up the prices of key 1930s-1960s comics like Action Comics #1 or X-Men #1 or whatever.

On the other end of the scale, folks are finally waking up to the fact that the first appearance of Deadpool in New Mutants #98 is WAY overpriced. I’ve been talking about this for years now – while most Marvel comics sell 10,000-50,000 copies these days, in the early ’90s they generally sold hundreds of thousands of copies. NM #98 is one of the most common back issues in comics history, but retailers have hoarded copies and jacked up prices because of a brief resurgence of interest in Deadpool stories after the Wolverine movie came out. Now there’s a website devoted to this absurdity! I love it.

The fact is,

An explanation and apology to readers

by Mike Hansen

After a productive first couple of months, ALL DAY COMICS has been updated in fits and starts for a while now. Why? Well, it’s all my fault. I’m the one who does all of the updating, regardless of who contributes to the site. I’d originally envisioned ADC as an Ain’t It Cool-style site about comics, with contributions from several folks supporting my schedule. For various reasons, it hasn’t quite worked out that way, so thanks for sticking with the site despite the irregular posting.

So, WHY has ADC been updated so infrequently lately? Well, the main reason is that I have less free time: after being out of comics for a decade, I’m finally doing some professional comics work again. First off, I’ve been doing freelance research work for Marvel. I’ve helped out in an unofficial capacity in the past (there are a handful of Marvel books that credit me in the Special Thanks section, most recently X-MEN: BISHOP’S CROSSING), but now I’m getting to do paid research, which is really exciting and is a great outlet for my otherwise useless nerdy comics knowledge. (Since Marvel books have a long production schedule, you won’t see my pro credits in them for a while, though.)

I’m also in the process of creating some cool comics with some amazingly talented artists, and I hope to be able to share some of that work in the next few months. I can’t say much yet, except that we think we’re creating some exciting and original work, and I can’t wait to see what everyone thinks.

In the meantime, I’ll do my best to keep ADC chugging along as best I can. I’ve got a few more things to post in the next week or two – and very soon, an amazing interview that Orion conducted down at Comic-Con.

Onward!

Fun Friday Foto(s)

by Mike Hansen

I found this online the other day, but I can’t remember the source – if anyone knows, feel free to post a comment or email…

.

And one more – because in my Marvel comics, Wolverine always smokes. Always.

.

Have a great weekend!

Jeff Alan Polier’s MY FIRST ISSUE… of X-MEN!

Hey guys, Mike here – hope you like Jeff’s remembrances. I miss being a kid and reading comics with un-jaded eyes… sigh… X-Men was the first series I fell in love with – I loved how Chris Claremont and John Byrne fit all of their early Marvel work together (on X-Men, Marvel Team-Up, Champions, Iron Fist, Avengers, etc….) Anyway, here’s Jeff’s latest for you guys – let us know what you think! (And by the way, no, I’m not Jeff’s cousin; there must be another Mike out there – somewhere…!)

 

My First Issue of X-Men

Uncanny X-Men #111

June, 1978

            This was another garage sale purchase when I was young. I remember exactly where the house was it came from and that I also bought an issue of Boris Karloff. When I first read this issue, it didn’t make much sense to me. Lots of excitement but I sure didn’t know who these people were or what was going on. Reading it again over two decades later, I at least know who the characters are but still think it’s a bad issue to be someone’s first. It interested me for two reasons. First, my cousin Mike was big into comics and I thought Mike was cool. Second, it was a cool cover.

            The logo (pre-Uncanny) was made to look like a circus playbill with “Now Playing” plastered over it. A carnie barker—Banshee—is announcing the show. “Step right up, ladies and gents—see the strangest show on Earth! Once they were a mighty super-team—now they are mere performing freaks!” Behind him are posters of the acts. “Storm: Goddess of Elements.” “Colossus,” carrying a one-ton weight in one hand while balancing another heavy mass on one finger of his other hand. “Nightcrawler: Man or Monster?” “Wolverine: Killer Beast in Human Form! Savage!” There’s no denying that this Dave Cockrum/Terry Austin cover is thrilling and attention-grabbing.

            “Mindgames!” was