What's interesting in the December Previews

Marvel

Rocket Raccoon #1 – After reading Matthew Rosenberg’s work at Black Mask and his Civil War II: Kingpin series I’m thinking that this book could really be a fun crime book. I’m curious to see what can be done with Rocket in his own series.

U.S. Avengers #1 – Al Ewing is on such an amazing run of super entertaining stories, that I’ll try anything he writes. I’m not a huge fan of super-hero humour books, as I tend to find that they are to silly for me, but I’m willing to give this book a try because of Ewing. Also, Paco Medina is a solid artist that should be a good fit for this type of story.

Image

Motor Crush #1- With the great creative team from Batgirl of Brendan Fletcher, Cameron Stewart and Babs Tarr behind this new image book it’s a must read. Not sure if the market really needs another sci-fi book from image, but if the book is good then I don’t think genre matters as much.

DC

Checkmate by Greg Rucka TP Vol. 1 – I’m really curious to see how DC collects this series. They did such a horrible job the first time they collected it. Rucka’s 25 issue run was collected in 6 trades. Which came out as Checkmate: A King’s Game, Checkmate: A Pawn Breaks, then goes to an Outsiders/Checkmate crossover trade, then back to Checkmate: Fall of the wall and lastly the final three issues of the series by Rucka were collected in a trade called Kobra Resurrected. Add to that if you really want to read the end of the series it’s in a Final Crisis Companion trade. What a nightmare. So, I’m hoping DC fan fix this problem with new collected editions.  

Supergirl: Being Super #1 – No surprise DC wants to take advantage of the success they are having with a Supergirl television show by pumping the market full with as many Supergirl books as possible. Despite that the creative team on this book makes it very interesting. Mariko Tamaki (Skim, This One Summer) and Joelle Jones (Ultimate Spider-man, Lady Killer) have both handled stories of female maturation in their past, so this story seems to be right in line for them to be able to do something special with.

Boom/Archaia

Killer Vol. 5 HC – Finally translated to English is the final volume of the great crime comic by Matz and Luc Jacamon. The story of a hired killer, who at the start of the series Matz and Jacamon juxtaposed him constantly with a reptile or at least his thought process.  It’s been some years since we got a volume of the series and I’m hoping Matz and Jacamon bring the series to a satisfying close.  

Waiting for Capullo.... Part two.

Waiting for Capullo… Part Two.

            For Friday at Fan Expo I set my sights on signatures from Tim Sale, Joe Quesada, Greg Capullo and sketches for my other daughters. Tim Sale proved to be easy enough due to the fact that he communicated so clearly to every one at the con the times he would be at his table doing signings. That left some time to explore the convention floor a bit before having to get in line for either Joe Quesada or Greg Capullo, who for some reason the convention had planned them to have signing times only an hour apart, meaning if you got in line for one then you would not get the other that day. During my walk about I tasked myself with finding artists for sketches and was happy to find Ron Salas, who drew an amazing Supergirl for my daughter Avery and Scott Caple, who drew an awesome Wonder Woman for my daughter Skyler.

            As I talked to the artists sketching for my daughters I noticed that Greg Capullo had amassed a very long line at his table and Greg was their signing away, an hour before he was scheduled to be signing in the signing area, providing each person with a quick memory and interaction with him.

            It was then that I decided to wait in the line for Joe Quesada. My thinking was that if Capullo was willing to put that much time and effort in to signings then he will not be as hard to get signed as the head guy at Marvel Comics.  After getting Joe Quesada’s signature I walked by Capullo’s table again and he was there again signing almost an hour after his signing time, but with only a half hour of time left at the con I decided to just head over to the other hall that I hadn’t seen yet.

            I started Saturday at the con with a mission to get signatures of Frank Miller and Greg Capullo. I had bought a pass, which gave me access to Miller’s panels on Saturday and Sunday as well as a signature on Sunday. Miller was the main reason I had even traveled to Fan Expo this year, so I wanted to get as many things as I could get signed from him and also see his panels if I could.

            So, my plan was to go to Capullo’s table in the morning hoping that he shows up in time for me to get a signature and then head off to Miller’s panel that day. Unfortunately, I waited about 30 minutes in line for Capullo before another guy in the line who was thinking to do the same thing I was noticed that Capullo had tweeted out that he wouldn’t be at his table until after his signing time in the afternoon. It was then that I decided to head off to the Miller panel.

            The Miller panel was great. Despite the visual appearance of his physical health being very poor, Miller is as smart as ever. He’s still the man that traded discourse with Will Eisner and held his own. After the panel I went back to the line at Capullo’s table. My hope this time was that Capullo would finish his signing over in the signature area and come to his table and sign in time for me to get in line for Miller’s signing time. Again I waited for about 30 to 45 minutes before I decided to bail on the line, as I didn’t want to risk missing out on Miller’s signature. Though I did return to Capullo’s table later after getting Miller’s signature. As I returned to the area I noticed Capullo was not signing anymore for the day but again he had been signing for hours on end. I was able to witness Capullo doing on interview for a U-tube video channel, which was super entertaining, but yet again I had to leave the convention without Capullo’s signature and only one day left at the con.

            I entered the last day of the convention with a clear plan and funny enough it was my same plan from the day before. Get in line for Capullo then try to see the Miller panel and then in line for a Miller signature. On this day unlike the previous day though Capullo had a planned signing time, it was just a matter of me waiting in the line and hopefully making it though in time to go to the Miller panel that day, which unfortunately did not happen, but I finally had my Capullo signature, after three days of trying and many hours of signing by him I had my Capullo signature. It felt good to finally accomplish my tasks that I had set out to complete, so I rewarded myself and went around with some friends there and had fun doing activities at the convention.