Cub reporter Jimmy was on had for the first day of the C2E2 Convention in Chicago, and filed his first report of Friday’s events.
C2E2 is being held at McCormick place, a large hotel/convention center in Chicago, and it is the perfect place for this convention. The showfloor was busy but never clogged, and the cosplayers were out in force, as you can see in the Image Gallery. One interesting note about the cosplay; many of them were also giving out business cards for local costume shops and cosplay groups; to give a quick shoutout to those that had fun costumes that we got pictures of:
Bristol Renaissance Faire, www.renfair.com/bristol or www.facebook.com/bristol.faire
Chicago Costume, www.chicagocostume.com (Props, Masks and Costumes for Sale/Rent)
The Enthusiasts, www.the-enthusiasts.com (Photography, Video, Graphics and FX Make-Up)
Artist’s Alley was full of familiar and unfamiliar faces, as artists working for the big two vied with lesser known and independent artists for the attention of con-goers. There were far more children at the convention today than last year on Friday–last year (and presumably this year) the biggest day for kids was Sunday, when there were several panels and presentations designed specifically for them, such as Art and Franco’s Drawing Competition.
There were several signing events for the Hero Initiative, with big names such as Tim Sale and Bill Willingham doing sketches and signing autographs for donations.
There were many interesting retailers at the convention; there were plenty of comic stores and superhero clothing shops, but in addition to that there was a “Mustache Emporium” and a business that sold merchandise from classic television shows such as Get Smart bubblegum and Adam West Batman Sneakers.
I got a chance to speak with some comics creators about their upcoming projects; here’s the news:
- From Art Baltazar and Franco, creators of great childrens’ comics such as Tiny Titans, which just ended with issue 50, and Superman Family Adventures, which is coming out soon.
For long-time fans of Tiny Titans, things were left somewhat vague as to how the Titans would be handled in the new series, but I spoke with Art and Franco and they assured me that they would still be writing everyone’s favorite Titans, and that we’d see several of them in issue two in their newly relaunched costumes. Art also added that, while he never specifically said so in the comics, he always wrote the Tiny Titans as if they were in 1st grade, but in Superman: Family Adventures they’ve grown up a little and would be about fifth graders now. - From Chris Burnham, artist on The New 52: Batman Incorporated, coming out in May, and Batman Inc.: Leviathan Strikes one-shot which came out at the end of last year.
Things will pick up right where Leviathan Strikes left off, though to make the jump from prelaunch to New 52 Batman Incorporated, he said “You will have to do some continuity juggling in your head, but Grant [Morrison]’s written a great story.” He also said that we’d be seeing a small amount of Talia, who those that read Leviathan Strikes knows has been Bruce Wayne’s nemesis, Leviathan, throughout Batman Inc., in issue one, but that issue two would be “The complete story of Talia’s life, from birth to Leviathan.” - From Kevin Maguire, artist on World’s Finest (and the recently ended My Greatest Adventure.
Rather than alternating art on story arcs with George Perez, as initially announced, Maguire will be doing 7-8 pages each in the first four issues, focused on flashback material from Earth Two whereas Perez will be doing the “now” art. He also passionately explained that he was NOT responsible for the redesign of Power Girl, and that if it were up to him he would have kept the boob window, claiming “it wouldn’t work for a lot of characters, but Power Girl is comfortable enough in her sexuality to pull it off.” - From David Finch, artist and former writer of The Dark Knight.
The arc that Gregg Hurwitz wrote for The Dark Knight (starting with issue ten) was originally written for a followup to Penguin: Pain and Prejudice, but Finch was very excited that he was able to get Hurwitz onto his title.
More reports from C2E2, coming up soon.