Comic-Con 2013: Vertigo Panel

VERTIGO PANEL: COMIC-CON 2013

Let’s get to live-blogging.

Defying the Confines of Genre. That’s the subtitle and apparently the new era under executive editor Shelly Bond. We’ve got editor Will Dennis, editor Mark Doyle, Jeff Lemire, Scott Snyder, Mark Andreyko who’s writing a Fables Cinderella arc, Mark Buckingham, Simon Oliver of “Collider.”

A 2013 preview book, featuring the new “defy” motto, and new Sandman art. “The Sandman: Overture” with Neil Gaiman and J.H. Williams III in the 25th anniversary of Sandman.

American Vampire Anthology, looking like a Godfather poster. It includes Becky Cloonan, Greg Rucka, Gail Simone, Jeff Lemire, Ray Fawkes, Francesco Francavilla, Declan Shalvey and more. Snyder says everyone brought their A-game and felt he needed to raise the bar on his own contribution after reading them. Snyder could not be prouder of it. Becky’s story is about Skinner Sweet wandering onto a film set and people keep dying mysteriously. Snyder is also back at work with Rafael Albuquerque on a new arc with bikers in the 60s and Hell’s Angels and Straw Dogs and Pearl and Skinner. Doyle says it’s perfect to pick up if you’ve never read American Vampire before for a lot of short stories. Gail Simone wrote a heartbreaking story. Jason Aaron has a story in there, too.

The Wake, Snyder’s book with Sean Murphy of Punk Rock Jesus. It was meant to be a story to experiment with – Snyder pitched it to him 3 years ago, and they’ve been waiting to do it together. Vertigo is where Snyder got his start and where he can try new things – it’s a different story from what he’s ever tried. It’s really a sci-fi adventure story about a girl in a world that’s very dangerous that you haven’t seen before – a theme of being alone and why we’re here is a big part of this. It’s about a “killer mermaid” that runs amok, too. It’s also fun and bombastic.

Trillium cover shown, Jeff Lemire’s book. He talks about the fact that the first issue is a flip book. Two stories start from the front and the back and meet in the middle. He refers to single issues as “the floppy.” It’s a sci-fi love story about a scientist in deep space in the future meeting a World War I soldier and they fall in love while the universe crumbles around them. In the flip book, each page mirrors the other side of the story.

Bond tells us that Fables’ Bill Willingham is rumored to be fired by his penciler Mark Buckingham – he’s actually just taking a year off, but he gives a message saying he’s started an official feud with Jeff Lemire about Twinkies. For jokes! Bill is very thankful for fan support, and he’ll be finishing The Fairest In All The Land original graphic novel this week.

Buckingham talks about Fables #134 – it’s not an imaginary story or a dream sequence. Bigby Wolf and Boy Blue are in this issue. Somehow this is a crazy unexpected thing… which means I am WAY too far behind on Fables. A new Fables story called Camelot will focus on Rose Red as a paladin of Hope and will find out what aspect to represent. She’ll try to build a new Camelot and a new Round Table. Mark’s wife is referred to as “the real life Rose Red,” and she’s at her first Comic-Con. This arc will deal with the heartache in the aftermath of the Snow White story.

There’s a Fables game happening – Bigby Wolf and the Magic Mirror with Bluffkin in the background of the image.

The Dead Boy Detectives get their own series from the pages of Sandman. Buckingham is working on it. They’ve always had one-off adventures about ‘the next case,’ but this will focus on the characters as we watch them grow up, so to speak. Edwin has been around for a century and Charles has been dead since 1990. A young girl detective who is tech savvy will kick things up a few notches.

The Unwritten Fables melds The Unwritten with Fables. Mike Carey is tearing it up with the Fables characters. Buckingham says it’s a genuine collaboration. Carey and Buckingham came together over beer and curry, then pitched a Frau Totenkinder to Peter and Bill in Minnesota, who ran with the ball they pitched. It’s a celebration of mythic fiction where literary characters can mingle in Vertigo now.

The Fables Encyclopedia has an Adam Hughes wraparound cover – an A to Z of all the characters in Fables. The scholar Jess Nevins has been providing the entries, with historical background of the characters and how they’ve been twisted by Bill Willingham. Bill and Mark also contribute asides with the analyses. Some fun behind the scenes information to be had.

Fairest is next. Adam Hughes doing a red eyeball cover for #20 in October. Somebody dies in every single issue of this arc, which wasn’t planned, but it happened. Prince Charming has contracted a disease and his hands are falling off. Cinderalla will be coming back to Fairest with the Andreyko arc, working with Sean McManus who is so good it makes him cry. Bond says every page he draws is the best page of his career. Cinderella is like Kate Spencer in Manhunter, a tough woman who doesn’t apologize for it.

Fairest In All The Land, a November murder mystery as an original graphic novel as told by the Magic Mirror. A lot of artists in the mix. Fiona Ming, Phil Noto and many more like Renae De Liz, Adam Hughes, Tony Akins, and Mark Buckingham.

Collider time. #1 comes out on July 31. The crowd is asked to name any of the four laws of thermodynamics. It will have highfalutin scientific stuff in it. Simon Oliver says it’s a book about broken physics. It is a part of our world and it’s something everybody experiences every day. We follow the exploits from the Federal Bureau of Physics. Their problems aren’t secrets and humans adapt to the changes in the laws of physics. Snyder pipes up to shill for this book – what if the laws of physics started to fail in the everyday world? The FBP are the wild rock and roll physics-expert Ghostbusters of these problems – gravity fails in one school, things like that all over the world. “On my kids, I thought it was great.”

The Witching Hour is a new anthology that takes risks on new talent and helps people without a lot of time to commit to still contribute. This has famous people and new people in it. Gail Simone put in an 8-pager, I think.

Coffin Hill – what if the Kennedy Curse went all the way back to the Salem Witch Trials? Caitlin Kitteridge, a novelist, is writing this. Eve Coffin is a high society low life who parties with friends, messing around with black magic, and she wakes up naked in the woods and she has to figure out what the hell happened that’s destroying the town. Dark horror, twisted. Bond says she’s going be one of the new voices in comics. October 9, #1 drops.

Hinterkind #1 in October 2, the Will Dennis umbrella. It’s fairies, ogres and orcs, and Dennis generally hates it, but Ian Edgington pitched it anyway, and the more Dennis read it, the more he liked it. In the future, the Earth has reclaimed itself with an environmental disaster, and small pockets of humanity begin to lose contact with each other, and there are a lot of things out there they didn’t know about – elves, fairies, monsters, etc. Humanity is at the bottom of the food chain now. Eventually, you realize the tribes don’t like each other and warring factions break their cease-fires and it’s “game on.” Very epic and broad. Francesco Trifogli is a young new artist. Doyle thinks it was the best pitch he’d heard since American Vampire.

The Discipline – is like Dennis’ Downton Abbey, they joke. Peter Milligan of Enigma, Shade the Changing Man, Screamer, Extremis fame is writing. There’s an erotic fiction zeitgeist going on. This is dark and sexy. Leandro Fernandez is teaming up with him for a thriller story that’s exploring a lot of dark sexual themes that Dennis thinks are hot. It’s not shameless or pornographic. He takes you to the edge and pulls you back.

Suiciders comes out in December. Lee Bermejo is writing and drawing a monthly series for the first time. It’s a future that’s Los ANgeles after being destroyed by an earthquake, and it’s left on its own. There’s a game taking over the city that’s like Mixed Martial Arts – body modification and steroids and stuff play a role. It’s a big, open, energetic, violent story about obsessions with celebrity and reality TV in a Mad Max way. They’re honored that Bermejo chose Vertigo.

Brother Lono, Brian Azzarello’s 100 Bullets spinoff. He’s trying to rein in all the forces he’s spent his life inflicting on people. He’s trying to turn the page on his murderous past.