Pittsburgh Comicon Events News

The Pittsburgh Comicon events schedule was published earlier this week, and there are some fun panels on the docket. Everything from the amazing Gene Colon to Buffy-verse bad boy Camden Toy, from a CGS trivia showdown to a star-studded “Legends of Marvel Heyday” roundtable!

I’m also excited to see my buddy John Booth doing a panel based on his book Collect All 21: Memoirs of a Star Wars Geek sponsored by the Science Fiction Alliance of Pittsburgh. Look for it to be a fun, nostalgic trip from original trilogy to prequel trilogy and what it means to our generation to have “grown up Star Wars.”

Immediately following John’s solo panel, I’ll be joining him and others for a discussion called “How to Get Published” in Room 3 at 2pm. I’m looking forward to talking about the experience I went through publishing Deus ex Comica: The Rebirth of a Comic Book Fan – willing to discuss everything from the writing process to publishing options to promotion, and anything else the attendees might throw at us regarding getting your manuscript into your audience’s hands!

Incredible folks like Joe Sinott, David Mack, Roy Thomas, and Herb Trimpe are all scheduled to appear at the con. I’m looking forward to hopefully meeting some of these industry icons, along with the opportunity to say “hello” and visit for a while with my friends Bryan J.L. Glass and Dave Wachter!

Should be a fun way to pass a weekend! If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll come out and support the industry and a couple of regional authors!

Marvel Unbound - Daredevil Omnibus, Volume 2 (Bendis)

I think Daredevil might be my favorite character of all-time. But if that is true, it’s because of the creators who have guided him – Frank Miller and Klaus Janson in the ’80s, Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev in the first half of the 2000s, and Ed Brubaker and Michael Lark in the latter half of that same decade.

Until the Immortal Iron Fist Omnibus challenged its status, the Bendis/Mack/Maleev Daredevil Omnibus, Volume 1 was the previously untouchable high-watermark among current era Marvel omnibuses. Now I would be hard-pressed to make a choice between the two, and Bendis’ second volume complicates things further by not missing a beat.

I love Marvel’s omnibus line. I like the idea of collecting 25 or so issues of a particular creative team or specific era under a single cover with beautiful art reproduced in an oversized format. Daredevil Omnibus, Volume 1 by Brian Michael Bendis, David Mack and Alex Maleev is no exception. Holy crap is that a stunning body of work! I loved every emotionally wrenching page. The “Wake Up” arc alone is a visual treat (issue #16 through #19). David Mack’s painted pages demand you linger on each panel, soaking in every detail. It took me days to just get through those first four issues that open that beautiful, gargantuan tome.

Volume 2, however, is every bit as good as the first. The arcs are bit more obvious in the storytelling this time around, but it all flows beautifully, threaded together by the underlying threat of Matt Murdock being “outed” once and for all, definitively as Daredevil.

There are four arcs and a one-shot collected here. The first one, “The Widow” is a great story of Murdock struggling with the end of his marriage to Milla Donovan, and highlights the friendship and respect between Murdock and Natalia Romanova – the Black Widow. This sets up an all-star “40th Anniversary Super Special” with issue #65. Nine different creative teams handle the art on this single oversized issue, including everyone from Michael Golden to Greg Horn, Phil Hester and Ande Parks to David Finch, Frank Quitely to Maleev. It was probably my least favorite issue of the run. It felt very much out of place, disrupting the flow of the overall narrative despite its in-continuity place in canon.

The next arc, “Golden Age,” introduces Alexander Bont into Daredevil mythos, wrapping his history up with the Gladiator along the way. Stylistically, Maleev really shines here with varying the pages between straight black-and-white, faux yellowed pages with retro touches, and his more common dark and brooding “everyday” style.

“Decalogue” is a five-issue story listening in on the support group that meets in the basement of St. Mary’s Church in Hell’s Kitchen to discuss the impact of Daredevil and Matt Murdock (who has declared himself the Kingpin) on their lives. There is a recovered drug addict, the son of a bomber, the wife of a serial killer, the serial killer’s last intended victim, and one of Milla Donovan’s former co-workers, among others. Murdock himself is revealed to be there and attempts to give closure to the group.

Things wrap up with “The Murdock Papers,” a great arc (maybe Bendis’ strongest on the title) that finds Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin of Crime, using both the feds and the press to bring Murdock’s world down around him. It’s a bold way to go out as a writer, and Bendis couldn’t have done it without the cooperation of his successor on the book, Ed Brubaker. There is even a letter from Bendis that follows the last page of the last issue of his run collected here that is basically his explanation of walking away from the title when he did. It reads like it was published in the original single issue, which is kinda cool and also speaks to the clout Bendis had established at Marvel by that time (2006, and continues to enjoy today).

Rounding out this collection of everything Bendis has done on Daredevil is his What If... Karen Page Had Lived?, which finds Michael Lark drawing Bendis himself as a sort of blue-collar Uatu the Watcher chronicling the tale, and the three-issue Spider-Man/Punisher/Daredevil story in Ultimate Marvel Team-Up #6, #7, and #8.

I have no shame in my enjoyment of Bendis’ work. You like what you like, and I like his writing. Having said that, there is one area of the Marvel U. that I am not a fan of Bendis’ work: Marvel’s Ultimate Universe. But what makes the three issues of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up collected here palatable is a combination of a story that doesn’t feel trapped in a “trying too hard to be hip” space and Bill Sienkiewicz’s art. The first time I remember being consciously aware of Sienkiewicz was when he took over the art duties on New Mutants as “The Demon Bear Saga” began, and his work on Elektra with Frank Miller is revolutionary. And it’s clear from the three issues collected here he hasn’t missed a step in the 15 or 20 years since I first recognized him.

Speaking of art, Maleev’s dark and brooding tones are perfect for the main stories collected here. Issue interiors are gritty, shadowed, and the covers within individual arcs have specific graphic personalities that serve as clear signposts. We also get unused and alternate cover designs, cover inks, and a handful of stunning watercolors of Black Widow and Daredevil.

A part from every thing else previously mentioned, the only other extra is Bendis’ script for issue #81, “The Murdock Papers, Part 6.” While maybe not as robust as Volume 1 when standing alone, Daredevil Omnibus, Volume 2 is still a near-perfect collection, and when taken as a whole with the first volume, Bendis and Maleev’s complete body of work on Daredevil is cohesive, nuanced, entertaining, and worthy of the mantle Frank Miller and Klaus Janson established in the ’80s.

The End of the Eighties, Track 13

“Bizarre Love Triangle”
New Order
Brotherhood
1986

If there was ever a more aptly named song for the complicated, incestuous romances and crushes among college friends, I can’t think of one. Although appropriate for probably the bulk of that freshman year at Bowling Green, there is one particular night that I associate most with New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle”.

Despite that seemingly juicy insinuation, this is going to be a terribly disappointing entry. Much like the New Year’s Eve that would follow that same year, there are too many fuzzy memories tied up in the night associated with this song, and attempting to recount specific details would be doing a disservice to the friendships involved. So instead I’m going to do my best to dance around as much of the incriminating evidence as I possibly can.

It was early in that fall semester, but the close bonds between John, Jen, Erin, Jeff, and me were already being forged. I was dating Kari. Jeff was living in a frat house on campus because of a freshman housing shortage, earning him the nickname “Fratman” (remember, Tim Burton’s Batman had just hit earlier that summer).

On this particular night we were all going to meet up in Jeff’s room at the frat house. Everyone else went ahead to Jeff’s while Kari and I stayed back in my dorm room where – using nothing more than ice and the kind of starter earrings Claire’s Boutique uses – she pierced my ear up in cartilage. (It was my sixth piercing, but, for the record, it hurt like hell. And, according to urban legend, it’s kinda dangerous because I guess you can actually shatter the cartilage if not done correctly and then the top of your ear just flops over. Ew.)

After we were done mutilating my ears, I headed over to Jeff’s room. I can’t remember if Kari came with me there or not, but I don’t have any strong memories of her being there. There was alcohol involved, but I don’t know where it came from. We were all very drunk and there were admissions and confessions of unrequited love. There was a bunch of drunken laughter, probably some undeserved tears, and for some reason I can clearly see a combination of all of us in the community bathroom in the house. No idea why, though.

I don’t know what else I could possibly say about the night that wouldn’t either embarrass someone or be horribly inaccurate. (My relationship with Kari didn’t implode until later in the semester. Completely my fault, by the way, but not related directly to any of the events of the Bizarre Love Triangle.)

So if only by virtue of its title, New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle” would deserve a place on The End of the Eighties, but it runs deeper than that. Lyrically, it’s one of the band’s least cryptic tunes, and was their first US hit, landing them on numerous late ’80s soundtracks.

Hailing from the “synth” side B of the album Brotherhood (side A being the “rock” side), it’s a remarkably bright song for the band. Most New Order compositions have a decidedly dark undertone, perhaps a lingering residue from the band’s previous incarnation. “Bizarre Love Triangle” is downright bouncy, carrying the listener along on a wave of keyboards and percussion, pushing any concerns over romantic entanglements blissfully out of mind.

Marvel Unbound - DC and Marvel Present: Batman vs. the Incredible Hulk

A while back, I was digging around in some boxes of old stuff my parents had delivered to our house that were mostly filled with books and toys from my childhood. My old James Bond books, my original Star Wars and G.I. Joe action figures and vehicles, my football cards, a basketball program from a trip to the Richfield Coliseum to see the World B. Free-led Cleveland Cavaliers against the Philadelphia 76ers, novelizations of WarGames, E.T. the Extraterrestrial, and Star Wars were all uncovered. My Marvel Illustrated Books were also in there. I mention these in my book Deus ex Comica: The Rebirth of a Comic Book Fan as a sort of precursor to today’s trade paperbacks.

I had Marvel’s comic adaptations of Conan the Barbarian and Blade Runner, along with collections of Avengers, Daredevil, and the Fantastic Four among the black-and-white Marvel Illustrated Books. But there was another book in the box that I somehow overlooked when I first rooted through it, and didn’t stumble upon it until a week or so back when I was looking for some other things in the basement. This other book is that same mass paperback size as the Marvel Illustrated Books, but this one was printed “In Full Color!” It’s DC and Marvel Present: Batman vs. The Incredible Hulk.

Besides 1982’s baxter-papered Marvel and DC Present: The Uncanny X-Men and the New Teen Titans in “Apokolips... Now!” single issue, this is the only other DC/Marvel crossover story I own. It reprints the last issue of the DC Special Series line, which began in 1977 and ran for 27 issues before ending with this “Fall 1981” dated book.

The single issue sized original printing of this story went for $2.50, but I shelled out an extra forty-five cents for this in book format. For some perspective, the going rate for Marvel’s monthly issues was fifty-cents at the time, although the aforementioned X-Men/Teen Titans book set me back two bucks.

The Len Wein written story finds the ever-wandering Dr. Robert Bruce Banner working odd jobs under an alias. He’s trying to get close to an experimental Gamma-Gun that the Gotham City Branch of Wayne Research is developing, believing it could spell the eradication of Banner’s rampaging alter ego, the Hulk. Similarly, the mechano-Skrull amalgam entity known as Shaper of Worlds is also after the gun because gamma radiation seems to alleviate his anguish. He sends the Joker into Wayne Research to steal the Gamma-Gun and the battles unfold from there across five “chapters” (much like the old Giant-Size Marvel books), bookended by a prologue and an epilogue.

What I remembered most about the story were specific Jose Garcia Lopez illustrated and Dick Giordano embellished panels, like the Joker offing Kenny, one of his own henchmen, with the poison-dipped thorns of a rose boutonnière for insinuating the Joker is afraid of Shaper of Worlds. There’s also the full-page shot of Hulk bear-hugging Batman, then later another full-pager of Banner and Bruce Wayne shaking hands with their shadows revealing their respective alter egos, and the giant Dough-Creature absorbing and containing the Hulk!

Touted on the cover as containing “The Blazing Battle You Never Expected to See!”, the 160 or so pages pack their fair share of action. Beyond just the headline DC and Marvel heroes and villains of the story, we get a nice cross-section of cameos from both sides of the fence. Commissioner Gordon, Alfred, Killer Moth, Two-Face, and Scarecrow show up from DC’s lineup, while Marvel offers Abomination, the Leader, Rhino, General Thunderbolt Ross, Doc Sampson, and Rick Jones.

Although DC and Marvel Present: Batman vs. The Incredible Hulk is not my typical reading choice (I’ve never been a huge fan of the publisher crossovers, either back in the day or now), I enjoyed the nostalgia uncovered in this little gem and time travelling back to the world of my 11-year-old self, if only for an hour or so.

The End of the Eighties, Track 12

“Time Has Got Nothing to Do with It”
Peter Murphy
Love Hysteria
1988

Peter Murphy’s Love Hysteria album is another with close associations with Pam. She made me a mix tape early on in our relationship that began with Donovan’s “Hurdy Gurdy Man” (genius song!) and included the likes of Alphaville’s “Forever Young”, Real Life’s “Send Me an Angel”, and a one-two punch of “Dragnet Drag” and “Indigo Eyes” from Murphy.

(“Dragnet Drag” side note: I originally thought Murphy was singing “World-proof world” instead of “Whirlpools whirl” the first time I heard the song, and even though I’ve known the proper lyrics for decades, there is still a part of me that stubbornly maintains my reading of it would be just as appropriate.)

Like a lot of my punk attitude, my love of this music was unlocked by Pam but grew into something wholly my own. I devoured the entire Bauhaus genealogy: the original band, Dali’s Car, Tones on Tail, Love and Rockets, and all the other side and solo projects. Murphy’s first three solo albums (1986’s Should the World Fail to Fall Apart, 1988’s Love Hysteria, 1990’s Deep) were paramount to the expansion of my musical appreciation, and I love them equally to this day.

As much as I loved those two tracks Pam put on the mix tape, it was the quiet romance of “Time Has Got Nothing to Do with It” that really spoke to me. Love Hysteria was the first album with Murphy’s new backing band, the Hundred Men, and they positively shine on this love song. After a minute-and-a-half of subtle keyboards and ringing bells, Murphy’s rich vocals usher in a solid rhythm section, and the song evolves from delicate to muscular without ever feeling overwhelming.

Murphy’s lyrics here are understated, instead playing to a feeling more than any specific or overt emotion. While Love Hysteria is solid from beginning to end, “Time Has Got Nothing to Do with It” is the point at which Murphy truly finds his voice and steps from the looming shadows of his idols (Bowie and Iggy Pop) and his past (Bauhaus).

The Return of the Thin White Duke

David Bowie
20 June 1990: Richfield Coliseum, Richfield, Ohio

Before moving to Central Florida in August 1990, I had some incredible concert-going experiences growing up in Northeast Ohio. By virtue of my connections at the record store I worked at, I knew the box office manager of the Richfield Coliseum, the main concert venue in Northeast Ohio at the time (and the home of the Cleveland Cavaliers from 1974 until they moved to Gund Arena – now Quicken Loans Arena – 20 years later). So I had connections for good concert seats, and I took advantage of the opportunity twice: once for front-row, center seats for the Cure’s Prayer Tour on August 29, 1989, and again for David Bowie’s Sound + Vision Tour on June 20, 1990.

This was at a time when it wasn’t easy to get pictures at a show; you didn’t have cameras built into your cell phones. Hell, you didn’t have cell phones. I attended the Bowie show with the box office manager, and snuck in a camera (he knew I was doing it). During the latter half of the show I pulled out the camera and snapped off a quick picture. Almost immediately, security started towards me, intent on confiscating the camera, but a member of Bowie’s road crew who we had befriended at the front of the stage intervened and called off the security dogs. I was then free to snap as many shots as I wanted. At one point, the road crew guy even motioned for Bowie to come up and pose directly in front of me, resulting in some spectacular photos (the best ones are below) – and I can only imagine how much more impressive the photos would be if I’d had a half-way decent camera at the time.

During the encore, after I had blown through the entire roll of film (yes, film), Bono joined Bowie on stage for an incredible rendition of “Jean Genie” mixed with Van Morrison’s “Gloria”. I do wish I’d had film left in the camera, but I was so mesmerized by the fact that not only was I staring Bowie in the face but also Bono, I probably wouldn’t have been able to take a good picture.

After the show, we chatted with Bowie’s road crew some more, and I was able to snag the setlist directly off the stage. I have kept that setlist, along with the guitar pick, ticket stub, photos, and negatives from that night in a cigar box for 20 years. Recently, all these memories and the desire to dig out the physical evidence of that long ago night were stirred up by a Twitter conversation with friends and couldn’t be ignored.

I tried directly scanning the negatives into our photo software, but couldn’t get a clean print, so I ended up scanning some of the photos I had developed two decades ago directly into the computer. At the time I took the photos, I had no idea about photo composition or lighting or the proper use of a flash, and considering the quality of camera I probably had, it’s a miracle any of the photos came out at all. A couple of them are horrible, but a handful, amazingly, actually look pretty good.

When I have mentioned attending the Sound + Vision Tour to older Bowie fans and rock snobs in the years since, I’m often met with derision, but seeing Bowie that night with his then-musical director Adrian Belew, and a Bono encore... well, that was religion to me.

(As a cool side note, five-and-a-half years before I would meet her, my wife was also in the house that night, taking in the show from the rafters seats.)

Marvel Unbound - The Immortal Iron Fist Omnibus

I didn’t read any Power Man and Iron Fist comics back in the day. In fact, it wasn’t until I started reading things like the House of M trade paperback and the current New Avengers run and playing Marvel: Ultimate Alliance that I really got to know who Luke Cage, née Power Man, really is. And Iron Fist? Well, I didn’t know who he was beyond a kelly green and lemon yellow costume obviously born out of the Me decade obsession with chop-socky film culture until I started reading Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction’s revival title.

It’s no secret I’m a fan of Brubaker and Fraction. So it should come as no surprise that I love what they did in energizing this Marvel ’70s staple character. Back in 2007, my local comic book shop guy knew I was reading Brubaker on Captain America, and recommended I give The Immortal Iron Fist a try. I was blown away by the first trade paperback collection and immediately started picking up the current monthly issues on the shelves. Knowing how cohesive the first story arc was, I put off reading “The Seven Capital Cites of Heaven” storyline until it was complete, eventually taking them all in one sitting.

After I had collected the entire run, I bought the story in trade paperback and immediately reread The Immortal Iron Fist, Volume 1: The Last Iron Fist and Volume 2: The Seven Capital Cities of Heaven in quick succession. And when Marvel solicited The Immortal Iron Fist Omnibus last year, I couldn’t resist its call. My amazing wife came through in a huge way by ensuring this gorgeous book found its way under the Christmas tree.

Because this title was originally recommended to me before I was completely aware of who Brubaker and Fraction were, and I was fairly ambivalent about the character going in, a large part of the appeal was initially David Aja’s art. If ever there was a poster child for cover art that can sell a book, the first year and a half or so of Immortal Iron Fist are it. I was consistently blown away month after month by Aja’s (and other’s) cover art on the title, and if I hadn’t been reading the book I would have definitely been considering it on the strength of what was peering out from the shelves of the local comic book shop. And Aja’s interiors are the best of the series, a perfect pairing of story and art.

The tales contained within by Brubaker and Fraction and illustrated by Aja create one of the richest tapestries of character history, ongoing adventure, and Eastern mysticism. The writers introduce a simple but compelling premise to the Iron Fist mythos: that for sixty-six generations there has always been an Iron Fist. This “legacy power” idea enabled the writers to weave one-offs into the title (two within the ongoing series – issues #7 and #15; and two over the course of book – Annual #1 and Orson Randall & the Green Mist of Death; all collected here) chronicling the exploits of past Iron Fists and add emotional weight to the current character.

Although I have heard others complain about it being disrupted by the sequential placement of some of the one-offs, there is a logical flow to the omnibus. It moves from “The Last Iron Fist Story,” introducing Orson Randall to the mythos, to the traditional battle between the seven Capital Cities of Heaven’s analogous Immortal Weapons that occurs each generation.

As Danny Rand’s immediate predecessor as the Iron Fist, the first story arc is as much Orson’s story as it is Danny’s. Much of the history around Orson and his friendship with Danny’s father Wendell is explored here. Brubaker and Fraction weave a familiar theme into the book, one of brothers. There is Danny and Orson, Orson and Wendell, Wendell and Davos (the Steel Serpent and one of the book’s antagonists). That last relationship in particular echoes Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow’s from Marvel’s original G.I. Joe series.

Both James Hilton’s book and Frank Capra’s film adaptation of Lost Horizon are among my favorites of their respective mediums, and I see elements of both woven throughout these Immortal Iron Fist tales. From the hidden city concept to the references of the “Kuen-Lun” mountains in Lost Horizon (“K’un Lun” is the Iron Fist’s city) to the powers of Eastern mysticism, there are threads throughout Brubaker and Fraction’s stories that lead directly – if not intentionally – back to that influential work.

As far as the omnibus itself goes, it’s the complete package and near-perfect in every way, right down to the color-coordinated green cover with yellow-gold embossed lettering found under the dust jacket. Apart from the stories contained within, the book also includes a wealth of extras. The Origin of Danny Rand (reprinting Marvel Premiere #15 and #16 with a Fraction framing story) is incorporated here, along with the repackaged and original Marvel Premiere covers.

Spanish artist Aja’s covers for the first six issues of this new series are truly graphic art, and seeing them presented in the omnibus, unencumbered by corporate logos and UPCs, is stunning. The curtain is pulled back a bit on Aja’s cover process for issue #1, along with the inks for that cover and pages from issues #0, #1, and #7. Eleven pages of character designs with commentary by Aja are also presented (this feature has quickly become one of my favorites among collected edition extras). Along with Aja’s work, we get Gabriele Dell’Otto and Kaare Andrews’ variant covers.

Text-based extras include the lengthy Iron Fist OHOTMU entry, the original story pitch by Brubaker and Fraction, original script excerpts for issues #0 and #1, and a slight-but-fun early “Behind-the-Scenes E-Mail Exchange” between Brubaker, Fraction, and Aja about the development of the Mechagorgons.

My one and only complaint is that Civil War: Choosing Sides (The Immortal Iron Fist #0) is presented in the back of the book as a part of the extras when it actually should be read first from a chronology perspective. But that’s hardly worth getting your little yellow silk booties in a twist over when everything else presented here is spot-on!

I can’t recommend The Immortal Iron Fist Omnibus highly enough. Other than the seminal Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars, Brubaker and Fraction’s run on this title is the only comic series I have spent money on and read in three formats: single issues, trade paperback, and omnibus. And even after reading and rereading this story so many times, it has been worth every penny.