Apart from occasional knee agony, I had a great time at Comic-Con yesterday. My day commenced with a panel, Remembering Joe Kubert. The rememberers included Sergio Aragonés, Russ Heath, Paul Levitz, Marv Wolfman, Jon B. Cooke and Tom Yeates. Those were the folks on the panel. Audience members, including Anthony Tollin and Arlen Schumer, added their thoughts and appreciation of one of comics' most beloved creators. All spoke of his unending passion for his work, his love of teaching and the fact that he did some of his best work in his last years. That is not always humanly possible but Joe did a lot of things that were not humanly possible. We spent a nice hour missing the guy a lot.
Quick Draw! and my first Cartoon Voices panel followed in that order. The competitors this year for Quick Draw! were Sergio, Scott Shaw! and Neal Adams. Those who do not think of Neal as a speedy artist were quite surprised and impressed, especially when I made him draw a mash-up of one of his signature characters, Deadman, and Miss Piggy. Peter David, looking like he was never sick a day in his life, played our Secret Words game and later, we played it with the only person I know who's a superstar of British television, Jonathan Ross. My good pal Leonard Maltin played a new game I devised — Secret Movies, in which the cartoonists drew movie titles and he had to guess what they were. If we'd given Leonard the name of the director or the cast list, he'd have gotten every one in two seconds but he was a little stumped by Sergio's drawing of Ordinary People.
Photo by Bruce Guthrie
Geez, I look like my father in this picture.
I thought the Cartoon Voices panel, which followed immediately in the same room, was one of our best. We had up there Grey DeLisle, Scott Menville, Kari Wahlgren, Chris Cox, Dave Boat and Michael Leon-Wooley. Michael told the funniest story anyone's ever told on one of these but I can't do it justice. You'll have to wait for the YouTube version, coming soon I'm sure to a computer screen near you. The cast did a spectacular reading of my hoary Snow White script and were joined for the finale by that superstar of kids' TV, Chuck McCann. More on this when there's video to show you.
My day continued with That 70's Panel on which we discussed comics of that era with Tony Isabella, Val Mayerik, George Perez, Marty Pasko and Elliott Maggin. Then I interviewed Leonard Maltin for an hour and presented him, on behalf of the convention, with the con's prestigious Inkpot Award. Then two parties. Then dinner with Peter and Kathleen David, and Maggie Thompson…and boy, was I tired.
I'd write more but I have a 10 AM panel on Jack Kirby, followed by three others today. I also have a knee that sometimes makes it rough to get over to the convention center so I'd better allow extra time. More later. If you're here, I hope you're having anywhere near as good a time as I am…