As you probably know, the folks who would have brought you Comic-Con International next month will instead be bringing you Comic-Con at Home, a series of online video panels that will replicate (somewhat) the panels you might attend if they had the con and you were there for it. Some or all of these panels will be recorded in advance and I'm recording a Jack Kirby Tribute Panel and a Cartoon Voices Panel, plus I'll be on two or three others.
No, we are not going to attempt to do Quick Draw! Several folks came to me with elaborate (too elaborate) ideas on how to reconfigure and webcast that much-attended event. I decided none of them were technically feasible and of course, they all lacked the two most important elements, which are that it's live and that there's an audience that can be heard laughing at what the cartoonists do. If you want to see how awkward it would be to not have the second of these, just watch Bill Maher's show these days.
The Kirby panel and that Cartoon Voices panel will debut online during the dates when Comic-Con would have happened (July 22-26) and later will be viewable on my YouTube page, which you can reach at www.newsfromme.tv.
In the meantime, I am resuming my own webcasting next week. On Tuesday, June 23, I will be doing a long, live one-on-one interview with my pal Jim Brochu, who knows more about the theater than I know about…well, anything, really. If you love backstage showbiz anecdotes, you will overdose on what is heard when Jim and I get together. My current plan is to do one of these Conversations with some friend of mine every Tuesday night.
Then on Saturday, June 27, I will attempt another of the Cartoon Voices Panel done live. The last one we tried had to be halted in progress because there were riots and car fires being set a few blocks from me. Things seem to be quieter now so we'll give it another try with most of the folks who were on that panel. The ones who were on the one we couldn't complete and aren't on this one will be on other ones. Details to follow.