Marty grills Jason’s encyclopedic knowledge of Doctor Who for details and history of Doctor Who comics, and then we discuss The Ten Doctors and the Torchwood Babiez. Jason mentions in passing that there is a podcast about Doctor Who comics. Maybe he’ll post a link in the comments, or you could start your search for it at the Doctor Who Podcast Alliance. We make sure Jason plugs his daily doctor who blog over at Doctor Who Every Day.

Much ado is made about the forthcoming Wonder Woman TV atrocity.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #050 (35 MB, 75 minutes)

Keynote Gene Luen Yang, author of American Born Chinese, the first graphic novel to be nominated for a National Book Award and the first to win the American Library Association’s Printz Award, will lead the way through this one-day conference.

Registration opens Saturday, May 22nd, online at: www.hclib.org

You may also register by phone on or after May 22nd at 952-847-8800.

Sessions will include:

• Craft talks on illustration and writing
• Breaking into graphic novels and comic books
• Zines, self-publication and promotion

When you register (it’s FREE through some deal with the library), you get to specify which sessions you’re interested in. Aside from the keynote, of course, I’m particularly excited for “Writing for Comic Books & Graphic Novels with Zander Cannon”. I’m signed up, anyone else want to join me? (Thanks to my co-worker Michael for the heads up on this!)

Once I do catch up (and even before), I’ll be using the awesome Piperka to keep track of my progress! Rob mentioned Piperka in the panel, and it’s basically a very light-weight site designed to do nothing more than keep track of your progress in all the webcomics you read. The sweet thing is that it lets you know which comics have new entries since you last visited, making it a perfect one-stop location for webcomic reading.

Rob (and the other panelists) also mentioned a bunch of other webcomics, including Menage a 3 (which florence and I just read all the way from the beginning–contains mild nudity). If I find more good ones, maybe I’ll post them here also.

And speaking of Judy Garland, one of the things that I enjoyed in particular about the Windy City Comicon was the venue.  The convention was held at the Center on Halsted, a GLBT community center in Chicago’s Boystown area.  According to the organizers, the space was chosen based on size, cost and proximity.  Me, I just enjoyed the fact that it was in Boystown and afterwards, it was so easy to hit the bars.  Also, most conventions have food options that resemble what you might find at a high school cafeteria with prices comparable to a major league sporting event.  The Center on Halsted is connected to a fully stocked Whole Foods.  Quite possibly the best convention sustenance I’ve ever experienced.

It looks like the organizers are going to give it a go next year, and I look forward to making this a reason for an annual trip to Chicago.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #019 (23 MB, 51 minutes)

There are going to be over 200 artists in attendance this time around. It’s FallCon’s 20th anniversary, and they’ve moved into the grandstand on the state fair grounds.

Those who arrive early will have a chance to get one of these limited edition sketch cards. Other highlights include panels pretty much all day both days, a wedding on Saturday, a free HeroClicks tournament, door prizes, and much, much more!

The fallcon myspace page has some additional information for those who want to know more.

MCBA FALLCON COMIC BOOK CELEBRATION
October 4 & 5, 2008 – 10AM to 5PM Both Days!
Minnesota State Fairgrounds – In the Grandstand!
1265 Snelling Avenue – Saint Paul, MN 55108
20th ANNIVERSARY 1989-2008

Admission is just $11.00 per adult. Good for both days! Children 9 & under are FREE!
Get $1.00 Off Your Admission With A Canned Food Shelf Donation!

I’ll keep trying to find a link to the proclamation, and update this when I find one.

There was much banter — repartee even! — at the expense of scoopage. After an audience member playfully accused Whedon of liking to kill off his female characters, Harris deadpanned, “You do kill a lot of chicks.” Retorted Whedon, “I have two tricks. You’re either out, or your dead.” Fillion, meanwhile, cracked some choice phallic “Captain Hammer” jokes, then claimed that Harris, vis-a-vis Doogie Howser, invented the blog. And Harris? He claimed he didn’t recall said show, referring to that time in his life as his “heroin years.”

But there were a few revelations among the revelry. On the ever-enduring Buffy front, we learned:
• Joyce Summers had Whedon’s favorite death on Buffy. Said Whedon: It was “the most time I got to spend with something that close to me.” Awww.
• Oz will return to Dark Horse’s most-excellent Buffy comic(!).
• Willow was basically outed only because Oz left the show.
• And, no, Whedon was never going make Xander gay.

And in Dr. Horrible news:
• Harris did some of his own MTV Cribs-like choreography in the musical, including that beloved shoulder shimmy in the second act.
• While filming, Whedon sang as Hammer to Felicia’s character. And cowriter Maurissa Tancharoen has it on tape.
• They’re hosting a contest for “Evil League of Evil” video submissions that are no longer than three minutes. The top 10 will be on the Dr. Horrible DVD.
• The Dr. Horrible soundtrack will be available for download in a couple of weeks.
• Lastly, if you want to be an agent of doom, and rock an iPhone, you too can log onto the very same interface Doc Horrible used in the film at www.thesoftwire.com/horrible_remote.html.

Pretty cool, huh? Here is more coverage of the panel including a video, and confirmation that Whedon said there will be more Dr. Horrible.

More comic-con news: EW’s Popwatch, Wizard’s SDCC news central, and finally Newsarama’s coverage guide. There’s tons more where that came from, but who has time to read it all?

From left to right this is Florence, Myself (Marty), Sean Whelan (from Raging Bullets), Chris Neseman (from Around Comics), Jim Segulin (also from Raging Bullets), Matt Kramer’s wife, Matt Kramer (from Shade’s Journal), Mike, Jason (poking his head up over Mike’s shoulder), and Susie.

There are some other photos from the trip posted on flickr.

Our very own Jason will be appearing in the “GLBT SF&F that Everyone Should Read” panel that starts at 9:30 pm TONIGHT.

The full list of special guests this year is especially impressive. Other comic book panelists include John Kovalic, Len Wein, Greg Weisman and Marv Wolfman.

We talk about Wizard World extensively (duh), Wonder Woman, Warren Ellis, FreakAngels, Batman: Gotham Knight, Madman, The Filth, Grant Morrison, jason’s love of Image Comics (and Zombies), x-men, Chicago comic book shops: Brain Storm (and the Comic Book Queers Podcast) & Dark Tower (and the Around Comics Podcast), Jason’s green skin fetish (mostly for Hulkling and Changeling), Karate Kid and Ralph Macchio, (but not Ralph Macchio the Marvel Editor, the not the Karate Kid from Legion), and a bouncing zombie jesus f-ing christ.

Listen to ReadComics.org Podcast Episode #010 (37.4 MB, 1:21 hours)

MICROCON COMIC BOOK CONVENTION
SUNDAY APRIL 27, 2008 – 10AM TO 4PM
MINNESOTA STATE FAIRGROUNDS – PROGRESS CENTER
1621 RANDALL AVE – ST. PAUL, MN 55108

1. The Source is our local (awesome) comic book shop. Their latest mass email was the inspiration for this post. They are having a midnight release next week for the new Dark Tower series. They’ll be open from 10pm to 1am next tues/wed. They don’t mention if they’ll have all of that wednesday’s new comics for sale, or just the Dark Tower issue. They do mention: “Who knows what other specials we’ll have at this event?” (As of this writing, the source’s website does appear to be “down”, as when you go there, you get a directory listing. Maybe they’re inviting us to look through their files?)

2. The email also plugged the relatively far-off Microcon, which is a local comic “con” (read: giant vendor sale with some creators –mostly locals– also present) that is slated for Sunday April 27, 2008. This website is slightly more bearable in that it is actually a website. It doesn’t have any information about upcoming conventions though, only the ones that were held last year.