This was the biggest year yet for the Chicago Comics & Entertainment Expo (aka “C2E2″), which attracted more than 42,000 comics fans to McCormick Place for three days of panels, shopping, artist sketches, and even tattoos on April 13-15.
The Avengers movie premiered just prior to C2E2, but Marvel panelists seemed to be more interested in promoting their “Avengers vs. X-Men” (AvX) comic book crossover series, which was launched at the end of March. Marvel has several digital initiatives that tie in with the AvX event, including its Infinite Comics, which use limited animation and other digital tools to enhance the stories.
In the Marvel Ultimate Universe panel, participants discussed the new Spider-Man, Miles Morales, who was bitten by a radioactive spider shortly after the death of the original Spider-Man, Peter Parker. Parker lives on in The Amazing Spider-Man, and the two stories will cross over later this year.
Dark Horse announced two new comics set in the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one based on the character Willow and the other on Spike. A third Joss Whedon series, Drusilla, which was to be written by actress Juliet Landau, has been put on hold, possibly permanently. However, work has begun on another much-delayed title, Gerard Way’s Killjoys, with Conan the Barbarian artist Becky Cloonan supplying the art. Dark Horse’s marketing director, Jeremy Atkins, also highlighted its game tie-in comics, Mass Effect and Dragon Age, both written by the game writers and designed to fill in gaps in the game storyline.
At the Archaia panel, writer and artist Royden Lepp discussed his graphic novel series “Rust,” revealing that the second volume, due out this summer, will feature a new villain. Writer Jim McCann also talked about the second volume of Return of the Dapper Men, which will take the main character, Ayden, into teenager-hood. According to Mouse Guard creator David Petersen, another volume of the “Legends of the Guard” anthology is in the works.
Valiant Entertainment previewed four comics that it’ll debut this summer, which are based on classic Valiant stories from the 1990s. The first, which came out on May 2, is X-O Manowar, the story of a Visigoth who is captured by space aliens, steals a suit of living armor, and returns to Earth in modern times. The second series, “Harbinger,” due out in June, focuses on a group of teens with psychic powers.
While C2E2 focuses more on comics and less on movies and video games than other cons, this year brought one surprise crossover guest: actor Shia LaBeouf (Holes, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), who rented a table in Artists Alley and simply showed up with a stack of his comics, taking even the show organizers by surprise. Word spread quickly, and a line of fans quickly formed as LaBeouf signed copies of his three self-published graphic novels.
Check out Good Comics for Kids, a collaborative blog covering good comics for kids by Brigid Alverson, Robin Brenner, Katherine Dacey, Lori Henderson, Esther Keller, Scott Robins, Eva Volin, and Snow Wildsmith. You can also follow them on Twitter @GoodComics4Kids.
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