Even though it’s been done for over a week, I’m still processing my experience at NYCC. It was a long four days that was packed with, well, pretty much everything you can imagine from a comic con.
There were a ton of experiences I had at the con that left impressions on me. Seeing how long the food lines were and how lackluster DC’s presence was both shocked me to no end. Seeing how many press outlets were covering the con was pretty cool. Seeing that horrible Arizona Iced Tea “Big Cans” ad, as I mentioned last week, sucked.
But I have to say that I was pretty impressed with Charles Soule.
Before NYCC he was just a name on a couple of books that I read. I knew nothing of him other than he wrote Red Lanterns and Swamp Thing. I gathered that he had DC’s trust because he was taking over Swamp Thing, but the fact that he was on Red Lanterns also gave me the notion that DC didn’t have total faith in him. In fact, he was so anonymous that I thought he might have been another of Scott Snyder’s protégées.
However my impression of Soule changed after I saw him in the first panel, but it wasn’t necessarily a positive thing. In the first panel I saw him, he talking about Swamp Thing, but it came off more like frantic pitching of the title. As I sat there listening to him explain his run on Swamp Thing so far, it sounded desperate and, as someone who’s been enjoying Soule’s run on Swamp Thing, it made me sad. I felt bad that he felt to need to try to sell people on the book.
Then I saw him again in the Green Lantern “Lights Out” panel and my impression changed. Again, he took time to explain in great detail his on Red Lanterns up to this point. And again, it could have been perceived as desperate. But I made an adjustment within myself and I realized that what I was interpreting as desperation or frantic was really just excitement. Soule is excited about his books and he wants to share that excitement, he wants it to spread.
The thing that allowed me to make that adjustment was when I saw Scott Snyder in the Batman panel. I’d seen Snyder before, at last year’s Baltimore Con, but he was much more subdued. Maybe it was because he’d gone out the night before or maybe he was still getting accustomed to his fame in the comic book community or something, but the guy was seriously low-key.
This time around he was full of excitement. He wasn’t necessarily kinetic or loud, but he was enthusiastic about Zero Year. Zero Year is a book that doesn’t really need any selling. It’s Batman, with a proven creative team. Yet Snyder was still excited about it. He spoke so much about it that he gave away minor spoilers. It was actually pretty fun to see, especially when contrasted to the mellow first impression he made on me last year.
Still, that was then I realized the difference between my perceptions and the reality of the situation. Perhaps I was jaded or maybe I just hadn’t seen anyone that excited about comic books in awhile, but I was totally wrong. And what’s more; Soule’s excitement was infectious.
What’s really crazy is how busy the guy is. He’s a lawyer who’s writing Red Lanterns, Superman/Wonder Woman and Swamp Thing for DC. Plus he’s writing She Hulk and Thunderbolts for Marvel. Plus he’s got creator owned titles like Letter 44. I have no idea how he does it.
So there you have it; Charles Soule and Scott Snyder were the two creators who made the most positive impressions on me at NYCC. And I want to thank them, not only for their writing, but also for helping me see things differently.
Anyway, it’s Wednesday, which means there’s fresh new comics that you can pick up from your local comic shop. Please do so.
