Posted in: Comics, NYCC | Tagged: comic con, entertainment, new york, new york comic con, NYCC, nycc 2016, nycc16

The Attack On Titan Anthology Is Full Of Gore. Surprisingly.

Published Thu, 06 Oct 2016 16:06:06 -0500

Last updated Sun, 09 Oct 2016 17:23:57 -0500

Madeline Ricchiuto writes,

Panelists Genevive Valentine, Jeanine Schaefer, Brendan Fletcher, and Paolo Rivera talked about their work on the Attack on Titan Anthology, a collection of one-offs taking place in the Attack on Titan universe.

The book is being sold at the Kondansha booth #2109 and will ship to comic shops later this month. NYCC has several variant editions including a Diamond variant by Phil Jiminez, a Barnes and Noble variant by Faith Erin Hicks, and a Paul Pope variant through Books-a-Million. There are also convention exclusive shirts and posters.

When talking about what drew them to the project, Schaefer told a story about how Babs Tarr just "wanted to draw people being ripped apart." Valentine wanted to deal with the sheer amount of property damage. Fletcher wanted to escape DC's ratings restrictions. Rivera wanted to take apart the world of Attack on Titan and deal with the emotional side of living surrounded by walls and being essentially trapped.

Of the four panelists, each one of them seemed drawn to the sheer visceral violence of the Attack on Titan property. "People need to feel unsafe," Schaefer said. "This is a universe where the main character might die at any moment." Discussion of Titan Vomit and entrails followed. Gore is the order of the day, it seems.

Attack on Titan will be releasing more content from other creators within the Attack on Titan universe, including a digital only comic and an app. So, we have not seen the last of this mainstream Comics meets AoT deal.

Fans seemed very enthused, but also concerned about whether or not these stories would be considered "canon." Which, given mainstream comics, is something it seems like none of the creators considered. The answer ended up being along the lines of "none of it is a joke, and some of it exists in different universes, like Fletcher's is in a world not unlike ours." Which, doesn't actually answer the question. Since. Mainstream comics are such a mess there isn't much concern over "canon" or "alternate universe" designations. If nothing else, it should be interesting to see how Attack on Titan fans feel about such a loosely-defined expanding universe. You can't ask a DC or Marvel creator about canon, since everything and nothing in those worlds may be canon or not canon at any given moment and will likely change within the next publishing cycle. This Anthology may just be the makings of an Attack on Titan Crisis. Or its just a loosely connected series of one-offs and I'm thinking too much about this.

And no, the underground is not explored much in the Anthology. Sorry guys.