Posted in: Comics | Tagged: astro city, Comics, dc, eccc, entertainment, gail simone, vertigo

How Did Astro City Get Its Name? The Vertigo Panel At ECCC

Ian Melton spent a leisurely hour in the Vertigo panel at ECCC for Bleeding Cool. Panellists included Shelly Bond, Gail Simone, Kurt Busiek, Mitch Gerards and Shaun Aldridge.

Gail Simone began talking about her Vertigo series Clean Room, in which people come face to face with their deepest fears and worst moments. She has decided that fans of the comic should now be known as "roomies". She also talked about how Jon Davis-Hunt's artwork changed her mind about swearing off redheads for a while.

"Is this going to be amazing having a video game designer/artist, designing the clean room? The answer is yes."

The question was asked – what if Kurt Busiek went into the clean room? What would come out? Busiek replied "cleanliness". Simone countered "comic trivia".

Kurt Busiek pointed out that issue 41 of Astro City will be the 100th issue. And will finally tell the story of how Astro City got its name. He also told readers that Astro City #34 will have Ron Randall as guest artist and will focus on Jack-In-The-Box's child, in high school.

Mitch Gerards talked about the heavy focus on research on Sheriff Of Babylon. He described the book as treating Post Traumatic Stress disorder as if it was a supernatural entity. And how the central characte, an Iraqi girl, can be both the victim and hero of the book.

Shawn Aldridge talked about The Dark And The Bloody, a comic about a war veteran back from Iraq with no work available aside from running moonshine. The panel talked about their worst jobs, mundane in comparison, but Kurt Busiek's was as a paper boy, while Gail Simone's was in the post office.

Talking about the Paul Dini Dark Knight: A True Batman Story comic about Dini's experience of assault in 1993, with art by Eduardo Risso – they let us know Risso will also be a guest artist on an upcoming issue of Art Ops.

There may have been little in the way of news, Gerard Way's line was announced the previous day and the Sandman spinoffs news is, apparently, not ready for public consumption yet.

But Ian did walk away winning a Kill Your Boyfriend hardcover answering trivia questions. What can I say, he's embedded…

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