Posted in: Comics | Tagged: boom studios, Bryce Carlson, Comics, entertainment, james tynion iv, matt gagnon, New York Comic Con 2014, Noelle Stephenson

Live! From The Boom Panel At NYCC 2014 With James Tynion IV, Noelle Stevenson, Bryce Carlson, And Matt Gagnon

The panel started off with an appeal to singing along with Alanis Morissette and followed by some substantial drum rhythms from Boom! A good start on a rainy day in New York, but undoubtedly the biggest day of the con.

James Tynion IV of The Woods supported the panel, along with Noelle Stevenson of Lumberjanes, Bryce Carlson, the managing editor of Boom! and Matt Gagnon, the Editor-in-Chief at Boom!

Gagnon introduced the different imprints and divisions of production at Boom! and the role of employees and fans as "partners" in the success of the business and assured that they try to interact with their fans as "authentically as possible". They avoid "talking down" to fans in the comics and refuse to produce materials that are not "up to par".

The people who "make these things" are called "creators", Gagnon joked, as if they were a separate species, at which point Tynion started flailing ape-arms as if writing, provoking laughter. The innovation at the company right now is a major directive, Carlson explained. "You can go and get superhero comics at Marvel and DC. We need to do something different", Carlson said. They need "unique voices", he said, and Lumberjanes is a "perfect example". Their mission, he said, is to find "crazy art styles" and stories and essentially let the creators do their thing.

Gagnon said that working with Mark Waid on Irredeemable taught him a lot about comics and the economy of the page, and they haven't had a chance to work with Mark again, but he's coming back in 2015. Waid appeared by video to talk about it. The artist has been announced as J.G. Jones in fully painted style. The image shown suggested the depression or dustbowl era with Model Ts and manual laborers. Jones' video played for the audience spoke about his background as a writer and desire to work with great writers. His "edgy" comic can only be published at Boom!, he explained. The instrumental music used for the videos is pretty "fancy", panelists commented, and makes them quite "intense".

Gagnon also spoke about Marguerite Bennett on Sleepy Hollow, and Noelle Stevenson who is doing back ups on the series. Bennett is doing the "spooky" stuff and Stevenson is doing the "anecdotes" where they "eat icecream and watch movies".

Gagnon also spoke about George Perez' Sirens and "pouring his heart and soul into the series" and video footage showed Perez having "fun" every day again drawing this comic.

In original comics, James Tynion's The Woods is very popular to say the least, but he also has a new series called Memetic. An image posted on Reddit and it "disintegrates all of human society and the way the human mind works". It's about the way that things change and spread, and it's an "apocalyptic horror story". He wanted to do the comic in a "very strange way", wanting three oversized issues for the last 3 days of the work, wanting to "decompress" and show moments from all over the world, and Boom! allowed him to do that. Gagnon explained that we follow a lead character who is mysteriously unaffected by the events in the comic. He said that the pitch for The Woods was one of the best he'd ever read and loved it immediately.

Tynion said Scott Snyder once asked him, "If you could only write one comic for the rest of your life, what would it look like?" and that caused Tynion to question his wide-ranging interest in genres. He decided to meld all of the disparate elements he likes in The Woods for that reason. He described the characters in the story as having traits and insecurities like his own. Gagnon and Tynion talked about the "powerlessness" of the teachers and adults in the narrative and how unsettling that is. Tynion confirmed, "This isn't a school anymore. This has to be a society".

Matt Gagnon revealed at NYCC that James Tynion IV's The Woods will go to a full 36 issues as originally pitched.

It's a real opportunity to tell such a long story with "massive scope", Gagnon said and was excited as a reader to see it.

Other titled discussed included Hexed in its return, a series that first drew widespread attention to artist Emma Rios. Michael Alan Nelson gave a heartfelt speech about the series and its place at Boom! by video. Gagnon praised Nelson's penchant for "dark urban stories".

The "next wave" or next generation at Boom! is also very important to the company, as seen in Adventure Time which appeals to children and adults alike. Capture Creatures, arriving next month through the Kaboom! imprint by Frank and Becky, is "more than you would expect out of a standard all-ages comic", Carlson said. Gagnon reminded that they've been committed to all-ages comics since 2009 in trying to "build" a new generation of readers on a "long road". This is their "second go around" after the Boom! kids imprint "went away" but they didn't "walk away" and do something "safer". One of Gagnon's "proudest moments" when they decided to "double down" and do kids stories to create the next generation of comics. "I'd like to be working in 30 years", he joked.

Roger Langridge's Abigail and the Snowmen received some attention. It's a four issue series collected into a book at the end.

David Petersen's Mouse Guard is "one of the best comics of the last 10 years", according to Gagnon and recalls being on hand when the book arrived in shops and watching readers react to encountering this new book on the shelves, so working with him now is coming "full circle" for Gagnon.

Noelle Stevenson said that working on Lumberjanes was maybe "too much fun" and they have simply tried to show "characters maybe you don't get to see enough" in a medium that's so important to us. Featuring pre-teen girls and making them "center stage" is not something that happens very often in comics, and thinking about young girls picking up the comic in shops and thinking about creating their own comics is motivating for her.

Gagnon asked how working in print comics versus digital has been different for her. She said working with a "team" is the main difference and not having to do all the elements herself. She's delighted by the artwork and colors and it's been a great experience to rely on her team to "tell a story". She likes both working on a team and being her own boss.

When asked about their thoughts on the concept "all ages" when it comes to comics, Stevenson says it comes down to style, and some things are more appropriate to different age groups, but kids shouldn't be talked down to. Tynion said he knows the tone for each of the books he's working on. If the idea came to him as a particular age group, he sticks with that general age group and older. It's a "broad base" he said. In Batman comics, that's not for the "younger side" in the same way. Gagnon said that Tynion's never really had to change much of his comics for all-ages, except there's more "cursing" at first, Tynion laughed. Stevenson added that sometimes it's faster to swear when writing and Gagnon, as editor, has the job of keeping an eye on it.

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