Looks like the Con War has opened a new front: Wizard Entertainment CEO Gareb Shamus has purchased the New England Comic Con to add to his ever-growing slate of comics and pop-culture shows. According to a press release posted on the Wizard site, the Con's previous owners, Larry Harrison and Jerry Tournasm of retailer Harrison's Comics & Collectibles, will continue to work for the show.

The latest addition to a roster of Shamus/Wizard shows that includes Anaheim Comic Con, Toronto Comic Con, Big Apple Comic Con, and Wizard World Philadelphia, the Wizard World New England Comic Con, as it will apparently be called, is not to be confused with either the Boston Comic Con -- whose guests for its April 10-11 show next year include Jim Lee, Mike Mignola, Eric Powell, and Bill Sienkiewicz at the top of a pretty impressive roster -- nor the previous Wizard World Boston show, held once (in 2005) before being canceled. Whether Shamus's latest attempt at a Boston event will engender the same sort of rivalry as his other cons have with such shows as Heroes Con, the Long Beach Comic Con, Fan Expo Canada, and Reed Exhibition's New York Comic Con and C2E2 remains to be seen.

More, undoubtedly, as it develops.

In front of a packed house at September's Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland, a group of critics from around the comics Internet and beyond talked shop at the annual Critics Roundtable panel. Moderated by Bill Kartalopolous, the panel featured Comics Journal founder Gary Groth, New York Times critic Douglas Wolk, bloggers Joe "Jog" McCulloch, Tucker Stone, and Rob Clough, and a pair of Robot 6ers, Chris Mautner and myself. I'm happy to present a transcript of the panel below.

Sure, I'm a little biased, but I think it's a fascinating discussion. The topics include the differences between print and online criticism, the notion of "the critical discourse," negative critiques and much more. For some panelists, things have already changed since the panel took place: Groth, who gets quizzed on why he isn't a bigger contributor to the comics Internet, is getting ready to jump in with both feet with the relaunched Comics Journal, of which Clough is going to be a part; while my membership in Robot 6 wasn't even a glimmer in JK Parkin's eye yet. And with a good deal of familiarity between the critics -- I believe seven out of eight have written for the Journal and half write for The Savage Critic(s) -- the back-and-forth was fluid.

If you'd like to listen along, you can download this mp3 recording of the panel. It's worth it just to hear the chaos surrounding Tucker's bathroom break.

Click the jump to read the transcript. Now, without further ado...

Bill Kartalopolous: Look at this crowd! And I mean the panelists. [Laughter] Ba-dum-bum-bum. Okay. Hi, my name is Bill Kartalopolous. I'm the programming coordinator here at SPX. I also teach classes about comics and illustration at Parsons, and write about comics for Publishers Review and Print magazine. Publishers Weekly is actually what it's called, isn't it? It could be called Publishers Review. I just look at the number on the check. Then I cry. [Laughter]

Rob Clough: Is it a handwritten check?

Bill: Yeah, right. I don't think the signature's even handwritten. Okay, so, this is our annual Critics Roundtable. I'm very, very excited that there's so many notable critics here at the show this weekend that I just had to invite everyone on to the panel. I'm really briefly going to introduce everyone and mention one or two of the publications they write for. Some of them write for many, many publications, but it would take probably the remainder of the panel to communicate all of our CVs collectively. But going in, I think, alphabetical order, as I have them here: Rob Clough [prounounced "claw"]...

Rob: "Clow." [rhymes with cow or Mao]

Bill: "Clow." Sorry, I always do that.

Rob: And I always correct it.

Bill: Frequent comics reviewer for the seems-to-be indefinitely on hiatus Sequart website --

Rob: Coming back soon!

Bill: Coming back soon to a computer monitor near you. But now reviewing on your own High-Low blog, and writing many many reviews, as many as three a week it seems, very very frequent reviewer. We have Sean Collins, Sean T. Collins -- I always do that too... [Laughter] ... who maintains his own blog called Attentiondeficitdisorderly All Too Flat... ?

Sean T. Collins: Close enough.

Bill: What did I get wrong?

Sean: The "All" isn't in there. The "All" is silent. [Laughter]

Bill: Okay, Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat. Right. But you also write for The Savage Critic group blog, and you've written for a number of publications, from Wizard to Maxim to many others I'm flaking on right now. A very frequent writer for all of those venues and more. Gary Groth all the way at the end, a person probably without whom many of us would not be in this room. The co-founder of The Comics Journal, co-founder and co-publisher of Fantagraphics Books, longstanding editorial director of The Comics Journal, the writer of many pieces of savage criticism that we've all admired over the years, setting a real standard for everyone else.

Gary Groth: Not all. [Laughter]

Bill: Not all. But someone who we're always happy to have on this panel. We have Chris Mautner [pronounced "Mawtner"]...

Chris Mautner: "Mowtner." [rhymes with cow-tner or Mao-tner]

Bill: "Mowtner." It's gonna be one of those panels. [Laughter] He's frequently reviewed comics for the Patriot News in Harrisburg?

Chris: In Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. I had a column there.

Bill: And also a frequent writer for the Robot 6 blog at Comic Book Resources. And most of what you do for that is reviewing.

Chris: Reviewing, and we have some column features, regular features, and kinda daily blogging. And I also do reviews for The Comics Journal.

Bill: And immediately to your right, Joe McCulloch?

Joe McCulloch: Yes. Perfect.

Bill: Phew! AKA Jog?

Joe: Yes.

Bill: Author of the blog Jog Likes Comics?

Joe: Yes.

Bill: Okay. Also writing for Comics Comics magazine, The Savage Critic, Bookforum, among many other venues. Also recently started writing a comics column, a kind of comics and movies column, for the ComiXology website called... "The Watchman."

Joe: [Laughs] I inherited that, yes.

Bill: I should hope so! [Laughter] Immediately to my left, Tucker Stone maintains the Factual Opinion blog, featuring many comics reviews by yourself and also by your significant other. I think those are the only two contributors, or do you have any other...

Tucker: No, we have a couple other people, but for comics it's just my wife and I.

Bill: And you've also recently started doing a series of video reviews for the ComiXology website.

Tucker: I guess you could call it that.

Bill: In which you sort of performatively communicate opinions about comics and the comics industry and culture...

Tucker: Okay. [Laughter]

Bill: Okay, something like that?

Tucker: Yeah, that's accurate.

Bill: And right over there, Douglas Wolk, a man we all know and love who writes for many many publications, including Publishers Weekly, or if you prefer, Publishers Review. [Laughter] Very frequently recently writing for The New York Times, very long pieces of comics criticism. Also the author of the book <i>Reading Comics</i>, and you've been in 8,000 other magazines, newspapers, websites, also The Savage Critic, et cetera.

So I think we've covered everyone, basically. And that's about time... [Laughter] There are a lot of issues we could start with, and there are two that leap to mind the most. I'm not actually sure which one's better, but they're both related. One of the things I'm interested in, because so many of the people here on this panel write most frequently on the Internet and often for their own fora, their own blogs, or at least websites that are written collectively by a small group of people. So I'm interested in the question of how the Internet has affected comics criticism in good ways and in bad ways. That's a very broad and general question. Since many of you are writing for the Internet, maybe the easiest place to start -- anyone can jump in on this -- is what you perceive as being one of the advantages of this new, pretty much dominant mass medium in our lives that's leeching the life out of everything else. Joe, do you have any thoughts on this?

Joe: Yeah, well, one of the plus sides of the Internet, definitely, is that you can respond quickly to something -- not necessarily a new book that's come out, but something that you're interested in and studying, so to speak. I tend to study things after I read them. So you can get things out there quickly, and then they're out there. You could find them on search engines. Whether they could be found, or whether they're permament, is another question, but the potential is there to access them easier than you can something that's, say, in a bookstore, or in a magazine longbox. I think that's a good plus. And of course this is a minus too, but you can write how you want, you can address works the way you feel like you want to, you can just change topics if you want to, you don't have to feel constrained to write about only new things, about only a certain genre, about only a certain format.

Douglas: It enables conversations, too, which is what's most rewarding for me -- not just seeing the article but seeing the responses to it and the comments and the things that people write in response to it and other responses to that. But the conversation happens much more quickly and much more broadly than it was able to in the past, and I love that.

Sean: I guess this is a little bit obvious, but there's no gatekeeper, there's no editor, there's no publisher to answer to. So, speaking for myself, and I think Joe, and probably Tucker, the Internet is where I first ever wrote about comics -- I think probably, maybe on the Savage Dragon message board, and then on the Comics Journal message board, and then on my blog. Then a few years ago, Dirk Deppey, when he was managing editor of The Comics Journal, brought a bunch of people who were primarily bloggers aboard. And that still happens. I never would have dreamed of submitting anything to The Comics Journal. It was just way beyond my ken, I thought. And then all of a sudden I'm writing for it, and that never would have happened if I hadn't started a blog on my friend's humor website and started writing about comics.

Chris: I do think there's some kind of promotional aspect to the Internet and writing on the Internet that allows you -- and it's part of that direct conversation -- that you can... I think if I'd just been writing for the newspaper, I don't think I would have met these people or have access. Unless I'd put it up on a blog, I wouldn't be doing the work I'm doing at Robot 6. So there is that self-gratifying notion of being able to, I don't want to say call attention to yourself, but at least the reward of people paying attention, which can lead to other things. It can lead to greater writing rewards down the line.

Rob: The thing about it for me is that there's potential there... When you're writing for a publication there's space constraints, there's editorial constraints, but there's a real possibility to write long, thoughtful, critical pieces, and really engage something. And unfortunately, on the Internet, that doesn't always happen. Too many online critical spaces are just shorter reviews or short excuses for snark as opposed to really trying to engage the work, both for its positive and negative qualities. To me, that's the greatest possibility there for the Internet, for those who are really willing to engage it, is that a lot can be done that can't sincerely be done in a publication.

Bill: I talked to some of the panelists ahead of time to see what kind of topics they were interested in or questions they might be interested in, and Sean directly wanted to know, Gary, why you don't have a blog or haven't participated in online fora or some kind of writing of that nature, beyond the fact that you're obviously a very busy publisher.

Gary: Yeah. Well, I don't know. People bug me about not having a blog all the time. First of all, I'm generationally challenged in terms of having a blog. I mean, I'm just not suited to writing every two days. I'm from the tradition where you sit down and you spend several weeks honing some piece. So I haven't been able to get into the rhythm of blogging. Plus, in terms of criticism, the criticism I write has been somewhat dilettantish because of my position as the publisher of The Comics Journal, and that's only gotten more acute over the years. So I don't feel like I can really whale on a lot of books, because it would look immediately like this is obviously a conflict of interest. So I feel somewhat compromised in terms of writing about specific books. Then I also don't necessarily want to write only about the books that I love, because there a lot of books that I read that I don't think much of that I'd love to write about, but I just feel like I'm in a difficult position to do that. I don't know if that sort of incoherent rambling answered your question.

Rob: You felt your position has changed? I mean, you've been the publisher for a long time.

Gary: I think it has, because the Journal has shrunk as a proportion of Fantagraphics over the years. As we publish more and more books, more graphic novels -- we publish something like sixty graphic novels a year. So in 1986 or 1988 we publish eight books a year, and The Comics Journal was a much more prominent part of our company, and I was much more involved in it, and now I'm much more involved in publishing the books. So I think it has changed somewhat.

Bill: And that thing you pointed out as well, I think, is sort of the other side of the coin from the networking aspect of blogging and writing online, which is that often, in order to be a presence, as Gary suggested, it's helpful to be generating content on something resembling a regular schedule, which maybe works against the kind of writing you were talking about -- spending two weeks trying to write your definitive statement on X, Y, or Z. Is that something any of you have felt? That there's some sort of pressure to publish regularly in order to keep an audience? Or are there strategies to maintain your momentum without impinging upon the quality of your writing?

Joe: Well, I think there is an expectation that websites should be updating frequently, like every day. I personally, as I've gone along -- and I think it's more difficult now, because the comics Internet has gotten a lot bigger in the last five years since I started writing on the Internet. It's easier to get lost, I think, now, writing about comics on the Internet -- to disappear into the crowd. So I think there might actually be more interest in writing more frequently. I've personally found myself slowing down, actually. I do write pretty quick, but I'm always writing something. I just don't stop, 'cause I don't want to. But some pieces, they overlap. I can spend two weeks working on something, and y'know, when it's posted it just appears, and it might as well have been made yesterday, 'cause I don't talk about how I write it. But yeah, those are factors at work.

Douglas: If you don't care about hit counts, though, it doesn't really matter. Once you publish something on the Internet, as long as you're paying for the website, it's there for good. You don't have to worry about distribution, you don't have to worry about it going out of print. If you have something to say and you publish it when you're ready, if you don't care about either hit counts or being supported by ads, it doesn't matter.

Sean: In my case, my blog is hosted on a site that was designed by a friend and some of his college buddies from Cornell to practice coding. So the hit count, y'know, the thing that monitors traffic is so rudimentary that it's useless. So I literally couldn't find out what my traffic was even if I wanted to. And that, over the years -- I really have never thought about having an audience. I've been blogging regularly, particularly over the last two years or so. I've been reviewing three comics a week, pretty much non-stop, and that's more for my own fun and benefit. I feel much worse about how rarely I contribute to Savage Critic(s), which I think...

Tucker: Yeah.

Sean: ...Tucker is part of and Joe and Douglas, because that's somebody else's site, and I know that they would like to get some traffic, and I just, I don't have it in me, for some reason. That I feel bad about, but on my own site, it doesn't really register.

Tucker: I don't know how anybody else comes at it, but I -- I mean, I haven't been at this but for maybe a couple years, and I always kinda treated what I do at my blog, at the Factual, as just like, it's my own school. I don't really know anything, I didn't take any classes in writing or anything -- it started as a hobby. And then other people... basically, Dirk Deppey linked to it, and then Tom Spurgeon linked to it, and then all of a sudden there was an audience, and it wasn't something that I really expected. I do try to follow a deadline, but that's basically because in my head I think, "Well, that's what writers do. They have deadlines to turn in pieces," or "They have deadlines to turn in columns." Then when ComiXology actually gave me money to write something, then I did have a real deadline. In my head, I'm like, "Well, if you have a deadline, then that's gonna... " It makes me write, it makes me do it. Like Joe, I just write about stuff all the time anyway, now that I do it and it's a hobby and it's fun. But it's kind of also a way to go, like, "Well, if you're gonna be a writer, you have to get stuff done by... " When I do my weekly comic thing, I do that every Sunday. That's what I do every Sunday night -- it has to go up. And there's an expectation there. But also, I just had an education this week: The most popular thing on my website, by far, is a review that my wife wrote, which is not really much of a review, it's just a personal reaction to Achewood, and that's because Chris Onstad linked to it. And if Chris Onstad links to something, then obviously that immediately becomes more popular than any review you write about any superhero comic or anything else, because a lot more people read Chris Onstad than read Tucker's jokey reviews of comic books. That's just the way it goes. So hit counts -- I don't even have ads, so I don't really care. It's like, "Whatever, that's not important."

Rob: For me, I only have a very vague idea of what audience I may have. But I read something, I think about it, and then I just feel a compulsion. I must write about it. And until I have written about it, the feeling doesn't go away. It's a very intense thing. And when people start sending you a lot of comics, just out of the blue [laughter from the panel], it's like, "Oh my God." All I think about is the backlog, thinking "Now it's time to read this." And then once I've done it, it starts the process, it starts the chain reaction until I've finished the review. And some books are harder to approach than others. I've been working on a review of the second Ivan Brunetti anthology thing for the last three months, and it's just not quite ready yet.

Gary: Can I ask you guys a related question to what Bill asked? I know most of you write for both print and the Internet. Maybe all of you do, but I know most of you do. Do you write differently when you write for print than when you write for the Internet?

Chris: Absolutely, yeah. Doug and I were just talking about this. I think you have to consider your audience and who you're writing to. When I was doing my column for the newspaper, it didn't matter if I was writing about Kazuo Umezu or Robert Crumb, I had to assume that most of the people who were gonna pick up that column were gonna have no idea who those people were, and I was gonna have to introduce them to this person. So half the column was easily going to be "Robert Crumb was this person who started in the '60s and did Zap Comix and now he has a new book out and it's good, the end." Whereas if I'm writing on Robot 6 or on my own blog or what have you, I don't really have to worry about that. I can assume that most people are all speaking the same language. I might, depending on the obscurity of the artist or the writer, I might do a little hand-holding sometimes for something like the "Collect This Now!" column that I do, where I kind of forge... I don't probably go into as much detail as I really should, usually 'cause I'm doing this late and night and I'm tired. But I do definitely consider who I'm writing to. The way I write for the Journal, for example, I bring probably a different attitude and way of writing than I do for some of the other reviews I do.

Joe: Yeah, and on an even more basic level, the Internet tends to be kind of a free-for-all, actually. So when I'm reacting to a book on the Internet, some of these things run upwards of four thousand, eight thousand words. In print, you just don't have that much space, and to make the thing read correctly, to get your ideas across properly, I've found that because I started on the Internet, I have to temper myself in order to get things within a certain hit count. Plus, I'm interacting with an editor who's looking at what I'm doing and sometimes will tell me, "Yeah, no one's gonna understand this." So I react to that, I interact with my editor, and that inevitably changes things, 'cause [when] I'm writing for my own site, I'm my only editor.

Sean: For me, it can be a print-web dichotomy, but it's also just the audience. The writing I do for the Journal, when I was reviewing for the Journal, obviously was a lot closer to my personal blog than if I'm writing online for Marvel.com or whatever.

Gary: I should hope so. [Laughter]

Sean: I'm not really doing criticism for them, but yeah, it's different. I also think that --

Gary: But the media themselves don't necessarily change how you...

Sean: Not really. Well, I mean, it really depends on the venue and their target audience. Douglas may be the only one of us who has the clout, in print, to write a bad review. In my experience, when I'm writing for a general-interest publication, they ask you, "What are some good comics coming out that we can cover?" So I'll pitch them stuff that I actually like, or think I'll like if I don't have a copy yet. So 99 times out of a 100 that I've written for Maxim, it's been about something that I'm excited about. I've barely ever given a bad review in print, except in the Journal, for that reason. Because they're not really... you know, usually the editors at general-interest publications who are running comics reviews are comics fans who are sort of boosters of the medium, to a certain extent, and they don't really want to waste real estate telling the audience why they shouldn't buy something.

Gary: So you're actually saying you need clout to get a negative review published?

Sean: I guess? I mean, I don't... [Laughs] [Douglas] is writing for magazines and publications that are a different kettle of fish than the ones I'm writing for.

Joe: It kind of depends on the forum. The general interest newspapers and magazines, they tend to take more of an advocacy position. I have written negatively for Bookforum -- they're a literary newspaper, though, so I think they're more inclined to treat comics like the rest of the books they'd review.

Douglas: Right. If you're writing for a large general-interest non-literary sort of magazine, if you're not writing about something that you're giving a positive review to, they're going to ask, and very reasonably, "Then why should our readers care?" I think, addressing your point about print versus online, one thing that is useful to keep in mind when I'm writing online is that print is maybe more suited to rendering some sort of judgment; writing online is maybe more suited toward opening a conversation, giving people something to respond to where I actually care about their responses, and they may actually care about each other's responses. I don't always manage that, though.

Gary: Does that change the way you approach the review itself?

Douglas: Um, it can certainly change the way I approach writing it. There's also the matter of the audience. If I'm writing for The Savage Critic, I'm writing for the people I saw in the comic store on Wednesday, and now it's Friday, and we're talking about what we saw on Wednesday.

Bill: That's interesting too. It does point out the value of venues like either The Comics Journal or Bookforum, in that if print is more suited towards rendering definitive judgments, and nine times out of ten print is also a positive advocacy slot, you're not going to frequently find in print the kinds of really thoughtful criticism that can actually maybe change the way that you think about things, necessarily. Right? I mean, [Douglas has] a lot of latitude at the Times, for example, and I think Joe and Dan [Nadel] and everyone else who's written for Bookforum has a certain amount of latitude there, and the Journal is all about critical latitude, I think. It's interesting, because someone wrote -- and I wish I could remember the writer's name... Well, Ng Suat Tong wrote a separate post on a similar subject, so I'll mention this one just because I remember the name, about Bottomless Belly Button, saying that he had read this book -- and he's someone who's written criticism for the Journal and other places. But he was responding more as a reader, saying that he had read this book and he wasn't entirely sure what he thought about it having read it. He went out looking for criticism that would help him refine his thoughts about it, expose him to other points of view, and found very little, even though there were many many reviews and things to link to. If that is a problem to some extent -- well, does anyone agree that that's a problem, that there isn't enough of this kind of thoughtful criticism out there for a reader who might be looking for this kind of material as a way to navigate the terrain? Or was it just a book that was underreviewed, or he wasn't finding it?

Chris: No, that was definitely not a book that was underrreviewed. [Laughter] I think that what you're getting is...

Bill: Well, maybe under-criticized, in a non-pejorative sense.

Chris: Yeah, well no, I don't even know if it was that so much as I think you're getting a lot of people who are coming at it with just that initial review. They're getting the book for the first time, and there's not a lot of going back to the book and reexamining it, or considering it on a deeper level. There's a lot of just that initial "Is this book good or not?" More review-ish.

Gary: But by the time he did that survey, the book had been out for about nine months. It wasn't like he did it three weeks after the book came out. It was pretty scary survey, I thought.

Bill: You saw this thing that I'm talking about?

Gary: Yeah.

Sean: But even online, you don't get a lot of... after the first couple weeks that the book comes out, nine months could go by and you don't get anything after that first wave. I mean, I'm skeptical about [Ng's] thing, but I'll...

Joe: That speaks to, I think, a potential downside of the Internet. Personally, I think there's an inclination, since there is no word count, there is no editor, to write short, to just get your impressions out, to just summarize, give what you think immediately about a book, you know, in five hundred, eight hundred words. Furthermore, there's no industry surrounding the Internet.

Douglas: The other thing there isn't is money. [Laughter]

Joe: Yeah.

Gary: But since there isn't any money, why wouldn't more thoughtfully considered reviews be just as good as a glib summary?

Chris: I think time.

Sean: Spending a lot of time for no material [gain], y'know, other than just the satisfaction of a job well done. And if you have to make a living as a writer, a lot of the time -- I mean, there's been times where I've been just like, "Well, I can do a freelance assignment that'll give me $100, or I can review a book." I've tried to keep reviewing books for free, but there's times when it's tempting just to take the $100 and run.

Joe: I agree with you, yeah.

Gary: This may sound like a preposterous question, but do you guys get paid for blogging about comics?

Chris: Yes.

Rob: No.

Tucker: No.

Joe: Sometimes. [Laughter]

Douglas: I think the Savage Critics have split ad revenues that have come in, and over the past two and a half years, it's amounted to maybe $18? [Laughter]

Bill: What did you get with it?

Douglas: I got a Diet Coke. [Laughter]

Rob: One of the downfalls of the Internet is a problem I had: I wrote something like 200 colums for Sequart, and then it died.

Bill: Yeah, and they're not there.

Sean: [gasps]

Rob: And they're not there, and you can't get to them.

Tucker: Gotta back it up! Back it up on the hard drive.

Rob: Yeah, I should have.

Sean: I don't even wanna think about that. Oh my God! [Laughter] It just occurred to me that that could happen! Oh my God! [Laughter]

Rob: The guy who runs the site says he's going to get all my old stuff and give it back to me. But I wrote a 3,000 word review of Bottomless Belly Button that I would have loved to have given to [Ng] and said "Yeah, I really thought about this book for a long time." But things can just disappear like that.

Bill: Tucker, you were about to say something?

Tucker: Part of it -- and I don't want to steal anybody's words, but this did come up when we were driving down here, because I rode with two of the people on this panel. [Laughter] It's part of the thing with Bottomless Belly Button, and I'll out myself for it: If you really really hate something, yeah, you might write some thoughtful piece about why you hated it and what's wrong with it. And if you really really liked something -- and I agree that maybe Bottomless Belly Button didn't get that treatment -- you might write something thoughtful. But if you're middle of the road, like, "I read it! I don't really give a shit! [Laughter] I don't hate it, but this is not gonna knock any of my 'Oh my God, this is what comics is to me' kinda stuff off the shelf."

Gary: But you shouldn't even be writing about something you're ambivalent about.

Tucker: Well, that's it -- then you don't. I don't write about Bottomless Belly Button.

Rob: Do you feel an obligation to write about...

Tucker: I think if anyone says they feel an obligation to write about something, that's totally self-imposed. Unless there really is an editor who's telling you what to put on your blog, there's no way, other than self-imposition, to write about something. Like, "Oh, I've gotta write about Asterios... " No you don't.

Sean: Yeah, Asterios Polyp.

Tucker: You don't have to write about Bottomless Belly Button, you don't have to write about David Mazzucchelli, you don't have to write about the latest development in Superman, you don't have to write about anything other than what the fuck you want to write about. It's not print...

Rob: I agree with you, but does anybody else feel like they need to be part of the critical discourse on...

Tucker: But what's that even mean? What's that even mean, though? [Laughter] Like, "the critical discourse." I mean, you go wide enough on the Internet, you're gonna find plenty of people... I mean, the classic thing for me is, you wanna see what's happens with the Internet, you go to the most popular YouTube video, and look at the comments on there, and everybody's just like, "THAT BITCH IS A CUNT!" [Laughter] That's the discourse of the Internet when you go wide enough. [Laughter] I really have to go to the bathroom.

Bill: You want to?

Tucker: Yeah. [gets up and leaves -- laughter]

Sean: Tucker Stone, ladies and gentlemen! [applause]

Bill: Tucker Stone will be returning momentarily. He's actually writing a blog post right now. [Laughter] A couple points I want to get to. Rob, I think you're coming from a very opposite position, because I think you actually make a good-faith effort to review everything that comes your way, right?

Rob: Yeah.

Bill: So you're definitely someone who's taken on an almost martyr-like constraint. [Laughter]

Rob's wife [from the audience]: As his wife, I agree! [Laughter]

Rob: When someone sends me something in the mail, I feel obligated to take a look at it and review it. What I have to say about it will vary. There were some things that were sent to me three years ago that I haven't written anything about yet.

Joe: Yeah.

Sean: Yeah.

Rob: But eventually I feel like I'll do something on it. And occasionally I'll do what I call a short-reviews column, where I'll realize, "I don't have anything more to say about this than a paragraph, or even a couple of sentences." As a critic, I feel that if someone sends me something, I should engage it as best I can, almost phenomenologically, just putting aside certain suppositions and ideas about a work. Which is why I review a fairly wide range of genres, with the exception of superheroes, which I don't write about. But I'll review minicomics, big publisher comics, children's comics, and each one of them sort of gets not a different critical response, but they're meant to be engaged at different levels, and I engage them in different ways. Yeah, I just feel a need to respond to that, to response to someone's work. And I rarely give -- what I actually rarely talk about is "Should you buy this?" I don't really care. I don't care. That's not something I ever say. Some critics even discuss, like, "This is a pretty good comic, but it wasn't worth the $20 pricetag," and that's a valid thing to say, but again, I don't care. It's not something I'm interested in. I just talk about the work, I engage it, and sometimes there's not much to engage, or sometimes there's an interesting idea but it fails in some spectacular way, and I talk about it on that level, and I go into detail, and it's a compulsion I have.

Bill: One issue that came up, too, is this notion of, "Do you need to participate in a critical discourse? Does everyone who writes need to weigh in on these big tentpole books that come out?" Obviously Tucker doesn't think so. [Laughter] And here he is. Welcome back, Tucker.

Tucker [returning]: That was off the charts, man. [Laughter]

Bill: Did you wash your hands? Okay. I think one of the things that's interesting to me about critical discourse is that criticism generates discourse, in that I don't know that it's necessarily required for every critic to write about the Crumb book, for example, but I also think it's possible for a very good piece of criticism about that to generate another piece of criticism. If a critic is identifying some quality of the book and either holding it up as praiseworthy or holding it up as a flaw, or identifying it as a virtue or the primary virtue or the point of the book or et cetera, I think that's the kind of thing that can probably generate a healthy critical discourse more than everyone feeling like they have to take a whack at the new piñata or whatever. Have any of you found yourself in that situation, where you've come across a book that you weren't necessarily motivated to write about, but some other writer's take on it motivated you to respond or reconsider something? It's probably hard to remember, so I'm asking a horrible question. [whistles]

Gary: I think that does sort of answer Tucker's question, though, which is "What the fuck is that?": Critical discourse is a public dialogue about what's going on out there, what significant works are out there, what do they mean.

Tucker: Yeah, but that's -- yeah, I agree with that. What I disagree with is -- the notion that there's a real public dialogue that comes about because a bunch of critics wanna do what he's talking about, they wanna respond to real criticism and they wanna create some criticism of they own.

Gary: You don't think that that exists?

Tucker: No, I do agree that that exists. Like, earlier this year, when, um -- like, these three right here [gestures to Sean, Joe, and Douglas], you know? When Final Crisis dropped.

Sean: Oh yeah.

Tucker: Which is like, it's a superhero masturbation-fest, but still. [Laughter] That was really fascinating, to see all these different takes, and to see people genuinely come out of the game and really put out there stuff there. But they didn't feel -- I don't think that you'd turn to Sean and be like, "Did you feel imposed upon?", like he had to respond to Final Crisis. He wanted to. Joe wanted to. When stuff comes out, it's up to the art to create that desire in people to actually go and respond to it. If it's created from some feeling of, "Well, I'm obligated to write about this, so that there will be a public discourse... " The art creates the public discourse, not --

Gary: Of course.

Tucker: It shouldn't come from some feeling of, "I'm obligated to help create this so that comics can have its own little critical discourse." It's up to the comics. It's up to them.

Joe: I think it happens with superhero comics. There tends to be a lot more, I think, discussion about those on the comics Internet because there's a certain volume of superhero comics that comes out every week, every single week. And superhero comics today are attuned to giving this impression of a shared universe that you peek into every week and see how things do or do not interact. So I think that has a way of encouraging more people to talk about these things often, and there's inevitably more dialogue about a superhero thing that a lot of people happen to want to talk about, like Final Crisis. There's more support.

Douglas: I don't think of it as an obligation, though. I think of it as a pleasure.

Joe: Well, yeah. But there's just more things to react to.

Douglas: Sure.

Sean: I see what [Joe]'s saying, though, 'cause I think Final Crisis gives you a good apples-to-apples comparison. I loved Final Crisis to pieces, and I loved talking about it, and I loved reading people talk about it even when they hated it. But Acme Novelty Library #19 came out in roughly that same time frame. It is not just the best comic of the year, in my opinion -- it's a terrific science-fiction story, it's a terrific horror story, you could talk about it in genre terms if you wanted to, which is the kind of thing I like doing. But there was none of that back-and-forth that we had going about Final Crisis. And I will defend Grant Morrison and Final Crisis until the day I die, but I would have loved to have -- and I said so, I think -- I would have loved to have that much writing, just that volume of people writing these huge impassioned posts, about Acme Novelty Library #19.

Gary: Well, why didn't that happen?

Sean: Well, I think there's a bunch of reasons. He's been so good for so long that that people run out of things to say about how good he is...

Gary: And that's not true of Grant Morrison? [Laughter]

Sean: Well, I guess -- 'cause Morrison is like "the literature of ideas," and he's beboppin' and scattin' all over the place, so there's always specific things to talk about.

Douglas: He's a lot less consistent than Chris Ware, too.

Sean: That's also true. There's stuff you can compare that you didn't like by Grant Morrison. And it's also very bleak, and Acme Novelty Library might be the bleakest thing he ever did. I feel like that turns a lot of people off, and they just don't feel like they have an "in" to it.

Joe: But I think it is a different situation, though, because Acme #19 is a serial, and unless you've been following Chris Ware's thing for however long ago he serialized this in the papers, it doesn't compare to something like Final Crisis, where it's the lynchpin of the DC Universe. I don't think it works like that, but --

Sean: But I'm not even talking about the people who just --

Joe: I'm saying there's inevitably going to be more conversation, because people are going to want to talk about it even if -- because it effects other things in the superhero world.

Sean: But I'm not really paying attention to those guys. I'm talking about people who... [sighs] They're not just being like, "What did Wolverine say this week? He would never say that!" [Laughter] I'm not talking about those people. I'm talking about people who treat comics as art, and yet don't... I'm sorry.

Douglas: If we're going to be apples-to-apples about serials, though, you might have seen more of that if, you know, Acme were monthly. [Laughter] Dream on, but...

Rob: Honestly, it's easier to talk about Final Crisis than it is to really sit down and think for a long time and think about Chris Ware's Acme #19. The other thing I've noticed about superhero comics is that it's almost akin to people talking about their favorite football team, and what has happened to their football team that week.

[murmured assent from the panel]

Sean: Yeah, Tim O'Neil had a thing about that recently.

Rob: There's this kind of weird emotional investment in it that's difficult to put apart from a critical analysis. And to me that's kind of the culture of way more mainstream superhero criticism. I know there's a lot of folks who do both, but there's also many, many, many more folks who only will review superhero books.

Sean: Yeah.

Joe: Yes, yes.

Rob: And it kind of creates a certain kind of clubby thing with their writing. Which is why it's interesting -- a question I've asked a lot of you guys is, do you approach reviewing superhero comics and art-comics any differently? How does that work for you?

Sean: I'm sure that I do, but...

Chris: I really try not to, whenever possible.

Rob: Not to do it differently?

Chris: Just approach the work on its own terms and on its merits. I mean --

Bill: Well, if you say on its own terms, though, that suggests something different.

Chris: Well, yeah, I was about to say, yeah.

Bill: 'Cause you're not judging the Whatever Crisis the way you would judge the Chris Ware, necessarily.

Douglas: If you're judging something as part of the giant interlocking master narrative, like, yeah, that's obviously going to come into it. And that's part of the fun of reading it and that's part of the fun of thinking of it. It's also really fun to deal with superhero comics on the same terms that you would deal with art comics. But it can sometimes be hard to get away from the fun of thinking of, like, this window on the master narrative.

Bill: But there's a different focus, certainly, right? Because when you're talking about Chris Ware, you're talking about someone as an author or an artist making a work, whereas when you're looking at this other stuff, you're kind of looking at this sort of collaborative project.

Douglas: Well, you're thinking of it as an author and artist, partly, making the work also. But there's also this other part to it.

Sean: Yeah. I don't treat that any differently.

Gary [to Bill]: You're saying Grant Morrison isn't an auteur?

Bill: Well, maybe, I don't know. He has a chapter in Douglas's book, so the answer is yes. [Laughter] Tucker, this is something you had talked about, too. Putting aside the superhero/auteur-driven work, whatever, you were also talking a little bit about, do you -- [Tucker fidgets with the tablecloth on the panel's table] Don't play with the Velcro.

Tucker: You're the one who knocked it off, man! [Laughter] C'mon, playa!

Bill: Sorry. But bringing different expectations to different work -- like if there's something by a young, twentysomething first-time cartoonist, handling that a little different.

Tucker: Yeah, I have to admit that that does... Like, I'll read some minicomic or something where I've met the person, you know? Some 19-year-old kid who's shy and is like [quietly] "This is my minicomic" and that sort of thing -- I really don't look at that and go, "Well, okay, you're some 30-year-old in the business and you're published by Fantagraphics which means you're probably not some first-timer." Yeah, that stuff, it gets a little -- I mean, I try not to do that, and most of the time what I do is I just don't review it, because it's hard to read something by some kid. Like a kid, a fucking kid! [Laughter] Who's just getting started! And to be like "Yeah, this is trash!" You want to sit there and go, "Well, I really see some promise." I don't see any promise! I want you to stop! [Laughter] I mean, you should go to college! Learn a trade! Because you're not gonna be Chris Ware. You're not even gonna be Tony Bedard, you know? [Laughter]

Rob: I've been reviewing comics lately for the Poopsheet Foundation website, and --

Tucker: Poopsheet?

Bill: Poopsheet.

Chris [in a dramatic voice]: Poopsheet? [Laughter]

Rob: Let's all get it out. [Laughter] And these are things sent to the guy who owns the site who then sends it to me, as opposed to some of the other comics I get. 'Cause people who send me stuff have a general idea of what I'm going to say about comics, or comics in general. These people don't know that I'm going to be reviewing it. And the quality of the comics I've been getting from this guy have been measurably worse, and I've said some of my harshest stuff. And again -- but it's the same approach. I hear what Tucker's saying, like "there's a young kid," and I see a lot of comics like that, where it's like, "Well, you know, it's overwritten, it's overdrawn, but maybe there's something here and maybe there's not." But there are some where it's just like, "This just wasn't a good thing to read."

Gary: You can ignore them, if they're not somehow significant.

Rob: Yeah. And hopefully the feedback is useful to them in some way, in saying, "This is the best I could do, or maybe it wasn't, and it just wasn't good enough." And maybe it'll spark some kind of response. But I don't feel any obligation to think about what their response will be.

Gary: Right.

Rob: You can't.

Gary: You can't, right.

Sean: I got a lot of my scorched-earth criticism out of my system in the early days of the comics blogosphere and a couple things I did for The Comics Journal. I don't really have that in me anymore, and I find myself not enjoying reading it too much, either. But one thing that I've brought up before on my site or in interviews is that all the reviews I do for my own blog, I do from my own spare time, and they're generally books I'm interested in reading, so it's sort of a self-selecting group. Like, if I flip through something, and it doesn't look appealing, or it looks downright aggravating, you know, there's only so many hours in a day, and I'm generally not gonna force myself through something that I don't think I'll get to the end of it and say, "Well, that was a valuable way to spend my train ride" or whatever. So to a certain extent, that's not a problem for me, because if I get something and I'm like, "What am I gonna do, tear this apart?", I just won't.

Tucker: Well, I'm not gonna try and back off or anything like that. [Laughter] But I will say that I don't ask for free shit and I don't get free shit, so when some kid sends me something, I usually read it. And I'm talking, what, two fuckin' minicomics a month, you know? I'm not sitting there, I don't have some kind of hookup or anything like that. I basically read what I read and then review that. But when I do get something in the mail from some kid -- which it's always fucking kids! I don't know why -- it's like they don't read the blog or something like that. It's not like I have some big post on there where I'm like, "Aren't minicomics awesome? Can I read more about your parents?" [Laughter] That's the shit that I get sent! I get sent 8 X 11s stapled at the top corner. That's what I get sent. I don't know why they send it to me, I don't know who told them to do that, but that's they send.

Bill: There's some grade school teacher somewhere who found your address.

Tucker: Somebody! Somebody.

Bill: Gary, Sean was just talking about how he's not as interested in negative critiques --

Gary: A little sad! [Laughter]

Bill: But the Journal has actually run some of the outstanding negative critiques in the history of this field. How would you articulate the value of that kind of criticism for someone who maybe finds it difficult to approach?

Gary: Someone for whom it's difficult to read?

Bill: Yeah, maybe, or who would balk at writing something like that.

Gary: Well, I don't feel like you should write it just for the sake of writing it. But I think as a critic, you have to run the gamut. You just have to give an honest response. And sometimes that honest response is going to be negative. And, I mean, that serves the function of critically dismantling something that might be a sacred cow or that might be widely reviewed and widely praised and offering readers an alternative point of view about that, and allowing them to think about it in terms they haven't even seen before. I mean, I just think that has an intrinsic value.

Rob: To me, the danger is that you can never make a negative review personal, to me. At least that's my philosophy. Which is why I hate really snark-heavy negative reviews. [Various panelists turn to look at Tucker -- Laughter] Because to me it's just kind of a dishonest reaction. That's just my personal thing. You can talk about the weaknesses of a work as the work without necessarily attacking an author or a person. And you can get really really negative about it and talk about "This is why this doesn't work." And the responses to some of that that I've had have been, some people have been... I've written some harsh things and people have said, "Thank you for the review, that was very helpful," and I've written some minorly harsh things and gotten really negative feedback. I'm like, "Well, that's just the way it goes," but in neither case did I say, "This is awful, this person should never write again" or anything like that.

Douglas: My allegiance as a critic is always to the people that are reading what I'm writing, not to the person making the art. But there's a lot of art that I'm exposed to that leaves me so cold or bores me so much that I don't get all the way through it, and I can't see the value in writing scorched-earth something about that unless there's a way that it can be a gift for my reading audience.

Bill: A gift in terms of food for thought as opposed to just dismissing a work that you thought didn't have any merits?

Douglas: Yeah, something that can be useful or meaningful or something to the people reading it.

Bill: Alright, well, with that we're basically out of time. But I guess I could probably take one or two questions, if anyone has... yes?

Audience Member #1: I have a question. If you -- like, I listened to the discussion -- Is there a proper venue to go through to get a good critique? [Laughter]

Bill: What's the best place to get a good review?

AM1: Yeah -- no, not, like, "a good review"...

Bill: Do you have any friends with blogs? [Laughter] No, no.

AM1: I mean, I heard you [Tucker] say you get like two little minicomics a week or something -- is there a submission...

Sean: No, just find a blog that you like -- I mean, it just comes from reading different sites or different publications and getting a sense for their tone, and if you feel like you'll get something valuable out of being reviewed by this person, drop them an email and say "Hey, I'd like to send something."

Rob: Go to The Comics Reporter website and Journalista! -- they do a zillion links to reviews. Find someone whose work is interesting to you and that you think would be appropriate and contact them.

Bill: Yeah, almost every blog or whatever, review website, has some kind of email link, and if the mailing address isn't on there, people will usually send it to you if you ask them to.

Sean: Unless it's NeilAlien, people will take review copies and thank you for it.

Audience Member #2: Have you ever changed your mind about something, either positive, liked it and then didn't like it, or didn't like it and then liked it, and felt you needed to really let people know that?

Sean: I wrote a very negative review of Locas, the Jaime Hernandez hardcover, in The Comics Journal, and I have completely changed my mind since then. [Laughter] And I'm waiting until I have a chance to sit and read everything in a row and write a new review, and I'll run the old review one day and I'll run the new review the next day and be like "I was totally wrong."

Chris: You have to. If you're gonna review, and you're gonna be a critic, you have to face the fact that you may change your mind and you may change your taste as you go along.

Tucker: I actually reviewed Essential Fantastic Four, one of those black and white reprint books, the day before my wedding. [Laughter] I don't know why I reviewed it then, but I was just like, "Man, fuck this book," you know? [Laughter] "I like Kirby, but fuck black and white reprints. Five-hundred page -- this is retarded!" [Laughter] Then Frank Santoro was like, "Man, you're just freaking out because you gotta get married tomorrow." I was like, "That's right!" [Laughter] I got back from the honeymoon and I left it up there, but I was like, "I should probably fix that. That was a stupid thing to do."

AM2: Not necessarily "fix it," but just kind of...

Tucker: No, fix it.

AM2: Oh. [Laughter]

Bill: One more --

Audience Member #3: Where do you guys see a role in arts criticism in general, and how would you compare some of the ways you engage with the work with music writers or fine-arts critics?

Bill: Anyone immediately wanna jump on that? I know Douglas, you write about music.

Douglas: I can talk to you about this afterwards, but yeah, I... I can't answer it easily. [Laughter]

Bill: Well, with that, please join me in thanking all of our distinguished panelists for being with us. [Applause]

Full-scale warfare between convention promoters isn't universal, believe it or not -- some are giving peace a chance. In addition to the recent arrangement worked out by Heroes Con and Supercon to avoid a date conflict, Emerald City ComiCon's Jim Demonakos tells Robot 6 that following an unavoidable conflict with Orlando's MegaCon the weekend of March 13, 2010, he and MegaCon's Beth Widera collaborated on choosing dates for 2011 so that future overlap could be avoided. "We ended up on the same dates for 2010 and neither of us could move, but we've talked and coordinated and our mutual 2011 dates will not be on each other's dates at all," says Demonakos. "Con planning, always an adventure."

Indeed. While it's not quite "all quiet on the Con War front" in terms of open hostilities between the nebulous Gareb Shamus/Wizard Entertainment empire and Reed Exhibitions, things have at least died down to a dull roar at the moment. Shamus remains silent, Reed insists it's business as usual regardless of Shamus's confrontational scheduling moves, and about the closest you can get to one-on-one antagonism between the two rival convention promoters is a do-it-yourself comparison of their pre- and post-Halloween guest announcements: Hellboy creator Mike Mignola will be a guest of honor at Reed's C2E2, while Batman TV star Burt Ward will be appearing at Shamus's Anaheim Comic Con that same weekend.

But the lack of direct conflict doesn't mean a few verbal grenades haven't been lobbed Wizard/Shamus's way over the past week by other parties, ranging from former employees to a pair of recent Wiz sparring partners, cartoonist Scott Kurtz and Marvel's C.B. Cebulski.

One such explosion took place at the message board of Panels on Pages, a site founded by now-ex-Wizard Universe Message Board users-cum-Wizard website/magazine writers. With the shutdown of the WUMB last week, PoP has become increasingly required reading for dedicated Wizard watchers. Case in point: PoP message board user Foxy recounted a story of how earlier this year, Wizard employees Brett White and Adam Tracey used the WUMB to search for fan-owned Michael Turner sketches the company could publish in an expanded version of its Turner tribute hardcover. The staffers announced that a portion of the proceeds would be donated to the Sam Loeb Foundation, set up by comics superstar (and Turner's friend) Jeph Loeb in honor of his late son, who like Turner died (too young) of cancer. But after White was fired, Tracey unceremoniously quit, and the book finally came out, Foxy and other WUMBers discovered that the promised donation was never made. The WUMB thread announcing the search for sketches and chronicling the subsequent demand for answers as to what happened to the charitable donation never received an official response and disappeared (as did two similar threads) with the WUMB itself -- but not before PoP member Solstrom preserved and reposted it on PoP's board.

The outcry attracted the attention of Rich Johnston, who since his Wizard-funded trip to the Big Apple Comic Con has emerged as the only writer able to get Wizard staffers to comment on the record (outside of press releases and the now-defunct WUMB). Writing both on the PoP board and his own Bleeding Cool site, Johnston said he got in touch with Wizard VP of Business Development Stephen Shamus (brother of owner and CEO Gareb Shamus), who blamed the disappearing donation on a communication breakdown caused by staff turnover, and said that now that they'd been made aware of the problem, the company would contact the Sam Loeb Foundation to make the donation -- and to see if they'd be interested in setting up a donation drive at future Shamus conventions.

However, Shamus's explanation, and Johnston's subsequent statement that "it's possible the right people did not read the right thread," didn't fly with the PoPsters, who point out that threads about the Turner book, customer service issues, and other problems went on for months with the clear knowledge of Wizard staffers. Indeed, the frequent intervention of Wizard higher-ups in ordering the deletion and banning of threads and users critical of the company appear to indicate that if anything, this sort of thread received extra attention from decision-makers within the Shamus organization.

Elsewhere on PoP, former Wizard staff writer, frequent WUMB pot-stirrer, and Political Power: Barack Obama author Chris Ward was a guest on the site's weekly podcast. (Discussion of Wizard and the death of the WUMB begins at 1:04:20; Ward's appearance begins at 1:09:38.) Ward minces no words for his former company, which he calls "totally mismanaged."

"These guys literally have no fucking idea what they're doing... They have neither the skills nor the insight to keep up, and the people that had that, they fired," Ward says of Wizard's upper echelon. [Full disclosure: I don't know from skills or insight, but I was one of the people the company fired.] Though he does praise managing editor Andy Serwin, Ward also reveals that he's been blacklisted from the magazine for making a joke about a freelance check bouncing, tells tales out of school about the work environment, and takes some pretty vicious shots at Stephen Shamus (and, in passing, Rich Johnston). For their part, hosts Lee Rodriguez, Jason Kerouac, Tripper McGee, and Jason Knize describe the experience of being plucked from the WUMB to write for Wizard proper, only to watch their gigs disappear as the editors who hired them got laid off one after another.

But it's not just ex-Wizard writers who have a bone to pick with the company. Fresh off his Twitter tirade against the company, PvP writer-artist Scott Kurtz really let loose after receiving a letter from Sales Manager Larry Ernst, addressed to "Kurt," encouraging him to attend the Anaheim Comic Con, apparently sent without knowing that Kurtz had already made his feelings about Gareb Shamus's conventions abundantly clear. In an open letter to Ernst and Wizard, Kurtz writes "Your conventions are total horseshit" and gets angrier from there, reserving his most undiluted fury for what he describes as the magazine's ignoring of late artist Mike Wieringo, then its public about-face upon Wieringo's passing. Kurtz's sentiments echo those of Wieringo himself, as expressed in this impassioned defense of Heroes Con and attack on Gareb Shamus, written by 'Ringo during Heroes Con's initial scheduling conflict with Shamus's never-realized Wizard World Atlanta. (Ironically, a gallery of Wieringo's Wizard covers, which might offer proof that the magazine did indeed pay attention to the artist, has disappeared along with the bulk of Wizard's website.)

Reactions to Kurtz's post have varied. Marvel talent liaison C.B. Cebulski, himself no stranger to public disputes with Wizard, tweeted a link to the open letter in seemingly supportive fashion, indicating that a recent high-level meeting between Cebulski and Wizard editorial either didn't produce a rapprochement or was subsequently undermined by the Big Apple/NYCC battle. Comics Alliance's Laura Hudson's defense of current and former Wizard employees against Kurtz's blanket statements (coupled with a few shots at Kurtz's self-described status as "a pioneer in my field" and "'tastemaker'") met with vehement comment-thread opposition from Kurtz's fans (UPDATE: and from Kurtz himself), and with considerably more polite dissent from Tom Spurgeon, who argues that getting yelled at from time to time is the price of working for a company with divisive policies. And on his own blog, Chris Ward returned with the inside story of the incident Kurtz says turned him against Wizard -- a "convention horror story" involving Kurtz, Ward, Ethan Van Sciver, a deaf fan, and "the world's shittiest band."

As Shamus/Wizard higher-ups continue to strategically distance themselves from the comics industry (even as seemingly contradictory moves are rumored behind-the-scenes); as decision time approaches for guests of the conflicting Reed and Shamus shows; and as sharper contrasts are drawn between the tactics used by Shamus and those employed by Reed and by regional con organizations like Emerald City and MegaCon, we may see more and more professionals and Wizard alums become comfortable publicly taking aim at the house that Gareb built.

("Con War" graphic courtesy of Jason Erwin)

Heroes Con

Not every comic-convention conflict has to end in tears. So Heroes Con organizer and Heroes Aren't Hard to Find retailer Shelton Drum discovered when he ran into a seemingly unavoidable scheduling overlap with Florida Supercon, the Miami-based show organized by Mike Broder. The two shows have announced that Supercon has voluntarily switched its 2010 dates to June 18-20 in order to accommodate Heroes Con, which will be held on June 4-6.

According to Drum, the increasingly busy convention season and a booked-solid schedule at the Charlotte, NC convention center during the June-July timeframe during which Heroes Con is traditionally held combined to limit his scheduling options.

"I had actually just about given up on doing anything at the Charlotte Convention Center in 2010," Drum tells Robot 6. "Using a smaller venue was an option as well as just taking a year off." But when Drum put out feelers in these directions at the Baltimore Comic-Con, he was met with such an overwhelming response that he feared hosting the show at a smaller site would lead to overcrowding.

Things changed last week, when Drum learned that the June 4-6 weekend had opened up at the Convention Center.

"The only problem was the already planned Miami Supercon that I had promised myself to respect," he says. "I called Mike Broder actually to apologize that I was going to have to use that weekend if I was going to have a show at all in the summer of 2010. Mike's response without hesitation was, 'I love your show. I enjoy attending it. I think I have some flexibility with my center, let me see if I can reschedule.'"

The Florida Supercon mascot

Broder tells Robot 6 he wasted no time when he heard of Drum's predicament. "He gave me a call to see what could be done on Thursday. I have the utmost respect for Shelton and Heroes Con, and I think they're a great show, so [I told them if there's] anything I can do to help I will. I called my convention center and set up a meeting for Friday to see what our options were. They had the June 18-20 date open on the space I needed, so we moved things around to make it work. It was mostly a matter of pushing a bunch of different papers around."

Both Drum and Heroes' Creative Director Dustin Harbin report that they'll try to return the favor by attending Supercon as a vendor, promoting the Florida show to their customers, and even helping out with its guest list. It's a method of dealing with other shows they prefer, given their contentious history with Gareb Shamus's Wizard Entertainment. "We’re sensitive to that sort of thing, having been on the David side of the David/Goliath metaphor before," Harbin says.

Whatever their reasoning behind their confrontational recent scheduling against Reed Exhibitions-hosted events like NYCC, Wizard seems to have learned that their perceived bigfooting of regional shows like Heroes Con in the past has done their convention efforts more harm than good. In an interview with the Philadelphia Daily News (scroll down to the last item), Wizard VP of Business Development Stephen Shamus (brother of Gareb) calls the show's past scheduling against Heroes Con in 2007 and 2009 "stupid" and lays the blame at the feet of unnamed former employees: "The people that did that are gone and I can guarantee Wizard Philly will never again be going head to head with Heroes Con. Ever!" Presumably Shamus is not referring to former staffers Adam Tracey or Benjamin De John, both of whom had spoken to Drum in order to ensure that no conflict would take place in 2010 after a last-minute 2009 date switch by Wizard led to their Philly show's second overlap with Heroes Con.

It's worth noting, however, that the surrounding article appears to have a rather dubious grip on the facts -- avoiding any mention of the Big Apple/NYCC kerfuffle despite ostensibly being about con conflicts, referring to Big Apple as "the New York Con," and claiming that the Philly/Heroes conflict "hurt both shows." Nothing could be further from the truth, according to Heroes' Dustin Harbin, who recalls how pros like J. Michael Straczynski, Greg Rucka, Tony Harris, Cully Hamner, and Brian Stelfreeze were among many who rallied to Heroes Con's side following Wizard's soon-to-be-aborted Wizard World Atlanta counter-scheduling in 2006.

"The upshot was that 2006 was one of our best years ever," says Harbin. "It was just a great resolution to that story, to be honest. Does that sound petty? When someone does something bad and your entire community responds by lining up behind you, resulting in a hugely successful convention...well, how can you help loving turning that frown upside down?"

Is Wizard frowning or smiling lately? Their official and semi-official stance continues to emerge only in drips and drabs -- a mainstream-media promotional piece here (like Stephen Shamus's Philly.com interview), a message board post there (like the series of posts by staffer Mark Allen Haverty, which were since deleted from both the Wizard Universe message board and from Rich Johnston's BleedingCool.com, per Haverty's request).

Perhaps the most interesting indication of where Wizard's coming from emerged through Johnston, who recently posted a seemingly Wizard-derived "origin story" for the current "Con War" with Reed. The story centers around some antagonistic promotion for a party hosted by retailer Chicago Comics during this summer's Wizard-owned Chicago Comic Con and cross-promoted by Reed -- but the explanation has been met with skepticism, most notably by Chicago Comics manager Eric Thornton.

Elsewhere, Heidi MacDonald's epic Con War round-up chronicles a variety of problems Wizard/Shamus's conventions arm has experienced, many of which predate or exist independently of the battle with Reed's C2E2 and NYCC. And former Wizard convention staffer Brett White has posted a before-and-after photo comparison of Wizard's 2008 staff in which only one of the pictured employees remains at the company today.

The ultimate source of the Con War notwithstanding, Drum, Harbin and Broder all agree that when it comes to comic conventions, communication rather than competition is key. "I'm very happy that we could do this with Heroes Con," Broder says. "It's great that it was so easy to fix the problem, and not cause any more drama in the con world. There are 52 weeks in a year, so there's generally always another weekend to do a show when a date conflict arises."

Conflicts can cause trouble not just for those promoting the cons but for those selling at them as well. "The fact is that most of us 'regional' convention promoters are comic retailers as well," Drum explains. "I want to go to most of the shows as a vendor, or attendee. I can't do it if I'm having a show on the same date. Plus a lot of the dealers at our shows count on making every one. They miss a 'payday' if they have to choose one show instead of another."

"We are pretty close with our 'sister' conventions like Baltimore Comic-Con, Emerald City Comic Con, and others," Harbin elaborates. "These are the shows that would be our competition if we weren't such good buddies with Marc Nathan and Jim Demonakos. Instead we gossip, share information, promote each others shows; basically do whatever we can to help each other." Indeed, both Drum and Broder report that Baltimore's Nathan played a key role in facilitating communication between Heroes Con and Supercon.

"I mean seriously, this is comics, right?" Harbin continues. "It is not so small an industry that there isn't room for everyone who wants a seat at the table."

"Last minute cancellations" at last weekend's Big Apple Comic Con (via The Beat)

With the initial salvos -- head-to-head scheduling, employee ejections -- out of the way, the battle between Reed Exhibitions and Wizard Entertainment's Gareb Shamus that began in earnest this past weekend may have produced its first major fallout.

Following Shamus's scheduling of next year's Big Apple Comic Con directly against Reed's New York Comic Con, previously announced Anaheim Comic Con guests of honor Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev and Phil Jimenez -- all marquee names under Marvel-exclusive contracts, for what it's worth -- are now nowhere to be found on the Shamus show's guest list. Will Shamus's apparent loss be Reed's gain, particularly for that same weekend's C2E2 con?

For now, Con War watchers' eyes must turn to the PR front for answers -- and there, the battle's been mostly one-sided. Reed showrunner Lance Fensterman has been taking to news sites to discuss Shamus's Big Apple/NYCC maneuver. (Not to mention his pitting Anaheim against C2E2 -- itself seen as a rival to Wizard's Chicago Comic Con -- and Toronto against Boston's PAX East.)

Speaking with CBR's Kiel Phegley, Fensterman called out Big Apple's practice of allowing its big media guests to charge for autographs:

But to be honest, we've always shied away from "pay-to-play" guests, meaning you have to pay to get a signature, because we've always tried to view ourselves as all-inclusive. When you buy a ticket, the many guests of honor that we've lined up are there for free. You buy a ticket, and you have a right to see those people and get a signature. We never felt it was our philosophy to say, "No. Buy your ticket, and then everyone you want to see costs $100 to get a signature." It wasn't our thing.

And in this interview with The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon, Fensterman gingerly addresses rumors of misconduct by Shamus's organization:

I don't think there is any question when someone puts a similar named event, in the same city as the market leader on the same weekend, they are counting on drafting off our success and confusion as part of there business model. To me that's without question. We are aware of guest issues and exhibitor issues that are not what we would consider "above board" on the part of other events and we've chosen not to take action because, frankly, we believe we have a better business model because we consistently put the industry, the exhibitors, the fans and the guests first. That's a headache we don't need, we'd rather focus on our customers and growing this industry.

In both cases, Fensterman calls on potential attendees and other observers to take a look at existing declarations of support from both the industry and the fan community and draw their own conclusions about the differences between the rival convention circuits.

Creators continue to weigh in as well, largely on the side of Reed and NYCC. Following her recent photo parade (from which the above shot is taken), Heidi MacDonald's latest "Con War" round-up at The Beat directs us to A Distant Soil creator Colleen Doran's Big Apple horror story from the pre-Shamus days, the gist of which is that Big Apple's current complaints about Reed's "soliciting" at their shows are the height of irony. And on his Twitter feed, PvP''s Scott Kurtz offers the most scathing assessments of Gareb Shamus and his cons yet to surface from a comics pro.

But what about the other side? CBR reports that Wizard offered only a "no comment" when asked for its take on the controversy. Indeed, the only source for on-the-record comments by Wizard staffers on this weekend's show and next year's scheduling appears to be the Wizard Universe Message Board. Reacting to complaints about guests showing up late to their announced signings and the media-heavy make-up of the guest list, Big Apple Convention Coordinator Spat Oktan offered the following rationale:

The guests that we book to the show know what time the show opens (or their agents/reps/handlers do), and are adults. If they arrive late, there's not a lot we can do about it. Short of kicking in their hotel room doors and dragging them out, we have to just wait until they arrive. I know I asked one of the agents every hour when their guest was going to arrive (I don't want to mention any names), and was told over and over again that they would be there within the hour. So again, there's just nothing we can do. Some guests like to get there before the doors open to set up, some sleep in and show up a little late, and others like to stop in later in the afternoon.

And as for the focus on comics, I consider our Media Guests who appear in movies or TV shows that are based on Comic Books to be Comic Guests in their own way. John Schneider played Jonathan Kent on Smallville, so as far as I'm concerned, he fits right in.

Thomas Jane had nothing to do with the Punisher comics, but a lot of people brought their Amazing Spider-Man 129 to the show for him to sign.

And I do believe that little kids are more likely to start collecting comics after seeing an awesome movie based on a comic.

Does everyone at the show have a comic? No. But if you look at the number of comic writers and artists we have at the show, and add the number of media guests from movies and TV shows based on comics or that spawned into comics, then you will see how heavily focused we are on the comic genre as a whole.

But that's just my opinion.

A more impassioned and wide-ranging defense was offered by Wizard freelancer Mark Allen Haverty. As Rich Johnston notes, Haverty's WUMB post read, in part:

If Reed had shown any respect, they would not have shown up to not one but two Wizard cons to hand out their fliers for their con. They did so not as vendors, retailers, or exhibitors, but as people buying tickets. That's unethical on multiple levels.

But, please, feel free to think that Wizard is somehow a bad guy.

This will be my last reply here, because I really don't want to sit here and listen to 20 people scream at me. Here are the facts, though:

1. You don't call Marvel a--holes when they make you choose between buying X-Men or a DC book.

2. You don't call Sony an a--hole if they release a movie you want to see at the same time as another studio releases a movie you like.

3. You don't call Coke a--holes because they force you to choose between Coke and Pepsi.

Business is business. Just because some comic fans on a message board want to make it personal does not make it so. In business, there is going to be competition. Wizard and Reed are competing for the convention market. Reed has been playing dirty by walking into Wizard shows and handing out fliers - which, by the way, is a fact that multiple sites will confirm. Wizard shot back by deciding to go head-to-head with them. That's called the free market -- if Reed is better, it will win; if Wizard is better, it will win.

Interestingly, these comments, along with incredulous responses from other users and several entire threads responding negatively to Shamus's moves, have since been scrubbed from Wizard's site. However, Johnston has preserved the bulk of Haverty's posting on Bleeding Cool, while many of the responses have also been copied to this thread on PanelsOnPages.com, a site set up by former Wizard contributors and message board users. And the battle continues ...

Brandon Graham & Marian Churchland

• After a bout of torrential rains earlier in the week, San Francisco welcomed the Alternative Press Expo with sunshine and warm weather yesterday. APE is one of three shows put on by the folks at Comic Con International. There's San Diego every summer, of course, and San Francisco's WonderCon, which is usually in the winter/spring (next year it's the first weekend in April) and then in the fall comes APE. All the shows have their various charms ... San Diego is, well, San Diego. WonderCon offers a similar type of programming to San Diego without the chaos of being the mammoth event that SDCC is, while APE has a more laid back, intimate feel.

• I got there shortly after the doors opened, when the crowds were still pretty light. They'd grow as the day went on, so it was kind of nice to have a little elbow room. Most of the mainstays were in their regular places, with a few noticeable exceptions -- Fantagraphics, Top Shelf, Buenaventura, SLG, VIZ and Drawn & Quarterly were all where they usually are, but IDW, Oni and AiT/Planet Lar, who have been there in recent years, were missing. (Larry Young told me he wouldn't be there because he didn't want to be setting up for a show on his birthday, which was Friday ... happy belated birthday, Larry!) And while Image didn't have a table, they were represented by some of their creators, such as Richard Starkings, who had his own booth, and Brandon Graham and Marian Churchland, who were at the Neon Monster booth.

Dash Shaw

• In the words of Jeff Lester, I think I fractured my wallet yesterday. Usually there's a "book of the show" at APE, but I'm not quite sure what it would be yet. Jamaica Dyer's Weird Fishes seemed to be doing pretty well at the SLG table. They also had copies of Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer at the booth; Dan Vado said the orders on the book had been great. They also had a new printing of Street Angel, which is on a nicer paper stock than the previous version. Meanwhile, Dash Shaw was not just sketching, but actually painting on copies of his new book The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D., which was fun to watch. They also had the third Ganges book, which I would have gotten if I hadn't already ordered it. Churchland had advanced copies of her Image graphic novel Beast, while VIZ had the sixth volume of Pluto available. I'm not as up on manga as most people, but this seemed to be a really big deal for fans of the book.

I picked up several minicomics as well, from folks like K.O. Comix, Jon Adams and Storm from the Writers Old Fashioned group. I'll do a separate post on all my various loot in the next day or so.

• As far as lines go, I don't think anybody beat Jeff Smith. It was also cool to see kids with plush Bones show up for his panel yesterday. Also, I caught the last half of the Batton Lash panel and wish I'd been there for the whole thing. Lash talked about his history in the comic industry, from being taught by folks like Will Eisner to working with Howard Chaykin to the legendary Archie vs. the Punisher one-shot he did.

• I had lunch with Matt Maxwell, David Brothers and Ana Hurka-Robles at the always awesome Holy Grill. I've eaten there at every APE, and it never fails to satisfy -- both in terms of food and company.

• More later ...

First up is Lee Post, an illustrator who is traveling down here to the Bay Area all the way from Anchorage, Alaska -- the land of "Sarah Palin, meth shacks, and aerial elk-massacres," he said in his email.

"My friend Pat Race and I will be coming down from Alaska to take part this year at booth #549," Post writes. "I've been down the last four years, hanging out with Jon Adams of Truth Serum fame, but I've finally made the jump to booth owner this year."

Post will be selling The Best of Your Square Life as well as a new mini-comic he did for 24 Hour Comics Day called In Alaska Everyone Has a Beard. He'll also have this APE-themed print:

Post says that Race is an illustrator from Juneau and is part of the collective Alaska Robotics, who do webcomics, T-shirts, and video shorts, one of which was recently featured on BoingBoing.

*****

Dogtown

Next up is Russ Kazmierczak, Jr. of K.O. Comix, who you can find at table 510. They'll have the self-published Dog Town by Brent Otey, a post-apocalyptic dogs vs. cats western sci-fi epic, and Karaoke Comics #1 by Kazmierczak, an anthology featuring fictional and biographical tales inspired by karaoke -- both hot off the press! Their usual assortment of superhero comics and fanzines will be available, too. Russ has more info on other stuff he'll have on hand at his blog.

*****

And finally, I mentioned the other day that Jamaica Dyer is a special guest and will be hanging out at the SLG table, but she sent over a few more details on what she'll be up to ...

I saw your post about APE, and wanted to say hi! I've been going to APE for about 7 years (a wee teenager when I started) sharing tables with friends to sell my mini-comics. This year is super exciting because my first graphic novel is coming out! I'll be at the Slave Labor booth signing copies of the book fresh-off-the-press and have some home-made wallets and art prints, I'm on a few panels, and I'm a special guest. Very exciting!

I think her email probably encapsulates everything I love about APE -- folks making comics with their friends who go on to be one of the show's special guests.

Here's the trailer for her new book, Weird Fishes, which you can buy at the show tomorrow:

The group was reportedly escorted out by security, though their tickets were refunded by Wizard's Vice President of Business Affairs Peter Katz. (As we reported earlier, Wizard has some experience with kicking rival con staffers out of its shows.) "World War Con" rages on ...

The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D.

The Alternative Press Expo, or APE, is coming up this weekend at The Concourse in San Francisco. The show runs from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. Special guests include Jamaica Dyer, Phoebe Gloeckner, Dean Haspiel, Batton Lash, Lark Pien, Dash Shaw and Jeff Smith. Here are a few more items of interest if you're attending ...

Fantagraphics | Fantagraphics sent over their signing schedule for the show:

Saturday
11AM - 1PM: Jon Vermilyea (MOME) & Frank Santoro (MOME)
12:00–12:45 Spotlight on Dash Shaw
1PM - 3PM: Dash Shaw & T. Edward Bak (MOME)
3PM - 5PM: John Pham
5PM - 7PM: Renee French (MOME) & Andrice Arp (MOME)

Sunday
11AM - 1PM: Jon Vermilyea (MOME), Frank Santoro (MOME) & Dash Shaw
1PM - 3PM: T. Edward Bak (MOME) & John Pham
3PM - 5PM: Renee French & Andrice Arp

They'll have many new releases on hand: The Troublemakers by Gilbert Hernandez, Conceptual Realism: In the Service of the Hypothetical by Robert Williams, Pim & Francie by Al Columbia, Sublife #2 by John Pham, The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D. by Dash Shaw, MOME Vol. 16 by various, The Great Anti-War Cartoons by Craig Yoe, and Ganges #3 by Kevin Huizenga.

"As an added bonus, Dash Shaw is an official APE guest this year and will be signing copies of his new book, The Unclothed Man in the 35th Century A.D.," writes Eric Reynolds. "For anyone who buys the book at one of his Fanta signings during APE, Dash will do an original PAINTING on the front cover! You will not want to miss out."

CBLDF | Beanworld creator and CBLDF Board Member Larry Marder will helm the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund presence at APE in San Francisco. Their booth will have hundreds of books for donations of $5 and $10, including items from authors Cory Doctorow, Jeff Smith, Terry Moore, Josh Neufeld, Neil Gaiman, and many more. There's also a CBLDF-sponsored Live Art Battle featuring Jeff Smith and Dean Haspiel on Sunday afternoon.

Whirlwind Wonderland

Sparkplug | Sparkplug Comic Books will premiere Whirlwind Wonderland by Rina Ayuyang, co-published with Tugboat Press. The book is also for sale on their website.

Sparkplug and Tugboat will be sitting next to each other, and Sparkplug will have Tom Neely, Teenage Dinosaur, Jesse Reklaw, Willow Dawson, Chris Cilla, Rina Ayuyang, David King, Renee French and Andrice Arp at their table, booth #359-362. Sparkplug will also be representing Bodega Distribution, Jason Martin, La Mano and Secret Acres at the show.

Drawn & Quarterly | D + Q will debut three books at the show: Red Snow, Big Questions 13 and Hot Potatoe. Here's their signing schedule:

Saturday, October 17
12-3pm Marc Bell Signing
1-3pm R Sikoryak Signing
3-5pm Anders Nilsen Signing

Sunday, October 18
12-3pm Marc Signing
1-3pm R Sikoryak Signing
3-5pm Anders Signing

Blue Ringed Comics | Blue Ringed Comics will launch their new comic Kate Anderson Adventures. Creators Steven Sautter and Kathy Harnack will be on hand all weekend, signing and smiling. Drop by and enter to win a chance to be drawn into the next issue. They'll be at booth 561.

Creators | King City creator Brandon Graham and Elephantman artist Marian Churchland will be at the Neon Monster booth, #454/455. Churchland will have a new mini-comic "about mice and dogs," Graham writes on his blog.

Fanfare / Ponent Mon | Fanfare / Ponent Mon will be at booth 232, where they'll be previewing two soon-to-be-released titles: Years of the Elephant by Willy Linthout and Jiro Taniguchi’s A Distant Neighborhood #2. They'll also have prize drawings and giveaways this weekend.

The Alternative Press Expo, or APE, is coming up this weekend at The Concourse in San Francisco. The show runs from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday. Special guests include Jamaica Dyer, Phoebe Gloeckner, Dean Haspiel, Batton Lash, Lark Pien, Dash Shaw and Jeff Smith. I'll be there covering the show, while Matt Maxwell will have a table to sell copies of Strangeways.

And over the next couple days, I'll be posting what various companies and creators have planned for the show. If you'd like to be included, drop me the details on where you'll be, what you'll be selling and all that good stuff.

Exhibit A Press | Jackie Estrada dropped us a note about what Exhibit A Press (table 312) will have at the show, where special guest Batton Lash will be celebrating 30 years of Wolff & Byrd, Counselors of the Macabre.

"He’ll be signing the limited-edition Supernatural Law Tales from the Vault Anniversary Special as well as comics and trades," she writes. "We’ll also have Batton’s 'monster cameos,' one-of-a-kind hand-painted miniatures of everyone’s favorite monsters. Plus: new Graphitti Designs Supernatural Law T-shirt!"

More info at www.exhibitapress.com/pages/index.php

SLG Publishing | Jennifer de Guzman sent over an update on SLG's plans for the show. "Jamaica Dyer will be a special guest, so we will have plenty of copies of her new book Weird Fishes," she writes. "Jamaica will also be on the panel Personal Stories on Saturday at 5 p.m. with Dean Haspiel, Phoebe Glockner, and Dash Shaw. I'll be moderating her spotlight panel on Sunday at 12 p.m."

Things Undone

NBM | Ted Rall and Shane White will be at APE; Rall will have a few copies of The Year of Loving Dangerously, while White will sign copies of the recent release Things Undone (which is sitting on my dresser in my "to read" pile; I should read it before this weekend).

Top Shelf | Brett Warnock posts on his blog that Nate Powell, Grant Reynolds and Jeremy Tinder will be at their booth, along with himself and Leigh Walton. And as always, he'll be at the Isotope party Saturday night.

Creators | Scott Morse will be on hand doing commissions and selling the last few remaining copies he has of The Ancient Book of Sex and Science.

Manga | Deb Aoki rounds up what various manga publishers are doing at the show.