No Extinction: Avatar Press SDCC 2013 Panel

And here we are: our final article covering San Diego Comic-Con 2013 (except for a bunch of video that my high-toned, dedicated video camera seems to have mangled, unless my actual computer here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office can do anything to salvage them), five days after the convention ended and more than a week after the actual panel occurred. But what the hell; given my crippling hangover and intestinal issues born from the fried chicken sandwich and fries I washed down with five black IPAs at a bar last night, it feels like I’m still at SDCC. So let’s just plow ahead, shall we?

The Avatar Press panel on Thursday morning, July 18th, with Avatar Founder and Editor-In-Chief William Christensen and World War Z and Extinction Parade writer Max Brooks, was the first panel we hit during SDCC 2013, and in some ways it set the tone for the whole convention. The room wasn’t full, but there was a healthy crowd for a comic book related panel on the most off day of the convention. Not that there are any off days at SDCC anymore, but if there is a day that qualifies, it’s this mid-week opening to the full-blown festivities. Unlike Preview Night, the whole convention center is open, and cosplayers are more plentiful, all of which draws people off the floor and makes it at least tolerable to move around; there’s nothing like a set of jugs in a spandex Power Girl suit to peel off the rubes so you can get where you’re going.

But where we were going was a panel, and we were going there later than we should. Which meant we could get a seat up front and to the side… right in front of the projector many panels use to put up new art for display. Which meant that, as a six foot tall gentleman, I spent the panel hunched over like Frankenstein’s delivery boy to stay out of the projector light, scribbling notes almost on my side as if trying to write “I am having a stroke” for the paramedics, just in case Christensen and Brooks put some new art up on the screen.

Which they did not. Every table at every panel at Comic-Con has a posted sign for presenters, reminding them that members of the crowd might be younger than 18. And every fan of Avatar comics knows that there is very little art that they could project that would be appropriate for children. There is very little Avatar art that would not make children long for the sweet release of death, or at least blindness, to tell you the truth. Avatar books are for adults, and that is on purpose.

“I just do books I want to read,” Christensen said. “It will always be intense work for adults.”

The presentation started with talk about Uber, the recent ongoing comic by writer Kieron Gillen and artist Caanan White that speculates what would have happened if the Nazis developed superpowered soldiers sometime around 1944 (protip: it goes pretty well for them).

“We don’t do a lot of superhero books because they don’t interest me,” Christensen said, but apparently there was something in Gillen’s idea that attracted him… perhaps the fact that the idea of Nazis performing a comeback with superhumans offers years and years of stories featuring terrible violence. “Nobody else had the balls to do a book where the Nazis were winning for a while,” Christensen said. And it seems that the decision to go with superheroes, at least in this instance, paid off: “[It’s] probably our biggest series ever,” Christensen said.

In the near future, Avatar will be releasing a hardcover compilation of the first several issues of Uber in Volume One: Enhanced, which will feature 128 pages of bonus material like scripts, concept art, and other behind-the-scenes stuff. The book will be $34.99 in a 5,000 copy limited edition… and it probably won’t be the last such book, since Christensen said that Avatar currently projects Uber to run 60 issues with the original creative team. “Suckers,” Christensen said.

Christensen then announced a new free Webcomic, along the lines of Warren Ellis’s Freakangels from a few years back, called Disenchanted by writer Si Spurrier with art by German Erramouspe, which will be debuting in October. The comic, which will be free with six new pages per week, is about fairies living in London.

Rob, Is this hate speech? –Amanda

Amanda, Jesus, No! The comic’s about actual fucking fairies. You know, one inch tall with wings and shit. So it can’t be hate speech; I don’t know if any of the fairies are gay. –Rob

Anyway. The comic will be appearing on a dedicated Web site, which right now is just a blog with some background on the series, but which will apparently host the comic as Avatar’s Webmasters work to make the site more immersive, Christensen said. And delays should be unlikely: “We have 400 pages already in the can,” Christensen said.

And the series will be free – “Totally free, [and] will be free in five years,” Christensen said – but in an effort to raise awareness of the story, Avatar will be offering the first issue as a printed comic in comic stores on Halloween… meaning that the Web comic will be printed to raise awareness of the Web comic to eventually sell trade paperback collections of the comic, Christensen said. “This is a great business model, guys,” Christensen said dryly.

Christensen then made some subtle, none-too-detailed announcements about projects coming up from Avatar, including:

– Four new Garth Ennis Projects

– An unnamed Alan Moore project (but based on other stuff I’ve been hearing, this might be the sequel to his 2010 Neonomicon)

– A comic project by Song of Ice And Fire and current Avatar adaptation The Skin Trade writer George R. R. Martin. “George is a monster of pop culture right now,” Christensen said. “He still really loves comics.”

– Another long-form project by Kieron Gillen

– Ferals will go through issue #18, upon which the book will go on hiatus, because the art team is “having a hard time keeping up,” Christensen said. Christensen said he expects the title to return sometime next spring.

And then there’s Crossed, which will continue to swap creative teams every few issues. “New blood… keeps each feeling unique,” Christensen said.

Daniel Way will be doing the most recent arc, and then Crossed creator Garth Ennis will be returning for issue #50 with an arc named Patient Zero: seven issues detailing the start of the Crossed epidemic. And following that, Luther Strode writer Justin Jordan will be writing an arc, making it it his first work for Avatar. “It’s fun finding new writers and putting them through their paces,” Christensen said.

Christensen then announced the return of the character of Gravel, created by Warren Ellis in Strange Kisses back in 1999, in Gravel: Combat Magician, an ongoing series by writer and original Strange Kisses artist Mike Wolfer. “Gravel is just part of our core,” Christensen said.

And then the last of the announcements: Avatar is going digital. “We’re the last [publisher] to will out digital,” Christensen said, partially because remastering all their original art for viewing on a digital platform has been “a humongous pain.” But still, he said that they will be ready to start releasing their back catalog on Comixology in September, and then going day and date available soon after that… everywhere except on Apple platforms. Mentioning the recent trouble Saga had getting Comixology to accept some pages for release the Apple App Store due to explicit content, Christensen said, “Dude, we are going to have so many problems.” Christensen said that he basically expects that some issues just won’t be carried by the Apple App Store due to the graphic violence and gore you find in some Avatar books.

And at that point, the panel became pretty much all about Max Brooks and The Extinction Parade, his latest zombie comic that debuted its first issue in mid-June with art by Raulo Caceres. And this story is looking like it’s gonna be a big one – it was originally slated for ten issues but that has ballooned to twelve… so far. “It started as a big project [and] ballooned into… a humongous project,” Brooks said. “While it’s 12 issues now, we’ll see.”

If you haven’t caught the first issue, The Extinction Parade is the same old story about the zombie apocalypse that Brooks wrote about in his novel World War Z, only from the point of view of vampires. The theory being that vampires, being, by nature, the apex predators of the world, relying on human blood to survive, might just have a problem if zombies wipe out their food supply, Brooks said.

“Nine-tenths of the human story has been, ‘What the fuck was that?'” in response to every strange sound, Brooks said. Vampires, however, wouldn’t have those same panic and survival instincts, what with being immortal and almost never hunted by humans. “Just as we envy the rich… vampires or Kardashians have no actual survival skills,” Brooks said.

Brooks said that his vampires are based on the rules set down by Dracula, meaning they must feed on human blood, generally stay out of the sunlight, and that they reproduce only while young and beautiful. “They do not sparkle,” Brooks said to applause, “They’re all just gorgeous. And dumb.”

“In my mind, this isn’t a vampire story,” Brooks said, “It’s an anti-vampire story… vampires have never known what it means to be prey.”

The book has grown enough in scope that it is switching to bimonthly, Brooks said.  “I don’t care how big something is, I care how good it is,” Brooks said. And due to issues that are coming in longer than usual, and the detailed nature of Caceres’s art, the schedule is stretching, because neither Brooks nor Christensen want to consider using a fill-in artist. Brooks said he grew up reading Marvel’s Rom: Spaceknight, and remembers when original artist Michael Golden left, it “started to suck.” So considering this is the age of the trade collection, Brooks and Christensen said they will stick with the original team for however long it takes. “This [story] is gonna be around,” Brooks said.

And to me, that is part of the cool thing about Avatar comics: they are uncompromising. Make no mistake, they are not all winners – ironically, George Romero’s Night of The Living Dead feels like it only adds some tits and ass and not much else to his original movies, and frankly, the recent adaptation of Alan Moore’s screenplay Fashion Beast doesn’t do a lot for me – but the Avatar bullet on a cover means that you are getting a comic that is, almost without exception, at least swinging for the fences, man.

“You can’t read Crossed and not have a strong reaction,” Christensen said toward the end of the panel. “Or else, you’re really fucked up.”