Turbulence: SDCC 2013 Skybound Comics Panel

It is getting late in San Diego Comic-Con, and the true fatigue hysteria is beginning to set in. I personally have not slept longer than six hours in the past four nights, and considering my diet in that time has varied wildly from gourmet triple-creme brie to greasy patty melts to tater tots, washed down with everything from Starbucks iced coffee to Stone IPA to hotel room self-brewed coffee to Coors Light, I am beginning to break down physically. And considering I am writing this with only about two hours to spare before I have to haul my shattered carcass to the convention floor to attempt to obtain some Goddamned thing called a Plush Zerg for contributor Lance Manion (and knowing Lance, this “convention exclusive” can only be obtained in the third stall of the mezzanine men’s room), I am staring goggle-eyed at a notebook full of details from yesterday’s Skybound Comics panel.

Skybound is, if you are not familiar, the personal publishing imprint at Image Comics for creator of The Walking Dead Robert Kirkman. Meaning that, if you have picked up one of Kirkman’s comics – The Walking Dead, Invincible, or Super Dinosaur, off the top of my head – it was a Skybound book. But it is not a vanity imprint by any stretch of the imagination; Kirkman has been bringing other creators into the fold to release books, including the recent Thief of Thieves. And based on what we were told in the panel yesterday, there are a variety of other books on the way, covering genres from westerns to horror to 70s grindhoue-style revenge flicks, indicating that if we wait long enough, we will eventually see the Skybound bullet on a romance comics, if not some form of furry yiff-tacular.

Jesus, I’m tired.

The panel consisted of Kirkman, writer David Schulner, writer Josh Williamson, artist Matteo Scalera (who looked like he came to the panel straight from a Hell’s Angels run, and who I would not fuck with under any circumstances. I’m guessing that Scalera was never called “art fag” in junior high school. But I digress), artist Matthew Roberts (who drew Kirkman’s early indie effort Battle Pope), and writer Chris Dingess.

This, however, was a panel featuring the creator of The Walking Dead, which means that that comic was addressed first. Kirkman announced that, in October, a new large-scale story arc called All-Out War will start to commemorate the book’s tenth anniversary. The theory behind the book is that enough time has passed since the zombie apocalypse that some semblance of society is beginning to piece itself back together, and at the scale that conflicts even bigger than those between Rick’s crew and Negan’s will start to ramp up. “This is a huge confrontation on a large scale,” Kirkman said.

Initially upon hearing this, I was actually kinda bummed out; I haven’t really been shy about expressing my opinion that the pacing on The Walking Dead has felt almost abysmally slow in the past year; ever since issue 100, this arc has felt like:

10 $NEGAN is a dick
20 if ($RICK < $NEGAN) goto 10

However, Kirkman said that this arc, while being 12 issues long, should feel a little faster paced because those twelve issues will double ship, coming out over only seven months. “Much to the chagrin of [artist] Charlie Adlard,” Kirkman added.

And if you want to know more about Negan’s background and history (although personally, the only thing I want to see come out of his back is a bullet), Kirkman said that there’ll be more information about that in All-Out War… maybe. “If [Negan] doesn’t die first,” Kirkman said.

In addition, Kirkman announced that the mobile video game The Walking Dead: Assault is now available on Android platforms as well as iOs. Which is good news, because God knows it is difficult to find video games about fighting zombies. Parts of my body are tingling that really shouldn’t be. But I digress.

Kirkman then addressed upcoming events in Invincible (no, not the Marky Mark football movie. Although that was actually on TV at the bar I drank dinner at last night. I think I might be starting to hallucinate). He said that a new story arc will be starting on that book with issue #105. “[It’s a] good primer issue,” Kirkman said.

Kirkman then turned the panel over to Roberts and Dingess (who probably also wasn’t called “art fag” in junior high school. With that handle, he was probably called far, far worse), who talked about their upcoming comic series, Manifest Destiny, which Dingess called, “The ‘real’ adventures of Lewis and Clark.”

The series reimagines Lewis and Clark as “badass government agents,” out fighting danger on the wild frontier rather than drawing maps and, presumably, considering cannibalism and buggery. “There’s a reason we got the Louisiana Purchase so cheap from Napolean,” Dingess said. “The whole place is full of monsters, you guys!”

The series is actually Dingess’s first comics work (he said has a background in television writing), and on the process of working with Kirkman, he said, “Robert [was] a gentle, giving lover.” So maybe there will be some buggery after all. My feet should not be this color.

Kirkman also announced a new book by Luther Strode writer Justin Jordan with art by Scalera: Dead Body Road, which will drop in November. “It’s a western, but it’s in modern time,” Scalera said. “[It’s] western noir.”

The book is about a protagonist named Gage who loses his wife to a pack of hoodlums, which sends Gage on the road to revenge (road! Get it? I think I lost a couple of minutes there…). “He’s gonna kill all these good-looking guys,” Scalera said. “It’s kind of a 70’s revenge movie on paper,” Kirkman added.

The discussion then moved onto Ghosted, written by Williamson with art by Goran Sudzuka (which sounds like something Wash would shout at Captain Mal. Whose blood is this?), the first issue of which just recently dropped. The story’s about a dude named Jackson, who is a master criminal heister, who is hired at considerable cost to enter a haunted house… and find a way to steal its ghost. “Jackson has a bit of an edge to him, a bite,” Williamson said. Personally, I am a sucker for a good crime story, and the supernatural angle makes this a book that interested me enough that I went straight to the Skybound booth and picked up the first issue. I haven’t read it yet, because I no longer believe I have the ability to read.

The topic then moved to Clone, written by Schulner with art by Juan Jose Rip. “[Cloned] is a grounded sci-fi thriller with one twist: what if there were more of you, and what if you could save [them]?” Shulner said.

The basic story [which has been out for a while; the first trade paperback has already been released] is that a dude named Luke Taylor discovers that there are other versions of him out there, and that he is probably a clone. And that some of the cloned versions of him he meets are friendly, others not so much, and that there might be some grand plan behind the whole situation. “It’s about finding out who you are, and… being confronted by very different versions of yourself,” Schulner said.

Schulner said that a new story arc and a new dynamic for the overall tale will start in issue #11. If writing for an arc that long on an indie book sounds a little optimistic, fear not: I think it’s gonna make it. Because Kirkman and Schulner announced at the panel that Clone has been optioned by NBC Universal for development into a network television pilot, scheduled to be ready for the 2014 season. Kirkman will be producing the pilot. Am I a pilot? I feel like I’m floating. Maybe I’m a clone. It certainly feels like I’m a copy of a copy.

Kirkman then mentioned Thief of Thieves, which he said will be ramping up a lot in issue #15, where we actually see the big heist. “This is the heist we’ve been talking about since the beginning of the series,” Kirkman said. The issue will be written by Andy Diggle.

And finally, being a panel about an Image imprint with Robert Kirkman in attendance, someone asked about the status of Image United. Which is the Image Comics equivalent of asking someone if they are still beating their wives. “Those guys [the artists] are hard at work and there will be another issue someday,” Kirkman said.

Okay, all kidding aside: whose blood is this?