Racebending Lois Lane & Other New York Comic Con Tidbits

New York Comic Con is definitely an adventure, with crowds that lined up for two blocks on Saturday to get in, a mobbed exhibition floor, and the lack of good cell reception in the Jacob Javits Center.

But those are just nitpicks. I had a fabulous time last weekend at NYCC, with most of it spend in Artist’s Alley, which was located in the north wing away from the center of chaos. That’s good for those wanting a chance to talk with creators, perhaps not so good for creators hoping to reach the most people with their work.

I entered Artist’s Alley about 11 a.m. on Saturday and didn’t venture out until 3 p.m. There were just too many creators of too many of my favorite books to leave. I could have easily dropped $1,000 on original art but, alas, the family budget wouldn’t allow that. Instead, there was something just as good: the creators themselves.

I spent quite some time talking with artist Nicola Scott, currently working on Earth-2 for DC Comics. Scott is Australian and so her visit to New York was rare. We talked about Earth-2, mostly, and what projects she’d still love to do.

Some of the highlights of Scott’s interview:

• Lois Lane was originally supposed to be African-American in Earth-2 and the reporter who appears in issue #1 was supposed to be Lucy Lane. But when preview images came out with Lois, she was shown as white, so they had to rename the African-American reporter.
• Readers should be able to guess who the Earth-2 Batman is from the way she draws him. I teasingly asked her if Batman had an excellent butt then we’d know it was Dick Grayson (Scott drew a famous panel of Nightwing from behind). She laughed and said she hadn’t been able to draw so many butt shots lately. So, apparently, Earth-2 Batman isn’t Dick. But that’s all the hint she would offer.
• Earth-2 had been leading up to the evil Superman reveal for the entire run and she knew he was going to leave in enough time so that no issues were changed or scrapped with the swap to new writer Tom Taylor.
• Taylor found it a “little heartbreaking” writing an evil Superman in Injustice: Gods Among Us, and so moving to writing another evil Superman was hard but he was able to give Superman some love in future issues. She also said Lois would get “some love” too, so perhaps a flashback is coming?
• Earth-2 is a world that’s much darker than the current DCU, somewhere between that and the current DCU and Darkseid’s Apokolips because of what’s happened to it.
• The idea hasn’t been approved but she and Mark Andreyko have been talking about doing work together, perhaps Batwoman-related.
• The characters she’d love to draw are Wonder Woman, Catwoman, and Nightwing.

At one point, Mark Andreyko, who is taking over writing chores on Batwoman, wandered by Scott’s table and I asked him about the controversy over DC not allowing any marriage, much less the marriage between Kate (Batwoman) Kane and Gotham Police Detective Maggie Sawyer.  Andreyko said gay marriage is not available in Gotham but that Kate and Maggie will definitely still be a couple.

Next I visited Wonder Woman artist Cliff Chiang to drool, er, admire, his pages. I ended up purchasing a set of 7″ panels that included the Teen Titans as the Breakfast Club and Batgirl 66 on her purple motorcycle. I asked Chiang how long he planned to be on Wonder Woman and he said he and writer Brian Azzarello had another year of stories to tell.

I also talked with Batman and Robin writer Peter Tomasi, who was very tight-lipped about the identity of the new Robin, and had artist Jim Calafiore sign my Leaving Megalopolis t-shirt, already signed by writer Gail Simone.

I have to emphasize that while I had a badge marked press, all these creators were open to answering questions to anyone who stopped by and I saw them chatting with many attendees. This area of cons remains my favorite.

Sure, comic panels with big announcements are fun to attend but getting a one-on-one with a creators of work you love is priceless.