Love them or hate them, conventions have become the industry standard for fan-engagement and giant announcements. Of course, very few fans can make it to any one con. Fortunately, Retcon Punch is there when you can’t be with our exclusive con coverage, ComicConPunch.

Patrick: Okay, okay, okay — let’s get over our second-day con grumpies. We hit up the Artists’ Alley first thing, and this time, with no agenda. I actually stopped to listen to some random pitches — a comic that staged 80s rock songs, a webcomic about moon convention, a series about a noir rhinoceros. There’s a lot of energy and creativity that floats around at this thing that has nothing to do with the big publishers, and when we walk around the con with stars in our eyes, I have a tendency to forget that.

And there’s even something troubling about the way we treat those larger-than-life talent types. Drew and I picked up some cool signatures from Rafael Albequerque and Humberto Ramos. Albequerque was pleasant to talk to but poor Ramos was plugging away on a commission while his handlers slid comics under his face for him to sign. Drew, was that moment as weird for you as it was for me?

Drew: It definitely was. It felt like watching some kind of sweatshop worker, and we were interrupting him for our benefit. I can’t always think of something substantive to say to creators in the moment, but I don’t think I’ve ever had an interaction that was completely wordless. It drained the joy out of the interaction, making it feel less like we were fans showing our admiration, and more like task-masters that only want something from him. This, again, might tie into my issues with the size of this event — with so many fans, creators must spread their attention ever thinner. It seems like we’ve cruised well beyond the point of diminishing returns.

Bah! We stepped outside for some lunch, and returned for the Inhumanity panel, which managed to upend the shitty expectations that yesterday’s barrage of panels set up. There was more cross-talk on the dais, and the mood was generally upbeat and jovial. It was also a killer lineup: Tom Brevoort, Axel Alonso, Mark Paniccia, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Dan Slott, Kieron Gillen, and Jonathan Hickman. Hickman was particularly jokey, a 180 flip from the sense of grumpy exhaustion he gave off yesterday.

Patrick: Hickman was damn near gleeful, and he wasn’t alone. DeConnick and Gillen have that sort of cool, of-the-people quality to them, so the room was immediately warmer toward the panel. I think that accounted for a whole bunch of intelligent, engaging questions. As an example: Gillen was asked about his process writing Young Avengers vs. his process writing Iron Man. And while Slott started to get that most persistent of shitty questions, he was able to shout into the microphone “HE’S DEAD!” well before the gentleman finished asking about Peter Parker.

Drew: “Gentleman” is beyond charitable. Anyone who thinks the announcement that Peter Parker is returning wouldn’t be the centerpiece of the panel, but might be made when prompted by the question Dan Slott is asked dozens of time a minute, is an asshole. The fact that Slott is asked this question enough to know to just cut people off makes me think he should just get a t-shirt printed so people don’t even have to ask.

Actually, that theatricality was echoed in Mark Paniccia’s ploy to keep folks from asking about Cataclysm: he feigned tears when it was first brought up, and excused himself from the panel, only to return in a few minutes, suggesting that he’ll be fine, just as long as nobody else mentions the Ultimate Universe. It was a cute (if dumb) bit, but it didn’t totally work: a few fans still brought it up only to get the same evasive answers we’ve all grown to expect.

Patrick: Next up, we headed to the dreaded Show Floor. This is the crassest, commercialest part of a crass, commercial enterprise. This is where the people who make comics (and video games) their business hangout. We’re not fools, we totally recognize that business is part of the business (would that art could exist for art’s sake, but alas), and I also like t-shirts, so it seemed worth one lap around the floor. Half-a-lap later, we gave up and went back to Artists’ Alley.

The place was also kind of a shit-show, but we managed two really neat moments with some of our favorite creators. First, we talked to Amanda Conner for a while. If you’ve never had the pleasure, she’s like the sweetest person in the world, and while she can jaw about comics with the rest of ’em, she’s just as happy to shoot the shit about whatever, from previous cons to how much she liked my shirt. It was like seeing an old friend, even if it was only the second time I’d ever shaken her hand. The awesome interactions continued with Pete Tomasi, who we caught sort of off guard as he returned to his booth.

Drew: I actually felt more caught off guard — we were using the empty table to pow-wow about where to head next, just as he was coming back from the DC signing table. Either way, I wanted something to say, so I thought I’d ask him about the scripts for Batman and Robin 18 (the famous silent issue), which I knew he was selling signed copies of. I’m a bit of a script nerd, and seeing how an issue with absolutely no dialogue was written piqued my interest. Sure enough, all I needed to see was the first page in order to pony up the money to just buy a copy for myself.

Anyway, while we were talking, Tomasi started to lament how under-appreciated his long-time collaborator, Patrick Gleason, is. He’s absolutely right — Gleason always knocks it out of the park — but I felt compelled to mention that I would say the same about Tomasi. His books tend to inherit plot developments from other titles, but he always manages to sell the emotional beats. Those two interactions made me feel a bit better about the antiseptic one we had with Ramos earlier in the day.

Next up was the New 52 panel, which I was hoping was going to give us some hints about Francis Manapul and Brian Buccellato’s upcoming Detective Comics, or James Tynion’s upcoming Batman Eternal. Unfortunately, the panel was oddly focused on issues coming out within the month. That’s been a bit of a pattern for DC’s panels this weekend, but I had somehow convinced myself that this panel might somehow be different from the DC Unleashed panel we saw yesterday.

Patrick: We had to rush off to the Vertigo panel, so we didn’t stay to hear any questions, which was fine with me. DC has this nasty habit of putting the same four dudes on a panel to discuss the same five or six series, so they were all running together for me by this point.

The Vertigo panel was actually pretty neat — a smaller publisher in a much smaller room, but they still packed the dais with some heavy-hitters. Lee Bermejo, Scott Snyder, Shawn Murphy, Rafael Albequerque, and a handful of others walked us through their line. The centerpiece was the return of Sandman (October 30th!), and they previewed a bunch of jaw-dropping J.H. Williams pages, including a cover that should be on display in a museum somewhere.

They also spent a lot of time plugging Fables, and the spin-off series Fairest, both of which I know to be good, but haven’t investigated in earnest before. Fables is on issue 134 (over 11 years) and reportedly still going strong. The editor, Shelly Bond, insisted that 134 was a “jumping on point,” but that phrase achieved buzzword status for me sometime early on Friday. Mostly, I was just overwhelmed by how much stuff there is that I’m not reading. Do I need to pick up Fables? Probably? Will I? That’s the bigness of the weekend, imposing itself on everything. Drew, we heard about some other new things at that panel — like Coffin Hill and Bermejo’s Suiciders — do you have room in your heart for either of those?

Drew: The preview for Coffin Hill appeared in recent issues of Trillium and The Wake, and thoroughly turned me off to the series. Gratuitous nudity? Blood? Teenage witches? Woof. They’ve carefully crafted this thing for someone who is decidedly not me.

Suiciders, on the other hand, looks like it at least has the potential to be interesting. Bermejo explained that it takes place in some kind of post-cataclysm LA, where the socio-economic divide has been made literal by a wall that separates the ritzy “New Angeles,” from the rundown “Lost Angeles.” We don’t know much more than that, but that setup seems ripe for some timely social commentary. It also has the potential for heavy-handed social commentary, but the art is going to be fantastic either way, so it’s certainly worth a closer look.

That was a positive, if perhaps overwhelming, note to end the day on — much needed after the panel marathon from day 2. I may be paneled-out at this point, though I suppose, at the very least, we need to make an exception for the Superior Spider-Man and Friends panel, right?