Crazyworld

It's not exactly the question I was expecting to leave the first day of HeroesCon with, but what the heck, it's a good one.

But let's start at the beginning. I arrived at Day 1 of HeroesCon around noon, and ended up entering the main convention hall behind a well-dressed Joker and Harley Quinn. They've been working on their costumes for a few months, and you'll get to see them, along with a bevy of other video I shot today, later this week. (Harley even called her guy puddin' -- a sign they planned to stay in character all day.)

I only went to one panel today, but it was a good one. It was on the state of the industry, which I'll explore in my Escape story Thursday. It was perhaps one of the more serious panels I've been to -- though there was plenty of horsing around -- and focused more on the business side of the industry. That's a good thing. Fans, by spending money each week, feel invested not only in the characters, but in the business itself.

The panelists were DC Executive Editor Dan Didio, Boom! Studios Editor-in-Chief Mark Waid (who introduced himself as an industry legend, to much applause), writer, artist and half the brains behind the Marvel Knight imprint Jimmy Palmiotti, and Image chief Erik Larsen. I was supposed to meet up with Palmiotti later in the afternoon for an interview, but we kept missing each other. Maybe tomorrow. I did get to chat with cute Amanda Conner, the artist who'll be working with Palmiotti and Justin Gray on the upcoming Power Girl series.

This is my fourth HeroesCon, and I think this is perhaps the busiest Friday yet. Organizer Shelton Drum looked around said it could be a monster tomorrow. I saw an Iron Man, a Firefily, some sort of Ninja, Barbecue from the G.I. Joe team, and Speed Racer. The geek in me was able to comb the back-issue bins to complete Image's old "Fire From Heaven" crossover, and I'm only one issue away from having the full scope of DC's "Invasion!" storyline. Surely, there's a copy of New Guardians No. 6 among the tens of thousands of books on the floor. (New Guardians, to my understanding, was a short-lived title, and for good reason. But, like most collectors, I'm a completist.) I also finished out some key arcs from "Sandman Myster Theatre" and James Robinson's "Starman."

About an hour before the doors closed on Day 1, I bumped into Didio in front of the Newsarama booth. I'll post more on that later, but we did chat for a minute about the buttons on the freebie table, one promoting the current "Batman R.I.P." storyline, and the other four with different characters and the words "I am Batman." They were Tim Drake, the current Robin, Nightwing, the original Robin, Jason Todd, the back-from-the-dead bad-boy second Robin, and a villain named Hush.

"So, you guys are killing off Batman?" I asked Didio.

"I don't know if anybody ever said that. Batman is not going to die," Didio said.

" 'Batman R.I.P.' is one of our better-selling titles right now. It's a story that really helps redefine who Batman is. We're going to put him through some of the craziest mechinations in quite a while, and more importantly, it's not just affecting the one Bat book ... it's affecting all the characters in the Batman universe."

I expect we'll hear a little more about this at tomorrow's DC Nation panel. It's too bad that's the same time as the Tori Amos Tattoo panel, which features an array of writers and artists selected by the musician to reinterpret her songs in sequential art form. (Sequential art is the smart-sounding word for comics. Thanks, Will Eisner!)

To be continued...

Whenever the stars align and I'm lucky enough to interview a comic creator, the elation is always followed by a gnashing of teeth at all the good stuff that I have to leave out of the print story. Blogs have provided a great way to put it all out there.

HeroesCon organizer Shelton Drum helped arrange my interview with Mark Waid, who is one of the bigger names at this year's convention. (You're going, aren't you? ) I think Drum really does know everyone in the industry. Waid said the two have known each other for at least 20 years.

Of the couple dozen creators I've had a chance to interview, I found Waid to be more relaxed than most. He was cordial, candid, and didn't ramble on. Of course, we talked about the convention -- see today's Escape -- but we got to talk a little about his career and the industry in general, too.

Waid, 46, cited "Kingdom Come," which he created with Alex Ross, and his eight-year run on "The Flash," as the highlights of his career. I remember when I was young, really just getting into comics, and I started reading Flash just a couple of issues before Waid began writing the character. I followed most of the series. Waid made Wally West a real person to me. Before, all I had been interested in was G.I. Joe and Batman. (I'm not embarrassed to say that "Armageddon 2001" was what exposed me to DC's pantheon of characters in the first place. And I still like it. I've got a great Waverider story in a notebook somewhere...)

Waid will participate in a state-of-the-industry panel this weekend. He says the industry itself is in good shape, but that the state of super heroes is in flux. Thankfully, though, the barrage of super hero movies are keeping the tights, capes and -- in this summer's case -- armor on more people's radar.

"I thought Iron Man was one of the best super hero movies ever made. It was flat-out, just note perfect," Waid said. "Everybody knows who Spider-Man or Batman is. What the hope is, with Iron Man, people will come out of it wanting to know more about Iron Man because all they've ever heard about him is in the last two hours in the movie. The simple evidence is that the sales on the Iron Man comic have gone up, Marvel will tell you. I think that's a good sign. That's something we hope for."

As for Kingdom Come, if you haven't read it, stop reading this blog now and go get it. It's a modern masterpiece, one that will withstand the test of time.

Kingdom Come is set in the future. DC Comics, in some titles more than other -- especially Justice Society of America -- seems to be doing things to move its characters toward that future. I asked Waid for his thoughts on that.

"I'm flattered in that it feels like Alex Ross and I were in touch with something," he said. "But it's a little frightening at the same time, because what we projected was a sort of dark, dystopian future where heroism was an ill-defined concept. On one hand, it's nice to have my ego stroked by seeing the company move toward that Kingdom Come future, but at the same time, it's a little depressing, because it's not the kind of future anyone should be moving to."

These days, Waid spends the bulk of his time as editor-in-chief of Boom! Studios. The company puts out about a dozen books a month, with plans to expand that to about 20 by year's end.

Since we were speaking about the current, and future, of the industry, we happened onto the topic of online comics. Boom! posted the entire first issue of "North Wind" on a MySpace comics page a few months ago -- the same day the issue hit the stands. Sales on subsequent issues went up, Waid said.

"We're not afraid of it," he said. "Like other small acts, we're not afraid of giving away content for free if we think it can drive the bigger picture."

See Waid this weekend at HeroesCon in Charlotte. It'll be worth the gas money.