Phoenix Comic Fest 2018 - UPDATED With Day 2 Panel Info

[rkjock1]

It's that time of year again!

As I've done in the past, I'm going to give you my rundown of Valiant's presence at Phoenix Comic Fest.

They always set up right next to one of the main doors, so I make it a point of dropping by the booth first thing:



I picked up a Con exclusive HWII #1 (Jeff Pina is Arizona local, so he always signs my books), a Valiant High t-shirt and got a Ninja-K gold for wearing my Shadowman shirt.:





So, after chatting up some of the new staff (Victoria and Emily) I headed out to explore the Con floor and see if I could pick up a few autographs. Dropped my son at the video games and went out to meet Jim Salicrup, Jim Hanna, Alan Davis and this guy....



In case you weren't familiar with the smiling mug, he's the guy who wrote these books:



And, as I try to do every year, I checked in to see how this guy was doing:



Again, in case you aren't familiar with the face, that's Christian, also known as Elveen from Only the Valiant. He's an awesome guy to chat with and when he's stocked up, I usually end up picking a few things up from him. Unfortunately, his box of Valiants got left back in California this year.

From there, the kid and I went to see Wil Wheaton who did a super enjoyable Q&A. Weirdly, we met him afterwards. It's just... it was in the bathroom. He seems really nice though.

At 3pm, the Valiant 101 panel started and I got to meet Robert Meyer and Karl Bollers. I've got to tell you folks, the scary truth is this: these men are every bit as excited and passionate as the previous Team and I got to really like them over the course of Friday and Saturday.





After the panel presentation, we got our Gold books:



I was excited to get these. I really like the new series.

It was after the panel, back down on the floor that I hit Robert and Karl up with some of the hard questions I had about the DMG buyout. They were really open talking about some of the changes, their feelings about Dinesh and how they've been far less forthcoming with info on social media simply because they aren't comfortable with the platform the way Boss Nerd was. I was excited. They had good things to say and I'm looking forward to the big announcements coming this Wednesday.

[Elveen]

Good write up bro.

I’m sorry I forgot my box. Ugh.

It was great to see you.

[TheeBaldMoose]

Big announcement coming this Wednesday, huh? Well I'm curious

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk

[rkjock1]

Day 2 of my Valiant adventures at the Con was a bit quicker than in previous years, as the Harbinger Wars II and Beyond panel was at 12pm, which didn't leave me a lot of time to stop by the booth in the morning. I did get to talk to Karl some more outside the meeting room though, as he and I were both early. I like this guy immensely and I think he represents Valiant really well.

As with yesterday, Robert and Karl were the panelists. Mel Caylo was expected, but got delayed in LA.





A few items that came up throughout the day, some at the panel and some at the booth were:

Adam Pollina will be doing his first Valiant work on the HWII Aftermath issue and is also contributing to the Life and Death of Toyo Harada.

There is going to be a third Dr. Mirage series and her character will be highlighted this year.

Psi-Lords is still being worked on, but the characters are in the first arc of the current X-O series.

There's a big 4002 project being worked on, but won't be announced until probably next year, as it sounds like it's the 2019 summer event.

The characters from Eternity will be appearing in the next X-O arc.

There is a Livewire project spinning out of HWII.

Karl Bollers wants to move Quantum and Woody away from slapstick comedy and into a more accessible series that combines humor with real character moments. Which sounds to me like he wants it to have more of the elements that made the Acclaim series so well received.

Also, he's working on getting new creators to do books for Valiant. That's why we now have Larry Stroman and Adam Pollina working on projects.

Inside the dust cover of the Quantum and Woody Vol. 2 Deluxe Edition, they are printing the game board for the Delinquents game that was on all the variant covers.

And lastly, they are looking at new ways to market trades, which is why we are now getting softcover compendiums of the VEI stuff, but we will be getting some new tpbs with VH1 titles also.

My grandson got a Jeff Pina Rai for being the youngest fan in attendance.



We got Quantum and Woody golds for attending. (I also scored a Bloodshot: Salvation for having my shirt.)



Finally, Cary Nord was on Artist's Ally, so I asked him to sign a few books for me. Nice guy.

And that's it for me. Got a family BBQ for Sunday, so I'm done with Con for this year.

[mkb28]

Wow, sounds like you had a great Con! Thanks for sharing!

[geocarr]

Congratulations! You scored big on all those gold books!!

[sonicdan]

Great photos and report. Thanks for posting!
Dan

[grendeljd]

Glad you had a great time - thanks for posting pics & juicy tidbits of info on the upcoming projects!

[jmatt]

Love con recaps. Man, you picked up some sweet swag!

Thanks for sharing.

[FormerReader]

Great write-up! Thanks very much!

[Sunlight on Snow]

Thanks for reporting from Phoenix!

Lots of great stuff coming up.

[Zhuge1]

And lastly, they are looking at new ways to market trades, which is why we are now getting softcover compendiums of the VEI stuff, but we will be getting some new tpbs with VH1 titles also.

Reprints of VH1 stuff? Would be nice to see volume 2 of the XO Classic Omnibus (although I would hope that was a hard cover like the first).

[kinggirlfriend]

Sounded like an awesome time! Thanks for the write-up!

[Ramses818]

Thanks for sharing. Looked like a lot of fun!

[greg]

A few items that came up throughout the day, some at the panel and some at the booth were:
...
Psi-Lords is still being worked on, but the characters are in the first arc of the current X-O series.

Four "special art style" pages on the history of the Cadmiums in X-O #3 and also a mention of "sentient gardens".

[jmatt]

A few items that came up throughout the day, some at the panel and some at the booth were:
...
Psi-Lords is still being worked on, but the characters are in the first arc of the current X-O series.

Four "special art style" pages on the history of the Cadmiums in X-O #3 and also a mention of "sentient gardens".

Yeah, I was kind of wondering about that. I haven't looked, but is the content you're referring to the extra stuff in the Pre-Order edition?

We've all known that the early stuff in the recent X-O run was teased as tying into the Psi-Lords... and since the original Psi-Lords were differently colored (some yellow, some blue, etc) I've wondered if the differently colored Cadmiums and Azures, etc would be the predicate for that in the upcoming Psi-Lords book.

[Sunlight on Snow]

A few items that came up throughout the day, some at the panel and some at the booth were:
...
Psi-Lords is still being worked on, but the characters are in the first arc of the current X-O series.

Four "special art style" pages on the history of the Cadmiums in X-O #3 and also a mention of "sentient gardens".

Yeah, I was kind of wondering about that. I haven't looked, but is the content you're referring to the extra stuff in the Pre-Order edition?

We've all known that the early stuff in the recent X-O run was teased as tying into the Psi-Lords... and since the original Psi-Lords were differently colored (some yellow, some blue, etc) I've wondered if the differently colored Cadmiums and Azures, etc would be the predicate for that in the upcoming Psi-Lords book.

Greg's probably talking about the four pages illustrated by David Mack and some other guy at the very beginning of issue #3. At the time it felt like an odd choice and waste of pages to be honest. It looked fantastic though.

The original Psi-Lords were separated into three classes with different suits (red, orange, yellow) that granted them a different set of powers (bastion, gunner, scout). The Cadmium don't strike me as equivalent to the Psi-Lords. Perhaps the Cadmium just found the Psi-Lords' technology (Molmachs) around the crash site of the spaceship and used it to their advantage? Back in the 90s the Molmachs were a combination of nanites and neural implants -- self-replicating little thing that could build everything from scratch and dust in no time.

[Sunlight on Snow]

When I first read this...

Psi-Lords is still being worked on, but the characters are in the first arc of the current X-O series.

....I thought it was meant to be the first arc after HW2 and the Psi-Lords had something to do with the Unknown.

Aren't there two spaceships hovering around the God Platform in Eternity #1? They sure look chunky and less detailed but they do have long antennae and circular elements like the Psi-Lords' spaceship in the Pre-Order Edition of XO #1:

[Jrosen]

Big announcement coming this Wednesday, huh? Well I'm curious

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk

Was there any announcements?

[TheeBaldMoose]

Big announcement coming this Wednesday, huh? Well I'm curious

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk

Was there any announcements?

I haven't seen or heard anything...