CONSTANTINE AT THE CON

Just got back from a couple of packed days at the New York Comic Con.  Day One was spent promoting the new Constantine:  City of Demons—The Movie, which is coming out on DVD, BluRay and other formats on October 9th.  We had a great panel, with a huge enthusiastic crowd, and you can watch the entire thing below...



And here are a few more photos from Constantine Day.  That's Rachel Kimsey (the voice of Angela) on the left, followed by producer Butch Lukic, designer Phil Bourassa, actor Damian O'Hare (the voice of Chas), JMD and the CW Seed's Peter Girardi in the picture below.

Huge thanks to the amazing Gary Miereanu and his equally-amazing Warner Brothers team for making it a memorable day.

(Be back tomorrow with some photos from Friday's Berger Books panel.)

REMEMBERING BREYFOGLE

I just heard that Norm Breyfogle, one of the definitive Batman artists of all time, has passed away.

I had the pleasure of working with Norm on The Spectre and he was a wonderful collaborator:  his drawing was powerful, his storytelling impeccable and he really thought about the stories.

Norm would call me up just to ask questions and discuss the philosophy underlying my scripts.  He had a questing mind that dug deep—and that depth was reflected in his dynamic artwork.

A terrible loss and, at only 58, way too young.

My heartfelt condolences to Norm's family and friends.

IT'S HERE!

A box just landed on my front porch stuffed with copies of Impossible Incorporated #1. My buddy Mike Cavallaro and I have been developing this project—which tells the tale of seventeen year old Number Horowitz and her band of cosmic adventurers—for years now and it's profoundly gratifying to finally hold the book in my hands.

The first issue is on sale tomorrow and I hope you all buy it and, of course,  enjoy it!

THE JOY OF ZECK

Here's a clip from Sunday's Kraven's Last Hunt panel where I talk about the joy of working with an artist and visual storyteller as gifted as Mike Zeck.  You can find more videos from Cincinnati, and other interesting things, on my recently launched Youtube Channel.

Enjoy!

ALERT

If you've posted a comment to the blog today and haven't received a response it's because Google is having some kind of issue that's preventing me from replying.  As soon as it's fixed, you'll hear from me.  Thanks!

KRAVEN LIVES

Had a really nice weekend at the Cincinatti Comic Expo—and especially enjoyed the Kraven's Last Hunt panel with my amazingly gifted collaborators Mike Zeck and Bob McLeod.  

I'm constantly amazed by—and grateful for—the long life this story has 
had:  treasured by old fans, still being discovered by new ones and continually in print.  We never dreamed we'd still be talking about KLH more than thirty years later. (Marvel just put out a new deluxe edition last month, featuring our sequel, Soul of the Hunter, along with a number of other Kraven-centric stories of mine.)

In the photo below, that's Bob M on the left, Mike Z in the middle and yours truly on the right.

BEGINNINGS

When I started in comics, the primary purpose of the DC anthology books—titles like House of Mystery, Weird War Tales, House of Secrets—was to find, and train, new writers and artists.  You didn't need to be published to get in the door, you needed to show that you had talent worth cultivating.  I used to call it the vaudeville of comics:  Those books were a kind of small-town theater where you could learn your craft before graduating to comic book Broadway.

The short story format provided a fantastic storytelling education:  You had to deliver a fully-realized plot, character arcs, and convincing dialogue in five to eight pages.  Working on those stories taught me so much.  And it certainly helped that my teachers were legendary editors, and wonderful people, like Jack C. Harris, Paul Levitz  and the late, great Len Wein.

I’d love to see more regularly published anthologies on the market today.  It's great that the business is attracting accomplished screenwriters and novelists, but I'm sure there are many talented people out there, with no credentials, who could benefit from being trained by experienced editors.  And the industry will benefit, in turn.

(If you want to know how my first comic book sale, to DC's House of Mystery, came about just click here.)

©copyright 2018 J.M. DeMatteis