Artist Brad Walker at Midtown Comics September Book Club!

Last week, I attended the Midtown Comics Book Club. September's book was Guardians of the Galaxy: Realm of Kings written by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning and the art by Book Club guest Brad Walker!

As a bit of back story, Walker loved superheroes when he was little especially Spidey. His mom taught him how to draw and got him started.  However, he decided to become a comic artist in his teens.  He loved drawing Disney-style back then but wanted to draw something real-looking.  He also loves that the comics medium doesn't have limitations like film.  Anything that you can imagine is reality.

Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey at Midtown Comics Book Club!

Zoe, Thor, Ryan and Fred
chatting about Comic Book Comics!

This month, the Midtown Comics Book Club featured the ever-awesome Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey, who were talking about the collected edition of Comic Book Comics!

In case you haven't been reading Comic Book Comics, this series chronicles the history of comics through creative storytelling and design.  Many of the stories are ones that we hear as comic readers but never get the full story.  Van Lente and Dunlavey do their best to provide an unbiased look at how the comics industry came to be.  We have all been big fan since this release party for the fifth issue, the All-Lawsuits Issue!

Here are some tidbits from their Q & A, masterfully moderated by Midtown's Thor Parker and Zoe Gulliksen:

Johnny Wander at the Midtown Book Club!!!

From left to right: Ananth, Yuko, John and Conrad.

As always, I had a blast at the February Midtown Comics Book Club.  February's book was Johnny Wander: Vol 1.  The creators, Ananth Panagariya and Yuko Ota, were there to answer all of our crazy questions. I was also excited that John and Conrad (few of the books' stars) were in the audience.  As always, Thor and Zoe hosted the affair to a packed audience!

In case you haven't read Johnny Wander yet, it is a web comic that follows the real life antics of Ananth, Yuko and their friends.  Yep, this one is totally true.  It is written by Ananth and drawn by Yuko.  While it doesn't have a storyline, reading it is like reading a comic about myself.  It is cute and funny, and also something they are comfortable with their parents seeing!

The two of them have been working on JW for 4 years.   When coming up with the title, they chose Johnny Wander because it could be anything, not just a comic.  That way, if they branched out to other ventures, the name still fit.  Their original intent was that JW would be a side project.  However, it became so popular that it's become their main source of income.

Thor asked them why they went with a story a day rather than overarching plot, and Ananth said that each character is easy to pick up for new readers.  Yuko added that time-wise it is easier to keep up with as well.

Then they were asked just how they decide what makes it into the comics?  Actually, some things don't make it because all of their parents read JW.  Both of them said that they avoided using inside jokes to make it easier for readers to follow along.  Yuko did say that they ask before they use a story. The stories that did make it in were lightened up a bit so they were funnier rather than dark.  One story that fits this bill perfectly is the ant story.  It is funnier because John admitted at the book club that he has a deathly fear of ants!

I take good pictures!

Finally, I got to ask my question!  At the beginning of the book, there is a very sweet quote that I just love.  I wanted to know where it came from and it turns out that Yuko wrote it.  As she puts it, Ananth has no rhythm, so poetry is just out of the question.  On the flip side, Ananth did draw one comic, which looks pretty close to the rest of them.

This was a super fun night, and now Johnny Wander made it into my web comics bookmark folder.  Definitely check it out, you really won't regret it.  The March book is The Stuff of Legend, and creators Mike Raicht and Charles Paul Wilson III will be there!  Come on down and join us!




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Scott Snyder at Midtown Comics: The Hottest Ticket in Town!

The January Book Club at Midtown Comics was Scott Snyder discussing his Batman graphic novel, The Black Mirror. It was a night of surprises like the Midtown Comics crew hasn't seen for the book club before.

That afternoon, I got an email from a friend telling me to get to Midtown Comics right after work. I thought he was just excited to see me. I ended up leaving work late and rushed over there. What I found was not what I expected. The alley next door was filled with lines of expectant geeks. And I mean filled. I went upstairs to find out that people had been waiting since before 3pm. Normally, the book club is 10-20 people, so I was completely thrown.

Mike Dawson and Troop 142 at Midtown Comics Book Club

You will get this poster
once you read the book.

Our November book club featured Troop 142 and its creator, Mike Dawson. As always, Midtown Comics' Thor Parker was our fabulous moderator. It was such a fun night with lots of laughs.

This post is SPOILER-FILLED so if you are allergic to spoilers,

go read another tasty article on [insertgeekhere].

In case you haven't read Troop 142, here is the lowdown. This tale follows Boy Scout Troop 142 on their week-long summer camp. The boys work hard, earn badges, do drugs, torture each other, and grow bacteria in spam. So basically, being regular teenage boys. But before you start thinking this is just a kids' tale, this story addresses sexuality, drugs, self-esteem and institutional mentality.


I truly enjoyed this story.  As a lifelong, proud Girl Scout, this brought back my own fond memories of summer camp.  While we weren't as gross as the boys, we still had similar experiences.  I also appreciated the honest look at Boy Scouts.  The organization has had a lot of problems in the past, especially surrounding religion and homosexuality.   However, this story also touched upon the positives of the organization - the important skills and traits developed.  I have always credited scouting for teaching me responsibility, morality, woodworking and honor, among other traits.  For any scout or non-scout that reads this book, I hope that you feel the good as well as the bad.

There were a few boy scouts in the audience, so the discussion felt less question & answer and more conversational. It was a nice change and had a relaxing feel.  Here are some of the highlights:

Midtown Book Club: Matters of Life & Death with Dan Slott

The last Friday of the month can mean only one thing: payday!  Whoo!  Let's party!  Hmm?  That's not it?  Oh... did you mean the book club thing?  I see.  There's that too.  So, it's also time for Midtown Comics monthly book club.  I was actually very psyched for this one because they were putting the spotlight on one of my current favorites: Dan Slott's Amazing Spider-Man.  The book we were discussing was the trade of Matters of Life & Death.  A very meaningful story that marked a turning point in Peter Parker's career as Spider-Man.

If you've ever been to a book club at this Midtown Comics before (or read one of our posts about them), then you know they have a particular format they usually stick to; however things didn't quite start out as they usually do this month.  To start, the special guest, Dan Slott, was stuck in traffic due to the protests currently happening on Wall St. and in an even more disturbing twist the Dunkin' Donuts they usually have refreshments from Ran Out of Donuts!  Don't ask me how a Dunkin' runs out of donuts, it's beyond me... maybe the protesters bought them out earlier.  Anyway, we started the evening a few minutes late.  Once Dan arrived, he made up for his tardiness in spades and literally jumped right into his presentation.


Dan rushed in and was talking to the crowd before he even put his bag down.  Normally the hosts from Midtown, Zoe & Thor, are the ones who have questions prepared and will run the show for the evening, but in this case their guest was prepared with a special treat for everyone.  Rather than making it a question and answer session, Dan went right into an in-depth, behind the scenes look at his creative process.  In fact, he jumped right in before our two hosts even had a chance to introduce themselves.

He actually swung into the store this way.  It really does beat NYC traffic.

The book we were discussing is the collected trade of Amazing Spider-Man issues number 652 through 657, plus the special issue number 654.1.  The stories herein truly contain some of the most emotionally charged pages from the past year, but our discussion focused on one in particular.  "In Memory of Marla Jameson" was the issue immediately following the conclusion of Revenge of the Spider Slayer, in the climax Mayor J. Jonah Jameson's wife is killed saving his life.



Dan read through his original notes to artist Marcos Martin as we went through each page of the completely silent opening ten pages.  He shared his experiences between his initial impressions and what was actually interpreted by Martin.  Dan also shared with us that he still writes in a style called "The Marvel Way", which involves the writer only writing an overview or storyboard, but not actually scripting the book until the art is completed.  This used to be the way required by Marvel editors and that's how it was drilled into Dan's writing style, but since then this style has been largely abandoned even in Marvel's own offices.  Dan shared very high praise for the many "gifts" that Marcos delivered with his work.  


One page in particular was the one in which Peter is having a nightmare and reliving the fateful night his uncle Ben was killed.  While Dan's notes described the scene taking place in the hallway and being a rather basic re-telling of the scene, what was actually interpreted and delivered was a page truly out of a dream:

Dan went on to discuss his current cross-over event Spider Island and how his creative process started and has continued throughout.  There were lots of really interesting insights shared and we all got a great view into the mind and creative process.  All of this, plus he then went on to take questions from the audience!  I was really impressed with how much thought Dan had clearly put into this, and as a fan I felt that he really appreciated us.  It was a great night overall and a great addition to the Midtown Comics Book Club series.  Can't wait for the next one, see you next month!





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Midtown Comics Book Club: Planet Hulk with Greg Pak and Mark Paniccia

It’s time for another visit with some of your favorite creators. This time, writer Greg Pak and editor Mark Paniccia stopped by to talk about Planet Hulk.

For those not familiar with the story, it is a tale of the Hulk getting betrayed by his “friends” on Earth and shipped off planet, supposedly to one filled with no intelligent lifeforms. Unfortunately, he does not end up at his intended destination and instead, lands on one of the most violent places imaginable.

The club was kicked off with introductions and our moderator, Thor Parker, deciding to take us back in time to a simpler time when Civil War was getting ready to happen. Joe Quesada felt it was important to keep the Hulk out of Civil War, seeing as how he could tip the scales being the strongest there is, and getting Hulk off planet helped with another story, Peace on Earth, that was already in the works and would give the Hulk a chance to completely cut loose. Paniccia told us how all the pieces fell into place and everything worked out perfectly.

Pak went on to explain how he went to a meeting with Axel Alonso, Quesada, and Paniccia, and told,” Hulk, alien planet, gladiators, monsters, battle axe.” To which he promptly replied, “Yes!”

Other highlights include:

Pak spoke of how he had always wanted to work on the Hulk, so he would casually drop hints whenever possible.

Thor asked if they felt a lot of pressure regarding the book even though it was not a part of Civil War. Pak replied that for every book there is pressure because these are “legendary characters, created by geniuses, and there are hundreds of people out in the world, who know more about these characters than any writer does.” Then he spoke about one of the challenges with the characters is figuring out what their “thing” is and taking them to a new place while still respecting what the character is about.

We found out that Chris Sotomayor, the colorist, came up with the idea of having only Hulk be in green for the first issue. Then through out the run, more green would be added as Hulk influenced his surroundings more. The only exception being Caiera, whose eyes were green as a little tip off she might be a being of importance to the Hulk.

Originally, the run was only supposed to be seven issues, but when it proved to be popular, they were given an additional seven issues. This allowed them to put back elements they had originally taken out.

Paniccia spoke of how Pak’s love for the Hulk came through in every issue and that helped make the story flourish. Then he went on to speak about how both he and Pak feel Hulk and Banner are the same person, which is different from what many writers have done in the past. He also talked about the great scene between Caiera and Hulk, when she says she wants to see all of him, Banner included.

Thor asked how Pak dealt with the Hulk being the character that probably spoke the fewest words in the entire book. Pak told a fun story he had heard about Clint Eastwood, in one of his westerns, crossed out many of his lines, saying someone else could do them because he was not about to deliver any expository dialogue. The less he said the more powerful his character was and that was the similar approach Pak wanted to take with Hulk. He was also inspired by his high school soccer coach, who would just stare at him, not speaking, whenever he had to speak to him about anything like needing to leave to do another activity.  Hulk is a man of action, not words.

Quesada was very supportive of the book and offered guidance whenever possible including helping make the Hulk look less “handsome,” as he appeared in early sketches, and more like the monster he is.

The most challenging part of the book for Pak was that this was his first on-going series, so he was not used to writing out of sequence. Paniccia said the scheduling was the most difficult. They really wanted to make sure everything shipped out on time and the fans would know the book would be out like clockwork, but there were some times when it was a challenge. They both spoke of how great the rest of the creative team was to help make sure this happened.

An audience member asked if, towards the end, Pak had considered asking Quesada for another few issues because the world had been such a great creation. Pak said he knew he would revisit it with Sakaar and as he put it, “you don’t want to stay until the last bit of applause has finished.” Paniccia also said it felt like the right amount of time and they did not need to stay there any longer.

Another member congratulated Pak on Planet Hulk arriving in Korea. Then she spoke of how the Hulk is called so many different names and wondered if there was a deliberate plan for the names. Pak replied that it was not intentional but names mean different things to different people and how names need to be earned. He pointed out that “Holku” was something a Korean grandmother might call him, so it made sense that Caiera was the one to call him that.

Wilderowens closed the meeting, asking about what goes into dealing with the duel personalities of Banner and Hulk. Are they separate or interconnected? Pak said they are different aspects of the same person. They are both responsible for what the other one does. Paniccia said the “What If?” really helps highlight this. He went on to say that since they are the same person, Banner was able to recognize that the planet was too dangerous for him so he let Hulk take over but he also let Hulk borrow some of his “smarts,” so Hulk could strategize and think better.

On that note, the book club ended, and we got to have our books signed.

As someone who has tried repeatedly to get into the Hulk books and failed, this is probably the best storyline I’ve read that has made me excited to see what happened next. If you haven’t read it or you are looking for a way into the books, pick up Planet Hulk. You will not regret it.

The August graphic novel will be Beasts of Burden with writer Evan Dorkin. Hope to see you there!

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Alex Robinson from Too Cool to be Forgotten at the Midtown Comics Book Club

Midtown Comics Book Club was last week, and Thor & Zoe brought us a really good one: Too Cool To Be Forgotten by Alex Robinson.

In case you haven't read this awesome book from Top Shelf, here are the basics.  The story follows Andy Wicks on his quest to quit smoking. As a last ditch effort, his wife takes him to a hypnotist to help him stop. From there, Andy falls back in time to the '80's when he was in high school. He quickly realizes that here he can finally get to redo everything he regretted, including smoking.  Through his journey, he gets to the true root of his problem and it's not what he thinks.  

In this book, I love that he keeps remarking how he forgot how difficult it was to be a teen.  I think that every parent should read this just so they get the slap in the face about the horrors of high school.

WARNING:

This post contains face-melting spoilers.

Read at your face’s risk.

If symptoms continue for more than 4 hours, contact [insertgeekhere].

At the Q&A, Alex Robinson talked about how this book came to be. Surprisingly, this came about because his 20th High School reunion was happening. Even though he didn't attend, this book helped him deal with feelings that came up.

Thor asked about how the 1980's genre fit into the story.  Robinson said that he tried to avoid the classic characters that you see in every 80's movie that are too cool. He decided to go look at his own high school yearbook for inspiration and write more realistic teenagers.   The base style of the characters are based on his former classmates.  He even used some of his lunchroom conversations from school, just for realism.  One of the ways Robinson tried to convey realism is in the scene where Andy reaches out to one of the loners.  The loner kid ends up being mad at Andy for talking to him.  Robinson wanted to show that sometimes loners are anti-social for a reason.

Despite how Andy resembled Alex Robinson, there were differences.  Robinson had to make Andy more social, but he didn't go to parties as a kid.  He tended to stay home and draw a lot!  Robinson also never smoked; this was just used a device to send Andy back in time without too much tech.  Also, Robinson never lost his dad.  His father is still alive and well but because of this book, many fans go up to Robinson and tell him their own heart-wrenching tale.  However, Robinson didn't have the best relationship with his dad.  His parents did divorce and he had a rocky relationship for a while.

This is a fantastic book with so many great feelings wrapped up in it.  At first glance, I really had no idea the wild ride it would take me on.  I am not the only one that felt this way; Thor also remarked that in rereading this, he felt overwhelmed with all of the emotions that it brought on.  Robinson let it spill that it has been optioned for a live-action movie, so I can only hope that they do it true justice.

The June book is Northlanders Vol. 1 with writer Brian Wood.   I highly recommend that you read this.  When I picked this up, I couldn't put it down!   Make sure that you join us!

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Midtown Comics Book Club: Guerillas Vol. 1 with creator Brahm Revel!!

This past Friday, I attended Midtown Comics Book Club. This month's book was Guerillas by Brahm Revel. If you haven't read Guerillas yet, it is a war story, following a young private as he learns to deal with war and becomes a man. Oh, and his entire platoon is chimps.


I was lucky enough to meet Brahm Revel at the book club. This discussion was expertly moderated by Midtown Comic staples Thor Parker and Zoe Gulliksen. Revel jumped right in answering a lot of questions about the book. As he tells it, the original idea came when he was watching a war movie. The troops walking reminded him of monkeys walking. Guerillas was born, although only much later in process did he add the title. Revel did say he had gone through a lot of bad titles before settling on Guerillas but refused to tell us what they were.

In the series, the hook keeps the apes out until the very end of issue 1. Revel did this purposely, because he wanted the first issue to look like a traditional war comic. He hoped to give a satisfiying hook for readers while making sure to develop his characters. My favorite part is when he develops John Francis Clayton, the human private of the tale, as a character. He did it to get Vietnam and Clayton out of the way in first issue. He wanted to make sure that the reader was up-to-date before the chimps arrive. As the book continues, we get to see Clayton grow up as he deals with his father issues. In a way, Goliath becomes his father figure.


Zoe asked him about the major themes of the book. Revel kept coming back to this question every few minutes, when the discussion brought up a new theme. One of the themes includes seeing the journey for someone not built for war become capable for that world. While some boys "go to war to become a man", this book explores the irony of Clayton learning to be a man in war from chimps. A theme for the chimps' story is Instinct vs Training. No matter what the chimps are taught, they still go by instinct and that is why Clayton is alive.



The most interesting thing I learned was Revel based all of the chimp names on Jane Goodall's chimps from her research. The names were not based on chimps' personalities, they were just used as markers. Revel used the exact names except for one. The only change was Mr. Worzel to Dr. Worzel for the story's flow.


I had only read the book as a novel, so I was interested to learn that originally it was an Image series, with each book chapter as an issue. Revel chose to keep his rights when he went to Image, which also gave him some freedom. He realized that he may have hurt himself by only going to Image at first. However, Oni showed interest when he was at Image, so when he decided to switch publishers, they were on the top of the list.


Revel didn't give away any spoilers, but we did learn that Vol.2 won't be out until April 2012, which means you have plenty of time to get Vol. 1. While I don't really want to wait a year to find out what happens to Clayton, Revel did say this is better as a graphic novel than a single issue series. I guess I will just have to be patient. 


 If you are in the area, come join us next month when the Midtown Book Club will be discussing Madame Xanadu with artist Amy Reeder Hadley.

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Midtown Comics' First Book Club with American Vampire's Scott Snyder

Last Friday, the IGH team went to check out Midtown Comics' first Book Club featuring Scott Snyder, the creator and writer of American Vampire.

If you haven’t read American Vampire, then you have been missing out. Debuting in March of 2010, the first arc follows the lives (unlives) of Skinner Sweet and Pearl Jones.  

Skinner Sweet was an outlaw in the Wild West (1880’s), who was accidentally turned into a vampire by a European vampire named Percy. This is an important fact because when Percy’s European blood mixed with Skinner’s American blood a new type of vampire was born. While all the new attributes of the American vampire are not known, we do know they are impervious to sunlight, which makes moving around more convenient.

Later on, in the 1920’s, Skinner saves the life (sort of) of Pearl Jones, who had been attacked by a group of the European vamps. Skinner turns Pearl and helps steer her towards the beings that hurt her. While Pearl does wreck some bloody, bloody havoc, she proves herself to be different from Skinner Sweet in that she is not all about causing chaos and murderous killing sprees.

Which leads us into the talk with Scott Snyder. One thing Scott mentioned was he felt that Skinner and Pearl, while not two sides of the same coin, were definitely different but bonded together. Skinner is more representative of the fierce, wild, rebellious individuality that is a very American ideal and Pearl is more personable and admirable and accepting of what is and making the most of it.

Other highlights include:

The light bulb moment when Scott got his idea for American Vampire came about when he was in the Lower East Side and came across a die cast of a confederate soldier coming out of his grave, zombie- style. It got him thinking and soon, American Vampire was born.

Scott is a huge vampire fan, but not of the more romanticized and less frightening vamps like Twilight, though he did say he respected Stephanie Meyers for doing something different with vampires (making them heartthrobs). True Blood is a little more his taste, but he feels the scariest type of vampire is the one who you know but don’t realize is different. Your neighbor, your best friend, your co-worker, or your spouse – any one of them could one day turn around and try to drain you and that’s far scarier than the exoticism of the True Blood vamps or the sparkly Twilight vamps.

He also wanted to get back to the old school days of vampires being less tech savvy and more vicious, hands on killers. He talked about how in the 90’s a lot of the vampire movies were more Matrix-y or like Blade and he wanted something more like The Lost Boys. Basically, he wanted scary.

Scott talked a lot about his admiration for Stephen King, who wrote five issues detailing the origins of Skinner Sweet. “Steve” King originally was going to write a blurb about American Vampire, but he liked everything so much he wanted to write an issue but he wasn’t sure they would let him because he’d never written a comic. Scott quickly assured him they would want him. What was supposed to be one issue quickly turned into five, which also ended up giving American Vampire its concurrent storylines.

Scott said nothing but nice things about Stephen. He told a funny story about how the editors suggested certain changes and Stephen replied with an email titled “Why All Editors Should Die.” [Side note: Scott said really great things about the editors. He takes their notes seriously, and he spoke of how important they are.] Scott also said he would love to get Stephen’s scripts online so everyone could see how deep and complex they were.

When asked about distinguishing American Vampire among a vamp-heavy market, Scott spoke about how originally he and artist Raphael Albuquerque – who will be listed as co-creator starting with issue thirteen, wanted to market it as anti-Twilight and True Blood, so Raphael created two posters, one with Skinner Sweet standing over a bunch of dead bodies with the tagline, “This isn’t your little sister’s vampire.” and another one featuring Pearl with the tagline, “I don’t fucking sparkle.” A different marketing approach was chosen but I really hope they release these posters because I would buy them in a heartbeat.

The reason the Old West was chosen to kick things off is because it is a very American timeline, but Scott wants to explore other times. A World War II story is coming up, the 50’s will be explored, and he also talked about looking further back such as to Roanoke or exploring the origins of the Carpathian vampires.


Scott wants to look at how these new American vampires affect the vampiric world as a whole because he views the American vamp as another branch of the vampire family tree. What are their new powers as well as weaknesses? He also talked about examining the various vampire group around the world. 

He knows how the book will end but not what will happen on the way there.

The characters and emotional arc are what’s most important. He likes when the emotional content hits you a few moments after the events have unfolded. It’s truer to real life and a good reflective moment resonates better.

And finally, Skinner Sweet is NOT based on Kid Rock. His DNA consists of Elvis with some Kurt Cobain. And as an audience member pointed out, Lost’s Josh Holloway would make an excellent Skinner Sweet.

Overall, it was a great night. Scott was very open and gave a lot of insight and fun facts. The audience asked intelligent and thoughtful questions, including our own Getsuyobi, and our hosts, Thor Parker and Zoe Gulliksen made sure everything ran smoothly. The only slightly negative comment I have about the evening is Thor and Zoe never introduced themselves. I was familiar with their names but I was not aware of who they were, and I know I wasn’t the only one. They did such a good job, I wanted to thank them but I felt a little uncomfortable approaching them without knowing their names. To find out, we resorted to asking TheCBGuy who they were.

American Vampire Vol. 1 is now out in stores and if you are “trade waiting” like me, Vol. 2 (the Vegas cycle) will be out around May 2^nd and Vol. 3 will arrive later in the fall. [Trade waiting was Scott’s term. I’d never heard it put that way before and I love it. He’d prefer you go out and buy the single issues, but if you can’t, get Vol. 2. You won’t regret it.]

Next month’s Book Club will feature Guerillas by Brahm Revel. We’ll be there. Hope to see you there too.

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BIG TIME Events in NYC

After years of job-hunting, disastrous relationships, and aimless meandering, it's finally all coming around!  No, I'm not talking about your loser cousin who lives in your aunt's basement. I'm talking about the Amazing Spider-Man!

The release of The Amazing Spider-Man #648 on November 10th, marks the beginning of Dan Slott's solo run as head writer, and features art by Humberto Ramos. The new ASM team is kicking things off Big Time with a huge story featuring some big name Marvel characters. Among them are the Mighty Avengers and the Fantastic Four. One of the most intriguing things that I'm looking forward to is not only Big Time Spider-Man, but Big Time Peter Parker. At the Spider-Man panel from San Diego Comic Con, Mr. Slott eluded to the fact that it's high time Peter Parker got a proper career. And from his new-found personal security will come a host of new spider-features, from costumes to new weapons!

The Big Time title not only refers to the plot, but to the physical book as well. Starting with ASM #648 the series will go from a thrice monthly release to bi-monthly. The book will also go from 22 pages to 30, with some boasting 30 pages of story and some with the norm of 22 and an 8 page backup.

Dan Slott & crew at the Amazing Spider-man Panel from SDCC

The promotional train is full speed ahead to support the web-heads launch into Big-ness. Lead writer Dan Slott will be making appearances all over Spidey's home city of New York doing interviews and signings.  If you want to hear about the new direction for Spidey from the man himself, you can check out Comic Book Club at the People's Improv Theater on November 9th. The show starts at 8pm and also features Joe Carmagna. At $5 a ticket you cannot go wrong!

You can also get your autograph on at Jim Hanley's Universe on the 10th. Dan will be signing in the store at 6pm to commemorate the first issue of his run as head writer. I know I'll be there, so come by and say hello (bring me coffee).  It's bound to be a packed crowd of Spider-fans.

Personally, I've been a Spider-Man fan since issue 368, when the Spider Slayers were running amok and our hero still couldn't keep his cool around the Black Cat (not that I blame him, the cover of ASM 607 gave me a nosebleed!). I only came back to the series last year and the more mature story line really spoke to me. In the last year, it's been as much about Peter Parker battling his inner-demons as it has been Spidey facing off with his actual ones. I felt more tension watching Peter try to speak with his ex and keep his cool than I had with any super-battle before. We've all had to deal with those pains, so it's really exciting to know that the whipping character of the Marvel-U has a light at the end of the tunnel.

As I mentioned, we'll be at the signing on Wednesday (milk, no sugar in the coffee), and we'll be sure to give constant updates and pictures through twitter, so if you can't make it, be sure to glue yourself to @IGHInsider. If you've got any burning questions you'd like us to ask, hit us up with a comment and we'll see what we can do! Happy swinging and be sure to check back later this week when we recap the events and review the first issue of Big Time!

One last teaser, Marvel's official trailer!