The Big Reveal: DC announced the names of the six writers who will take part in this year’s DC Writers Workshop: Magdalene Visaggio (Kim & Kim, Quantum Teens Are Go), Sanya Anwar (1001), Joey Esposito (Pawn Shop, Captain Ultimate), Phillip Kennedy Johnson (Last Sons of America, Warlords of Appalachia), Robert Jeffrey (Route 3, Radio Free Amerika) and Ryan Cady (Big Moose). Batman writer Scott Snyder will lead the workshop.
“It’s 13 weeks, and we meet for two, two-and-a-half hours online in a Brady Bunch-style box of windows. I teach it in such a way that it’s all superhero writing for DC. I try and make each week a lesson about a particular technique,” Snyder told Heat Vision. “My job is not to teach you how to write by formula for DC. It’s for you to come in and write the stuff you’re passionate about in your own way. I don’t care if that’s funny political, light-hearted, dark, whatever. Your job is to come in and have something to say. My job is to help you fit it into the rubric of superhero calculus and to help you maximize that story: look at where you should beef things up, slow it down, be aware of pacing. You need to come here and have something to say.”
At the end of the workshop, DC works with the writers to place them in writing slots for DC comics.
Cover Stories: First Second reveals all the covers of their Spring 2018 books, including All Summer Long, by Hope Larson; Be Prepared, Vera Brosgol’s story about her experiences at a Russian Orthodox summer camp; and the conclusion of Scott Westerfeld’s Spill Zone.
Interviews and Profiles
Working Papers: Mimi Pond talks about The Customer Is Always Wrong, the second part of the story she started in Over Easy, as well as her freewheeling lifestyle as a waitress in California in the 1970s—and her other jobs, which included writing the first episode of The Simpsons—but just that one:
I was never invited to be on staff, and I never knew why for the longest time. No one ever called me or explained to me or apologized or anything. And it wasn’t until years later that I found out that Sam Simon, who was the showrunner, didn’t want any women around because he was going through a divorce. It had remained a boys’ club for a good long time. I feel like I was just as qualified as anyone else who came along and got hired on the show, and it was just because I was a woman that I was, you know, not allowed entry into that club. I always wind up being the turd in the punchbowl because the show is so beloved and everything, and I’m sorry to burst bubbles but [laughs]. It wasn’t a pleasant experience for me.
Con Time: The Montgomery Advertiser’s coverage of Gump City Con includes interviews with two local artists, Joe England (Zebra Girl) and LaShawn Colvin (Beautiful Soldiers).
Manga
Viz Announces New Manga: At Otakon, which is going on this weekend, Viz Media announced several new manga licenses: The Young Master’s Revenge, by Meca Tanaka (Meteor Prince, Pearl Pink, Omukae Desu); Takane & Hana, by Yuki Shiwasu; and a print edition of the RWBY manga, by Shirow Miwa, which Viz previously published digitally, one chapter at a time, in Shonen Jump.
Game of Titans: Game of Thrones fans may get a feeling of deja vu when they read this week’s chapter of Attack on Titan: Creator Hajime Isayama is a huge GoT fan, and he’s included some cameos of the characters in his backgrounds.
Some Ghouls: The last volume of Tokyo Ghoul comes out next week, and I took the opportunity to interview Joel Enos, the editor of the American edition—and of the sequel, Tokyo Ghoul: re, which launches in October.
The Biz
Small Is Beautiful: James Cartwright looks at the world of small, independent comics publishers and talks to three principals in three different countries: Joe Kessler of Breakdown Press (UK), Box Brown of Retrofit (U.S.) and Annie Koyama of Koyama Press (Canada) about their businesses and their aspirations.
Conventions
Con Woman: Comics scholar and longtime con-goer Hillary Chute talks about the culture and history of comics conventions, and how they have changed over the years.
SDD+Q: Peggy Burns posts a photo-filled, very Drawn-and-Quarterly-centric con report on this year’s Comic-Con International in San Diego. Which is cool because D+Q publishes the Hernandez brothers, R. Sikoryak, Mimi Pond, Brigette Findakly and Lewis Trondheim, and Sarah Glidden, among others, so there’s plenty of comics royalty on view.