Hoo boy. If you’re going to organise a virtual comic convention in 2020 and then call yourself THE COMIC CONLINE, – ‘THE’ comic con online, no less! – you better have a panel roster and features to back that kind of s$%t up.
Thankfully, the gang behind COMIC CONLINE – a virtual con taking place over the weekend of Friday 16th-Sunday 18th October, live in cyberspace – have done pretty much just that, featuring a cracking line-up of amazing special guests, live sketch sessions and even signature authentication. (Nope, not a clue on how they’re pulling off that last one, seeing as we’re not heavy into the slabbing of books, you’ll have to find out this one for yourself.)
Edited to add details on how the signature authentication works: The way they are doing the signatures is you send your books to one of 2 different companies that are authorized for this. Alpha Omega Certification Services will be handling books you want to have slabbed by CGC, with Clan McDonald Comics being the authorized partner for CBCS books. They then package them and ship to the talent, who signs and/or remarks and sends back. The authorized co then sends to either one of the 2 major slabbing companies
Pulling in the likes of BATMAN/THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH writer James Tynion IV, EMPYRE writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson, publishers Scout Comics, and master artists such as Mike Mayhew, Doug Manhke, Mike DeBalfo, Jae Lee, John Romita Jr. and Stanley ‘Artgerm’ Lau, the guestlist seems strong and the presentation seems to be well worth checking out for the whole three days.
The line-up as it currently stands consists of:
FRIDAY 16th OCTOBER 2020
- 3:00pm ET – MIKE MAYHEW
- 4:30pm ET – ESTEBAN SALINAS
- 6:00pm ET – MONTE MOORE
- 7:30pm ET – DAN MENDOZA
- 9:00pm ET – SCOUT COMICS
SATURDAY 17th OCTOBER 2020
- 12:00pm ET – DOUG MAHNKE
- 1:30pm ET – INHYUK LEE
- 3:00pm ET – DAVID BARON
- 4:30pm ET – JAMES TYNION IV
- 6:00pm ET – ANNA ZHUO
- 7:30pm ET – MARAT MYCHAELS
- 9:00pm ET – CHRIS UMINGA & CHRISSY ZULLO
- 10:30pm ET – KAEL NGU
SUNDAY 18th OCTOBER 2020
- 12:00pm ET – DCWJ DERRICK CREW
- 1:30pm ET – EJIKURE WEE KIAT
- 3:00pm ET – RYAN KINCAID
- 4:30pm ET – MIKE DEBALFO
- 7:30pm ET – PHILLIP KENNEDY JOHNSON
- 7:30pm ET – JAE LEE
- 9:00pm ET – KENDRICK KUNKKA LIM
- 10:30pm ET – STANLEY ‘ARTGERM’ LAU
(Nope, we can’t see John Romita Jr. or Jorge Jimenez in there either but they’re featured on the homepage so they’ll probably be popping up in some manner. Maybe in disguise.)
To be fair, we’re nicely impressed by the diversity on display when it comes to these guests, certainly by race being represented if not by gender. Who knows, hopefully that might be something the Comic ConLine gang can address the next virtual con round. Still, to this event.
The panels will be put up on the Comic ConLine YouTube and Facebook pages, as well as their Twitter feed, and from the timings of the panels, it’s looking like they’re either going to have nice, breezy sessions with plenty of breathing room to bring in the following guest or they’re actually going to try to squeeze 90mins out of everybody. Hey, it’s possible – I can speak from experience how time seems to just run away with you when talking to the talent, especially artists.
Check out a couple of the streams the team have done before; they’ve done a show like this once already – gathering the great and good, all the way back in July – and I’m fully expecting the whole she-bang to go utterly swimmingly and without a single hitch…
…JINXED IT!!
