Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Columns/Features

Boston Comic Con: Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo Panel Report

IMG_2818Deep introspection about personal goals and fears about his son wanting to be a UFC fighter along with a glass or two of Harpoon IPA sounds like a counseling session gone wrong, or perhaps, just right, depending on the individual. Perhaps the voices in their head stating “That sentence sucks” is balanced out by the amount of times they admittedly high five themselves for a job well done.

Like many of the comic books he’s written over the years, fans inside the Seaport Hotel’s Harbor View Ballroom were captivated by every word uttered by Scott Snyder during his panel at Boston Comic Con this past Saturday.

The acclaimed writer coming off the heels of the successful debut of All-Star Batman, which came out four days earlier, expressed his desire to flex his creative muscles with the titular character by taking risks with perhaps the biggest being the absence of Gotham City.

Snyder doesn’t approach the creative process with the idea of adding to the mythos of Batman. The character means more to him than anything in literature and he just wants to get it right so he can avoid being “stoned to death” by the Batman faithful.

It was at this point in the panel when what appeared to be a random applause from the audience revealed the presence Snyder’s artistic partner in crime, Greg Capullo. The famed illustrator’s attempt to enter the room unnoticed was successful as a firefly trying to blend into a pitch black room. Moderator and FOG! editor-in-chief Stefan Blitz called an audible and invited Capullo to join the panel. Cheers from the audience along with a smile from Snyder made it impossible for the New York native to resist.

Snyder appeared to be the most comfortable guy in the room once the man who he genuinely refers to as his brother joined him at the table. This made even more sense later on when Snyder revealed that he runs everything by Greg and often calls him when he feels he needs to be talked into sticking with an idea that he gets nervous about at the 11th hour.

Capullo says that like Snyder, he was also afraid of tackling such an iconic character like Batman because of what he means and represents to people all over the world. Whether it was record high sales and monstrous critical acclaim for this creative, dynamic duo during the Court of Owls and Death of the Family story arcs, or falling sales with Zero Year and threats of physical violence for making Jim Gordon become Batman, Capulllo’s steadfast approach to storytelling strengthens Snyder’s resolve in cases of extreme doubt.

“It doesn’t matter how many people don’t get it. It only matters how many people do get it” Capullo constantly professes as he and Snyder believe that the journey is more important than the destination when it comes to crafting and shaping these legendary characters.

Snyder’s lack of use of Damian Wayne is a topic that the writer is asked about on a regular basis. The answer goes much deeper than the edict by DC Comics brass not to use the son of Batman or even to avoid stepping on the toes of Peter Tomasi, the writer of Batman & Robin, which is a Damian centric book.

“I have a son close to Damian’s age and I have a hard time writing a character where Bruce approves of him fighting crime, getting threatened, and getting punched.” Snyder clarified that he loves reading the stories about Damian, but it’s just a personal choice to write him.

Don’t worry Wytches fans, Synder didn’t forget about us as he started that the series was delayed due to the book’s artist, Jock, getting a costume designer gig at Pinewood studios for a little project known as Episode VIII… Yeah, I think we can forgive Jock for his professional detour, but fear not. The pair will start working on the second season of Wytches, next month.

Pure honesty, passion, and the sense of humor exhibited by Scott Snyder and Gregg Capullo verifies, if it wasn’t proven already, that Batman is in the best of hands as long as these two are calling some of the shots. For Capullo, he’s not under contract with DC Comics right now, but he’s planning his return and to once again work with Snyder for a major project coming Summer 2017.

As for the man of the hour, he elaborated on his decision to use Two-Face in All-Star Batman citing his cerebral approach to the former Gotham D.A. “He is the person that makes you look at the darkness and say is that who you really are.” Forcing Batman to look at the things he doesn’t want to see sounds like a winning concept, which made it fitting when Capullo raised Snyder’s arm like a victorious prize fighter at the conclusion of the panel.

All-Star Batman by Scott Snyder and John Romita, Jr. is in stores now
Reborn by Mark Millar and Greg Capullo arrives this October

 

Click to comment

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

DISCLAIMER

Forces of Geek is protected from liability under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) and “Safe Harbor” provisions.

All posts are submitted by volunteer contributors who have agreed to our Code of Conduct.

FOG! will disable users who knowingly commit plagiarism, piracy, trademark or copyright infringement.

Please contact us for expeditious removal of copyrighted/trademarked content.

SOCIAL INFLUENCER POLICY

In many cases free copies of media and merchandise were provided in exchange for an unbiased and honest review. The opinions shared on Forces of Geek are those of the individual author.

You May Also Like

Art/Collectibles

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to see directly inside someone’s brain? Not the squishy, slimy physical organ itself, but their...

Books/Comics

Written by LaToya Morgan & Jai Jamison Art by Joe Jaro, Valentine de Landro Paris Alleyne & Lea Caballero Published by BOOM! Studios  ...

Books/Comics

Written and Illustrated by Dave Roman Published by First Second   “Dude! You have a unicorn horn on your noggin! That’s so amazing!” While...

Books/Comics

Written by Lewis Trondheim Art by Nicolas Kéramidas Published by Fantagraphics Books   Mickey and Donald’s Craziest Adventures, originally published in English, we are...