Field Report: Fan Expo Canada 2023 — Saturday’s Panels

I only went to two panels on Saturday at the Fan Expo in Toronto (running Aug. 24th – 27th) but they were both very engaging. The first one featured Adam Kubert who is associated with The Kubert School (started by his father, Joe Kubert). Along with Emma Kubert being involved, that makes for three generations of the Kubert family that have taught there.

Andy said that growing up, his father brought home comics but Andy didn’t appreciate his father’s stature or craft (describing his father as, “just that guy in the studio who drew”) until he himself decided to become a cartoonist. At 19, Andy had dropped out of college and was thinking of going into law enforcement but his mother suggested that he check out his dad’s school. That led to Andy catching the bug and throwing himself in with the other small group of art students (including his brother, Adam!). When an audience member asked what it was like studying under his dad, Andy replied that it was weird at first but that his dad didn’t treat him or his brother Adam easier – in fact, Joe was more demanding in terms of handing in assignments, etc. and that helped both brothers in the long run.

He went on to say he’s been drawing since 1984 and that he first drew Sargent Rock for DC sometime after his father had left the title. It wasn’t until he drew Batman Vs. Predator for Dark Horse in the very early ’90s that he landed a hit. He got that job because it was originally supposed to go to Mike Mignola but Mignola couldn’t handle the demanding schedule (they had to put the whole miniseries out before the Predator II film was released in theatres). He also talked about randomly being in Marvel editor-in-chief Bob Harras‘ office and being given the The Uncanny X-Men #266 (first appearance of Gambit!) cover to draw simply because Jim Lee couldn’t do it that month. Now, Andy’s still working non-stop and one of his duties is as an art director for DC where he vets covers for them. I’ll end with this quote from him: “the drawing part will come to you… learn storytelling… there are artists that can draw circles around me but can’t tell a story at gunpoint.”

 

The second panel I attended also happened to feature Andy Kubert as a guest. It was the panel commemorating Frank Miller’s 300 (it’s the twenty-five year anniversary). Miller was joined on stage by Kubert and Brad Anderson (both of whom had worked on Dark Knight III) but Miller fielded most of the questions given to him by moderator Mark Askwith.

The story of Miller’s fascination with the story of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae from the time he watched The 300 Spartans movie as a kid is fairly well known, so Askwith began by asking him about the origins of the project and Lynn Varley’s major contributions to its palette and overall look, the use of double spreads to convey wide angled layouts and vistas (Miller replied that the nature of the battle – groups of men running at each other with spears – dictated the choice), and whether he’d visited Greece to capture the landscapes. Miller replied that he did visit Greece, “but had completed the book by then; that (the Greece in his book) was made up,” and that got a pretty big laugh from the crowd.

Miller also talked about getting into characters’ heads, using a kind of method acting to do so, and the success of that book due to what is inherently a great story, not only in his own comic and the movie he saw as a child, but as a “great series of events” that happened in ancient times. In general, as during the last time I saw him live four years ago, Miller was sparky, responding to questions with alacrity and glee, preferring to kid around when he could.

Four years ago, I was writing for comicon.com and covered the NYCC con where Miller appeared to promote his YA novel Cursed. I waited in line for a very long time after the panel. Just when I got to the front of the line and was about to tell Miller how much his writing and comic craft had meant to me, someone who’d travelled very far to be there began having an emotional meltdown in the line when he heard that he was only allowed to get Cursed signed and not his comics. Everyone’s attention went to the person panicking and emotions were highly strung so I thought I’d better just leave. It always seemed like a stroke of cosmic bad luck and timing, so it was really nice to have the opposite happen today. While waiting for the panel to begin, I was able to chat with Frank and the CEO of his company, Silenn Thomas, who took this very nice photo of me with Frank.