We made the front page...of Bleeding Cool that is.

I didn't do much at my first C2E2. I certainly did some drinking with the two friends I stayed with, both of whom I hadn't seen in almost two years. We did just enough eating that I can probably put together a Con Food column about my whirlwind tour of Chicago (bolstered by the fact that I used to live there). There was really only one reason I went to C2E2 and that was to appear on my first panel, The Year of Warren Ellis panel for Sequart.

Sequart, if you aren't familiar, is a collective of comic book scholars doing scholarly stuff. They publish articles and books (and are now branching out into documentary filmmaking) about the comic book industry and they do a damn good job of it. At last year's Baltimore Comic-Con, I was lucky enough to meet Sequart editor Mike Phillips. We got to talking about the mission of my blog, how my opinions on comics and the industry related to his and how he thought I'd be a good fit for some of the projects on which Sequart was working. The specific project he was referring to was a collection of essays on Warren Ellis's Transmetropolitan. I leapt at the chance to participate.

Months later, the book is in the works, my first submission is no doubt being carved apart by the multi-talented Chad Nevett, and C2E2 is offering Sequart a panel. The focus of the panel was Warren Ellis, given that Sequart has three books (Keeping the World Strange, Shot In the Face, and Voyage To Noise) and a documentary (Captured Ghosts) about the man himself. I'm contributing an essay to Shot In the Face, so when Sequart sent out an all points bulletin asking for contributors to participate in the panel, I jumped at the chance. Well, more cautiously crept to the chance, but still.

I was decidedly nervous about the entire thing, but meeting with Kevin Thurman and Julian Darius beforehand helped assuage my fear. The three of us jived immediately and spent the whole day pre-panel just hanging out and talking about comics. This was going to be alright.

And it was.

No, seriously, we killed it. Killed it.

Despite being one of the smaller, more fringe panels at an otherwise gigantic show and despite some technical difficulties with the Captured Ghosts trailer (who thought you could actually silence Warren Ellis?), we had an informed and entertaining panel that really appealed to the audience full of Ellis enthusiasts on hand. Kevin even informed me afterward that five different people approached him to tell him that our panel was the best they'd seen all weekend.

After one panel I've decided that I want more. Getting up there, talking about comics in an official capacity with a panel of my peers, man that's just as good as it gets. I love this life. Who knew it was just sitting there waiting for me? I'm a damn lucky dude.

Here's a link to a recap of the panel, which includes a trailer for the Ellis doc, by Bleeding Cool contributor Greg Baldino. Check it out!