Hey folks, Ambush Bug here. While I was doing scores and scores of interviews, AICN COMICS’ pal and all around great guy Jamie Coville took in 20 panels and brought his handy dandy recording device along to bring it all back to you. So even if you missed out on these panels, you can sit back and enjoy these audio files at your leisure without having to wait in line or sit in a room full of smellies…

Roman Dirge REBUILT! (42:40, 39.0mb)

This was moderated by Titan Comics senior editor Steve White. The reason Roman was "REBUILT" was due a bad accident he was in about a year ago. He was hit very hard by an SUV and said they measured the distance he flew to be 15 feet. His leg was broken and had to be reattached to him. He has lost some of the bone in his leg and now needs a walking stick to get around. Roman talked about the time it took him to recover. He says since being hit has made him more motivated to get work done. He showed art on 3 new projects he is currently working on, this including a graphic novel called Monocle, a superhero book called Stringbean (it's very dark and strange) and a TV show called Battleboy. He had also talked about Lenore and upcoming plans for her and any other media possibilities with the character. He revealed that other strange things have been happening to him that could have seriously injured or killed him since the accident.

8th Annual All Star Podcasters Panel (53:35, 49.0mb)
On this panel was a who's who of long running podcasters. Moderating the panel was John Siuntres (Word Balloon), on it was fellow podcasters Brian Christman (Comic Geek Speak), John Mayo (Comic Book Page, Heidi MacDonald (Publishers Weekly Comics World), Jimmy Aquino (Comic News Insider), Conor Kilpatrick (iFanboy) and Ben Blacker (Nerdist). The group had talked about digital comics and argued about digital vs print sales. They had also talked about comic book movies. Heidi brought up at the big 2 are not creating major artists anymore. They also talked about 'event' comics. The group talked about sponsorships (one major sponsor was there in the audience) in terms of making money from the podcast, the length of their shows, how open podcasting is now and how professional one has to be to do the show. The group ended the panel by talking about what comics they are enjoying now.

Kim Thompson Tribute (46:55, 42.9mb)

Kim Thompson was a long time co-owner/editor of Fantagraphics who recently passed away due to cancer. On the panel was Eric Reynolds, Gary Groth, Diana Schutz, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez. Gary talked about Kim first getting involved with Fantagraphics. Diana talked about first meeting Gary and Kim. She said Kim would later reach out to her and other women, asking them to contribute to the Amazing Hero magazine, which was very rare at the time. Hernandez Bros and Eric talked about meeting Kim and working with him. Gary talked about how he, Kim and Harlan Ellison met in order to try and make up after the lawsuit, but Harlan did not like Kim's review of Frank Millers work and they instead got into a huge argument over it. Diana talked about working with Kim over the last few years doing translations. Gary talked about how they all lived in the Fantagraphics house and Kim used to regularly work in his bathrobe. He would always be wearing shorts or sweatpants unless it was something super formal. Gary said Kim had knowledge about what was good cartooning. The group talked about Kim not having any guilty pleasures and loved Brian De Palma movies. They all said he was always working, including late at night or very early in the morning. Gilbert thinks there would be no Vertigo or many independent publishers around if it was not for Kim's groundbreaking work wih Fantagraphics. Eric talked about Kim championing some artists, including Jason which he wasn't convinced would do so well.

Fans vs Pros Trivia Challenge (47:43, 43.6mb)

The fans were Peter Svensson, David Oates and Tom Galloway and the pro's were Len Wein, Elliot S! Maggin and Martin Pasko. The question asker was Derek McCaw. I was asked to be the official score keeper. The topic was characters celebrating their 50th anniversary. Tom Galloway was in top form this panel and answered a lot of the questions single handedly. Len answered some correct questions on the Pro side and Elliot S! Maggin answered one question in a hilarious, not the answer we were looking for way, but we took as true. All throughout the panel the jokes were flying fast and furious. In the end the Fan side one 360 to 110.