A selection of some of the funniest, most interesting and strangest quotes from the past week:
“Now find a cave that’s got a gigantic penny in it and you’ve really got my interest.”
Peter David, on the news that scientists found the “Fortress of Solitude”
“This means that, like Joss, I can do four stories without having to refer to, react to or otherwise deal with monthly shifts in continuity. It’s as close to complete creative freedom as you can get on a major franchise book. It means that I can ring changes without having to worry about anyone else. I already told the main X-writers that I am their blood enemy now. I don’t think they quite understood. This is why I don’t have any friends.”
Warren Ellis, talking about his upcoming run on Astonishing X-Men
“The most important lesson I learned from comics though relates to hatred. I learned that any group that is sufficiently different is a target for ignorance. Skin color, sexuality, mutant abilities, whatever the cause, if you are different, you will be hated. You see, gay people tend to love superheroes because we get it. We know what is like to hide your True Identity™. The need to blend in, the protection of banality. But it is a lie. We are different, and we’re hated because of it.
“I also learned, largely due to Stan Lee, that the responsibility for dealing with hatred directed at me is in my hands. I could rant and rage and take matters into my own hands, like Magneto. In truth that probably could accomplish some good. Or, I could choose to be like Charles Xavier and the X-Men. I could choose to love and defend those people that hate me. This really isn’t altruism, in my opinion, it is about what I allow to consume me. I choose love over hatred.”
The Boy Blunder, after the site he writes for, gaygamer.net, crashed due to denial-of-service attacks and being spammed with anti-gay message board posts
“Like many early adopters who get in on a movement or trend before the rest of us and taunt us for being so pathetically behind the curve, some longtime Comic-Con attendees complain that the convention isn’t what it used to be. It’s too Hollywood, too family friendly, too mobbed, all of which may be true, I suppose. I wouldn’t know. This was my first Comic-Con, and I had a blast. There is, I found, something soul satisfying about attending a panel titled ‘Gumby!’”
Manohla Dargis, on the San Diego Comic-Con
“You couldn’t swing a dead cat on the convention floor without hitting someone in a Wonder Woman costume.”
Michael San Giacomo on the San Diego Comic-Con
“As a boy I had a Gothic sensibility. My parents used to find me in my room playing with a plastic guillotine I ordered from the back of a comic book. It came with a plastic man with a detachable head. This man must have stood trial for every crime known in the universe. The verdict was always the same … guillotine.”
Actor Bill Paxton
“… pretty much Marvel takes the main stage at these things, with DC in second — and not really even a close second, but second like the way Richie Cunningham was the second most popular character on Happy Days. Everybody else falls somewhere between Ralph Malph and Jenny Piccalo, except for the alternative publishers, some of whom haven’t exhibited in years (or ever), making them Chuck Cunningham.”
Tom Spurgeon, on Wizard World Chicago
