Kurt Busiek spoke about the freedom of creating Marvels. However, its success would have led to editorial control of any sequel so it was better to create Astro City as a medium for the theme of ordinary people in a super hero-dominated world. Astro City is a setting for many stories, not just one single over-arching story line.
David Hine adapted Victor Hugo's The Man Who Laughs as a comic strip but referred in the same breath to a Batman and Robin story that he had written because a poster for The Man Who Laughs was the source for the physical appearance of the Joker. Unbelievable.
It was good to have brief conversations with John Wagner, Bryan and Mary Talbot and several others. I missed David Lloyd and he had gone the next day when I went to look.
More from the Andy Diggle-John Freeman interview: publishers need to recognize when a story has finished and not ask another writer to continue it. Andy Diggle said that, in general, British publishers get this right; Americans don't. I think that one example of Americans getting it right would be The Sandman. At least, the publishers accepted that the character was dead and his series was ended although, as Andy Diggle also said, Vertigo kept warming up Gaiman's left overs. But Mike Carey's Lucifer was a good outcome of that. The example that Andy did quote was post-Moore Swamp Thing. I thought that Rick Veitch did a good job of following Moore and Mark Millar did a good revamp later but there is no doubt that much other post-Moore Swamp Thing is going nowhere.
The Festival will clearly grow in future years so its backers and organizers need to stay with it. Apparently, the dates for next year have already been written in.
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