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Volume 5 is all over the place, but it does seem to continue to follow Willingham’s trend of providing some thematic respite after a heavy plot. So this volume starts off with the notion of Bigby’s spies around the world, particularly Cinderalla who, with me reading this in 2015, I know will have her own miniseries in which she continues her spy adventures. Cinderella uncovers that Ichabod Crane was selling information to The Adversary. Bigby Wolf kills him, inviting the question of whether this makes sense after he was unwilling the kill the mundy who was going to out the community. After a bit of thought, it’s apparent this is an entirely different situation - Ichabod is committing treason. Additionally, it’s possible Bigby is not quite as ready to compromise as he was before the attack of the wooden army. ...

Back in 2012 when I was writing for Player Affinity (now called Entertainment Fuse), I had the opportunity to s peak with Cara Nicole aka Arizona Powergirl. This year she came back to Baltimore, so I took the opportunity to catch up with her. https://youtu.be/uRWSXylkf5o Yes? I'm here. Officer? Powergirl Emma Frost

Really, the only bad thing about this panel was that it could easily be a semester at college. So it felt a bit compressed for a one hour panel. https://youtu.be/FgXn9-Dqo-Y

After the Boom! Studios panel I started thinking again about gender and sexual fluidity in comics. Long-time readers will remember I recently wondered about this in the Sunstone article. As James Tynion IV had spoken about his experiences growing up and being excited just to see acknowledgement of LGBT characters (even if they were being made fun of), I wondered if he’d speak to me about the issue. To my delight, he was available to speak for a few minutes. ...

The biggest takeaway I got from Scott Snyder’s panel at Baltimore Comic-Con was that Scott has a thesis for each story arc he does on Batman. Each is him exploring a new idea with Batman - including recently the father/son relationship he has with Alfred. He also mentions his time on Batman may be coming to a close, but that he’s working on a Batman graphic novel. https://youtu.be/frs7I1nrufg

This year’s show was, like any other, a mixture of the usual characters in their usual costumes, the usual characters in unique permutations, and characters rarely seen at Baltimore Comic-Con. Overall, the level of costume quality continues to increase year-on-year and it’s exciting to see how much love and care goes into many of the costumes. Saturday, the day of the costume contest, remains the best day to see the most elaborate costumes, so if you only buy a day pass and want to look at the great cosplay on hand, that’s the best day. That said, I happened to see great costumes on Friday and Sunday. It’s just that the huge, “I can’t really walk in this” costumes were only there on Saturday. Enjoy the gallery! ...

Sword and Sorcery are back! With Robert Kendzie at the helm, you’re in for a romping good time. As you hear during our interview, he’s got a fun little twist on all the usual adventure tropes. Dire Destiny is a series to watch! https://youtu.be/6pZqV0daUHs

Sometimes there’s a story inside someone that just has to get out, one way or another. That’s what happened with George Wassil and Oh, Hell, his independently published graphic novel. As he mentions in the interview, he’s had this idea percolating in his head for decades, but it was only through a creative writing class that he found the right version of that story to tell. Expect it to get a full Comic POW! article in the future. ...

If you happen to read my personal blog, you may know that the only models I’ve worked with in the past were Fine Art nude models ( here and here - NSFW, of course!) But this year at Baltimore Comic-Con, I had the opportunity to work with a cosplay model outside the convention floor. I’d been wanting to do something like this for a while, but since I’m at the con as press, I can’t just leave to photograph one person. This time, we were able to meet before the show floor opened. ...

The Boom! Studios panel goes beyond simply discussing the future of Boom! Studios and discusses the present and future of comics. The discussion centers on inclusion of under-represented groups and how non-super hero comics continue to grow in importance. Forgive me for dropping the camera a couple times. https://youtu.be/GTe_ba7xTxs