Jonathan Hickman and Steve Epting were in my LCS this past Wednesday to sign the newest issue of Fantastic Four, the beginning of the “Three” storyline. So, we made an extra trip to the shop this month. Read on to see how it went.
(Internet connection troubles means this is out a few days later than I wanted. Enjoy anyway.)
The highlight of the trip was, of course, meeting Jonathan Hickman (for the second time) and Steve Epting (for the first time) and getting my copy of the newest issue of Fantastic Four signed. I was pretty surprised when I heard they'd be at my local shop. “Three” is a big event for Marvel: it's not line-wide, but it will have line-wide implications (even if only peripherally), and it's a huge event for Marvel's “First Family,” so to find out the creators were coming to my local shop was a pleasant surprise.
The shop, Heroes Aren't Hard to Find, had a nice setup. Hickman and Epting were at a table just inside the door with plenty of copies of the comic. Nearby, on the “features” shelf, were many back-issues and a few trades of Epting's Captain America & The Marvels Project issues and Hickman's Fantastic Four & Secret Warriors runs, as well as back-issues and trades of Hickman's Image titles: The Nightly News and Transhuman. Heroes does have a large stock of back-issues, but I wonder how much of that they got in for the signing. It was a nice spread.
There was also a nice display of statues with the members of the Fantastic Four, Nick Fury and Captain America flanking a copy of the first Fantastic Four trade of Hickman's run. They had a discussion group — with Hickman — a few days before concentrating on that trade. I couldn't go to that, but it was a good touch. They really went all-out with this signing.
As for Hickman and Epting themselves, they're great guys. They spent their downtime talking to each other about themselves, comics and other things. When the signing was done, they milled about the store looking at comics and sometimes commenting about an artist's cover or the like. They're friendly, humble guys who are very approachable.
Other than that, there wasn't much excitement with this trip — except for getting my copies of some of my other favorite books. I picked up Red Robin, X-Factor and The Unwritten, which are all always great reads. I couldn't find The Example, so I couldn't check that out, but I'll look again when I go in October. I'm waiting to see if there'll be room in my comics budget for any trades, so if I get any it'll be on my next trip, which is only a couple of weeks away.
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