Today, I lived out one of my lifelong dreams…I attended Comic-Con for the first time! Sure, I attended because it was free and streamed from home but damn it I can say I’ve attended Comic Con (well sort of). In the future, the day will come when I attend Comic-Con in person down in San Diego but until then, this is a great alternative to get myself and more fans involved! For the next few days I will be blogging about a Comic-Con@Home panel I watched and the first one today was an inside look at a new docu-series Marvel’s Storyboards.
Marvel’s Storyboards is a series created by Joe Quesada, EVP and Creative Director of Marvel Entertainment. The docu-series features guests from a variety of different fields such as film, television, comics, sports and many others to come together to show how storytelling has affected their lives. Hosted by Steve Wacker; Marvel’s Vice President of Content, the panel explored how Quesada was inspired to create the series and what he hopes for people to take away from it.
The most important thing that jumped out at me about this panel was what the heart of the docu-series is as explained by Quesada. He spent a considerable time talking about how storytelling is really at the heart of this show. Based on the name, I was expecting the series to be totally about Marvel and maybe some comics, but it is refreshing to see that storytelling is such a driving force behind the series. You can tell that Quesada is extremely passionate about storytelling, stating that “everyone is a storyteller, whether you get paid to do it or not!”. He notes that in his opinion, stories are the antidote to the chaos of the world; especially in these unprecedented times, and stories are needed now more than ever. As Quesada has done many comic con panels in his day, he was inspired to create the series after hosting a panel where Charlie Cox; the star of Netflix’s Daredevil, told stories about his time and the set and his life. He had noticed that fans were genuinely interested in the people behind their heroes, and morphed this feeling into Marvel’s Storyboards.
Another aspect that was important to Quesada to incorporate into the show was partaking in activities that his guests are interested in. Across season one of the show, Quesada writes a song about street characters in a piano bar with EGOT-recipient Robert Lopez, partakes in stunt training and ballerina techniques with Agents of SHIELD’s Natalya Cordova-Buckley, has a “performance-off” with Broadway actor Christian Borle, ice skates with figure skater Johnny Weir, runs flight simulations with Captain Marvel comic writer Margaret Stohl, and gets Hugh Jackman to give him a crash course in playing Wolverine. Quesada interviews each guest about how their personal life and upbringing influenced them to be the storytellers they are today, and it is particularly interesting to see the insight from a guest that goes into who they are today and how their past influences their work and storytelling.
I highly recommend checking out Marvel’s Storyboards, which has been ordered for two six-episode seasons. If you’re interested in Marvel; or more importantly, storytelling, it is must see entertainment! Episode one featuring Hugh Jackman launched today and new episodes will be released each week, with season two launching later this year. Don’t forget to check out the panel at Comic-Con International's Youtube channel as well!
Are you attending Comic-Con@Home this year? Let me know in the comments and look for my next post tomorrow!
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