by Harper W. Harris

One of the most fun and unique experiences at HeroesCon today was the Milkfed Criminal Masterminds panel, which featured Matt Fraction, Kelly Sue Deconnick, and co. discussing all their various projects while keeping the audience consistently laughing. After speaking briefly on the Charleston shooting and holding a moment of silence, they began by explaining what exactly Milkfed Criminal Masterminds is, essentially a company to house all the comic projects that the dynamic couple work on.

Then came the updates on all the books:

Deconnick will be leaving Captain Marvel after Secret Wars, drawing sighs of disappointment from the many Carol Corps members in the audience. She realized after the movie was announced that she would have to “dig in for three more years or drop the mic,” but that Carol has taught her to “brave the next step.”

The next arc of Pretty Deadly will begin in October, in time for NYCC. It moves forward in time a bit and brings in the energy of WWI and the Harlem Hellfighters. Alice and Jenny will return in this arc.

Issue #15 of Satellite Sam will be out in a few weeks and will conclude the New York arc. New trade omnibus of all 15 issues will debut at Rose City Comic Con. In a year or two, Fraction and Chaykin will return for a second volume which will take place in LA and will focus on a cowboy show.

Robert Wilson IV came by as Deconnick discussed Bitch Planet. The book has fallen behind due to how difficult it was to write issue #4, but they discussed that they would rather have books “done right than right now.”

Casanova is getting back on schedule, and issue #3 will be 32 pages. This story will be far longer than 7 issues.

Christian Ward joined the group to talk about ODY-C, which is moving into a story that mirrors Moby Dick in many ways. Ward mentioned that when he gets the scripts, he “spends an hour on Wikipedia and some really weird Google searches.”

Bill Sienkiewicz took to the stage and after much expression of mutual admiration, Deconnick announced that the the two of them will be working on a book in the near future together. The working title of the book is Parisian White.

Sex Criminals #11 will be out soon. There will be lots of of extra pornographic variant covers in pink polybags by Bryan Lee O’Malley, Katie Cook, the Hernandez Bros. and more! Additionally, there will be 1000 blank covers with sketches by Fraction and Zdarsky, after hundreds had to be destroyed because they used licensed property stickers on them (“What were you thinking?!” –Kelly Sue Deconnick).

In addition to all the updates and behind-the-scenes info, the group gave out lots of swag to audience members that could answer trivia questions. Among the most interesting were the game show style “Who Said It: Ultron, Kanye, or Tallulah” and “Whose Penis am I Describing: Matt or Chip’s”. They are all also excited about working on upcoming TV shows, most of which they could not talk about at this point.

Kelly Sue and Matt (and let’s not forget Chip) know how to work a crowd, and their growing band of creators continues to be something to watch out for. All in all, it was a great way to close out Saturday at HeroesCon, one of the few cons to offer the open weirdness of this kind of panel but with some serious star power!