Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week Bennett looks at D-23, Godzilla in Hell, and FM Comics.

As it looks ever less likely I'll ever be able to attend Comic-Con in San Diego I've begun to look for an alternative.  I'm not entirely comfortable confessing this but with AARP membership coming up fast in my rearview (I'm old enough to remember Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color firsthand) I feel it's only right that I attempt a pilgrimage.

A piece by Roger Showley from the San Diego Union-Tribune, "D23 Expo: A Comic-Con for Disney Geeks," suggests that the Disney fan club bi-annual convention has a number of advantages over Comic-Con.  First, though it's being held this week, August 14-16 at the Anaheim Convention Center, tickets are still actually available.  It's near Disneyland which is another selling point for me.

And while D23 (it's a reference to the year the company was founded) has everything a conventional comic book convention has (panels, guest appearances, autograph sessions, dealers rooms, etc.) it also has what cruise ships* like to call "world class entertainment."  This year's musical performances include Disney on Broadway, where a 32-piece orchestra provides music for 1930's Silly Symphony cartoons.  As well as Frozen Fandemonium, where songs from the film Frozen are hosted by its song-writing team, Kristine Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez.  And while cosplay is now ubiquitous at conventions, cosplayers still really don't get a whole lot out of it other than attention, welcome and otherwise.  But D23 has Mousequerade, "a contest of attendees in costumes.  The winner will receive a trip for two to Aulani, Disney's Hawaiian resort."

I've long had reservations about licensed comics, chief among them that they took shelf space away from original, creator-owned comics and were inherently inhibited; the best you could hope for is a good approximation of the actual article.  So it's a little startling just how many of my favorite comics these days are licensed comics, comics as varied as Shaft and Jem and the Holograms.  Now you can add Godzilla in Hell to that list, a (so far) wordless comic which, as advertised, features the King of Monsters' literal descent into Hell.  I'm also noted for being a bit picky about the way damnation is so often trivialized in comics (i.e. the place of torment being reduced to a third-rate fantasy "realm"), but I have no objections to the subtly unsettling way that Hell is depicted here.

This is the first Godzilla comic I've liked since Art Adams drew the Godzilla Color Special back in 1998 (published by Dark Horse Comics).  Godzilla in Hell is so good it makes me wonder why IDW Publishing doesn't do comics featuring some of the other Toho Studios creatures appearing in the current Godzilla Unleashed video game (Mothra, King Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla, Rodan, etc.)  Oh, and Jet Jaguar; the size changing robot from Godzilla vs. Megalon.  He's never gotten his proper due and deserves his chance in the spotlight.

One of the strangest things to me about our current boom is the fact that while there have been almost no new start-up comics companies trying to take advantage of it.  Oh, there are plenty of brand new conventions, but new comic book companies are few and far between, which is why I'm so intrigued by American Gothic Press's comics division, FM (Famous Monsters) Comics.  Any new company would be noteworthy, but you really don't expect to see one bearing the name of Forrest J. Ackerman's legendary Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine.

I've enjoyed all the comics they've released so far, Gunsuits by Paul Tobin and P.J. Holden and Bornhome by Tobin and Jeff Johnson, though my clear favorite is Bornhome, admittedly due almost entirely to its artwork by Jeff Johnson.  It has a solid enough SF story, but what really sells it is Johnson's ability to make even the most fantastic of situations seem solidly grounded in reality, something he's been demonstrating since I first discovered his work on the still sadly underappreciated Wonder Man series he did with Gerard Jones. And while I'm not entirely sure anyone actively "needs" to see another comic book reboot of Lost In Space, even one "based on the unproduced screenplays from Producer Irwin Allen's collection" (see "FM Comics To Publish Lost in Space: Season 4"), I'd be lying if I didn't say I was at least a little bit curious.

* Given the number of new conventions that keep springing up I keep wondering who will be the first to stage one on a cruise ship.  Nothing major, maybe just a 2-3 day jaunt to the Bahamas and back.  I know that it's a little outside the box, but getting guests should be a breeze once after you offer them a free cruise.  It’s not a matter of "if," but "when."

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.