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BACKSTAGE - MARVEL ANIMATION AGE COVERAGE - DENVER COMIC-CON 2013

Coverage of the Man of Action Panel at the Denver Comic-Con 2013
By David Medinnus

The Man of Action panel was pretty full, mostly because of parents with their children in tow, like me. The panel consisted of Steven Seagle and Joe Kelly, two members of the Man of Action production team. From the very beginning until the very last question at the end, and even the autographs portion afterwards, Seagle and Kelly were absolutely wonderful with the crowd in general, and the kids in particular.

Man Of Action started the panel by saying that given the number of kids, the worst thing possible would be for them to endlessly talk and bore the kids. So, they suggested that if any of the kids were bore, they should stand up and ask a question, and the Man Of Action team would stop and answer. Well, this resulted in an immediate question, followed by another, followed by another, etc., and eventually the whole panel ended up being a kids Q&A. Man Of Action also handed out temporary tattoos, masks, etc., to the kids who asked questions. Given the nature of the panel, some of the more interesting answers are below.

Q: Why is the Hulk always angry?
A: The Hulk is always angry because his pants are too tight!

Q: Is the spider that bit Peter Parker radioactive?
A: In the original comic, it was radioactive, but in Ultimate Spider-Man the spider was genetically modified!

Q: How did "Ben 10" come about?
A: Answered in a joking fashion, the fellows who comprise Man Of Action formed the production team so they could get San Diego Comic-Con to give them a place to sit! A fellow from Cartoon Network came by, and asked them if they'd like to pitch, and they conferred and told the guy, "We'll give you 20 pitches in 20 minutes!" At the pitch meeting, they had a bell set up so they could switch on time, and started going through the concepts - when they got to Ben 10, which was number eight, the guys from Cartoon Network said, "That's it. We don't need to hear the rest".

Q: Why are Thor and Hulk always so mad at each other?
A: Well, they aren't really - but both of them are very strong, and like to fight! So besides a friendly rivalry going on, both of them are so strong that they can really only fight each other without being afraid of hurting the other guy!

Q: How long does it take to make an episode?
A: About a year. It starts with the Writers Room, where the staff meet in a room and start coming up with ideas. They ask questions (like "how does it end?") and work on fleshing out ideas until they have an outline of the episode. Then that outline is assigned to a staff writer, who fleshes out the outline as a full script. Then it's storyboarded, they do the voice acting, and the episode is sent overseas for animating. When it comes back they do the music, story editing and other changes as needed, and then hopefully have it finished before their deadline.

Thanks to David Medinnus for attending and covering the panel!


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