{"id":90067,"date":"2025-07-25T01:09:22","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T01:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/90067\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T01:09:22","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T01:09:22","slug":"meet-creators-superheroes-and-cold-case-crimefighters-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/90067\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet creators, superheroes and cold-case crimefighters \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Marvel booth at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ocregister.com\/tag\/comic-con\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">San Diego Comic-Con<\/a> is predictably focused this year on \u201cThe Fantastic Four,\u201d which arrives in theaters on Friday, July 25.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a meet-and-greet station with H.E.R.B.I.E., the retro humanoid robot who works for and with Fantastic Four members Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch and the Thing. There\u2019s merch, of course, too.<\/p>\n<p>And around back of the booth on Thursday, we ran into the actual Fantastic Four, though in this case, \u201cactual\u201d means very good cosplayers and the Fantastic Four only adds up to Three. Human Torch hadn\u2019t shown up yet, perhaps detained by the fire marshal at the San Diego Convention Center.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"mng-gallery-initialized mng-gallery-slider\">\n<li data-index=\"1\" class=\"mng-ge mng-gallery-active\" id=\"mng-ge-0\" aria-hidden=\"false\" tabindex=\"0\"><img alt=\"Forensic sculptor Joe Mullins works on the facial recreation of...\" class=\"size-article_inline\"  \/>\n<p>Forensic sculptor Joe Mullins works on the facial recreation of a young boy who was found dead near San Diego about two decades ago. The National Center for Missing &amp; Exploited Children shared a booth at San Diego Comic-Con to bring attention to the case and hopefully identify the child. (Photo by Peter Larsen \/ Staff)\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-index=\"2\" class=\"mng-ge\" id=\"mng-ge-1\" aria-hidden=\"true\" tabindex=\"-1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Wendy Newton, left, Trevor Newton, center, and Tony Armatys, right...\" class=\"lazyload size-article_inline\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/OCR-L-SDCOMIC-CON-0725-02.jpg\" \/>\n<p>Wendy Newton, left, Trevor Newton, center, and Tony Armatys, right cosplay as Invisible Woman, Mister Fantastic, and the Thing from \u201cFantastic Four\u201d at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday. Behind them a performer inside a Galactus costume looms. (Photo by Peter Larsen \/ Staff)\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-index=\"3\" class=\"mng-ge\" id=\"mng-ge-2\" aria-hidden=\"true\" tabindex=\"-1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Cartoonist Luke McGarry poses for a photo at his booth...\" class=\"lazyload size-article_inline\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/OCR-L-SDCOMIC-CON-0725-06.jpg\" \/>\n<p>Cartoonist Luke McGarry poses for a photo at his booth at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday. (Photo by Peter Larsen \/ Staff)\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-index=\"4\" class=\"mng-ge\" id=\"mng-ge-3\" aria-hidden=\"true\" tabindex=\"-1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Graphic memoirist Craig Thompson poses for a photo after a...\" class=\"lazyload size-article_inline\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/OCR-L-SDCOMIC-CON-0725-05.jpg\" \/>\n<p>Graphic memoirist Craig Thompson poses for a photo after a signing at the Drawn &amp; Quarterly booth at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday. His new book, \u201cGinseng Roots,\u201d is a sequel of sorts of his previous graphic memoir \u201cBlankets.\u201d (Photo by Peter Larsen \/ Staff)\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-index=\"5\" class=\"mng-ge\" id=\"mng-ge-4\" aria-hidden=\"true\" tabindex=\"-1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Forensic sculptor Joe Mullins and Callahan Walsh of the National...\" class=\"lazyload size-article_inline\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/OCR-L-SDCOMIC-CON-0725-03_1042f9.jpg\" \/>\n<p>Forensic sculptor Joe Mullins and Callahan Walsh of the National Center for Missing &amp; Exploited Children pose by a sculptor Mullins was working on at San Diego Comic-Con in hopes of identifying a young boy whose body was found about two decades ago near San Diego. (Photo by Peter Larsen \/ Staff)\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-index=\"6\" class=\"mng-ge\" id=\"mng-ge-5\" aria-hidden=\"true\" tabindex=\"-1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Tatiana Baes and Louie Reyes pose after braving the line...\" class=\"lazyload size-article_inline\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/OCR-L-SDCOMIC-CON-0725-07.jpg\" \/>\n<p>Tatiana Baes and Louie Reyes pose after braving the line for Butts On Things,\u201d artist Brian Cook\u2019s popular art that features random objects drawn with their butts in view at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday. (Photo by Peter Larsen \/ Staff)\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-index=\"7\" class=\"mng-ge\" id=\"mng-ge-6\" aria-hidden=\"true\" tabindex=\"-1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The comic book team of Fake and Greg signed copies...\" class=\"lazyload size-article_inline\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/OCR-L-SDCOMIC-CON-0725-04.jpg\" \/>\n<p>The comic book team of Fake and Greg signed copies of their new hardcover collection of \u201cSantos Sisters\u201d comics at the Fantagraphics booth at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday.(Photo by Peter Larsen \/ Staff)\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-index=\"8\" class=\"mng-ge\" id=\"mng-ge-7\" aria-hidden=\"true\" tabindex=\"-1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Forensic sculptor Joe Mullins works on the facial recreation of...\" class=\"lazyload size-article_inline\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/OCR-L-SDCOMIC-CON-0725-02_78e524.jpg\" \/>\n<p>Forensic sculptor Joe Mullins works on the facial recreation of a young boy who was found dead near San Diego about two decades ago. The National Center for Missing &amp; Exploited Children shared a booth at San Diego Comic-Con to bring attention to the case and hopefully identify the child. (Photo by Peter Larsen \/ Staff)\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li data-index=\"9\" class=\"mng-ge\" id=\"mng-ge-8\" aria-hidden=\"true\" tabindex=\"-1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Tony Armatys, left, Trevor Newton, center, and Wendy Newton, right...\" class=\"lazyload size-article_inline\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/OCR-L-SDCOMIC-CON-0725-03-1.jpg\" \/>\n<p>Tony Armatys, left, Trevor Newton, center, and Wendy Newton, right cosplay as the Thing, Mister Fantastic, and Invisible Woman from \u201cFantastic Four\u201d at San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday. (Photo by Peter Larsen \/ Staff)\n<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Show Caption<\/p>\n<p>1 of 9<\/p>\n<p>Forensic sculptor Joe Mullins works on the facial recreation of a young boy who was found dead near San Diego about two decades ago. The National Center for Missing &amp; Exploited Children shared a booth at San Diego Comic-Con to bring attention to the case and hopefully identify the child. (Photo by Peter Larsen \/ Staff)\n<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#\" class=\"icon-enlarge mng-gallery-fullscreen-expand\" aria-label=\"Expand fullscreen slideshow\">Expand<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were at the Los Angeles premiere on Monday,\u201d says Trevor Newton of Murietta, who was dressed as Mister Fantastic, played in the movie by actor Pedro Pascal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople were impressed by what the Thing can do,\u201d says his wife, Wendy Newton, cosplaying as Invisible Woman, in reference to their friend Tony Armatys\u2019 elaborate cosplay as the Thing. \u201cAnd everybody says (Trevor) looks like Pedro Pascal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Suddenly, from a corner comes a towering Galactus, the planet-eating alien being whom the Fantastic Four must stop.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOk, that is badass,\u201d Trevor Newton says admiringly of the 15-foot-tall purple-armored villain his character is sworn to stop.<\/p>\n<p>Not on Thursday, though. Today, the Fantastic Three and their foe call a truce to pose for fan photos until Galactus, powered by an actual human somewhere inside the work, created by Extreme Costumes.<\/p>\n<p>A star-struck moment<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ocregister.com\/2025\/06\/27\/8-graphic-nonfiction-books-that-use-comics-to-unlock-memoir-history-and-more\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Graphic memoirist Craig Thompson<\/a> had just packed his pens after a signing at the Drawn &amp; Quarterly booth when a fan, Michael Morales, arrived disappointed because he thought he\u2019d missed Thompson.<\/p>\n<p>When Thompson introduced himself and offered to sign a copy of his 2003 graphic novel \u201cBlankets,\u201d Morales was momentarily speechless.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis book changed my life,\u201d he told Thompson, as the artist began a sketch for Morales inside the book.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019m so starstruck to meet you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The book is a memoir that revolves around Thompson\u2019s coming of age as he realizes that he no longer wants to follow the devout Christian faith of his parents.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt kind of encouraged me to come out to my folks,\u201d Morales said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s huge,\u201d Thompson replied.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYour book was maybe the first time I ever considered comics could be more than superheroes,\u201d Morales added.<\/p>\n<p>Later, Thompson said he\u2019s often heard coming out stories like Morales from gay readers, seeing in his strength to speak about his spirituality as an analog for their journeys to live openly in their sexuality.<\/p>\n<p>At Comic-Con, Thompson had multiple signings booked, including some for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ocregister.com\/2025\/06\/27\/8-graphic-nonfiction-books-that-use-comics-to-unlock-memoir-history-and-more\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">his newest graphic book, \u201cGinseng Roots.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s half memoir about my childhood growing up in ginseng agriculture, which I started when I was 10,\u201d he says. \u201cThe second part is documentary from interviews I did with growers, practitioners, some from a trip I made to Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thompson worked in the ginseng fields near the small Wisconsin town in which he was raised from 10 to 20. \u201cIt\u2019s my longest job I\u2019ve had outside of cartooning,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>The book is also a kind of sequel to \u201cBlankets,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cIt\u2019s about finding one\u2019s sense of roots and where we belong in an age of globalization,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n<p>Going solo<\/p>\n<p>Cartoonist Luke McGarry has exhibited at Comic-Con for more than a decade, sharing space at the National Cartoonists Society booth.<\/p>\n<p>This year, though, the Los Angeles artist moved up to a booth of his own in a prime row that includes such well-known artists as Scott Shaw, one of the early cofounders of Comic-Con, and Tom Richmond, whose work filled the pages of Mad magazine for years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a bit of an effort,\u201d McGarry said, explaining that to get a booth like his, \u201csomeone has to die or retire.\u201d \u201cThe guys from Mad magazine were pulling strings for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McGarry, who grew up in Huntington Beach and graduated from the Orange County School of the Arts in 2005, works mostly on comedic pop cultural things.<\/p>\n<p>When the Roxy Theatre turned 50 in 2023, McGarry was hired to paint a mural of cartoon versions of musicians who\u2019d played the iconic venue over the years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was there a couple of months,\u201d he says. \u201cFunny story. My parents finally came up to see it, and it had been replaced with a Jameson\u2019s ad or something. I do have a photo of my dad next to that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bottoming out<\/p>\n<p>One of the longest lines on the floor Thursday snaked its way down one aisle and up another, with staffers keeping the queue in order by holding up signs that read \u201cButt Line.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Approach from the rear of the line, and you\u2019ll come to the Butts On Things booth, which sells stickers and pins of exactly that.<\/p>\n<p>Want to see the Ghostbuster ghost\u2019s bottom? They got it! An In-N-Out burger backside? Coming right up! So many cute little butt cartoons, you can see why so many people are fans of artist Brian Cook\u2019s art.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just fun,\u201d said Tatiana Baes of Temecula, who with boyfriend Louie Reyes had just scored the comical cartoon keisters of R2D2, Stitch and the video game character Kirby.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it has to do with how obscene having butts on things is,\u201d Reyes said, though really, it\u2019s more absurd than obscene.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2018Sisters\u2019 act<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The creative duo known as Greg and Fake were at the Fantagraphics booth with their first hardcover collection of their \u201cSantos Sisters\u201d comic books for anyone who wanted to get a signed copy on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Greg Petre does the art, Fake \u2014 no last name \u2014 writes the stories, which were originally published by Floating World Comics before Fantagraphics took notice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s two sisters, Ambar and Alana,\u201d said Fake, who\u2019s known and worked with Petre since high school in Downers Grove, Illinois. \u201cThe origin is that one day they were at the beach,\u201d he continued. \u201cThey find a beautiful medallion and everything changes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s like a sitcom, like \u2018Seinfeld,\u2019 with superhero drawings,\u201d Petre adds.<\/p>\n<p>The hardcover recently got a starred review in Library Journal, Fake said, and now libraries are adding it, something \u201cfloppy\u201d comic books never get, and something that makes these creators happy, both said.<\/p>\n<p>A serious endeavor<\/p>\n<p>Sculptor Joe Mullins worked patiently with clay, which he added and shaped over a 3-D printed skull on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>But this is no monster maquette or superhero skull he\u2019s creating. Mullins is a forensic sculptor, and the facial reconstruction he was making at Comic-Con is an attempt to identify an unidentified boy whose body was discovered near San Diego two decades ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t want to brag, but I\u2019d say this is the most important booth at Comic-Con,\u201d said Callahan Walsh of the National Center for Missing &amp; Exploited Children, who, with his father John Walsh, the center\u2019s founder, cohosts the long-running series \u201cAmerica\u2019s Most Wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s always the possibility that someone here at Comic-Con could help us identify this person and help give his name back,\u201d Walsh said.<\/p>\n<p>This is the fourth year the center has teamed up with Adobe, in whose booth Mullins was working, to try to identify unidentified victims of murder in the San Diego area, Walsh said.<\/p>\n<p>They know that this victim was a boy somewhere between two-and-a-half and three-and-a-half, possibly Hispanic and definitely non-White, he said. \u201cJoe is reading the bones,\u201d Walsh said. \u201cThe bones tell us everything we need to know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Originally Published: July 24, 2025 at 4:51 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Marvel booth at San Diego Comic-Con is predictably focused this year on \u201cThe Fantastic Four,\u201d which arrives&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":90068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1022,1582,276,15661,53,3549,7264,1072,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-90067","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-california","12":"tag-comic-con","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-san-diego","15":"tag-sandiego","16":"tag-things-to-do","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114911206929536767","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}