Thursday afternoon, EW's Nisha Goplan introduced Jim Lee, John Cassaday, Matt Fraction, Mike Mignola, Robert Kirkman, Colleen Doran and Grant Morrison to an eager audience, and then shut up and let them do the talking. The short version of the event would go something like this: Comics can do anything, comic creators should be less afraid to try to do anything and everything they want, and Mike Mignola really can't stop himself swearing accidentally. But why give you a short version when we can let the panelists talk for themselves?

On Movies' Influence On Comics:

Kirkman: I don't think [movies] will change the content, I don't think it should change the content. Hollywood comes to us because of our content.

Morrison: I think we should write comic books that are more like comic books.

Mignola: The plus side is, I think some things are getting published... because they might see potential in it somewhere else...

Morrison: Hollywood's got a lot of rules, it's very formulaic. Comics should break those rules.

Mignola: It's sad to see people changing their structure to fit [the Hollywood rule]... Let's do the comic and see someone else turn it into a film.

Lee: I think it's the opposite, I see a lot of movies and TV shows like Lost following the comics form.

Morrison: Death to Hollywood!

Mike Mignola On The Pluses And Minuses On The Hellboy Movies:

You try your best to convince yourself that you're doing the best thing, and then you spend the rest of your life explaining yourself that, no, Hellboy doesn't have a girlfriend... You live in the shadow of the movie. But you make your peace with it. Or don't license the character.

On The Future Of Print Comics:

Fraction: As long as there's print, there'll be comics. We're a cheap, easy, nasty, swarthy medium. We'll be the last to go... I've yet to see an iPhone that can beat a comic.

Cassaday: I can't stare at my computer screen for very long.

Morrison: You can't take your computer in the bath,

Kirkman: Yes you can!

Morrison: This man knows more than me.

Kirkman: Do you mean bathroom or bath?

Morrison: I mean bath, being immersed, I mean, water is the best element.

Kirkman: We'll talk later.

Mignola: We sure sound like visionaries, don't we?

Grant Morrison On The Need For Superheroes:

I think superheroes are more relevant now than they've ever been before. Superheroes have become this desperate attempt to imagine the future for ourselves. Superheroes and Star Trek. They represent something that isn't a cowboy for the West to be. I don't know if we'll ever reach it, because we have a lot of good bombs.

On working on personal projects against corporate creations:

Fraction: A lot of guys like me, their own stuff doesn't pay the bills. It doesn't even buy lunch. If you write the X-Men, it's okay, bills are paid.

Mignola: Find some time in between commercial projects and try something. I firmly believed that, after I'd done the first Hellboy, I'd go back and do another Batman book. But when you try that thing, you should really make sure that it's something you love so that if it's successful, you're stuck doing the thing you love.

Doran: Too many people treat their entire project as an audition for the rest of their career.

Robert Kirkman On Killing Characters:

I never think of this stuff, or else I wouldn't do it. I just write things and think, yeah, I think this guy's gonna die now. The main character in Walking Dead gets his hand cut off, and I didn't think about it. I remember thinking, I should think about what this will mean. Oh, he can't button his shirt, this'll be easy. And then, ten years later, I was like, oh crap. I shouldn't have cut that guy's hand off.

On Why They Create Comics:

Kirkman: I do it so my wife doesn't think if I'm a failure. I can't do anything else.
Fraction: I've never run across anything that you can't do in comics. No-one ever says that you can't afford to blow up New York. We can blow up New York and rebuild it twice if we want.
Lee: I always figured that if I was ever arrested, I could be the big guy's art bitch. I'm being completely serious.

On Why Colleen Doran Got Into Comics:

Doran: I had a crush on Aquaman.

Morrison: What was it about him?

Doran: He was wet.

On Who Today's Visionaries Think We Should Watch Out For:

Fraction: Jason Aaron.

Doran: Derek McCullogh.

Kirkman: Jonathan Hickman.

Mignola: It's not that I don't think that anyone's good, I tend to not remember anyone's names.

Morrison: I want to see an entire generation of crazy 17 year-olds doing this stuff.

The rumor about a resignation were made public by writer Warren Ellis, in one of his Bad Signal mailings early Friday morning:

If what I just heard is true, then it's going to be a really
interesting day in the comics news business... If it's not, well, I just wasted seven seconds of your time. You'll live.

As he had predicted, the news broke on Comic Book Resources, where Rich Johnston shared the following:

I understand that last week, John Nee handed his resignation in to DC Comics. As of today, however, he was still working at the company offices.

DC themselves refused to comment, but Nee's resignation was claimed confirmed for the site by "independent sources." Online reaction to the news was mixed; IDW Publishing's Scott Dunbier, who had worked with Nee at DC's Wildstorm imprint for years before resigning himself last year, posted that

John Nee is an honorable man and my friend. I hope he is happy and successful in whatever he does.

while "Tom Power" (presumably a pseudonym) left the following comment at Newsarama:

Nee’s departure won’t even be noticed by readers and consumers, but it will buoy the spirits of everyone who had to work under him. Nee was known for his being tone deaf to the feelings and sensibilities of others; what he probably saw as being forthright and outspoken was regarded by people with actual human emotions as a form of Tourettes and a total lack of empathy. Knowing people who worked under him at DC as I do (and having interacted with him on various bits of business over the years), I feel safe saying that he won’t be missed.

So, who was this apparently divisive figure?

John Nee came to DC through Wildstorm, the one-time independent studio headed up by 1990s superstar artist Jim Lee purchased by DC late in 1998, where he was VP General Manager for the imprint until his promotion last year to Senior Vice President of Business Development for all of DC Comics. During his time in both roles, he was responsible for the expansion of DC's international publishing programs, as well as the creation of DC's CMX manga imprint, the long-coming Sony/DC Comics MMO, DC's participation in online/cell publisher Flex Comics and - maybe most importantly of all - Lego Batman.

While his stepping down from his current position may not have an immediate effect for fans, it's still unknown what it may mean for the publisher itself; in response to Publisher's Weekly's Heidi MacDonald calling the resignation "capp[ing] off what had to be considered a week of bad news and turmoil for DC," Warren Ellis wrote (in another Bad Signal mailing):

Sadly, I don't think that does cap off the week for DC. I don't think they're going to have a very good day at all, tomorrow. I hate this, really.

Despite that Friday mailing, nothing was announced on Saturday or Sunday... Not that that stopped the rumor mill. Almost everyone assumes that Nee's resignation is part of larger changes, and while the nature of those changes varies depending on who you listen to (Most outlandish take: Nee has resigned in preparation for Jim Lee to leave his own post at DC and start up another independent publisher. Most plausible: Nee has resigned to facilitate a series of sideways moves that will slide Dan DiDio out of the Executive Editor position and someone else in), very few people believe that Nee's resignation is as simple as it seems on first inspection.

Dan DiDio's appearance at this weekend's HeroesCon has done little to inspire confidence in his staying power; although he told fans at the DC Nation panel that such rumors "come with the job" - not that they're helped when Jimmy Palmiotti teases the crowd with a "no comment" when asked if he wanted DiDio's gig (He's since made it clearer that he was joking and doesn't want the job) - others felt that he seemed very worn down and defeated:

DiDio stayed pretty gruff throughout the State of the Industry panel and dodged moderator Tom Spurgeon's questions about the past week at DC, marred by Chuck Dixon's acrimonious exit. Not inspiring anyone, at one point DiDio said, "We have the same characters... There's only so much you can do with them. You've seen it all, you've heard it all."

I mean, it's honest, but, man. Talk about a buzzkill.

It will, it seems, be another very interesting week for DC Comics.

In addition to Batman: Death Mask, an original manga by Yoshimori (Togari - The Sword of Justice) Natsume that will be published in authentic back-to-front format, the main DC/Wildstorm project will be DC/Wildstorm: Dreamwar that crosses over characters from both lines. Editor Scott Peterson described the project simply:

Basically, it's the DC Comics heroes versus the Wildstorm heroes, punching.

When asked about the status of the very late Wildcats series by Grant Morrison that disappeared after a mid-2007 first issue, series artist Jim Lee embarrassedly called it "the dreaded question," before admitting that "there's no way to make amends [for the delay]" but both Morrison and Lee are committed to finish the series at some point, although that may be five or ten years from now. Here's hoping that he was sarcastic on that last point. Peterson said that Morrison's other delayed title, The Authority, has had some "serious forward motion" and will be returning at some point.

In response to questions about Warren Ellis's missing titles Desolation Jones and Planetary, Peterson said that, like any publisher, they're very happy to publish work from Warren Ellis when they get it. He has written the final issue of Planetary, but they're waiting for artist John Cassaday to have time in his schedule to draw it.

Jim Lee also talked about his All-Star Batman series with Frank Miller, saying that he enjoys working on the book, and that he's surprised that Miller continues to work on the series considering his movie schedule. The book is slated to run for twenty issues, and they have around ten still to work on.