Don’t Go Back To Nahant: Boston Comic Con 2013’s Locke & Key Panel Full Report

Editor’s Note: If this writeup of Sunday’s Locke & Key panel sounds fun, you can see a bunch of video from the panel, with a lot of additional information that didn’t make this report, right here.

If Boston Comic Con had a single event that no other convention, regardless of size or location, could reproduce in 2013, it was the Locke & Key panel, because it featured all the main players in the production of the book: writer Joe Hill, artist Gabriel Rodriguez, and IDW Editor-in-Chief Chris Ryall. And considering that the book is coming to a conclusion in just a few months, and therefore all of these guys will be moving on to other projects, if you ever wanted to see these three guys interact and talk about Locke & Key while it’s an ongoing concern, the only place to be was the Waterfront Room at the Seaport World Trade Center at 2 p.m. on Sunday.

The one thing that that panel didn’t have was a hell of a lot in the way of actual news, but who the hell expected that? We all know the comic is closing up shop (minus the odd rumored one-shot, which wasn’t something that was addressed at the panel), we all know that the Fox pilot for a TV series is two years dead, and the Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (of Star Trek reboot fame)-produced Locke & Key movie is only a month and a half into its existence, and there’s no way in hell that they would allow any hard information to be released in a function room full of people wearing t-shirts reading, “Yankees Suck!”

So these guys were not facing a crowd that was rabid for any new information (beyond maybe how, and who will make, Dodge eventually suck the pipe, but even that was a low-key questions; after all, the final issue is just about on its way), which meant that tensions were low for the panel, and it showed. The panel unofficially started with Hill looking at his phone at the stroke of 2 p.m., grabbing a microphone, and saying, “Guys, this just in: the BBC just announced that the next Doctor will be Jason Statham!”

And when the crowd groaned, Hill said, “It would be awesome, and you know it!”

Yeah, this panel looked to just be a good time. And it was.

Doctor Who News – Peter Capaldi Is The 12th Doctor

Yesterday, the BBC announced that Peter Capaldi will be the next Doctor in Doctor Who. Capaldi is probably best known for his work as Malcolm Tucker on The Thick Of It. He also was most recently seen on the big screen in World War Z as W.H.O. Doctor (ha!).

Capaldi’s casting is a departure from the recent trend of casting much younger actors to the role of The Doctor in order to court the demographic. Indeed Capaldi is 55, the same age as William Hartnell when he was cast as the very first Doctor back in 1963. Reportedly, Capaldi was the only person show runner Steven Moffat was interested in for the role. As of the Doctor Who panel back at San Diego Comic-Con back in July, Moffat had said that there had been no casting decisions made with regard to the 12th Doctor. Nice to see Moffat continue his streak of being upfront and transparent with the show’s fans.

Check out the video of Peter Capaldi’s introduction to Doctor Who fans from the BBC television special that aired yesterday, after the jump.