After begging Sarah to get to go for the past two years, she finally relented this year and let me go up to Chicago for one of the biggest comic book conventions in the world, WizardWorld! My friend Ken and I made an arrangement that I would pay for the hotel and he would buy gas, pay for parking, and do all the driving. This was a great deal for me because Ken had been to the con a few times before, and being a newbie, I needed someone with experience around so I didn't get in over my head.
(That's Ken on the right by the way. Ken is the owner of Marvels and Legends, which USED to be my local comic shop when I lived in Cape. He also happened to be my landlord at the time. The other guy is named Shane, who is also from Cape and is sort of a business partner with Ken. Shane came to the convention with another group of guys from Marvels and Legends, completely separate from us, but we bumped into him off and on over the course of the weekend.)
Ken picked me up from the Centralia exit in Illinois at about eight a.m. on Friday and we began our long drive up to Chi-town. We got a bit lost coming into town because I thought that two highways that touched on the map must of course connect when in reality they did not. Because of this, we got to the convention center at two (shown here below in a picture that I actually snapped as I walked back to the car on my way home on Sunday).
We got there just as the DC Direct panel ended (something I had really been looking forward to so I could try to convince them to make a Starman PVC set). I was also to meet a girl I know from the message boards named Selkie at her LCS's booth at two, but because I had no idea where it was, I got lost in the confusion. I looked for her around the convention floor for about half an hour fruitlessly. Because it was my first moments of the con, I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of it all, and that I was in a hurry didn't help anything. Finally I gave up and went to the Marvel Knights panel at 2:30 because Jeph Loeb was supposed to be there.
Now even the most cursory glance at my website will let you know I'm a huge fan of Jeph's, so I was more than a little disappointed that he wasn't at that panel. Later the next day it became apparent that he wasn't going to make it to the convention at all. He was only one of a group of creators I had been looking forward to meeting in person that didn't end up showing at the con (Greg Rucka, Guy Davis, Jay Faerber and of course the legendary Stan Lee) but Jeph's absence was the most disappointing thing about the entire weekend. However, I DID manage to bounce back rather quickly when I spied Dark Victory message boarder (and contributor to this website) DeForgeo leaving the panel. I caught up with him, introduced myself to him (and his dad), and then we wandered around the floor with him for a while, talking comics and the like. He convinced me to check out Louis Riel, a comic book about a Canadian revolutionary, and I'm thankful for that because it is quite good.
We parted ways after a while and I went to the Vertigo panel at 4:00, which was sort of nice. Shelley Bond, an editor for Vertigo, was leading the panel because the original person who was supposed to missed her flight, and i'm glad she did because Shelley seemed to me to be a very nice person. I even told her so later at the DC booth, and she told me that I was the first person ever to thank her for being on a panel and that I had just made her convention. The panel was nice because Azzarello was on it, talking a bit about 100 Bullets (I didn't meet him until Sunday, though I saw him a LOT over the course of the weekend). Also, Coleen Doran she went on and on about how much of a
NASA geek she is and I've pretty much decided to buy the new series she's drawing (Orbiter) now for HER devotion to the subject and not for the writer, Warren Ellis.
I found out at six that the convention was open 'til eight, so I did some more wandering. This gave me opportunity to stand in the Marvel line and get Geoff Johns to sign some books for me (pictured here at left). Piece of advice for anyone going to a con in the near future: the Marvel line will eat your time. The entire Marvel booth is just a long waiting area before you reach the signing table where three or four guys are sitting. Bruce Jones, the current writer of the Hulk, was sitting there next to Geoff Johns, and a guy literally handed him a hundred issues of Ka-Zar to sign, if you can believe that. I'm not that bold; I only gave him ONE issue of the Hulk to autograph for me.
When I got to Geoff, I introduced myself as Vacuumboy9 from the message boards and he recognized my username. We talked a bit but not really about anything in particular, because I guess I was too nervous. He signed a JSA issue for me (one that the artist Leonard Kirk had signed earlier in the day) and the infamous Captain Cold issue, Flash #182. Shortly after that Ken and I finally went back to the hotel, ate some dinner in the bar there, and crashed by ten. Yes that is VERY early for me but Ken had been up since two in the morning at that point, and I had been up since six after going to bed at three, so we kinda needed our beauty rest.
Our hotel being all of a five minute drive from the Rosemont Convention Center, we made it to the convention on Saturday shortly before ten. The first thing I did that day was go to the DC Direct booth to talk to them about PVC sets, since I had missed the panel discussion the day before. At the booth I talked to Ed Bolkus, art director for DC Direct who is pictured at right with me, about why PVCs needed to keep being made. He said that it had been decided they were too damn expensive to produce. But he told me that if we made our desire for PVCs known, we might see them return. He unfortunately wouldn't take the letter I had for him, or the list of names, or the petitions, but he was still a very nice guy and helpful too. He seemed to be artistically for the PVCs and would personally like to see them return. He also let me know that a Doom Patrol set had been sculpted and then scrapped, which upset me to no end since I'd definitely have bought a set of these characters had I been given the chance.
After that I walked right up to Bart Sears at the Crossgen booth, with no waiting at all. I told him I was a fan of his from way back and got him to sign an old Justice League Europe. I REALLY wish I had brought a copy of Eclipso to get him to sign, as I'm sure my being a fan of THAT book would have floored him even more. Then I headed over to the Marvel booth to get Mark Waid to sign a DC book or two.
This guy at left is J. Torres, writer of The Copybook Tales. I met him briefly, bought a book from him and got him to sign it for me. Actually, that was mostly how I spent my Saturday, meeting comic creators, buying their work, getting it autographed, and getting their photos. The folks at the Oni booth were nice. I talked to Jamie Rich for a few minutes about my mini-comic and basically told him I would mail it to him whenever the art came to me in the mail.
Anyway, this shot is the first in a long string of similar shots I took on Saturday, all with the creators holding their books up. Basically I did that because I wanted to be sure I knew who the person was later. Unfortunately you can't read the title of the book Mr. Torres is holding here because of the glare from my ultra-bright flash. I had to apologize for the flash all day long, because the "red-eye reduction" on Sarah's new digital camera apparently doubles as a strobe light. The pictures I took later that day turned out much better than this one.
Again, I wish I had been more forward and chatted J. up for a while, but I guess I was kinda nervous because I only ever really talked to any of the people pictured here for a few seconds. I'm thinking about preparing questions ahead of time next year so I don't get overwhelmed when I meet people and forget to ask them things.
At one point during the day I went to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund booth to find out some information about the anthology they're putting out in September. See, every year they do this anthology of small press stuff, lots of short stories by indie creators. This year they announced open submissions and I worked up a little story that I got my message board pal Kelly Tindall to draw so we could submit it. (It was an adaptation of the first essay of my thesis--also available in the writings section of my site.) I had been hoping to have mini-comics to give out to publishers at the convention, but even though Kelly mailed the art to me over two months ago, I still haven't gotten it. Damn Canadian postal service!
(This mini-comic will be posted on the site as soon as I get the artwork, by the way. And I hope to eventually adapt my entire thesis into comics form, so if anyone out there is an artist and wants to help me, please e-mail me. Kelly's art was beautiful, but I just have to find someone in the States to collaborate with.)
Anyway, I went to the CBLDF booth to find out when the new anthology's table of contents would be announced (to see if I was included), and the guy said later the following week. (At the time of this writing, it has been three weeks since he said that, and no announcements have been made.)
The Top Shelf booth was right next to the CBLDF booth, and when I walked past Eddie Campbell was standing there, talking to folks about their portfolios. I wish I had known he was going to be there so I could have brought my copy of From Hell to get signed, but oh well. A similar thing happened when I rounded the other side of the booth and met the guy who did Box Office Poison, Alex Robinson. I hadn't brought any issues of that to get autographed either, again because I hadn't known he'd be there, so I looked through what he had for sale. I felt bad because he had some art from the series there but it was all $60 a page and I was broke. I ended up buying a beautiful art print from him, as well as a copy of the Box Office Poison color issue. I felt like a jerk only spending twelve dollars total there, but he was still really nice (even if his breath smelled of kielbasa).
Anyway pictured here above is Alex Robinson, laughing at Tony Consiglio's Double Cross, and Tony Consiglio, disgusted by Alex Robinson's Box Office Poison.
I went by the Image booth next to talk about Noble Causes with its creator, Jay Faerber. Unfortunately, when I asked a guy at their booth, I was told that Faerber wasn't there. Then I asked the guy if the creators of Paradigm were there. Even though this Image guy seemed REALLY put out, he directed me to them and so I went over and talked to them about their book a bit (which is good and which you should check out when it comes in October). They're pictured here at left; you've got Jeremy Haun and Matthew Cashel, respectively the artist and writer on Paradigm.
I talked to Cashel more than Haun because he was off wandering about the first time I came by. Actually Cashel was probably the one guy I spoke to most at the convention. He was very approachable and we spoke a little bit about the book, how the new version coming out from Image will be different from the self-published version. He also told me about the message boards they have set up for the comic, which I now frequent and have gotten to know them both much better because of it. I'm really looking forward to next year's con, so I can talk to these two in greater detail.
Right next to the Paradigm guys was the guy who did Nowheresville for Image, Mark Ricketts. When I went up and talked to him, it was about five 'til one. Ken and I had planned to hang out and wander the floor together for a while but we had momentarily split up when he got held up at talking to the HeroClix people. Mark told me that he was going to leave the booth at one, but he'd be back sometime later in the day. I really wanted to get his picture and didn't want to have to catch him later at some undisclosed time, so I ran away to find Ken. You see, I was out of money, and Ken had plenty to spare so he let me write him a check and he gave me cash to buy a copy of Nowheresville from the guy.
I got back to the booth just in time to catch Ricketts before he left and got Ken to take my picture with him. Ricketts had his "friend" Will Pfeister with him, and he told me that Will was going to be doing a new Dial H for HERO book for DC soon. Based on that, I decided I wanted Will in the picture too. (I'm on the left, then Will, then Mark.)
After the picture was taken, I bought the book from Ricketts and got him to sign it. Then I promptly walked off and left it on the table, not realizing I'd left it there until a good two hours. When I realized what I'd done, I was VERY disappointed. I was sure it was gone but went back to check for it anyway and, what do you know, Mark was so nice he had set the book aside and told the people at the booth to watch for me so I could get it back. Another highlight of the weekend for me.
Anyway after getting Ken to loan me some extra cash, I wandered through Artists' Alley with him for a while and met a few folks. Seen here at left is Steve Lieber, artist on the FANTASTIC crime series Whiteout.
One thing about the con is that it kind of reminded me of going to craft fairs with my mom when I was a kid. She always wanted to stop at every single booth and look at every little thing, while I wanted to walk around, get an overview of everybody there, and then got back to the one or two stalls that had stuff that really interested me. When I was walking around with Ken, it was like that, so we split up again pretty quickly.
In that time I also met Sean McKeever, writer of The Waiting Place (pictured below) who was being hounded by two friends of his when I walked up. He seemed to be trying to be cordial to them while they failed to get the hint that he was trying to sell me stuff and they were possible driving me away. They thought it was hilarious that I wanted to get a picture of him with the book I bought, and stood behind me snickering as I took the photo. Hence the bemused look on his face in the picture.
After that I also went to two panels. At 2:30 was Wildstorm, in which they mostly talked about new books like 21 Down by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. I actually spoke to the two guys at one point during the con about Gen 13 #0, which has a preview of 21 Down in it. I told them I was a teacher and that I bought a bunch of extra copies of the issue to give away to my students. Palmiotti said, "Hope that's not an English teacher." I said actually yeah, and he said then you better not read the book, I'll get in trouble.
During the panel they also had trivia questions about LOEG and other stuff (like how many beers Palmiotti had the night before), for which were given copies of LOEG 2 #1, signed by Moore and O'Neil. I was sitting in the back so they didn't call on me to answer the "who wrote the books the LOEG characters came from?" They did ask who lettered the book, and I guessed Todd Klein, which was wrong (he did design). A guy who had a copy of the book on him looked up the correct answer (Bill Oakley) and won the autographed book. That was frustrating; I kept kicking myself for not remembering it was Oakley but really the letterer on a book is such a trivial thing to remember.
Between that panel and the next I went to, I headed over to the Abstract booth and met Terry Moore of Strangers in Paradise fame. Actually when I first got there he was on a bathroom break, so I talked to his wife for a minute before he came back. I also met this girl who was very nice and was a big SiP fan. She and her friends had driven up from Cleveland for the con and were driving back that night. And the whole reason she was there was to meet Terry Moore. THAT's a fan. Strangers in Paradise was the ONLY comic she read and I told her to try Box Office Poison, 'cause it had a similar flavor. I had a few issues of BOP there with me that I'd gotten free for Free Comic Book Day a while back, and since I had brought them to give away (I'd gotten a full run of the series on eBay and thus had these doubles), I gave them to this girl, told her to try them out to see what she thought.
When Terry finally got back to the booth, I asked him if he would draw me a sketch in the HC I'd just bought from him, and he agreed. (He's pictured here at work drawing it.) It only took him ten minutes, and that was with him getting interrupted at the beginning by some guy who kept trying to talk to him even though he was clearly busy. The great thing was that when he was finished, he apologized to me that it took so long! All I could say was "wow," because the sketch he did, which is of Francine, was so gorgeous... and it only took him ten minutes to do.
The other panel I went to was the DCU panel which had the highlights of Waid talking about Superman: Birthright and Pfeister talking about H-E-R-O. Geoff talked a bit about Flash and Hawkman too, which was cool. I met up with DeForgeo again as this panel started because it again was supposed to be something Jeph Loeb was at if he'd been there. We were both looking forward to seeing him but were still pretty pumped up about the con even though he was absent.
After the panel I bid DeForgeo adieu since he had to fly back home to Canada in the morning. Back on the convention floor I saw Geoff briefly again after the panel and talked a bit with him. He remembered me from the day before, so that made me happy. I also ran into Patty Jeres and Bob Wayne, who are some higher-ups at DC and asked them if the editor of Doom Patrol was there. They said he was on his honeymoon. I stressed my support for the book, including mentions of my willingness to give freebies to folks at the con who showed me their copy of issue ten. When I said I had yet to give away anything, Bob Wayne said, "Well you keep ducking them then." Patty stressed that cancellation was not in the near future because DC feels strongly about that book creatively, and so I walked away reassured that my current favorite comic would be around for a while longer.
Right around then I bumped into this guy, who goes by Funk Doctor on the DC message boards. He was on his way out so we only talked briefly and mostly just about the con itself. He had flown in from Texas and was staying with a friend there in Chicago for a day or two to go to the con, but he said he might not make it next year because that friend was moving to France. That friend also just happened to be Japanese, so he had his name written on his shirt in katakana (and in English). We had somebody take our picture and that was about it. A REALLY nice guy and I wish we could have hung out, had a drink or something. The whole reason I wanted to go to Chicago in the first place was to meet people I've spoken to online, and I only got to do that briefly. Oh well. There's always next year.
After that, the convention was closing up, so Ken and I tried to get Shane and some of the other Cape folks together to go with us to Giordano's, a classy Chicago-style pizza joint nearby. Unfortunately the place was packed and Shane's group refused to wait so they left. We were going to try to meet up with them later at Knuckle's, which was supposedly a hotel bar where a TON of creators ended up drinking every night. But after eating we were stuffed and beat and ended up crashing early again instead.
Sunday was a day of winding down. My legs hurt from all the walking around of the past two days (six hours Friday and another eight on Saturday). Plus my shoulder hurt from carrying around a bag full of books both days. So I was looking forward to going home. There were only a handful of things left I wanted to do, and I was virtually broke again. One of those things I wanted to do was say goodbye to Geoff Johns, but I didn't get a chance to see him after the Marvel panel that day. I also wanted to get Guy Davis to sign an issue of Sandman Mystery Theatre for me, but he didn't show.
One thing I DID manage to get done was get the autograph of Arthur Dela Cruz, seen here holding a copy of the first issue of his book, Kissing Chaos. I hadn't actually read the comic yet when I spoke to him at the Oni booth, so I didn't know the title of the comic was from a song by one of my favorite bands, Frente. Had i known that, I probably would have talked to him about the band for a while. But I didn't, so I basically got him to sign something for me (just the first issue because as I said I hate when folks hand creators tons of books to sign), talked to him about the new Kissing Chaos mini that would be coming in October, and that was that.
And I wrapped up the con by meeting Brian Azzarello at the CBLDF booth. I had seen him a few times throughout the weekend but he always had a line so I didn't get a chance to get him to autograph anything for me. But at the CBLDF booth he was all alone, so I got his signature on a issue of 100 Bullets (which cover artist Dave Johnson had signed on the first day of the con) and talked to him about Cage. I mentioned that I thought those people who were giving him crap about making Cage "ghetto" were missing the fact that the mini was an adaptation of the Kurosawa film Yojimbo. He said actually it was based on a Dashiell Hammitt book called Red Harvest, which was the source for Yojimbo. I then promised to read the book as soon as I could. Haven't got around to it yet. Sorry, Brian. He agreed to have his photo taken with me if I donated some cash to the fund. Literally my last dollar went into the donation box seconds before this photo was taken by some guy passing by.
Had a great time overall. Plenty of things I wish I'd done, like get Colleen Doran's autograph on A Distant Soil, or Jill Thompson's on Scary Godmother, or Zander Cannon's on Replacement Gods. But there's only so much money and time in one weekend. Those things I missed I'll just have to make up for next year...
After begging Sarah to get to go for the past two years, she finally relented this year and let me go up to Chicago for one of the biggest comic book conventions in the world, WizardWorld! My friend Ken and I made an arrangement that I would pay for the hotel and he would buy gas, pay for parking, and do all the driving. This was a great deal for me because Ken had been to the con a few times before, and being a newbie, I needed someone with experience around so I didn't get in over my head.
We got there just as the DC Direct panel ended (something I had really been looking forward to so I could try to convince them to make a Starman PVC set). I was also to meet a girl I know from the message boards named Selkie at her LCS's booth at two, but because I had no idea where it was, I got lost in the confusion. I looked for her around the convention floor for about half an hour fruitlessly. Because it was my first moments of the con, I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of it all, and that I was in a hurry didn't help anything. Finally I gave up and went to the Marvel Knights panel at 2:30 because Jeph Loeb was supposed to be there.
I found out at six that the convention was open 'til eight, so I did some more wandering. This gave me opportunity to stand in the Marvel line and get Geoff Johns to sign some books for me (pictured here at left). Piece of advice for anyone going to a con in the near future: the Marvel line will eat your time. The entire Marvel booth is just a long waiting area before you reach the signing table where three or four guys are sitting. Bruce Jones, the current writer of the Hulk, was sitting there next to Geoff Johns, and a guy literally handed him a hundred issues of Ka-Zar to sign, if you can believe that. I'm not that bold; I only gave him ONE issue of the Hulk to autograph for me.
Our hotel being all of a five minute drive from the Rosemont Convention Center, we made it to the convention on Saturday shortly before ten. The first thing I did that day was go to the DC Direct booth to talk to them about PVC sets, since I had missed the panel discussion the day before. At the booth I talked to Ed Bolkus, art director for DC Direct who is pictured at right with me, about why PVCs needed to keep being made. He said that it had been decided they were too damn expensive to produce. But he told me that if we made our desire for PVCs known, we might see them return. He unfortunately wouldn't take the letter I had for him, or the list of names, or the petitions, but he was still a very nice guy and helpful too. He seemed to be artistically for the PVCs and would personally like to see them return. He also let me know that a Doom Patrol set had been sculpted and then scrapped, which upset me to no end since I'd definitely have bought a set of these characters had I been given the chance.
This guy at left is J. Torres, writer of The Copybook Tales. I met him briefly, bought a book from him and got him to sign it for me. Actually, that was mostly how I spent my Saturday, meeting comic creators, buying their work, getting it autographed, and getting their photos. The folks at the Oni booth were nice. I talked to Jamie Rich for a few minutes about my mini-comic and basically told him I would mail it to him whenever the art came to me in the mail.
At one point during the day I went to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund booth to find out some information about the anthology they're putting out in September. See, every year they do this anthology of small press stuff, lots of short stories by indie creators. This year they announced open submissions and I worked up a little story that I got my message board pal Kelly Tindall to draw so we could submit it. (It was an adaptation of the first essay of my thesis--also available in the writings section of my site.) I had been hoping to have mini-comics to give out to publishers at the convention, but even though Kelly mailed the art to me over two months ago, I still haven't gotten it. Damn Canadian postal service!
I went by the Image booth next to talk about Noble Causes with its creator, Jay Faerber. Unfortunately, when I asked a guy at their booth, I was told that Faerber wasn't there. Then I asked the guy if the creators of Paradigm were there. Even though this Image guy seemed REALLY put out, he directed me to them and so I went over and talked to them about their book a bit (which is good and which you should check out when it comes in October). They're pictured here at left; you've got Jeremy Haun and Matthew Cashel, respectively the artist and writer on Paradigm.
Anyway after getting Ken to loan me some extra cash, I wandered through Artists' Alley with him for a while and met a few folks. Seen here at left is Steve Lieber, artist on the FANTASTIC crime series Whiteout.
After that I also went to two panels. At 2:30 was Wildstorm, in which they mostly talked about new books like 21 Down by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray. I actually spoke to the two guys at one point during the con about Gen 13 #0, which has a preview of 21 Down in it. I told them I was a teacher and that I bought a bunch of extra copies of the issue to give away to my students. Palmiotti said, "Hope that's not an English teacher." I said actually yeah, and he said then you better not read the book, I'll get in trouble.
When Terry finally got back to the booth, I asked him if he would draw me a sketch in the HC I'd just bought from him, and he agreed. (He's pictured here at work drawing it.) It only took him ten minutes, and that was with him getting interrupted at the beginning by some guy who kept trying to talk to him even though he was clearly busy. The great thing was that when he was finished, he apologized to me that it took so long! All I could say was "wow," because the sketch he did, which is of Francine, was so gorgeous... and it only took him ten minutes to do.
Right around then I bumped into this guy, who goes by Funk Doctor on the DC message boards. He was on his way out so we only talked briefly and mostly just about the con itself. He had flown in from Texas and was staying with a friend there in Chicago for a day or two to go to the con, but he said he might not make it next year because that friend was moving to France. That friend also just happened to be Japanese, so he had his name written on his shirt in katakana (and in English). We had somebody take our picture and that was about it. A REALLY nice guy and I wish we could have hung out, had a drink or something. The whole reason I wanted to go to Chicago in the first place was to meet people I've spoken to online, and I only got to do that briefly. Oh well. There's always next year.
Sunday was a day of winding down. My legs hurt from all the walking around of the past two days (six hours Friday and another eight on Saturday). Plus my shoulder hurt from carrying around a bag full of books both days. So I was looking forward to going home. There were only a handful of things left I wanted to do, and I was virtually broke again. One of those things I wanted to do was say goodbye to Geoff Johns, but I didn't get a chance to see him after the Marvel panel that day. I also wanted to get Guy Davis to sign an issue of Sandman Mystery Theatre for me, but he didn't show.
