I’ve gone to Wizard World Los Angeles the last two years, and WonderCon this year, and it’s been a nice change of pace to be able to meet artists and writers without standing in a 1000-person line.

While I enjoy the atmosphere and all the people I personally don’t think that if they weren’t around that people would stop buying comics. Hell it’s gotten to the point now that I buy, but don’t collect. I just package them up in funny package and leave them all over Seattle for people to find: http://funnelheadiscool.blogspot.com/. I should be dropping off another 25 comics around Seattle if anyone is around and wants them I’ll let you know ahead of time where they will be.

This is going to sound crazy, but below is a list of things that I feel alot of collectors do as part of their hobby with many of the “more dedicated” activites at the bottom…. ( one of them being attending conventions)…. it’s easy to feel like someone is a die hard fan because they show up to buy new books every wednesday, until that person attends a convention and sees to what lengths certain people will go to to pursue their hobby…

as a fan do you…
go to the comic shop every week..?
go to the comic shop every wednesday..?
do you regularly buy back issues ( not just issues you missed off of the rack, but old comics before your time..?)
do you know how to grade comics/ do you buy the price guide each year..? do you care..?
do you post on the internet..?
do you drive to comic conventions..?
do you FLY to comic conventions..?
do you collect original comic art..?
would you spend 100.00 on a comic book..?
do you attend so many conventions that creators, dealers, or fans from out of state know your name..?

the list goes on and on… and im not saying that anyone should feel inclined to do any of these things that they are not interested in… Collecting comics is a hobby, and if it’s your hobby you should collect the way that you want to collect …. But I make this quick list becuase alot of the things on it are things that many comic collectors do.. and at the same time, they are activities that most people who think of themselves as “serious comic collectors” do not….

the point that im trying to make here is that the comic book convention seems to be the place where only the most dedicated of the dedicated comic collectors are likely to go…But that a more casual fan should still have a good time… The fan that spends 30.00 a week on comics , week after week, most likely doens’t attend conventions, and probably never ever has. But his interest in comics is high none the less..

where am I going with all of this….

well.. After working in a comic shop I seemed to get the feeling that alot of collectors had different degrees of COMFORT with in their COLLECTING… some were afraid of buying back issues for fear that they would over pay, or not know how to grade… As if either of those things mattered… ( You shold buy what you like at a price you are o.k with.. outside concerns shouldn’t matter) Others might not attend a convention because they don’t know anything about them, or feel that a convention is for “real collectors” and that they aren’t that advanced in the hobby…. A convention should be for anyone who wants to go, but there is an intimmidation factor in attending cons… Lts face it, this hobby can be pretty elitist at times…

Personally I really like conventions and think that they are GREAT for the hobby, really energizing the collector…. The key to me is making sure to have a good time at your very first convention, feeling comfortable attending…. The best way to do that is to go with someone who has gone before…. seems simple enough right..? but is it..? As a casual collector considering going to a con how do you find someone to go with..? It’s alot like joining a club, but you need to have a member reccommend you or else yo ucan’t get it… Alot of people who collects comics do so because they made a friend who collected them first… that friend likely broght them to to a comics shop for the first time.. why should a covention be any different..?

god.. there are some good ideas in there.. but what a ramble… Thanks for reading…

That’s a wonderful story.

(Well, that’s not strictly true. I *did* drop by the sf con in Little Rock sometime in the late ’90s for a couple of hours after having assigned a reporter [by this time I was an editor] to write a feature story on it. I’d been a regular at that con from ’79-’81, before moving to Phoenix.)

Of course, part of the equation is that my comics fandom falls into 2 distinct periods — roughly ’74-’78, during which I was too young &/or poor to drive anywhere (living in SW Arkansas, I was about 3 hours from a city of any size), & then I guess ’04-now, during which I’m again about 3 hours from the nearest reliable site (Atlanta) for cons of any sort.

I guess I’ve gotten old enough that the idea of not only driving that far but also spending money on admission is just not very appealing. Being pretty much unsociable doesn’t help, either.

I sometimes find industry coverage annoyingly con-centric, but if I went to the things I’m sure I would feel differently.

It saddened me that here was a man who had co-created the basis for one of the greatest characters ever and had worked on many of the big name books of the Golden Age being ignored by the “fans”.

While we were talking, he started doing a sketch (at this point he was almost blind) and when we finished our conversation, he handed it to me. It was a drawing of the Invaders along with the GA Green Lantern.

When the con was over I was in the elevator of the hotel and his wife got on the floor below me. When she saw me, she threw her arms around me and thanked me for the time I spent with Martin. In her words, I had “made him feel like he was important and made an impact on someone’s life”. I explained to her that I was the one that should be thanking him, so before we left I bought dinner for the three of us and spent a little more time with them.

A few years later, I found out that both Martin and his wife had passed away. I looked at the drawing he had given me and noticed something I had never noticed before- instead of signing Martin Nodell at the bottom, he had signed it “Uncle Marty”.

I know that this doesn’t directly relate to the post, but I was glad that I had spent the time with him and had made him feel as important as McFarlane that day.

So please, when you go to a con and they have creators there that you admire and are part of the hobby we all love, thank them. You never know when your words will mean the world to them.

Stuart–The discussion I attended was the only hour of a full weekend that dealt with comics. The owner of a local shop participated along with Dan & Ted. I found out her shop, Star Clipper, was apparently the hub for the local indie scene, and I made my first visit to the store as a result of the panel. I was definitely energized!

A big problem with small-to-medium shows is that they have the same guest lists over and over (Motor City especially). They can’t afford to pay to bring in too many people, so they use local people as often as possible.

Mid-Ohio-Con has been a pretty good convention for a long time. Their featured guests changed from year to year. I’m sorry Roger Price has decided to stop doing it. I hope somebody buys it.

Wizard Chicago is the only one of these three that Marvel and DC attend. Other than that, Wizard Chicago is of little attraction. Rooms are usually over $100 per night, you get charged to park your car at the hotels, and traffic on Sunday after the show is usually horrendous.

All that bitching aside, I still enjoy going to the cons. The huge shows in San Diego and New York will never have any appeal to me. If I want to stand in the midst of a huge crowd of rude, smelly strangers, I’ll go to a rock concert.

Admittedly none of these are in St. Louis proper.

New York is close enough to go and stay the weekend, but doesn’t have that lovely feeling of going home each night and returning in the morning that Philly has for me.

I went to the Read St. Louis fair last year and attended a discussion with Dan Zettwoch and Ted May, two local creators. It was a really fun time and I was exposed to two guys who do nice work. I got excited about the local scene. A small convention would probably have similar effects on a larger scale. I’d be all for it.

Truth be told, the couple times I’ve gone to WizardWorld Texas, I’ve been underwhelmed after having been to San Diego a couple of times. I choose whether or not to go to WizardWorld based on the guests who’ll be there, and whether or not it’s worth a near-one-hour drive and admission price to get there for the guests who interest me.

It’d be a disappointment to lose out on access to the level of guests that a WizardWorld can attract that the smaller local cons can’t, but getting to meet those guests is just gravy to enjoying their work.

Thanks for giving your input!!

That said, I think that it’s mostly local people just having a weekend. I think no one goes to one of the mid-sized cons unless they’re already comic fans, and fairly hard core comic fans at that. Guest rosters are lackluster, there’s never any major reveals like are had at WonderCon and SDCC, so I think impact on the comics industry as a whole would be negligible.

Attendance at panels is spotty and I often wonder if the publicity is worth the travel costs, etc. Other than artists making some work off of commissions and local area comics and collectibles dealers given a chance to bring in some dollars, I don’t think these shows provide a lot of press for comics or make a lot of money for anyone involved.

All that said, it’s a great time to gather with fellow fans and I’d hate to see them all go under…I’d rather see them grow larger and get more attention from the major companies.