Anyway, this past weekend I headed down to the Baltimore Comic Con. This was my first time headed to this particular Con, but from what I had heard it was a smaller Con that creators and fans enjoyed in large part due to the fact it is still at heart a COMIC Convention not a TV/Hollywood get together with some comics thrown in for good measure. However, despite its label as a smaller Con the guest-list at the event was stacked featuring Jim Lee, Geoff Johns, Brian Bendis, Robert Kirkman, James Robinson, and plenty of others.
I showed up on Saturday, the first day of the Con, right as it was starting at 10am. Since I already had my tickets getting onto the show floor was pretty painless and took only about 15 minutes. As usual I spent the first hour or so of the Con searching through boxes of trades and hardcovers ranging from 25-50% off; I generally leave the single issue diving to other convention attendees. It got off to a bad start since the first few retailers I went to had absolutely nothing worthwhile to offer. Even if these guys were offering 95% off discounts I would have walked away from them empty handed. Thankfully persistence paid off and I found a few different retailers with great selections of trades and hardcovers although having somewhat sworn off trades I was looking mostly for hardcovers. I quickly grabbed hardcover editions of Pride of Baghdad, Logan, Superman Last Son, the recent Johns Bizzaro arc, Ex Machina, and The Killing Joke Deluxe Edition as well the last three Y: The Last Man trades. That series is too good to wait for all the hardcovers although I'll probably buy those too if my money situation doesn't collapse which it might, eek. Then me and my new stack of books headed to the panels. The DC Nation and Cup of B panels were both entertaining especially the Bendis panel because he kept making fun of this one kid who apparently made a jacket out of what he viewed as horrible Secret Invasion tie-ins. There were no huge announcements, but Bendis is getting ready to leave Mighty Avengers with Slott taking over. The panel I was most looking forward to was the Bendis vs. Kirkman panel and it did not disappoint. I'll let you guys read or watch it when it eventually shows up online, but I tend to agree with Bendis more than Kirkman. Exiting one of the earlier panels I noticed just how crowded the convention was getting, even late into the day people were still waiting in really long lines just to get tickets. The floor was crowded too because of the sheer number of people, but also because many of the huge lines for the top creators seemed to be right on top of each other. On the way to get something to eat thankfully I got a free Monster energy drink which went great with my 9,000 calorie 5 Guys Cheese-burger.
After going to a few different bars I walked over to a Marriott for the Harvey Awards. Bendis gave a great keynote speech about comics and hollywood, but he left right afterwards. Being at the awards show was just a cool feeling even though most of the winners were not present. What made it even cooler was sitting right behind Robert Kirkman and Tom Brevoort. As great as the day had been it suddenly got a whole lot better. I walk into the hotel bar for a drink after the awards and all the Marvel and DC guys apparently decided to stay and hang out too. I mustered up enough courage to talk to some of the guys even though it made me feel kind of weird, but on the whole it was just kind of surreal and hard to take in.
Sunday was a lot more laid back since the crowd was much smaller. I picked up some cool single issues; the entire Born Again run on Daredevil and the entire Man Without Fear run too. As always the For the Love of Comics and Your Universe panels were fun although Brevoort brought too many other Marvel guys with him to the panel this time and it kind of took away from the fan-centered feel.
In all, an excellent time.
I hope to be able to start posting my weekly reviews again soon. Bye byes.
