This was my first convention ever, so here are some pics from the con with some explanations to boot. It happened on a beautiful Florida day. It was a little windy, with a high of 65 degrees outside. Cold for Florida. After trying to park for an hour, we found a spot and headed for the con. We bought tickets online ahead of time, but we still had to wait in line to pick up our tickets. While we waited in this line we saw a bunch of anime characters, some I did not ever know. That's not suprising because I'm not into anime. Dragonball Z was pretty much it for me. All the while my girlfriend kept asking my why all these kids were "wierd." She had no idea what she was getting into. Pretty soon we got into the con, and it was great. My girlfriend came with me, so to please her, the first thing we did was go see Efren Ramirez from Napoleon Dynamite. $20 for a picture. We also saw next to her, Sean Astin with a huge line, and a very old looking Margot Kidder with no line. She looks way different in person than she does on those new Superman DVD's! Lou Ferrigno was there, but nobody wanted to pay $20 for an autograph or picture from him. Apparently he is at all the cons in the country. Kevin Sorbo however, had a huge line.
Next I waited in line for an Amanda Conner sketch of the Punisher for my friend in Seattle. That took forever because two older men thought that they could cut in line in front of this young whippersnapper. I didn't remember to bring any paper, so she did it on some of her own, a small tablet.... But it still looks great! She was parked next to her husband/boyfriend Jimmy Palmiotti and Phil Noto. Jimmy was cool and was looking at people's portfolios. He gave one guy a bunch of inking tips, and pulled out a marker and started drawing on the table to demonstrate what he was talking about. It was great to eavesdrop and listen to a dedicated creator give tips to a fan. If you see him at a con, go say hello because he is very laid back and approachable. Phil Noto was hard at work doing sketches, but was charging a lot. They were more like commissions since he was charging $100 for grayscale, and $200 for color. My wallet hurt seeing that. He was doing a great looking Black Canary while I waited for Amanda Connor, who was bright and jolly even after being delayed and getting their late. She had a great deal going, and was selling some black and white prints of covers and interiors for a dollar. She was doing head sketches for $20, and head and bust for $40. A guy in front of me got a power girl sketch, and needless to say, got one with a bust. She inked and added a little color to each sketch. The guy who got a Deadpool (the first one she did) got a full color piece. After that she realized her markers were going to run out and just added flourishes of color to the sketches. Mine, being a Punisher sketch, well, had a lot of black, so it had less color than a Wonder Woman I saw or a Power Girl. Go see her at a con, she's a great artist, and gives you a great deal.
After that I got a lot of books signed by Steve McNiven and Morry Hollowell. I had them sign 1-6 of Civil War and their New Avengers issues that they did. Morry is the one with the wild yellow hair. Steve and Morry were really nice to talk to and we just chatted about everyday life. I think that they really like it when you talk to them about more things than comics and thier work. They are there for so long doing the same thing, they thrive on the stimulation you give them. What do I know, I've only been to one con anyway. Steve was selling what looked like inked pages from Civil War. They looked as good as they do in color, minus all of the great effects that Morry does. Morry is, in my opinion, the best colorer in the business today. He and McNiven make a great team, and were so much fun to talk too.
Next to those two was David Finch of New Avengers and Moon Knight. I'm not reading Moon Knight, so I gave him my New Avengers books. He was cool and was selling some Moon Knight pages and they looked awesome in person. That guy pencils the crap out of his pages! There were no shortcuts in the ones I saw, so anyone looking to buy originals, check out David Finch. Also at the con I got books signed by Jim Cheung, currently working on New Avengers: Illuminati. I saw Darwyn Cooke, Jimmy Palmiotti, Adam Kubert, and George Perez. I got JG Jones to sign my favorite 52 covers as well. I asked him about his strategy for signing the covers when the entire 52 series comes out, and he joked about maybe doing the first ten for free and then charge an amount for each one after that. So if you see him before May 2nd, get him to sign them! Or, like he said, come back multiple times with less than ten books. He was really cool to talk too like everyone else at the con.
By far, my favorite was Ethan Van Sciver. He signed my books and was very cool. He's very approachable. He had some more sample pages from his Sinestro Annual #1 coming up, and they look FANTASTIC. Purely evil, sadistic, and full of pain. My jaw dropped when looking at these. I asked him if he had anything lined up after this project, and he said "Batman." I freaked out when he said this. If you've read my Superman/Batman reviews, you know I love how Ethan draws Batman's cape. I think I squealed and jumped up and down. My girlfriend made fun of me the rest of the day for that. Ethan was doing sketches, but for $100, making the one I got from him at a store signing for $25 even more of a steal. As always with Ethan, if you bring him a Green Lantern Rebirth Hardcover to sign, he will do a free sketch inside the book of Hal, although I did see him do a Kilowog inside the book on Saturday. And these are good free sketches, he really puts time into them.
After that I did some shopping, got some $5 trades and $1 books. Great deals at the con, I need to go to more of these things and save money. Although I was tempted to spend more money because the deals were so good. I left with my back hurting from all of the books I brought to get signed, and all the books I bought. Some guys had rolling backpacks full of books, and one guy strapped two short boxes to a wheel cart to carry around. At first I thought I brought a lot of books, but after seeing these guys, I did not feel bad at all. If you haven't been to a con yet, find one and get to it as fast as possible. It is an experience not to be missed for any comic fan.
Below are some interesting costumes we saw. The most notable on is the Ent. He was on stilts, even though in the picture he's sitting down on a trashcan. Oh, and now I feel like I am totally abusing the access to the site that Dan and Omar gave me. Haha.
