2003 Toronto Comic Book Expo
by Jamie Coville
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Attendance: 19,000 to 20,000 for all three shows over the 3 days. Con Unofficial Ratio was 5 males to 1 female. My estimates are day by day within the report.
We arrived around 1:30pm on Friday, the con didn't "start" until 4pm but I was able to go in and get my press pass early. While there I saw David Mack and he was very friendly as usual. I took a whole bunch of pictures of people in costumes while they were standing in line waiting to get their tickets. The pictures can be found here. I notice the line moved quicker than last year. Unfortunately the Advanced Tickets did not. Those people paid extra for their tickets, were promised "no lines" and yet at 4:30 when everybody was getting into the con, they were still stuck in a line up. I was told after the con that the ticket scanning equipment for had problems and after 45 minutes, they got it fixed. I went upstairs looked at some of the dealers tables, bought some cheap books. Had one dealer try some aggressive selling to try and get me to be his first sale. Someone else bought something from him and then he let off. I talked to Ty Templeton for a bit, someone had him sign a JLA book he did recently and he talked a bit about that. He said because Kevin Knowlen was inking it he only did what he considers layouts. Ty said Kevin has a tendency to redraw everybody's work so he only did basic layouts and would let Kevin go to town on the art. Instead, Kevin treated his work like gold, didn't redraw any of it and inked it as is. Ty was pointing out the difference between how he regularly draws (using Bigg Time) to what was in the JLA book. Ty was also talking about "Formerly Known as the Justice League" book which is doing well. He said he read four online reviews and they all made the same joke. Wouldn't it be funny if Ty were to finish the series (this because Ty had to finish the first run with those creators). Ty said he was tempted to phone up the editors and ask to draw the last issue just for laughs. He also said come Monday he would pitch a 6 ish Blue and Gold mini as a follow up to it. We'll have to see if anything becomes of that. One fan asked Ty about breaking into comic books. The guy wanted to write them. Ty told him writing is the hardest area to break into. Editors are contractually not allowed to read written samples, because eventually they will use an idea that is similar to what somebody submitted and then they are on the hook for a lawsuit. Ty said the best way to break in for writing is to work for a smaller publisher (or publish your own stuff) or find work in other mediums. He said Marvel right now was hiring new talent from the Screen Writers Guild. I also saw David Mack being interviewed on Camera by MTV. I asked him later what it was about and he said they were the same generic comic book type questions. The people doing the interview didn't know when or if it would be aired. A Marvel "Session" (what HobbyStar calls Panels) started at 6:00pm with Marvel Editor C. B. Cebulski. There he talked about Marvel and did squeal some news and information. Some of this I revealed in last months issue but just in case you missed it, here it is again with some added bits:
Over all on Friday I noticed there was a big crowd and much of them female. Friday night was simply the night for many anime fans to show up. I'd say the crowd was roughly 40 female, 60 male. Saturday: First thing Saturday I had to buy a new flash card for my camera. I had almost used up my current one with all the costumes on Friday. And Saturday was the costume day! I managed to find a nearby Radio shack with the card I needed. Saturday was way more crowded. Too crowded in my opinion. They need to find a way to make the isle bigger as the end of my nap sack must have hit 200 people this day. A lot of hot people trying to squish by each other all day long. This was the comic book day as today the big stars came out to do signings and so forth. As a result, the male percentage of the crowd went up quite a bit, by my guestimate the crowd was 80/20 male to female ratio. Deals and so forth: I bought two DC Archives (Plastic Man and Spirit Vol 2's) for $60 bucks CND. The cover price on them is $76 CND each. Somebody found 2 DC's Superman: Red Son #1 in a bin with a 10 dollar price tag. A dealer bought one, put it on the wall for $35 dollars and sold it that day. There was a DC Session, from it comes these tidbits. DC:
Next was the Dreamwave Panel. In this panel Artist Pat Lee talked a long time about himself and what Dreamwave was doing. He regularly said that the teams best artists and best colourists were working on all the upcoming books.
Today was also costume today. There were some really elaborate ones. I half way suspect some people were trying to impress the sci-fi people there in hoping to get some Hollywood work. Denise Crosby (Tasha Yar from StarTrek: TNG) took her daughter to the con floor to buy some comic books for her. While I didn't meet her, I did get close enough on a couple of occasions to say she's very friendly, bright-eyed and enthusiastic. Almost hard to believe she played Tasha Yar! That night I helped the 3rd Quadrant close up, my friend was friends with them (we were staying overnight at one of the employee's apartment). The con was constantly blasting out "last warnings" over the PA system and eventually security guards watched us close up and kicked us out the moment we were finished. Sunday There were a lot less people come Sunday, but the dealers were all expecting the bargain hunters. Slowly but surely they came. I spent much of the day going through 50 cent and dollar boxes trying to fill some holes in my Avengers and Silver Surfer runs. Last year I had a hard time finding Early 80's Roger Stern The Avengers run books for a buck or less, this year I found them all for 50 to 1.00 each. I was also able to get most of the 80's Silver Surfer run for the same amount, but there were some I had to pay a couple of bucks for as they were key issue. There are still 4 issues I'm missing but dealers want bigger bucks for them. This was probably the worst time to go looking for Silver Surfer issues as with the new series out, and Starlin work selling very well, the prices on his back issues are up. In a year or two they should be down again and I'll find my holes at decent prices. The biggest surprise for me was picking up the rest of my Speedball run. Shortly after Steve Ditko created the character hey did a solo series that went 10 issues. I bought the first 5 when it came out, but could never find the last 5. Just prior to the con I had looked for them online with no success. I had given up on finding them thinking they sold too poorly and nobody cared about them. Lo and behold I find the issues I need for 50 cents to a dollar. Yay! I also left the Con for a bit and went to my favourite comic shop, The Beguiling. While there I was able to get a reprint of Impact #1 (EC) which has the often praised Master Race story. Also managed to find Sugar and Spice #1 reprint (a DC 50's title that did well). My biggest buy was a Harvey Kurtzman reprinted graphic novel called The Grass Hopper and the Ant. According to the description, it was described as a graphic novel done in 1960 just after he did the Jungle Book. Also while at the Con I noticed a chip truck named Don Juan's Chip Truck, inside was a guy who did a little dance to the music in the truck and flirt with the ladies. He did everything with his bare hands, which was funny to see. When he gave you french fries he'd grab a whole bunch with two hands and give you that. Whenever I saw him to get a hot dog, he'd ask what I want on it - I'd say nothing and he'd give me a funny look. Then he'd give me a small handful of fries for free. He did this again later on that day. By Saturday he had a long line up, a friend of mine said he was in the line up when he noticed "Don" looked up, and said "Holy Shit!" Come Sunday he was out of everything but pop drinks. Also on Sunday we noticed there was a lot of pro's listed as guests who did not show up. Check Con Report #2 for more details on this. One of the big sci-fi draws for Sunday was Mr. Spock. I am told Leonard Nimoy singed almost 800 autographs in less than an hour. I then went back to the con and began asking pro's and dealers how the con was going for them. The pro's usually split into two camps. Brand new people that thought the con was great. And people who had been there before saying they did about the same as last year. Those that went to Chicago said it was crazy there with people buying everything. Some of the dealers said the same thing, when they were at Chicago it was crazy. One dealer said he recognized some people who bought stuff from him at Chicago, but in Toronto they are not buying much. Said he didn't understand it as his prices were more expensive for them in Chicago because of the exchange rate. Most dealers said things were almost as good as last year. They did say the attendance was about the same. Two dealers had different opinions, one cut down the size of their booth this year and felt they made more money because of it. Another was quite happy as his neighbour couldn't come so he got to take over his area and made a lot more money because of the increase in space. This same dealer was also selling very recent back issues all bagged and boarded - which was different as a lot of the booths were trying to unload Silver-Age to 80's comics. My friend and I helped the 3rd Quadrant pack up all their boxes, put them on the truck, go back to the store and drop them all off. In return he paid for dinner. So while we had intended on leaving around 6pm (when the con closed) we left at 10:30pm. This was mainly due to all the walking back and forth from the restaurant to the store to his car and back. I got home around 1:30am, was asleep by 2pm. I get up around 6am for work just to hear my Dad say "I'm sick today so you have to do all the work." Sigh.... apparently he spent the whole weekend getting pissed to the gills and was still hung over Monday morning. Epilogue: After coming home I realized I made two "mistake" purchases. First I realized I had already had 13 of the Avengers books I bought, and I most likely bought them all last year at the same con. Since I didn't complete the run I simply put them away without reading them. Duh! Ah well, after some comparison I realized most of them were in better shape than what I had picked up from the bins. Secondly I discovered the Kurtzman Grasshopper and the Ant book wasn't originally a graphic novel, ie it was not a thick, complete story comic book sold in a bookstore. It was originally printed within an Esquire Magazine. Grr... I hate publishers that mis-identify things as Graphic Novels to try and spruce up the sales. This con experience was much better than last year when I went up Friday and Sunday. I had originally though I'd be bored being at the con the whole weekend, but instead I was kept amused almost the entire time there. Next year I'll try and do it again like this, only I may go to the Beguiling on Saturday instead. The only real downside to the con was the local restaurants. There is an underground mall across the street, but barely any restaurants were open. So you didn't have much options for decently priced food outside the chip trucks, unless you were willing to go for a good walk. Getting breakfast was difficult and the one nearby pub we had supper in served food just dry enough to make you want more beer. Something to remember next year is to leave earlier to go get decent food.
Regards, 2003-09-21
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E-mail: jcoville@kingston.net
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