Toronto Comicon
June 18th to 20th
Queen Elizabeth Building, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Official Stats
Attendance: 3,200
Female:Male Ratio: Guesstimate 20:80
Note: Check out the con photos as well,
they relate to much of what I write in here.
This was a very pleasant con to go to. It was
different than the Expo Con, which is the better
established convention in Toronto. I arrived at
the con at 12:00pm on Saturday so there was no
line up, but I'm not sure what the situation was
like at 10pm when the con opened.
The dealers tables seemed to be a mix of high end
or discount stuff, most of it was discounted back
issues. You could also find some nicely discounted
Graphic Novels as well, but you had to look in the
bins for them. With other cons you'd see signs
saying XX off (which was here as well), but with
some dealers you had to look in the boxes, see the
sticker price and you'd realize that it was US
price or lower. I spent over $300 on trades at the
convention personally.
Panel: A Career Retrospective with Terry Austin,
Mike Kaluta and Charles "Sandy" Plunkett.
Moderator was Blake Bell. The panel started at
1:20pm.
Terry Austin is a very well known inker. Mike
Kaluta is/was popular penciler best known for
doing The Shadow at DC and he still works in and
outside of the comic industry. Sandy Plunkett is
said to be the "best artist you never heard of"
and his work lives up to that label. His work for
comics has been very off and on, doing small jobs
here and there.
Terry Austin let us know he had the worst memory
in comics outside of Stan Lee.
Blake asked when did the creators knew they had
"arrived" in the comic industry.
Mike Kaluta said he knew with the Shadow. The
sales were strong and people within DC began
taking notice of him.
Terry Austin knew with a San Diego convention. He
was doing X-men with Claremont and Byrne, a
bi-monthly title that was about to be cancelled,
yet they signed a tremendous amount of autographs
at the con. Afterwards, he learned the book
wouldn't be cancelled, then the title went monthly
then turn into the best selling comic.
Sandy Plunkett said he did a comic story when
living in New York, then moved to Colorado. While
there he visited a comic shop, went inside and saw
his art there on a wall. When the retailer learned
who he was, he said his editor had been looking
for him for the past 8 months, they wanted him to
do more work for them.
Blake asked about how they got into the industry.
Terry Austin said he got in through Dick Giordano.
He was "hiding" behind him and wanting to be
anonymous, inking parts of his pages. Dick would
get him to do more work and seeing to it he got
credit for it.
Mike Kaluta said Dick was responsible for helping
him too.
Then Bernie Wrightson helped Kaluta. Bernie didn't
want to draw a story and got Kaluta to do it for
him. He submitted the work to his editor Joe
Orlando, he noticed that not all the pages were by
Wrightson and asked him about it. Bernie told him
all the pages were done by Kaluta and that got Joe
Orlando to notice Kaluta and give him more work.
Sandy said Archie Goodwin made him feel good about
his work.
When asked about editors that gave them freedom,
Austin said Julie Schwartz never gave him any
problems and his first work was through him.
Mike Kaluta said Joe Orlando gave him freedom, but
Joe Kubert took over his books and he ran things
with an iron fist and actually drew over his
artwork without asking/telling him about it.
Sandy says he hasn't had many problems with
editors.
Mike Kaluta gave a story about how good Archie
Goodwin was as an editor. He did some work that
was originally published in Heavy Metal and
submitted it to Archie to be published as a GN
under Marvels Epic line. Archie knew that it
wasn't a Marvel type of book and that even though
he could come down on it and make it into a Marvel
style book he didn't. He told him I could edit
this, but I'm not going to. He did ask for 4 new
pages to help out with the story flow. Kaluta said
Archie edited himself first, which was unique.
Terry also had good dealings with Archie Goodwin.
Terry did mention a problem he had once with a
colorist while at Marvel. Terry used Zip-a-tone
for inking and a colorist didn't like it, said it
couldn't work and raised a stink. Jim Shooter
stepped in and talked to the two of them. Terry
said he did this before and it's worked. Shooter
made a compromise and said they would try this
once and if it didn't work, they wouldn't do it
again. The Zip-a-tone worked. Next month the
colorist had some other problem though.
Kaluta talked about Jack Adler, who was the best
production guy in the comics business. He had
invented doing comic book production stuff for DC
and was the top guy there. Kaluta was doing the
Shadow and because it was a dark mystery he wanted
the blacks to be actually black. DC had a history
of changing black to be some other color, purple,
green whatever, and he didn't want it that way in
the book. He gave Jack a paper with a copy of a
pulp cover with black on it and said he wanted it
done that way. DC freaked, Kaluta was still a
young kid and they felt he had no business telling
Jack Adler how to do his job. But Jack tried it
and it worked. Kaluta said had he just talked to
Adler it wouldn't have been a problem, but since
it was on paper people that he was requesting
doing things differently it became a huge stink.
Sandy said the only thing he remembers about the
production department was a female named Dawn that
was quite good looking. Mike Kaluta's face lit up
and readily agreed. He said Marvel ran through
production people quite quickly back then.
Blake asked about artists and their styles and how
they helped out. He specifically mentioned Steve
Ditko (for those that don't know, Blake Bell
publishes Ditko's work and is doing a book on
him).
Sandy mentioned that Ditko's work was an
inspiration to him.
Austin said guys like Ditko, Kirby, etc . . . all
created unique interesting worlds and you wanted
to hang out in them for a while.
Blake asked the crew what they learned from other
artists.
Austin mentioned his inking style is to try and
keep as faithful to the pencils as possible, he
figures they've been approved so that's what the
editors want and tries not to imprint a style over
them. He said he had to give up working with guys
like Kaluta and Wrightson because their work takes
more time to ink. He said in Kaluta's case, he was
in the middle of moving. He couldn't get it done
on schedule and the company wouldn't move the
schedule. He said staying faithful to Bernie's
inks would take time and the companies wouldn't
give him enough time to do it.
Mike Kaluta remembers having a "cover war" with
Bernie to see who could do the better cover, he
felt Bernie always won.
Mike said something he learned early in his career
was to get to know more than one editor. Dick was
the editor at Charlton and he knew him and did
work there. When Dick left Charlton, he didn't
know anybody there and wasn't able to get much
work there as a result. He learned a lesson to get
to know everybody within a company, be friends
with as many people possible because people come
and go and helps to have contacts.
Sandy said learned a lot from Roy Krenkel artwork
from EC. He says he's looked back on his work,
would find pieces that look exactly like Roy's but
with his signature on them.
Blake asked Austin if he does his inking in a way
that people will know that he did it.
Terry said he thinks Inkers should be invisible
and he doesn't want to leave his own personal
footprint on the pencils. For that reason, he
doesn't do a lot of jobs that require him to do
layouts or breakdowns.
When asked about tight and loose pencilers he said
Brian Bolland is very, very tight. He says Michael
Golden is too. He said he didn't work with a lot
of loose guys, but mentioned Rick Leonardi as one.
Blake asked about what artists they learned from,
talking about Ditko again.
Austin mentioned that he was given a Ditko story
to ink and he was terrified to do it. Ditko was
such a god to him he was afraid to touch it. After
a year and a half of waiting, Marvel called him
and asked him to do it, so he did.
Kaluta said he really enjoyed the Hernandez
brothers. He was really inspired by Love and
Rockets. Said within that work, all the decisions
made about how to show/do something was done by
the artists. This inspired him and he could learn
from that. He said after a while, he could learn
nothing new from superhero books.
Mike Kaluta also learned from the Manga before it
became popular. He says he got the Japanese
version of Lone Wolf and Cub, taught himself how
to read them backwards. He also learned from the
creator of Akira.
Blake asks Sandy about why he isn't involved
comics as much. Blake mentions that this is the
convention Sandy has done in 10 years.
Sandy says he gets really frustrated with the
details of drawing and that's what keeps him away
from doing more comics. What brings him back to it
is the creative aspect of it.
Blake said he heard Austin prefers doing long runs
on titles. Austin agreed with that, but he does
enjoy working with new people and learning things
from them.
Mike Kaluta talked about how DC pays freelancers
every week and how in Multimedia projects it can
take a long time. There are still projects he's
done that he's still waiting for cheques for.
The audience began asking questions.
Somebody asked Austin why he wasn't doing JLA when
they teamed Claremont and Byrne back together.
Austin revealed that DC didn't ask him about it.
Of this he wasn't surprised because the editor
involved feels that inkers are completely
interchangeable. He said the editor actually said
to him "If you're not available we'll just plug
another monkey in." He said he would have
considered doing it if asked. He mentioned that
they even went as far to get the original letter
to do the JLA book. The audience member said DC
official response was that Austin wasn't
available. Austin said it's a shame because he got
press calling him up saying "It's too bad you
couldn't put your differences aside like Byrne and
Claremont." Austin says he has no difference with
Byrne or Claremont.
An audience member asked Terry if he wanted to
become a penciler. Terry said no. He mentioned
when he worked for Atlas/Seaboard that an editor
proclaimed him as being the next Walt Simonson,
which was weird as Walt was still young and still
quite a career ahead of him. Being called that
horrified him. He doesn't want to draw like other
people and doesn't think his work looks like other
people. Kaluta confirmed this, said Terry Austin's
pencils are original.
End Panel.
I went to grab some food. As I was there, I saw
the camera's focused on Will Eisner and he was
talking to them.
I went browsing around for more books and saw that
they had some original art for auction to help
benefit ACTOR. They were doing an auction for
several pieces of original art and also a contest
for a statue. Some of the art was really nice. I
particularly liked the Alex Ross over John Buscema
Avengers posters. I donated money and got tickets
for the statue.
And apparently, I WON IT! I'll didn't take a
picture of it before but I will when I receive it.
Next month.
The big bread winner for the auction was the CGC
9.4 Dave Sim file copy of Cerebus #1. It won with
a bid of $10,600, when it's paid for the money
will go to ACTOR. Other auctions/donations for
ACTOR totaled $2,800. There was also $700 given to
the North York Food Bank.
Other Cerebus issues were actioned off as well,
their winnings as follows: #2 (9.8) $2,500, #3
(9.6) $676, #4 (9.9) $910, and #5 (9.8) $345.
As I was coming out I noticed I was standing next
to Will Eisner and Chester Brown, the two appeared
to be meeting for the first time. Eisner was
giving Chester some advice and they were comparing
notes on how they write/draw their comics. It was
a cool thing to see.
Panel: Graphic Novel Pioneers
Members: Will Eisner, Dave Sim and Chester Brown.
Moderated by Peter Birkemoe, owner of the Beguiling.
Panel started at 2:40pm
I noticed going in that Roy Thomas was in the
crowd.
Eisner started off saying to Dave Sim "We have to
be very careful about what we say, there is an
audience!" This got a laugh from everybody.
Peter said he was going to stay out of the panel
as much as possible and just let the people speak.
And that he did, which was too bad as the panel
could have used some direction.
Eisner started off saying he thought a Graphic
Novel was about content and if they were making it
for an adult audience, rather than page numbers.
He said when he started making Graphic Novels he
noticed comic readers were older and wanted to do
something other than two mutants smashing each
other. He said he came up with the Graphic Novel
name when he pitched the book to Ian Ballantine,
owner of Ballentine. He said he was a very
powerful and impatient man who would always drum
his fingers when talking to you, wanting you to
get to the point. If you didn't do in within a few
minutes he'd cut you off. Eisner knew he wouldn't
publish a comic book so he called it a Graphic
Novel.
Chester Brown said he's slowly come around to
accepting the Graphic Novel name. He didn't like
it at first and used on Louis Riel "A Comic Strip
Narrative" instead. Eisner jokingly said Chester
Brown accepted Graphic Novel name because he had
to. Eisner said for years people within the comic
industry have tried to come up with new name for
comic books as comic books were not comical
anymore. Chester said he used the label Comic
Strip Narrative because original comic books were
reprints of comic strips. Dave Sim said he had an
issue of Chester calling his book a Comic Strip
Narrative because what he did was not a comic
strip, he said newspapers do comic strips and they
do it in a specific format, which isn't what
Chester Brown followed. Chester said another
reason he used the word was because he didn't
think Graphic Novel fit a non-fiction genre and
didn't think there was a word for non-fiction
extended works like Louis Riel. Eisner suggested
the term Graphic Narrative.
Eisner then talked about how after he started the
Spirit he went to the National Cartoonist Society,
which was a very, very big deal. The NCS was
filled with millionaire cartoonists like Caniff,
Rube Goldberg, Al Capp. Said these guys did ethnic
strips for people that just came off the boat and
they had a tremendous influence on their - and in
effect, America's culture.
One time he was there, he was sitting across from
Al Capp. Al asked him who he was, he told him his
name and that he did the Spirit. Al Capp told
Eisner that he'd never make it because he was too
normal. Eisner talked to Rube Goldberg when he was
older, trying to tell him about his ideas for
comics to be more than what they were. Rube
Goldberg told him to forget about it, saying
comics would forever be Vaudeville and jokes and
be nothing more.
Eisner said that the Spirit had a circulation of 5
Million, but to these cartoonists that was
nothing.
Eisner mentioned that he saw Circus Strong Men
wearing the same style of clothing that Superman's
costume - even with the flowing cape.
Eisner said the Spirit was supposed to be a series
of short stories, but the syndicates wanted
something continuing. He said he did Splash Pages
in order to grab peoples attention, because the
competition between him and the more established
strips was fierce.
Dave Sim said he did Cerebus after working in a
comic shop and learning about the Direct Market.
He said with the direct market, the retailers took
all the risk. Dave said he specifically did things
in Cerebus that he knew he wouldn't be allowed to
in DC or Marvel. He said he had almost complete
freedom and was able to push boundaries.
Dave mentioned he thought Chester Brown was
committing career suicide by doing Chester Brown.
Chester said some people at the Beguiling thought
that too.
Eisner said he snuck out to a comic convention, he
was a CEO of a company at the time and didn't want
anybody there to know he was once a lowly comic
book artist. While he was there, he was introduced
to Dennis Kitchen, who had long hair and a scruffy
beard. Dennis introduced Eisner to Underground
comics and Eisner then felt comics time as finally
come, now comics were being done for adults. He
sold his business and began working on Contract
With God.
Dave Sim said that because of Underground comics,
books like Cerebus, StarReach and others at the
time were called "Ground Level Comics" which they
all laughed at. He's glad that name didn't stick.
Eisner credits the Underground for started GN
market.
Then everybody began talking about editors.
Eisner thinks editors should be the readers
surrogate. Tell him what doesn't work and that's
it. Eisner will figure out a way to fix it
himself. He doesn't want an editor telling him how
to fix things.
Chester Brown said fellow Toronto Cartoonist and
friend Seth is his "editor" and he gets him to
give him advice.
Eisner said his "editor" was a long time friend
named Dave Schreiner who just died recently. He
said he uses his wife Ann now. She's never read
comic books. Mentioned what she brings. Said in
one story he shows a guy screwing around and the
wife not knowing because she's kinda dumb. Ann
said "Oh she would know."
Eisner said to him creating comics is a lot sex.
You don't stop in the middle of it to talk about
it. He wants to get it done, then talk about it.
Eisner says he starts with an ending first, then
writes how he gets there. Says before he begins
drawing, he does a time line of what happens when.
Chester Brown said he does panels on 8 by 11 pages
and writes dialogue in them. He says if he has an
idea for a panel layout he might do a stickman
figure if he thinks he'll forget it.
Dave talked a long time about how he does Cerebus
and says he doesn't want anybody to see it until
it's done.
Throughout the Panel, Dave would make these
comments that made people worry he was about to go
into a misogynist rant. They told a story about
how when they got to the motel, Eisner
automatically asked for two keys even though his
wife is not with them. Sim blurted out "I only
have ONE key." Then Sim joked that if any ladies
wanted to spend some time with Eisner a spare key
is now available.
Throughout the panel it was clear that Dave had a
strong love for Eisner as a creator and as a
person. He took care of him, reminding him to hold
the microphone close to his mouth so we could hear
him. Chester Brown spent most of the time watching
the two talk like a fan with the best seat in the
house.
Panel ended at 3:45, which was late and no
questions from the audience would be asked.
This panel was an eye opener for me personally. I
discovered myself and Eisner are on opposite ends
of the definition of "Graphic Novel." I also saw
how everybody was ignorant of comic books done
before Famous Funnies. They repeated a lot of now
proven false info and I had to bite my tongue.
Eisner was clearly the big draw for the show. He
had the longest line ups. Dave Sim was also
popular and very friendly with his fans. I almost
had a chance to talk with Eisner on Sunday, as I
was at his table with only one other person
around, but Eisner was taking off for lunch and I
didn't see him again before I had to leave myself.
What was different about this convention was the
absence of costumed fans. There was only two
people in costumes. One was a woman in something
like a bathing suit, probably an anime character -
she was working behind a dealers booth. Another
guy dressed up as Dr. Evil and Austin Powers, I
saw him promoting a comic book called The Black
Bastard but I'm not sure if that was his job or if
he was a fan.
Another difference between this con and the Expo
was Ty Templeton getting the same treatment as a
big star. With the Expo he's got a busy table
within Artists Alley. In this con he was given a
special guest table along with the big names. And
for good reason, his table was still busy, often
with more traffic than some of the big name guys.
The WWE wreslter Rob Van Damn was there. I took a
picture of him, but wasn't sure how it turned out.
The next day I asked if I could get a picture and
realized he was charging $10 dollars for them. I
said no thanks, but realized I "stole" one
yesterday.
I noticed some booths with cool statues. One
artists alley table had a clear infringement on
Diana Schulz / United Media rights on Peanuts.
They were selling a small book with Peanuts
characters doing adult humor. I took pictures of
it, later on I noticed the book was off the table.
I suspect somebody saw me and removed it.
I took plenty of pictures over the two day period.
I got one of J. Torres and Scott Chandler, Torres
wanted me to e-mail it to him and I did.
I come across a guy who had an action figure made
called "Geek Man" which followed many stereotypes
of geeks. It was an all in Ontario company.
Everything except the Painting was done by people
living in Ontario. His next action figure, which
he had a sculpture of and description was called
"Money Man" who was a corporate guy, pictures of
both are available here on this site. I've already
heard one Canadian Retailer having some success in
selling Geek Man.
Food at the con was from bleh to okay. I didn't
like it much but others thought it was okay. On
Sunday I went to a place around the corner to get
some food and paid through the nose for it. The
food wasn't cheap inside the con either. To get
any other food would have been a very long walk or
a ride on the bus.
There was also an anime theater and a large gaming
space. The space between isle was large enough
that people could move around uninhibited, which
was really, really nice. One friend who refuses to
go to the Expo will go to this con because of the
space allowed. Most of the women there seemed to
be interested in comic books rather than anime.
Despite Sunday being Fathers day a crowd still
showed up. I talked to many dealers and only one
said they didn't have a good con. Everybody else
said they it was worth it financially and they
made money.
The special guests all seemed to like the con. The
people on Artists Alley seemed to like it too. One
woman said she made her gas money back jokingly,
but said she enjoyed the time there with her
friends. While her friends were doing panels she
was standing behind the audience, making faces and
lifting her skirt in order to throw her friends
off. It was funny.
In all, it was a really enjoyable con. Not too
geeky, not to snobby either. It had a spacey
layout and lots of discounts for bargain hunters,
high end books for people who liked those. I plan
to be back next year, hopefully they can get it in
a slightly easier place to get to and not on
Fathers day weekend.
Regards,
Jamie Coville
2004-06-21
http://www.TheGraphicNovels.com
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