Paradise Comics Toronto Comicon
Date: April 28-30
Attendance: 5600, up 35% from last year.
I arrived about 15 minutes after 3pm. There was still a small line up,
but it moved quickly with 3 people handling it. The line for press and
guests was also extremely quick.
One of the big themes this year was Women in Comics. A large amount of
female creators were guests at the convention and there were several
panels devoted to them.
I walked around and took notice what the retailers were selling this
year. I was surprised that it was a pretty even mix of golden age,
silver age, modern, TPBs with a few retailers selling manga. Almost
everybody was selling TPBs at US cover, which as a buyer was really nice.
I also went through artists alley to meet some online people whom I'm
familiar with. Plus a few folks I had interviewed over the last year.
There were a quite a few contests going on, lots of gift certificates,
free books, free anime DVDs, and two 42 inch fancy TVs! I personally won
a $20 gift certificate from AllNewComics.com.
Come 5PM the Stan Lee video conference was scheduled. The room filled up
very quickly. We learned that Stan Lee was sick and had to cancel the
live feed, so instead a exclusive interview done a couple days prior was
aired. The 45 minute interview was done by ACTOR President Jim
McLauchlin. The interview was well done and Stan was very funny causing
many laugh out loud moments with the crowd.
Notes about the interview:
- Stan apologized profusely for not being able to make it to Toronto. He said he really wanted to be there but he was just too busy.
- When talking about doing westerns he said his boss Martin Goodman always wanted the characters to be a kid and have "Kid" be a part of their name. He felt it would sell better to the kids reading.
- One of his favorite western title was The Black Rider, specifically because he wasn't a kid. Stan actually posed in costume for the first issue.
- Stan said he always hated teenaged side kicks. He said if he were a hero he wouldn't want some kid always around him. And besides he said "people would talk!"
- When creating the Fantastic Four Goodman wanted a teenager on the team. That's when he reused the Human Torch character and made him a teenager.
- Stan thinks all kids like fairy tales, but as we grow up we decide fairy tales are kids stuff. He thinks comics are fairy tales for grownups.
- Regarding the comic book movies, he thinks the movie people don't like to read books or scripts all that much. Handing them a comic gives them a quick way of getting a story idea across for scenes and whatnot.
- He does have a cameo in X-men 3. So does Chris Claremont.
- Today he is doing POW! Entertainment. He says POW stands for Purveyors of Wonder. They are creating characters for movies, video games, TV shows, cartoons, mobile phones, etc . . .
- He doesn't like it when people ask him when he's going to stop. He says he enjoys doing this type of work and he'll keep doing it.
- Stan has gotten involved with ACTOR and does what he can to help raise money for them.
- Stan hates when people write comicbook as two words. He thinks we should all be writing it as one word and orders us to do so from now on.
After the panel I noticed the crowd began to pick up at bit, but then
died down in a couple of hours. I bought more books, talked to various
guests. Wrestler King Kong Bundy was there, selling his new #1
collectible comic book. He seemed to be a down to earth cool guy. I
talked to Ramona Fradon about doing an interview the next day and she
agreed.
Chip Zdarsky had asked the con about bringing in a couch. The con mgmt.
really liked the idea and gave him a bunch of space. He teamed up with
Ray Fawkes and Cameron Stewart and put in a number couches, comfy chairs
and tables with their books on it. This became a popular place to hang
out during the con, a good way to get off your feet for a bit and read.
Poor Chip was up from 6am that morning going around, gathering furniture
from various sources and bringing it to the con.
I noticed Darwyn Cooke and Amanda Conner had the longer lines of Fridays
show. A number of guests was not at their tables on Friday though. The
day ended at 8pm. Overnight some friends I was staying with had saw my
Showcase Presents: Justice League of America I had bought at the con.
They had dropped out of comics but this peaked their interest. They
wrote down some books they wanted and gave me some money.
On Saturday the con opened at 10am. I saw Peter Dixon and got a photo of
him while he still he had his hair. Come Sunday at 4pm he got shaved
bald by a number of people, including Gail Simone for ACTOR. The shaving
raised $1,000 for it. George Perez spent a lot of time at the ACTOR
booth doing sketches. Many other creators put in some time there too for
the good cause. For the entire weekend ACTOR raised almost $10,000. I
met up with Svetlana Chmakova and helped her find a room where a panel
was being held. We attended the last 10 minutes of it and then another
panel I was interested in started.
At 12pm there was a panel about the career of Ramona Fradon. Liana K.
from Ed the Sock TV show said she begged to introduce it. Heidi
MacDonald gave a speech about women in comics which was really good.
Then we moved on to Janet Heatherington interviewing Ramona Fradon about
her career. A ton of questions were asked and answered. Fradon was very
open about herself and opinions on people she worked with, from editors
to writers to inkers and more. She was funny and no-holds-barred honest
about everything. I recorded the entire panel and you can hear it
here.
David Lloyd was at at his table and had a very long line up, I think the
longest line up of anybody at the convention. I met Gerard Jones and we
talked about comic history stuff. Saw Heidi MacDonald and Svetlana
Chmakova playing Dance Dance Revolution Extreme, which was fun. I had a
short but pleasent chat with Taki Soma who was wandering around the con.
I attended another panel hosted by Chris Butcher from the Beguiling
titled Manga: Bridging the Gap between East and West. The panel was
first just a chat with Svetlana until the others began to trickle in.
From there it really began to pick up as Jill Thompson talked about how
much detailed research she did on manga and Japanese culture she did for
her manga-esk work. J. Torres and others were in total awe of both her
work and the amount she put into it and geeked out about it on the
panel. It was a really great panel and I recorded it as well. Hear it
here.
Afterwards I met up with Ramona Fradon and did an interview with her,
covering some stuff not talked about at the panel. She was a great
interviewee and didn't really repeat anything said at the panel. About
an hour later I noticed her on her chair, neatly arranging her artwork
looking like she was about to leave her table. I offered to watch her
stuff for her and she thanked me and wandered around the con for about
15 minutes.
Afterwards I was pressed into service to take photos of the costume
contest that was about to happen. Another photographer was temporarily
missing but he came in on time. The costume contest was fun as there was
some skits, singing and dancing done by some people. The judges were all
in costume as well and they asked questions of all the people about
how much research, money and work went into creating the costume. The
prizes was pretty significant too. For beginners, $125 for 1st place,
$50 for 2nd and $25 for third. For experts, $500 for 1st place, $200 for
2nd and $100 for third. There was a Junior level too and the sole
contestant won, but he had a really great Thing costume and likely would
have won even if he had competition.
I chatted with Dave Sim and Chester Brown for a bit then headed to the
Shuster Awards. I got a decent seat up front for picture taking and
audio recording. I've got a small report on this site and the entire
Awards Ceremony on MP3. The awards went from 7:30 to 9:00 and once it
was done I chatted with Gerard Jones for bit then headed out.
On Sunday I talked with Diana Schutz and asked her about Herbie, a very
funny ACG comic from the 60s that Dark Horse reprinted in the 90s. I
told her I thought it would make a really good archive. I'm hoping this
will get done. I also noticed Linda Medley had a sign on her table
saying she wouldn't sign Vertigo books. I asked her why and she said she
had bad experiences with them so this was her way of boycotting them.
Linda also had an upcoming hardcover collection of Castle Waiting on her
table that look really great. It had this old hardcover book type feel
with an attached ribbon/bookmark with it. It looked like something you'd
find on your parents bookshelf and you'd never think it was a graphic
novel until you opened it up.
There were some kids playing the Dance Dance Revolution game and I was
asked to take some photographs by the Hairy Tarantula people. They had
brought the game in, but were a bit disappointed it wasn't used more.
I spent a couple of hours walking around talking to retailers, pro's
from both artists alley and guests. Sadly most retailers I talked to
said it was slow. One specifically said it was down 20% from last year.
A variety of reasons were suspected, a major freeway to the con was
closed the entire weekend. The weather was really nice and it was a bit
of a shame to spend it indoors. The weekend also fell at the end of the
month and one wonders how many people were moving from apartments.
The two retailers that told me they did well were The Beguiling and
Hairy Tarantula.
Most of the guests there enjoyed the show. They said fans were very
friendly. A couple felt there was too much space at the con and wished
they were seated closer to all the action. Jill Thompson said the panels
were very good and she was involved with a lot of them. She was glad
that people asked unique questions, people talked and they weren't
boring. Everybody I talked to enjoyed the show and supports it.
I really enjoyed it too. It was laid back, the guests were friendly and
chatty. I look forward to going again next year.
YouTube
Svetlana Chmakova on Dance Dance Revolution:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFAP51yackU
Costume Contest:
Expert category:
1st place - Jango Fett song and dance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6ZF5WQ91SM
3rd place - Ghostbusters Skit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fkVyRDthQU
2nd place - Knights skit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JTSFSKPxkE
Scarlet Witch Dance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HqtPZoKDPI
Regards,
Jamie Coville
http://www.TheGraphicNovels.com
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