Toronto Comic Fan Expo 2006
Report By Jamie Coville
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Date: September 1-3 Attendance: 42,000+ people. A 21% increase over last year. I went to the con with two friends: one wanted to get Jim Lee to sign his expensive lithograph & other stuff, the other was a sci-fi fan going to see Shatner and Nimoy among other big names. They got the advanced deluxe 3 day pass, so we were supposed to get in at 2pm, 2 hours earlier than everybody else. We all agreed this was a good idea to help ease the long line ups and give those who pay in advance an additional benefit. Friday: We went to the convention about an hour before the doors opened and were really surprised by the huge line up that was already there. In front of me was a guy who was flying back to Korea that night and paid the extra money to get an advanced 3 day pass just to get in a couple of hours early before he headed home. As usual with this convention, people didn't get in when advertised. It was 2:30pm when they let people in, and it was 20 minutes after that I got in myself. The guy who in front of me was pretty ticked at paying extra and not getting all the extra con time. It's always mind blowing to see how many people line up for hours to see this convention. When they finally let people in there was a funny moment. A media reporter wanted their camera man to film people rushing into the con, but he wasn't up front at the time. She tried to stop the crowd to get her camera man over there - the crowd stopped for about a second before ignoring her and rushing right in. At 2:55 there was already 20 people in line to see Jim Lee. By the time my friend got there (5-10 minutes later), the number was 40 people. When Jim showed up to sign the lineup gave an enthusiastic cheer and applause. Jim signed and did free sketches but after a while the con folks put a stop on the sketches so more people could see Jim. My friend didn't get his lithograph signed as Jim stopped a few people before his turn was up. He would make another attempt on Saturday. Ethan Van Sciver didn't get to the con on Friday as his plane got delayed for 5 1/2 hours. A female fan sat and waited by his table for 6 hours. I wandered around and saw Daryl Collison of the 3rd Quadrant at the show. He sarcastically thanked me for putting that "ugly picture" of him on the net. I later got him to pose for a good picture. I noticed many of the same retailers from the Paradise conventions there at the Expo. I knew there would be a huge line up for Jim Lee intimate and interactive panel so I decided to go the panel before it and stick around. That panel was Star Trek's Robert Picardo (he played the holographic doctor in Voyager). He made a bunch of jokes about being bald, how Patrick Stewart made being bald sexy which he thinks helped him get on the show. He sang some parody songs about Star Trek that he was selling on CD and the proceeds going to charity. He talked about Jerry Ryan (7 of 9 from the same show). There was a surprising number of fan questions about his non-Star Trek work, his role on China Beach in particular. He said there is no China Beach DVD because they used a lot of licensed movies out and they don't have the rights to re-use it for the DVD, but they are trying to renegotiate with the various artists involved and get something worked out. In all the panel was funny and enjoyable, even for a non-die hard Star Trek fan like myself. I've got some videos of Picardo doing his parody songs here: 1st Song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXxZ2qfhYTc 2nd Song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUMzRByx2lo 3rd Song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUHaUOHERUc Next was the Jim Lee panel. He took questions from the crowd the entire time. He told a little about himself mentioning that he was a psych major in school. While in school he would take some art classes so he didn't have a bunch of academic exams to do at the end of the year. It was there he decided to try his hand at doing comic books. Jim said when he first started drawing comics his friends would tell him he was drawing peoples legs too short, which he didn't agree with. It took him a couple of years before he realized they were right and fixed it. He said the criticism stung him at first. He says he still has a hard time drawing animals, but he learned to draw a horse for his kids. He mentioned being out of comics for a while and it was Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns that got him into it again. He enjoys working with Frank in part because he's an artist and he thinks visually and makes things go more smoothly. He also says Grant Morrison is crazy and very talented and loves working with him. When asked what comics he read, he said he didn't read much, but he's been checking out Ultimates, Nextwave, Ex Machina and Brad Meltzer stuff. He said he actually eats his lunch on comic books, he says the glossy covers are great for absorbing moisture. He's no longer a comic collector because he works in the industry. He told a funny Image story. He said because everybody's books were late they were always drawing their books while doing business meetings as they can draw and listen/communicate at the same time. During one meeting a guy was trying to sell an Image Characters on Ice program to them, but because everybody was drawing and not paying close attention to him he blew up, got mad and left. And that's why there is no Image Characters on Ice. He mentioned that he's exclusive with DC for another 3 years and has no interest in going back to Marvel. He said he's already been there and done their characters, but there is a lot of DC characters he hasn't done yet so that's where he's staying for the time being. Jim mentioned in the future he'd be doing a title with a lot of great characters. Later when somebody asked if he'd be doing JLA he said "maybe?" Jim said he was doing art for a DC Universe video game. He said for Video Games you have to draw all the characters with their arms out stretched beside them. He said he used to play video games but not so much anymore. On the subject of using computers for art, he said he didn't like the computer effects that's being used on comic books. He said he uses Photoshop to fix mistakes, but doesn't use it to do anything else. As expected, the crowd was packed and where quite happy to see and hear Jim Lee up close. I managed to get a couple of videos of Jim Lee answering questions. You too can see and hear Jim Lee up close by checking these videos out: Jim Lee Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hdAVWnHhf4 Jim Lee Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxRA1k1cutI Jim Lee Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Inqy58vF2yw The last panel of the day was a sketch off panel between Terry Dodson (who did Wonder Woman) and Olivier Coipel (he drew Spider-Woman). They did the draw for it differently, when they were part way done they showed the two sketches. They had people put their tickets in for either one sketch or the other. I must say I put mine ticket in for Coipel's sketch because the Dodson one didn't look all that great at that time. But when it was done the crowed was taken back in how great it looked when it was finished. Both sketches were awarded to two very happy con goers. Saturday: In an effort to get his stuff signed by Jim Lee my friend got to the line up 2 hours before the con started (8:00am) and when the doors opened (a bit late again) he RAN to the Jim Lee line and was the 8th person in. Many folks in the line up was holding a spot for them and their friends, so just before Jim Lee showed up those friends showed up and took their place in line ups, stretching it out a bunch. There was some grumbling over heard by other people in the line. Jim was a bit late to his signing, but the crowd again was enthusiastic about his appearance. My friend was able to get a his stuff signed and a sketch *just* before the con people put a stop to the sketches. During the signing time Jim learned Carrie Fisher was now at her table and took a 5 minute break to run over and meet her. Jim also got some time to meet Shatner and Nimoy as well. I then went to the Roman Dirge panel. There was a huge line up for it and the room filled up fast. I talked to Roman briefly before the panel started and got his permission to record the panel. He also posed for a picture. Before the con started, he told folks if they wanted a picture of him to come up and do it now. It was surprising and funny when 1/4th of the room went up to the front and took a bunch of snapshots. Roman did a good job entertaining the crowd and revealing some interesting bits about himself and his work. He talks about people constantly assuming he's aping other peoples style, when he'd been doing Lenore before those so called inspirations. He tells some wickedly funny bar stories, including how he accidentally set himself on fire. At the end he talks about his father and how his habit of frightening him effected him. You can hear the panel here: http://www.TheComicBooks.com/Audio/HobbyStar06-RomanDirge.mp3 (41 megs, 44 minutes) After this was the Cup of Joe minus Joe panel. It was hosted by CB Cebulski, who is not a Marvel editor anymore but he's still a consultant and is in touch with what Marvel is doing. Among the things he talked about:
- More MAX titles will be coming out next year. - He talked a bit about internal Marvel politics coming from both executives over creative and from 'Marvel West,' the licensing division. - He also said next summer there will be no major company wide event
He answered questions on Civil War as best he could without giving anything away. You can hear the entire Q&A here: http://www.TheComicBooks.com/Audio/HobbyStar06-CBCebulski.mp3 (50 megs, 53 minutes) I got to see Ethan Van Sciver at the convention on Saturday morning. So did the fan that waited 6 hours for him on Friday. Ethan and his wife were very nice to her and thanked her for waiting and apologized they couldn't be there Friday. Ethan's line up very quickly grew to the point where it was meshing with David Finch's line and Jim Lee's line. The con had to temporarily move him to one of the unused larger tables for the big name guests. Ethan agreed to do an interview with me at the convention. You can read my interview with Ethan Van Sciver here The Saturday crowd was ungodly huge and every corner of the floor space was jammed with people. I'm surprised it didn't get shut down. Toronto City Police Officers were there at the con as extra security so I guess everything was okay. Outside the floor space was busy too with people sitting at tables eating or simply taking a break from the long, tiring walk around the convention floor. Big line ups on the floor and the lack of space for them was the problem for this years convention. They brought in a lot of big name stars and there were huge line ups for most of them. Particularly Alice Cooper, Carrie Fisher, Linda Blair, Gates McFadden, Rowdy Roddy Piper and James Callis. That's not including the line ups for Shatner and Nimoy outside the convention in the various rooms. The one really good thing about the new area was the panel rooms were much bigger and there were long hallways did accommodate the long line ups. It was raining that weekend and had the convention been at the old space, a lot of fans would have been literally standing in it for hours. There appeared to be a real equal mix of comic product at there. A number of anime booths were selling a lot of Manga. You could find GNs, 1 to 3 dollar bins, recent back issues, silver and golden age books, some alt-indy stuff. Unusually, there was a couple of booths selling old sci-fi books. There was also people selling game boards too. Pirated DVDs were drastically cut back from previous years. I only saw one booth selling DVDs of collected old cartoons that are not officially available. One of the biggest con exclusives was a special 40th anniversary Captain Kirk Action Figure. 1000 of them were available for $20 each and come the end of Friday they sold 700 of them. By 6pm Saturday they only had 11 of them left and they were sold out before Sunday. I ran into an old friend from Kingston at the convention and we had dinner at the fancy hotel we were both staying in. My wallet still hates me for that, but time was important as we both wanted to see the masquerade that was going to start shortly. We made it back just before it started. It was the first time I had attended this con's huge masquerade show. I was somewhat surprised by the size and the level of production they put into it. The room was very large and had a large stage, two big screen TVs and cameras that filmed the entire thing. There were a lot of women there that screamed at everything, something the host made fun of at one point. I should say the host was really good, adding in a bunch of humor, often unwittingly getting involved in the acts the cosplayers put on. A lot of the costumes were great. The acts were typically filled with people dancing, sword fighting and "dying." The people working the event had to lug a lot of "dead bodies" off the stage after skits were over. There was 75 entries into the show but a few didn't show up for the act. At one point the host asked about the new spot to see how the crowd liked it and they booed. The masquerade started at 8:00pm and ended just after 10:00pm. The winners were announced in the hallway outside the con the next day. I took a variety of videos of the skits. You can see them here: Santa Women dancing to WHAM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTDi4FXOTvE 3 Anime Women Dancing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex5JdnfxRE0 5th Element Dance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHXVA4exssM Funny Anime Character Dance and Fight http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcSbZYS_vxk Anime Shooting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMDvvM9NjU0 Anime Sword Fight http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr6g58g900o Anime Swords Love and Death http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8BR4Qsrgo0 Cyclops http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyOXksYX7qQ Hellboy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tciLJcaqJH0 Silent Hill Killer Woman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cRjzLW0g-A Funny Kung Fu Weapons Demonstration http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fuet4qOHTs Listerine Man http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FJVN7_E46k Massive Cosplay Anime JPOP Dance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srYy_nlzleQ Woman Master orders her slave to PERFORM! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HjET2dXEdU Cosplay RANT! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjkSNb1Lrk4 Impressive Gundam Costume http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcsLUfB1kmQ Sunday: The big events on Sunday involved all the sci-fi stars. This was the day William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were doing everything, Q&A, autographs and pictures. There were massive line ups for all of this. People lining up before the con was open were already worried about being able to see them. I was able to attend the Q&A with the two. Despite the con insistence that there be no flash photography of the two (as they had just got done taking pictures for special ticket holders) the moment they entered the room a bunch of people jumped and ran up and took pictures of them (me included). Shatner and Nimoy had a witty banner thing going on which the crowd just ate up. Shatner was especially good with the crowd and told a lot of stories. He made reference to the crowd being "real hard core fans" which got a huge cheer. He said he was surprised at how many wealthy people there were up here, one audience member shouted "FORMERLY Wealthy" which Shatner repeated and got everybody got a huge laugh out of. They also talked about some US/Canadian differences in language and made reference to Shatner being Canadian. Some audience members asked a few questions. The most interesting of which was about the new Star Trek prequel being talked about and both Shatner and Nimoy said the director JJ Abrams people called them both and asked for their home phone numbers. Nimoy said he gave his, Shatner said he didn't, regardless neither of them heard anything since and it all happened many months ago. They say they don't know anything that's going on and are reading it in the press just like everybody else. I was able to record the whole thing on MP3 and you can hear it here: http://www.TheComicBooks.com/Audio/HobbyStar06-ShatnerAndNimoy.mp3 (40 megs, 43 minutes) At the end of the panel they both signed a fan expo shirt and were auctioning them off for charity. Shatner did the auctioning himself and there was a bidding war for the one shirt and it went to $1,500. Shatner asked if they would both be willing to pay $1,500 each for the two shirts and they agreed. One of the winners was penciler Leonard Kirk.f I've got pic of him proudly holding up his new keepsake. Shatner mentioned his charity was to help middle east kids of all ethnic stripes in hopes of the next generation creating peace in that area. After the panels was the line up for the autographs. Originally they were going to have one line for Shatner, then another for Nimoy but the con changed it so you could get them both to sign stuff at the same time. Some fans complained that both during the autograph or picture taking you never got to talk to the two of them. With the autograph, you handed your photo to a person, they handed it to Shatner, who passed it to Nimoy, who passed it to another person who gave you back your photo. It was like fans were widgets going through an assembly line, trying to get the most done in the shortest amount of time. The other big sci-fi star there Sunday was James Callis. There were long line ups for him. Unique about Callis was the refusal for anybody to take his picture. I was just walking by and was told to leave because even Press wasn't aloud to take his picture. I was told I'd have to go upstairs and buy a picture of him. Some people tried to sneak a pic in anyway, but the con people had staff surrounding James at all times to prevent this. I should mention Linda Blair was extremely nice and posed for a picture for me. She was promoting her charity called Linda Blair World Heart Foundation and it's goal of improving animal and human welfare. Currently they are working to help to find homes for dogs, control the pet population and stopping animal cruelty. You can find out more information at http://lindablairworldheart.org/ On the Comics end of things there was a DC Big Guns panel, but without a moderator. The DC guys were Geoff Johns, Ethan Van Sciver, Terry Dodson and eventually a late Jim Lee. Johns took the lead and began moderating the panel, pointing to audience members wanting to ask questions. Eventually the others took turns doing this. Among the highlights are:
- Johns and Ethan will be doing another Green Lantern series together - Johns and Donner are working together on a Superman story. He says he and Donner have dinner together and go through the plot page by page, then Johns scripts it, sends it to Donner - Donner tells him "Good job kid" and sends it back with some notes and they work it out. - Terry Dodson's favorite comic as a kid was GI Joe #2 and he's replaced it twice. - Ethan Van Sciver favorite comic was Killing Joke and he's replaced it 4 times. - Geoff Johns favorite comic is any DC book with the checkers across the top. - JG Jones and Geoff Johns are doing a Darkwing / Batgirl book after 52. - At dinner the night before, they redesigned Sinestro on the restaurant table cloth and Johns kept it. - Jim Lee is in awe of Dave Cockrum for coming up with so many great character designs for Legion and X-men. - The DC guys were asked if could steal a character from another company to be used in DC Universe they said Hulk, Spider-Man and Jean Grey. - Both Johns and Sciver say Sinestro is their favorite villain and want to add more depth to him. Jim Lee wants to draw more Penguin. - Jim Lee thinks Matter Eater Lad is the most underrated superhero. - Johns and Ethan want to do Ghost Rider one day. Ethan really wants to work on Flash again if Johns would write it. I recorded the panel and you can hear it here: http://www.TheComicBooks.com/Audio/HobbyStar06-DCBigGuns.mp3 (37 megs, 40 minutes) There was also a Jim Lee signing on Sunday too. This time, they held a draw to see who got sketches. This pleased a lot of people in the line up as those in the middle/back of the line had a chance to get a free sketch. I then walked around and talked to a variety of people about how the convention was doing. Retailers had a variety of opinions, some saying it was down a little from last year, some saying about the same, a few said it was up some. One of the retailers that said they had an up year mentioned they dropped their prices on almost everything and that really helped them move. Everybody mentioned that it was certainly busy with more people. One retailer wished it would translate into more sales. A "down" retailer questioned if the one day Paradise SuperShow con held two weeks previous had any effect on the sales at this show. The artists and small publishers I talked to were all over the place. One said they had more or new stuff to sell and had a better year. Another said they invested in a much bigger booth and it paid off. Leonard Kirk said he did well enough he could afford the $1500.00 he paid for a William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy signed HobbyStar Expo Jersey. Ron Sutton said he sold a surprising amount of original art on Saturday. Others said it was down from last year. One went out of their way to tell me they prefer the Paradise convention better, saying it was a more friendly environment. As usual, artists alley was the area with the lowest amount of traffic. Most of those in there seemed to be selling anime or fantasy artwork they had drawn or trinkets of some type. I felt sorry for those trying to sell comic books in there because they were few and far between. Walking into that area and not seeing much for comics made for a "stay away, unless you want to buy something for your wall" vibe to me. A common concern from everybody was the new location. Many preferred the old one, in part because it had windows along the one side and natural light coming in. While I never took an accurate measurement, the old floor space felt larger than this years. Nobody liked the new space and hoped next year the con would be back at the north end. I did speak to James Armstrong (Event Coordinator) and he told me it was very likely that the convention would be back there next year. The convention was an exhausting event due to all the people and the con floor space not being big enough to handle them all. The setup they had for the major comic stars like Jim Lee and Brian Michael Bendis should have been arranged to accommodate more people. David Finch had long line ups the entire time he was there as did Ethan Van Sciver. Then there's the sci-fi / horror stars like Carrie Fisher, Linda Blair and James Callis, all of whom had inadequate space for their lines. This con had the unfortunate date of Labour Day weekend and there was a lot of questioning if people would forgo family get togethers to attend. But of course, fans are fans and they put their hobby love over everything else. For people *really* wanting to see the big stars, they got their wish. For people that didn't have any interest in the big stars were likely frustrated by the 42,000+ people creating long line ups and slow, energy draining walks around the convention floor. I personally took in a lot more panels than I usually do and still missed out on some stuff. Me, I enjoyed seeing the big names and will be going again next year. But I'm really hoping for bigger space and a less crammed experience.
Regards, http://www.TheGraphicNovels.com News and discussion on a free, Delphi like forum.
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E-mail: jcoville@kingston.net
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