Paradise Comics Comic Fan Super Show
Report By Jamie Coville
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Paradise Comics Toronto Comic Book Fan SuperShow Date: March 25, 2007 Time: 11am - 5pm Attendance: 543 Con Report by Jamie Coville This was another of Paradise Comics inexpensive one day conventions. It was filled with a mix of Toronto area pro's, dealers, and organizations. Much of the crowds demographics were your typical 20s-30s male comic book fan, but there was some older people coming attending, many of whom appeared to be ex-readers. I also saw some women there and a few kids. One kid in particular seriously considered buying a silver age Spider-Man comic for $80 (Dad was willing to pay) but the kid decided against it at the last minute. Virtually everybody had bins there and were selling back issues, usually cheap. About half the dealers had TPBs there, but only some of them had more than 2 long boxes worth. I didn't see any Manga there at all. There was one dealer with a small table with DVDs, roughly half of them were Anime. A couple dealers had statues and the like there. But for the most part it was your bread and butter back issue superhero comics. Many of the artists were busy sketching all day long, especially the bigger names like Cameron Stewart and Karl Kershel. Some artists didn't show up until noon or so. Kalman Andrasofszky didn't show up at all, but making an unannounced appearance was Kurt Lehner. He's an animation artist who is now working on a superhero book that he couldn't talk about because it wasn't announced yet. Quite a few artists had 5+ people line ups for most of the day. Ramon Perez, Francis Manupal, Cameron Stewert, Karl Kershel were among those with significant line ups for part or most of the day. Cameron Stewart was charging $5 for a sketch because he said people really abuse the free sketch thing. A fan brought up Stewart Immonen's "50 Reasons to Stop Sketching at Conventions" book and Cameron said he read that and every one of those 50 reasons were true. Artist Tony Wong had a sign on his table saying "Yes, I am from Toronto." The Beguiling didn't put much effort into this con. A couple of employees were there with mainly back issues, but there was no signs for their table and they were one of the dealers without any TPBs. They usually have one of the better booths at conventions. They were carrying a lot of independent comics that you typically don't see at conventions like Joe Matt's Peepshow #14. Hairy Tarantula, another Toronto area retailer that usually has some tables wasn't there. Among the organizations that attended was The Joe Shuster Awards, Max the Mutt animation school, and the Women in Comics II event that will be a part of the major Paradise Comics Convention in June. Kevin Boyd told me that the voting turnout for the Joe Shuster Awards is much stronger than last year at this time. Max the Mutt animation school was advertising they'd have Svetlana Chmakova doing a 2 day workshop on drawing Manga at the end of April. They also said they would soon be starting a courses on Gaming. Towards the end of the show I asked retailers how they did and just about everybody was happy. The responses ranged from "eeeh.... okay" to "Incredibly better than last show." Nobody was complaining about the sales or the turnout. Everybody at the show just seemed happy. A couple of dealers were loudly making jokes, which lightened up the mood. I think it's the warmer weather we've been having recently. Spring is well on it's way and everybody is happy to get out and about again. That includes going to comic conventions and spending money. A difference between the last show and this one, I didn't see any signs inside the hotel showing people where to go. Last November they had those signs on the first floor. Why they weren't there this time I don't know, but the place was full in no time and remained full for most of the day. The signs weren't needed to direct the crowd this time. In all the convention was a successful one for just about everybody. Click here to see Convention Pictures.
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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