Dear James and Aman,

Below is the text of an e-mail that is circulating the Toronto comic book community right now. If it's claims are accurate, then you have sunk to an unreasonable and unacceptable low in your efforts to undermine the community-minded efforts of Paradise Comics in staging the Paradise Comics Toronto Comicon.

It has also recently come to my attention that you intend to stage your "one-day fan appreciation" attempt at sabotaging Paradise on the same weekend as that show in 2007 instead of your usual one week in advance.

I know your pockets are deep, but one cannot maintain a successful endeavor in the long term if that endeavor is not founded in a win-win spirit of harmony and respect for others. Word is spreading fast about you guys, and I'm only trying to help you when I ask you to please knock this shit off.

There is no competition between you guys and the Paradise show. They're not trying to do the same thing you're doing. So why do you care if they want to throw a party? The only reason to try to sabotage them is if you feel that they can put on a better show than you. If you believed that no one could put on a better show than you, you wouldn't care who else wanted to put a show on. If you do feel like the Paradise show is competition, then why not put time and resources into throwing a better party, being nicer to the guests, and earning a better reputation than anyone else? You attack the Paradise show and if you win, there isn't one. I'm working my butt off, hustling to live off of my art so if you win and there isn't one, it's much more difficult for me to pay my rent that month. So by attacking them, you're attacking me and everyone else trying to earn a living as a comic book creator in Toronto. How do you fail to understand that seeing Paradise flourish means the community flourishes, and means YOU flourish because there are more fans to
attract to your show?

This letter is being fowarded as far and wide as I can reach with it. To those reading this who are unfamiliar with the scene, Hobbystar Marketing is the company that puts on the comic book, sci-fi, anime, gaming, and horror Expo that goes on at the end of every summer at the Metro Convention Centre. Paradise Comics is a small comic book store on Yonge Street that puts on a smaller, exclusively-comics-centric convention in April called Paradise Comics Toronto Comicon. Each year, Hobbystar Marketing stages a one-day "fan appreciation" event one week prior to the Paradise show. They call it Toronto Comicon, and it goes on for no reason other than as an attempt to sabotage the Paradise show by confusing comic book fans about when and where Toronto Comicon happens. Hobbystar increasingly enacts measures to punish those who support the Paradise show, from kicking people out of their Expo for leaving posting anti-Hobbystar messages to bulletin boards on the internet to now telling exhibitors that if they take part in Paradise's show, their exhibitor's fees will be refunded and they will be banned from the Expo. Hobbystar has a reputation for lying to their big-ticket guests, being rude to their exhibitors, sabotaging every other remotely similar event in the city, and treating artists like cattle. It is no wonder that Paradise, a show with a growing reputation for excellence in all areas, raises alarm in them.

I encourage everyone reading this who is involved in the comic book community in Toronto, and those planning on attending the late-summer Expo, to immediately join the growing ranks of retailers, creators, and personalities boycotting the Fan Expo put on by Hobbystar Marketing at the end of the summer (the one the teenagers call Nerd Prom). The good people at Paradise Comics have made this extraordinarily easier by putting on an alternate late summer comic book convention, the Toronto Comic Book Fan Super Show, which will take place on Sunday, August 20 at the Toronto Hilton (Richmond and University) in Ballroom I and the Varley Conference Room. My good friend Liana K from Ed's Night Party and I have committed to doing whatever we can to make sure that the August 20 SuperShow is the comics event of the summer. We're not entirely sure at this point what's going to go down, but you can be sure that the silliness, theatrics, and impromptu performances of April's Toronto Comicon (see www.seanward.net/gallery/photoalbum.html for more on that!) will have been just a small indicator of things to come.

My fellow creators, we all agree that Hobbystar shits on us, but we all keep doing their show. Everyone, spread the word about this far and wide. Talk about it in your blog, tell your friends, get your reporter friend to write about it in the newspaper, this has to get out there. Hobbystar, you guys play dirtier and dirtier all the time and we are all just trying to play nice. This has gone too far for too long, and enough is enough. On behalf of all of the retailers, creators, exhibitors, artists, and celebrities who are continually put out and inconvenienced by your unfair tactics, I demand that you immediately cease the enactment of policies that would have exhibitors promise not to take part in Paradise's shows, and that you cancel any and all plans for any event of any kind anywhere in North America within thirty days of the Paradise Comics Toronto Comicon. Failure to comply with these demands will reveal yourselves to be some punk-ass bitches.

-Sean D. Ward

The e-mail in question:

My name is Daryl Collison.
If you are familiar with the Toronto Comic Book scene, you know that I own and operate 3rd Quadrant Comics. If you are familiar with the comic scene at all, you may have actually seen me at a show or two. I am a relatively big guy with dreads and a huge McGuiness Superman tattoo on my right calf (think Samoan wrestler). I have run my store for almost 10 years now.

I am giving you a little background prior to giving you the juicy bits about why I am here to grind an axe.

On Saturday July the 15th at approximately 4 pm I received a phone call from Aman Gupta, the owner and operator of Hobbystar Marketing they are the hosts of the Comic Book Expo held annually in Toronto Canada. I have been a supporter of Aman and HobbyStar for about 8 years now. I started of with 1 table and bolstered it to two tables about 4 years ago (I may be wrong on the dates, so do not quote me). I also have done a number of his smaller shows.

On Thursday July 13th Paradise Comics announced that they were doing a 1 day SUPER FAN COMIC BOOK SHOW in Toronto. (please note there is a LOT of history here and I am not going to go into it here. Suffice to say Paradise was doing the right thing in my opinion.

BUT I will say this: Hobbystar has for the past two years put on a 1 day Fan Appreciation show ONE WEEK before the Paradise convention and saw no repercussions form Paradise. Paradise decides to put on a 1 day show 1 tenth the size of the Fan Appreciation show 2 WEEKS BEFORE the Expo and Aman has a Hissy fit) The gist of Aman's call was to tell me, in no uncertain terms, if I did the Paradise show on the 20th, that he would refund my money that I have deposited for his Expo which is to be held September 1-3 and that I would NOT be able to do his show. He told me that he was doing up the contracts and wanted to know what I was going to do. I suspect that he asked that so that he can CHANGE all the contracts NOW to include some ridiculous clauses about NOT doing competing shows within a certain time frame (does the term restraint of trade ring any bells) to his show.

He really is running scared, isn't he? The fact that I cemented my tables by paying him hundreds of dollars almost a year ago apparently means nothing to him.

Where does he get off telling ME what I can and cannot do? In a free market place I can do whatever show I want and he tells me that? Needless to say I am not pleased. I asked him, so you are telling me that whoever is doing your show is being told that if they do the Paradise show that you are telling them they will get their funds returned and they cannot do your show? He said yes.

THE REASON I asked him that was to see if he was targeting me or if all retailers and hobbyists were being told the same thing. I am sure if some of the "bigger retailers" were told what he told me, they would tell him what he could do with his tables. I am furious.

I WILL do the Paradise show on the 20th of August as is my right.

If Aman tells me that I cannot do the Hobbystar show, then you will know why I am not at the show.

I have been a little vocal over the last few years about the battle that exists between Paradise and Hobbystar. BUT I have always been civil in public and NEVER took a round out of anyone. But this is just unbelievable. I beseech all the small retailers out there that feel they do not have a voice to raise it now. Yes, I know this sounds trite and somewhat political, but I have been sitting on the fence long enough and not publicly voiced my disapproval of what is going on, I guess it is my own fault that I am doing this in the 11th, but ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

Please take the time to re-post this or forward it to whomever you think might like to get a little bit more insight into what Aman is about. If you have any questions or comments please do not hesitate to leave them here and I will do my best to address them

Daryl The little guy who has had enough. And I ain't THAT little!

Labels: Hobbystar vs Paradise, links, Ontario, Toronto