Canadian Comix News & Culture
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Wednesday, September 06, 2006
More FanExpo Reaction
:: Posted by Bryan @ 9/06/2006 05:23:00 AM 
Yesterday I promised some positive news about the Fan Expo held this past weekend in Toronto and have done my darned-est to dig up the goods from the blogosphere and elsewhere. For my own part, and as a distant (well, 100km) observer, I have enjoyed reading most of the reports and looking at all of the pictures --it is my duty not only as a contributor to Sequential but also as a student of and patronizing commentator on subcultures and aberrant behaviour. And while I used to be embarrassed by the attention cosplayers and sci-fi fans brought to the otherwise "serious" world of comic art and graphic novels, I now look on these displays as a charming (if not vital) part of what I have come to identify as the always-nebulous, constantly-evolving world of "comics culture."
Some more-or-less positive reports:
Thom Zahler, creator of Love in Capes and of the "Spock money" above, has some nice words to say about the Expo, calling it
"...a pretty good show, and one that won a sizable amount of brownie points with me.
See, I went up there and my registration was messed up. This seems to be fairly common this year, as evidenced by my trials in Southern California this year. On this occasion, though, some of my woes may have been my fault. Not sayin' they all were of course, but it was certainly a more mutual thing than San Diego's.
But here's the thing: We worked it out.
Other shows I know (and you know who I mean) would have shut me down. It took some talking on my part, and doing on theirs, but when we were done, we managed to get me set up. It's not that there was a problem that defines the situation, but what we were able to do to resolve it. On that count, FanExpo did really well, and I appreciate it.'"
Eric Theriault gives a Quebec creator perspective and talks about what it was like being an "indie" guest of the show (mostly negative) but adds a positive postscript:
"Good points: some of the artists I met like Ghastly from Ghastly Comic , Paul D. Storrie, Sulley Fattah, Larry Handcock, Michael Chan of Anime Iku and a few others !"
Everybody seems to have something good to say about U.S. cartoonist Jim Lee, one of the show's featured guests. Jamie Coville, who took tons of photos and recorded several interviews/videos with con-goers (coming soon to his site), preferred the comics pros over the other celebs who placed quite a few restrictions on fans and media:
"All of which makes me happy to be a comic fan and not a sci-fi one. Jim Lee was the HUGE star of the comic end and he was down to earth and nice with everybody. He did a lot of signings and a couple of panels. There were long line ups for him everywhere. Even if stayed at his table for 72 hours straight to do signings and sketches he probably still wouldn't be able to get everybody that wanted one." And I'm not sure this is exactly good news (more likely, a boring infantile ugly piece of crap and confusing to boot), but many people seem to be enthusiastic about a newly-announced Marvel comic book project involving a super-hero team with some connection to Canada , referred to yesterday as The Collective but it may be called Omega Flight --I can't really be bothered to find out for sure but Danny Truong has the low-down, including links to a Newsarama interview on the subject.
And Comic Book Bin has some more reports, mostly about video games and DC Comics.
On the negative side again, Paradise show promoter and comics educator Kevin Boyd emailed with a few comments of his own:
"I definitely see the comments I'm reading online heading in two distinct directions - comic book readers/fans/collectors/pros (from accepting to generally disappointed to frustrated & annoyed) v. the rest of fandom (enthusiastically excited about dressing up and meeting celebrities). Would like to read more reports from comics fans but these seem few and far between. My dealer friends said that when they asked their customers where they were from, they found that many of the people buying comics were coming in from outside of Toronto, and that many local collectors were conspicuously absent (although they could have been stuck in a line somewhere for all they knew). No one complained about terrible sales, just average - slightly higher or slightly lower. I have not spoken to the two largest comics retailers at that event, but I know from talking with them or their staff beforehand that comics are not their priority sales-wise at the Fan Expo. It's all about toys, anime and related merchandise."
Other Blogs, Reports and Photos:
J.Truong report and photos/sketches
D. Truong report
ramon perez
will's blog -photos
a blog created just for the expo by a horror cosplayer
Sebastien Frechette/Eva's Blog of Terror
Geoff Johns
Dishonorable Pornfucious posts 3 giant pages of photos
Possum Press self-publisher says "Great Success!" with lots of photos (there were little kids and everything)Labels: links, Ontario, Quebec, Toronto
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