"...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.'"

"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 !"

"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."

"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."

Labels: links, Ontario, Quebec, Toronto