Cascaders27

There was a pretty fair number of cosplayers, and some decent costumes as well as some truly bizarre ones (some Deadpool/Darth Maul hybrid that really threw me off). There was a lot of Dr Who characters, a lot of little kids dressed up like Batman, Flash, Iron Man, etc, a few Poison Ivys, a number of people dressed as Negan, and what I consider to be an alarming number of pre-teen girls dressed as Harley Quinn. I saw a few good Star Wars ones, and I'm always impressed at how creative people can be when making a BB-8.

There was another booth near the front that I believe had some comics, but it looked like they were strictly wall stuff and I wasn't able to wrestle my way up there to actually get a decent look/photo. There were a number of independently published books there which were cool and a lot of writers and artists promoting their work too. Zenescope had a booth but I didn't see any other comic vendors around. It's possible some were only there for Friday/Saturday, but this was (a bit sadly) the extent of the books I saw. I genuinely hope they all did well, but part of me wonders if they did well because of a seeming lack of competition.

This is another booth I failed to get a name on, but you can see there was a ton of wall books back there - they're just pretty hard to make out because of how densely they're stacked. Still though, it was nice to see this booth after walking past a booth selling hand crocheted Pokémon coasters and wildly expensive custom made fezes. I'm not knocking either of those booths (the hand work was very well done), I just felt like the comic booths were the exception as opposed to the rule.

I didn't see a name on this one anywhere, but this was probably the second largest comic booth in the place after Dave and Adam's. It looked like they had a good mix of stuff and you can see there were a lot of people checking out the boxes.

I was taking this picture trying to figure out why the name seemed so familiar but it didn't click for me until I was on the way home (I know, I suck!) but it looked like a booth with some of the best variety. If you're there next year Bob I'll try to remember to say hello instead of just taking a picture!

Comics World had a listing on the con website of "A comic book store from PA bringing a huge selection of $2.00 comics & silver age books!" and they sure weren't kidding. They had a large space set up with $2 boxes that were neatly organized by letter and easy to browse through. I didn't spend much time digging through the boxes but I'm sure there was some good stuff in there.

Just now, Dave2739 said:

I really hope you had a good time, but I have to say I would be very disappointed if I had paid to go this show. Kiss, Monkees, Insurance, Lasik surgery, Funko Pops and cars from TV shows? Bummer.

Overall I enjoyed myself, but it was a bit of a let down and I'm struggling to justify the cost to myself if they decide to do it again next year. There are a few more booth shots coming though

Adam's Action Figures and Comics was a more local vendor that I'm pretty sure I remember seeing last year as well. There were a lot of moderns outside, but it looked like a decent selection of Bronze/Copper inside the booth.

Dave and Adam's had a booth (no, I didn't see Carbo) but it felt like it was about half the size it was last year. They had their display case full of high end books and rolls of money with a lot of boxes in front of the booth to look through full of as far back as Silver books, and obviously a wall full of nice stuff too.

This was towards the back of the space and you can see it was pretty sparse, but thankfully this year instead of putting it in the middle of the floor they put the video gaming area in the back. They had some tournaments going through the day and there was also a PC gaming area but it (to me at least) felt a little out of place in what I was hoping would be a comic con.

There were a number of vehicles there, and I didn't see the Jurassic Park Jeep, but there was a Back to the Future DeLorean, a Batmobile, the truck from Sanford & Son, a Mini made up like the Ghostbuster's car, the car from Supernatural, and the Powerful Mach 5.

I didn't get any decent pictures of the artists, but there were a lot of them, and definitely more than in previous years. They were mixed in with booths in the front half of the space and I preferred that to them being all hiding in the back but it was a bit strange walking past a 20' high booth full of t-shirts to see a few small artist tables. There were a lot of people doing commissions, but Neal Adams wasn't there and I missed seeing him setup. It's also possible I just missed it, but it didn't look like CGC or that other company we don't talk about were present, when both were onsite last year.

The celebrity "pens" had previously been near the back of the center and they were usually pretty well away from the normal traffic paths so you couldn't get anywhere near them without paying for specific tickets but this year they had them all set up in approximately the middle of the space. There were still smaller roped off spaces in the back for photo sessions, but on a whole it was much easier to get pictures of them while walking past. Lou Ferrigno was there again, but I wasn't able to get a decent shot of him. I don't think Anthony Mackie was there on Sunday, but he had an area, as well as a lot of TV personalities I couldn't really identify.

Once you got down to the main floor they had a stage set up with various activities going on through the day. When we got there it was some Jedi training thing, and there were also a few magic shows and some juggling acts. It seemed to draw a lot of the younger children which is probably what they were going for. They had an Iron Man and a large Hulk statue near the entrance too and a lot of people were taking pictures, but I don't think there was a single comic booth in view from the entrance area.

Wizard World Cleveland 2017

I was only able to make it down to the show on Sunday but overall attendance still seemed reasonable. I'll share some crowd and booth shots as I go, but I'll start with a brief summary and my overall feelings for the show. Some jackhole at Wizard decided that St Patrick's day weekend in Cleveland would be perfect (poor choice) but I hope it didn't ruin the Friday attendance. Cleveland has what I believe is one of the five largest parades in the country, but things had settled down by Sunday.

This was the third year for this show, and I'm pretty sure this was the largest so far relative to the amount of space in the convention center that was taken up. It wasn't nearly as large a jump as from years 1-2, but they changed the floor layout quite a bit and overall there was plenty to see. I'm not sure if this is the norm, but there were a number of not quite comic related booths near the front (State Farm, some Lasik place, etc) and then a smattering of other things that were a bit closer (the Library was present and there was an area in the back for board/table top games). The majority of the booths were either selling Funkos or t-shirts, and there were unfortunately a very limited number of actual comic booths. I'm pretty sure I said this exact thing in my 2016 review but it felt even more true this year - this was a pop-culture convention, not a comic convention. I imagine Wizard doesn't care as long as they're selling booths and tickets, but it was a little disappointing to me going there hoping to see comics. In unrelated news though the Pokémon Go action was worth the trip!

I did end up going down this afternoon and thankfully (most of) the parade goers had seemingly dragged themselves home and it was fine being downtown. I took some terrible pictures of the 6-7 comic booths, as well as some crowd shots and I'll probably get a poorly written report up a little later tonight. Anyone will be welcome to contribute if they feel inclined!

I'll probably try to get down there in a bit just to wander around! No promises on seeing me in a Zatanna costume though

Great costume! That would have been a welcome sight in last year's sea of Harleys

How was the attendance? Any good booths worth browsing?

If I make it down there this year it'll probably be Sunday as I've suddenly got a lot going on tomorrow. I'll try to write up a small report if I do but there seems to be less general excitement this year overall.

2 hours ago, Ricksneatstuff said:

It does not appear there are many actual comic dealers setting up at this show from what I see on their site. Is this a decent show to find eclectic gold books?

I doubt it. From last year I remember seeing maybe 4 booths with any gold books and Harley probably had the largest selection. I recall a reasonable mix of silver/bronze and obviously plenty of copper/modern but even last year the best way I could describe it was as a "pop-culture con", not a comic convention. I may still go down Saturday but we'll see how I'm feeling about it when the time comes around.

If you're truly new to grading I'd recommend sending in a smaller batch to start so you can get the disappointment out of the way and then have a better ideal about how to more realistically evaluate the remainder of the books you're hoping to submit. If the books are for a personal collection and you just want them to have a grade assigned and be protected in the cases then you can probably just go for it, but if you're hoping to sell these then many people won't look at moderns below a 9.8 and you may end up with a lot of filler you can't sell for what the grading cost you.

1 hour ago, Doc McCoy said:

What about the massive zit on his nose? 

The paint rub has been there. I don't remember exactly when it happened or if he came like that originally, but I know I've seen that before. What's going on with Kraven these days?!

Did he always have the sweet Harry Potter scar on his forehead?

2 hours ago, fastballspecial said:

We just live in a society that has no patience anymore.

I see the board getting better weekly.

I'm certainly struggling to adjust but I don't think it's patience related. I think a main issue is a general resistance to change, and the fact that the old format worked fine for plenty of people. I'm sure it wasn't perfect, but it was comfortable and we knew the faults. This new format really feels like a lot of change for the hell of it as opposed to change for improvement and I've never liked that sort of change. Things are considerably better than they were to begin with over here but I still don't cruise the boards or feel inclined to participate nearly as often as I used to. That probably doesn't matter to anyone (and I'm not saying it should) but that's the way I'm feeling currently.

Nevermind. Yay change for the sake of change!