JiveTurkeyMoFo

We are now about four weeks away...getting down to crunch time. We've added another two private collectors recently to our dealer pool, one who specializes in rare and retired Lego sets, and another who has an extensive 50-year comic collection to sell off. Personally, even if we didn't have a single soul walk through the doors, I'm already very pleased with our assortment of dealers...and consider the room of items we're about to offer one I would personally be thrilled to see. I've walked out of shows with much greater attendance that didn't have the breadth and depth of quality items that we're going to showcase. Hope those of you interested having been checking out our Facebook page...we've been posting informational videos and doing FB Live broadcasts, while giving away some great stuff. We'll be doing a comic-central broadcast later this week, so be sure to Follow us and find out what we're all about.

Define "incredibly high"....

It was definitely a bargain hunter's paradise the last two weeks....I think the extended auction format (what is it,10 night's now?) really hurt a lot of the consignors. Remember when c-link auctions where three nights long, and how people complained about that? 10 nights? That's like a Iron Man competition worth of bidding...160+ pages of stuff.....insane. I ended up with 63 slabs, at about $87 each, after postage and assuming I don't bid on anything tonight. Some top purchases include Iron Fist # 14 CGC 9.6, Batman Adventures: Mad Love CGC 9.8, Black Panther # 1 CGC 9.6, Grendel # 1 CGC 9.4, Silver Surfer # 44 CGC 9.8, Sgt. Fury # 11 CGC 9.2, Daredevil # 9 CGC 9.0, etc. Lots of lower end slabs in the $30-$50 range that normally go for $60-$100+, etc. Overall, a really nice haul of stuff for the price...and you can't beat the shipping (less than $2/book). Good way to replenish my eBay store on the cheap and take home a few gems for myself.

My comment regarding resembling theme parks is less of a criticism of MegaCon as most large modern shows in general...where the non-cosplay crowd (of which I count myself) is now the minority. But like you said, a pop culture event with, by extension, a more casual crowd than conventions of years past. It's a "get off my lawn" comment from an old-schooler...I'm cognizant of that. I think the fact you guys bring in 100,000 people is fantastic. The last two years have seen some of the best line-ups of vintage dealers that I can remember at MegaCon, and that's going back some 16 shows, and the fact they were clustered together I think improved the experience for many of us who actually were there for comics. Also, the ingress/egress into and out of the show was the best traffic management I've seen yet at that venue. What many of us casual fans bemoan, and again, not a criticism unique to MegaCon, is that a dealer like Rick, who misses a year because of the schedule change, is now on the outside looking in, replaced by another comic dealer, possibly, or at worst, someone pushing anime, aromatherapy, cosplay costumes, or god knows what. Hey, I'm on a comic board, I want a great variety of comic dealers...I'm sure if I was into anime, I'd be on a anime message board wanting nothing but that.

Nothing to do with Orlando being the # 1 destination for Memorial Weekend travelers several years running, per AAA? Orlando, # 1 Memorial Day destination Listen, no one faults you guys for moving the show to that weekend...it makes perfect financial sense, especially as the show resembles less of a comic convention and more of a theme park attraction every year, but let's just call a spade a spade.

Big thanks to Terry for sharing some wisdom with a neophyte Show Promoter. My highest hope is that in a few years, our own little show becomes a destination event for Boardies and other collectors alike.

So, we are down to our last six weeks, so we have some upcoming announcements in the coming days to tempt everyone on the fence to come down and check us out. For now, we have updated our Vendor list on our Website to reflect all of our dealers as of current. We still are finalizing our list, but we only have a couple of booths left, and we expect those to be gone soon. Also, and this is pretty cool, but Randy Lawrence from Pedigree Art Auctions has unearthed a massive Marvel collection, with multiple full runs of all the keys and early titles from 1961-1985. We will be bringing both certified and ungraded books from this massive collection to the show...so if you are a Marvelite, and are looking for keys and early issues in various grades, then the show will be worthwhile for you for that reason alone. AF 15 & ASM 1-up, X-Men 1-up, FF 1-up, Avengers 1-up, etc., many with multiple copies to chose from. For Randy's contact info, just visit his site. And that's just one of our fine comic dealers.....we have more then a few. If you are a dealer/collector/flipper, this is going to be a very good show for material. Lastly, if you are interested in attending and want to purchase your tickets ahead of time, I have two limited use promo codes created especially for Forum members to use to save you 20% on the Gold and Silver Tier passes on our Registration page. They are: cgcgold (for Gold passes) and cgcsilver (for Silver passes). Thanks to everyone who has helped and contributed...we're hoping for a good turnout and validation of our proof of concept. It seems with the success of Terry O Neil's show in California, that these smaller, collector-focused "craft conventions" are the wave of the future for many folks.

PM Sent...

Still plugging away with my HP 7780 AIO. Must've done 10000+ scans in the 9 years that I've owned it...surprised its still chugging along. Don't know what I'd do without it.

Sounds like a great time...certainly want to make it out next year. Hopefully, our own show in March has some similar feedback from the attendees.

Been bottom-feeding with about 30 books won so far...nothing major, in fact, I don't think I won a single book over $200 yet. Prices seem timid on the non-key, non ultra high grade material.

It's an opinion shared by others. I enjoyed Rogue One more then Force Awakens, which I have not rewatched after seeing it in the theatres. It was a decent popcorn movie, but not worth the wait and hype we all had to endure. Which is a shame, because Star Wars Clone Wars/Rebels has taken a more interesting tack on fleshing out parts of the SW universe that were largely unexplored, or touched upon only in novels. It just seems to me the sooner they are done with the Skywalker saga, the better we as Star Wars fans will actually be served.

Sadly, with so many of the movies being "reboots" of the franchise already, I'm concerned another one is going to just fall flat, unless they take a really good angle that explains the previous movies in a meaningful way.

Ron Perlman is going to hit 67 this year. You could tell in the first two he was challenged in some of the more physical scenes since he was in his mid-50s...add another decade, and Hellboy is going to need a walker. Plus, Perlman has lost some of his physical stature...I don't know, it's hard to imagine another actor portraying Hellboy since Perlman nailed it, but its also hard to imagine him doing it again too.

For those of you who want to be amused, there is a new informational video starring Yours Truly on our Facebook page.

I've been meaning to attend Terry's show for a couple of year's now....this isn't the year for it with my own show to plan for, but next year very well may be. As someone with fond teenage memories of Cali, I don't need much of a reason to go back, but a great comic-orientated show should do just fine as justification.

I'm enjoying it immensely, more than anything on television in a while. I'm ten episodes in...particularly loving General Grievous. Really cool character that didn't get enough screen time in Episode 3 to get a feel for who he is and why he's a cyborg. My only problem with the Clone Wars (which overall I very much like), is just how stupid and worthless the basic battle droids are. They are beyond cannon fodder and could not protect a goldfish let alone mount an effective army. They make all Storm Troopers look like expert marksmen. Plus hearing "Roger, roger" gets really old. Granted they were almost as bad in the movies. I think they were largely treated as tongue-in-cheek buffoons for the older viewers, and silly simpletons for the kids watching. There was a string of episodes where at least one droid would make a hilarious comment right before buying the farm....I think it just became a running gag for the writers This is just from the first season: .

There will be more videos on the Facebook page both before and after the show. Unfortunate if you can't make it, someone with Sig Series books and expertise may have done well, even if you were just vending in our Attendee area.

For the casual fan, you are correct...luckily, there is some help coming... Second half of season 3 looks pretty awesome, and the show itself has a been on a steady trajectory toward attracting a more adult audience since it began. New episodes kick off tonight. I don't really get how Rebels or even Clone Wars is supposedly a children's show. Is it simply because it's animated? The stories just seem like straight-up Star Wars stories, so if these shows are for kids, I guess all of the Star Wars movies, too, are for kids? If they're intended for kids, why does it have so much violence and carry a PG rating? I never watched the CGI cartoon shows when they first started in 2008, but I watched the Clone Wars film and the first five episodes of the show this past weekend. Freaking good stuff. But I generally enjoyed the prequels, so perhaps my standards are too low. Without too many spoilers..there was a scene in this week's Rebel's where the main characters came upon the scene of an ambush of a Rebel scouting unit by droids. All they found were helmets and the occasional weapon. Now, if one spends a lot of time thinking about it, would droids have dragged away the dead rebels in what is otherwise an abandoned mine? No, but clearly showing a bunch of dead and decomposing bodies would not have gelled with the show's rating. It was one of the ways the show gets around the ratings issue, by implying much more of the violence than it actually shows. It's not short of action though...that it has, and it also has a fair amount of exposition, so a lot of back story is fleshed out that isn't addressed in the movies. I also skipped the Clone Wars when it was out...largely because of the stigma that it was animated and a "kid's show". But honestly, as a whole, the series was some of the best Star Wars material produced since ESB. Anakin Skywalker was not the petulent turd he was portrayed to be in Episode 3....he was far more developed and nuanced, and a damn good battle leader. If you are a SW fan, it's worth the look, as is Rebels...and the best thing, you can watch it with your kids.

Okay, so we are a little over two months out from EliteCon. We are updating our Facebook page page daily with new items, promotions, and a taste for the high quality comics, Pops!, toys, and other assorted items that will be at the show. The emphasis has been on toys and Pops recently on the FB page, but don't worry, there won't be any shortage of high quality comics. We will be updating our vendor list shortly with new additions and looking forward to making this a great show for serious collectors. We've also added two additional Admission's tiers. A Gold Level gives you everything the Platinum level does, but without the early access and without the $50 voucher. And a Silver Level that is essentially just a Buyer's Pass, without the ability to bring your own material to vend and without the exclusive Con T-shirt. Please remember, we aren't planning on doing sales at the door....if you want to attend, reserve now and take advantage of the 20% Discount on Silver and Gold tier admission currently still in place on our site.

Well, anyone who watched last night's 2-episode mid-season premiere of Rebels finally knows why Saw is considered an extremist. Nice to hear Forrest Whitaker give voice to the character, who was actually much better developed then in Rogue One. The "Skywalker" reference was hilarious.

For the casual fan, you are correct...luckily, there is some help coming... Second half of season 3 looks pretty awesome, and the show itself has a been on a steady trajectory toward attracting a more adult audience since it began. New episodes kick off tonight.

Right, because passive-aggressive millenials are the new go-to movie experts.