Lantern's B'More Con Report....or the antithesis to Donut's report.

[Lantern]

Because my afternoon meeting was cancelled, I figured I would write a con report. Will anybody care, probably not. Did it make the people I work with think I was really busy for a while, absolutely! At first I was not even going to post it, but when I saw the extremely short FlyingDonut report, I realized that someone needed to be more verbose about this show. Besides, who doesn't yearn for the days of yore when reports written by Lighthouse were pages upon pages of detailed descriptions. So, run to the bathroom if you have to, pull up a seat, grab some popcorn, and turn off your cell phone, becasue the show is about to start.

 

Cue the curtain...roll the tape.

 

-----------

 

Making the drive from where I live to Baltimore was not bad, it generally only takes an hour or so on most days, give or take a few minutes depending on the traffic. On this day, I arrived in Baltimore at roughly 10:30 on Saturday morning. Admittedly, I would have gotten there sooner, but I had to make a few stops on my way, like picking up four pages of OA that had been sitting at the PO for more than a week. Arriving in Baltimore, I had to fight the Red Sox traffic, park the car, walk a few blocks to the convention center, and fight the dental convention crowd before getting to the con location. Once at the convention center, I quickly realized that I should have purchased my ticket on line and prior to getting to the convention. Since I had a brain greggy and failed to do that, however, I was stuck in the ticket line for about 20 minutes before getting into the show.

 

Once out of the ticket line and into the convention hall, my first stop was the CGC booth to drop off a few books to get sig seriesed. I was going to call Pirate, since he was gracious enough to agree to help me out with them, and try to do a person to person delivery, but I did not have my cell phone with me. Besides, anyone who knows me can vouch for the fact that outside of work my cell phone is pretty much nonexistent to me. Just ask Chrisco, he knows what I am talking about. Anyway, I dropped my books off with Kevin Boyd and plunged head first into the crowd of greasy faced breadstick armed nerds who stink of stale pizza, burnt pretzels, and morning breath.

 

The first dealer booth that I stopped at was Basement Comics. I knew that Al Stoltz had some UGS, which were exactly what I was looking for. While I looked through the one and only short box of UGS he brought to the convention, I talked with him and his wife about visiting Paris and about their son going to college. Unfortunately, the conversation was cut short when a sudden wave of panicked frenzy overcame everyone in the immediate vicinity. I looked around thinking that with this type of reaction there must be a fire or maybe someone had caught a thief trying to make off with some sweet bronze age romance books. As the fever quickly grew and the tension at Al's table increased, I began to suspect that something truly big was about to transpire. Glancing around I wondered what it could be, perhaps it was an unexpected appearance by Steve Ditko or maybe Marvel was giving out official apologies and refunds to those who had seen the Ghost Rider movie. After a few seconds I finally caught a faint whisper of the buzz, "Waid is coming!" To which I thought, you have got to be kidding me, people are getting this excited about Mark Waid? I then caught another faint whisper, "Blade is coming." Okay, that makes a little more sense, people are excited that Wesley Snipes is making an appearance. Not really the type of thing that would interest me, but I can understand it. A few moments later, I heard Al state loud and clear that, "Zaid is coming!" Since Al obviously had a lot of preparation to do for the arrival Mr. Zaid, we cut our conversation short and concluded business. As I put my newly acquired UGS into my backpack, I caught a brief glimpse of the infamous Mr. Zaid. For a moment I thought about approaching his entourage and requesting an audience with him, but I decided that getting through the body guards and having the required full body cavity search was not worth it, so I went on my way.

 

I pretty much wandered around until noon when fellow forumite and former neighbor of mine Chrisco and I were supposed to meet up for lunch. As usual, he was late. I figured that he was passed out in a ditch somewhere outside the city limits and would show up eventually, which he did. Lunch turned into a full fledged CGC forum frontal assault on the inner harbor, with about a dozen forumites looking for food. Between the Red Sox fans, the dental convention attendees, and the comic convention geeks, there was no way a group this size was going to get seated at the same place anytime soon. So, Chris, Jacks2Start, and I peeled off the main group and had lunch at some overpriced Mexican restaurant. The food was not that spectacular and the beer was expensive, but at least they had free nachos.

 

Following lunch our small group headed over to the Geppi Entertainment Museum to meet up with a few of the other forumites. All I can say about the museum is WOW! The displays far exceeded my expectations. It really is comic and pop culture overload. Of course the comics are sweet, but a few other non-comic items caught my eye as well. Like the framed original Frank Frazetta Tarzan art, which was hung strategically for all to see behind a six foot tall Superman statue. In fact, if Chris had not pointed it out to me I would not have seen it. Being a classic rock fan, I was also impressed by the untorn three day original Woodstock ticket. I think Chris was right in his assessment, $8 a day for that line up of bands was a complete rip off, which is why the ticket was probably unused. Needless to say, there is so much at the museum to see that I will be going back for a second go round this fall.

 

After coming off of the pop culture high of the Geppi museum, I returned to the convention. Having already looked at most of the comic dealer booths, this time through I spent my time wandering around artist alley. My only comment about the creators that were present is related to Al Feldstein. In a previous comic collector manifestation, I was a huge EC fan and collector. With that said, the only way I am paying Al Feldstein $20 for an autograph is if it comes on an original copy of Crime Suspenstories 19. Following my tour through artist alley I decided that it was time to head home. UFC was live on Spike, and I was not going to miss that.

 

That’s all folks!

 

 

[Pirate]

Oh i didn't tell you, Al charges $20 per book for his autograph. Will that be cash or check?

[chrisco37]

Oh i didn't tell you, Al charges $20 per book for his autograph. Will that be cash or check?

 

 

Good report, B! Spot on with every detail.

[Ringfinger]

Good one.

[CAP Freak]

At first I was not even going to post it, but when I saw the extremely short FlyingDonut report, I realized that someone needed to be more verbose about this show.

Arex already did his report!

 

Making the drive from where I live to Baltimore was not bad, it generally only takes an hour or so on most days, give or take a few minutes depending on the traffic. On this day, I arrived in Baltimore at roughly 10:30 on Saturday morning.

How many miles is it from the District if Hell?