Who is going to Wondercon 2009?

[NewWorldOrder]

Leaving now to catch my plane, see everyone there.

[divad]

Just a quick pitch to whomever is attending to try and stop by the Cartoon Art Museum which is within easy walking distance of the show.

 

I note on their site that they will be having a special party in conjunction with the convention on Friday night. This museum is always great to visit and I have seen some great artwork there over the years.

 

The website is Cartoon Art Museum.

 

Yes, that and the current Gene Colan exhibit is a win-win:

 

The Cartoon Art Museum's Annual WonderCon Weekend Party will be held on Friday, February 27, 2008, from 8pm to 11pm. Admission to this ticketed event will be on a sliding scale from $10 to $35, with guests encouraged to contribute whatever they can to support the Cartoon Art Museum. Many of the featured artists and special WonderCon guests will be in attendance, including featured guests WATCHMEN co-creator Dave Gibbons and USAGI YOJIMBO creator Stan Sakai. Rare and signed books, prints and artwork will be raffled and auctioned throughout the evening, and additional special events and guests will be announced as the event approaches.

 

Special exhibitions featuring the comic art and props from the upcoming Warner Bros. film WATCHMEN; a look back at 25 years of Stan Sakai’s critically acclaimed comic book USAGI YOJIMBO; a spotlight on legendary Silver Age comics creator GENE COLAN; and highlights from the Cartoon Art Museum's archives will be on display. Please visit http://www.cartoonart.org or call (415) CAR-TOON for an updated list of special guests and events, as well as additional information about the museum.

 

[divad]

Just got back from "lunch" at the Con. Ran into Shin outside who lent me his badge while he and his charming wife had lunch out and about.

 

Inside was pleasantly attended, and movement around the Con floor was easy. Stopped and said hello to several board members and sellers that I knew from prior years (Marc from HouseofComics , Terry from Terry'sComics (thumbs u) , and sellers that I wanted to get to know (BlazingBob from HighGradeComics , Stephen Ritter ). Said hello to Gemma at the CGC booth (didn't recognize the others there), ran into Andy (Goldust40) , Jim (Jimm94) , and Jeff (Jeffkli) . Also met topnotch for the first time.

 

Looking forward to the rest of the weekend's festivities

[garthgantu]

Glad to hear the joint is already jumpin'! thanks for the report

 

I'll be there tomorrow, possibly with Jbud making a last-minute cameo

[divad]

Glad to hear the joint is already jumpin'! thanks for the report

 

I'll be there tomorrow, possibly with Jbud making a last-minute cameo

 

I'll keep an eye out for you guys

[PhantomObserver-migration]

Any pics?

[seank]

Any pics?

 

I'm going for the day tomorrow. My camera is already packed.

[PhantomObserver-migration]

Looking forward to it. Have fun there. It should be better than Mega Con.

[Mutie Fan]

Leaving in just a few. This will be my first Wondercon. I have tried to go the last couple of years but have never been able to make it. Hope to meet some of you there.

[BeachBum]

Leaving in just a few. This will be my first Wondercon. I have tried to go the last couple of years but have never been able to make it. Hope to meet some of you there.

 

Try to make it to the X-Men panel on Sunday. I went to the Matt Fraction Panel on Friday afternoon and he indicated there would be a big announcement made there... If it didn't leak out during the Mondo Marvel Panel on Saturday.

 

BTW Matt Fraction is a really funny guy.

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

Mike (Busted Flush) and I did a one day gumball to WonderCon yesterday from LA. A good time was had by all during our abbreviated journey. A few notes on the experience for anyone interested.

 

Attendance (at least on Friday) seemed to be off from prior years. The aisles were simply never crowded and the few panels I poked my head into were incredibly quiet with very sparse attendance. I don't know if things picked up today (Saturday) but it was the quietest WonderCon I have been to over the last four years.

 

There was good representation on the dealer front, both nationally and locally. Harley Yee, Metropolis, RedBeard, Robert Beerbohm were some of the national dealers we stopped at and looked at the books for sale. Local to California, Terry's, A1 Comics, House of Comics were represented. I did not see a lot of purchasing going on so I wonder how the dealers will fare for the weekend. Deals were to be had, particularly on boxed stock with discounts being offered in many cases across the board. Bob Beerbohm was offering 50% off on all his boxed stock and I picked up a nice copy of Our Gang comics with Barks and Kelly art from him. Some of the dealers complained of having to deep discount material to move inventory.

 

I see a continued lack in quantity and quality of Golden Age material. it appears that most of this is moving through the auction houses. There was no evidence of collections being sold to provide cash during the current difficult times. Harley and Metropolis seemed to have the nicest material at the show. Harley had a great run of early Detectives along with a lot of other nice material. I don't pay much attention to Silver or Bronze Age so someone else will need to talk about that material.

 

One interesting note, I noticed four seperate copies of the first 50's era Phantom Stranger for sale. There have been many San Diego shows where it was lucky to find one of these "scarce" books. All were in Good or less than Good condition which is also typical of this book for some reason. I did manage to pick up issue 1 and 2 of the late sixties issue of this title both in VG+ for $10 (for both).

 

We had a very long conversation with Richard Munchin of Tomorrow's Treasures in regard to restoration. We were basically talking about how to look for restoration and the variety of techniques that can be used and whether or not CGC can detect all forms of restoration. A pretty interesting conversation and I learned some new things.

 

Speaking of restoration (or not) I picked up a copy of Weird Comics #7 that had been cleaned and pressed from A1 Comics. I am not entirely sure how I feel about the cleaning and pressing process but I sure like this book. I will post some scans over in the Golden Age section later.

 

One other interesting observation was a fairly quiet turnout on the publisher's front. DC had a booth giving away Watchmen material, ONI Press was there as was Slave Labor Graphics. I did not see TwoMorrows Publishing that has been at this show before, so representation on this front seeemed light to me.

 

That's all I can think of at this juncture. I hope there will be more reports from the show.

[HouseofComics.Com]

Great report. Just one comment.

 

"Attendance (at least on Friday) seemed to be off from prior years. The aisles were simply never crowded and the few panels I poked my head into were incredibly quiet with very sparse attendance."

 

I had the opposite feeling about Friday, that I'd never seen so many people there on the first day. However, I wonder if it's the heavily comics aisles that are getting sparser while the rest of the con keeps growing. I think this was the first year that WC went San Diego style with more aggressive crowd control and queues.

 

Silver age was really dead at this show while bronze moved very well as it is much cheaper. Haven't seen such small sales (many sub-$10 final totals) at Wondercon before. I understand gold was huge at this show, but an awful lot of that was dealer to dealer sales.

 

There did seem to be a few more kids and teens buying than I recall from the past few years.

[HouseofComics.Com]

and the few panels I poked my head into were incredibly quiet with very sparse attendance.

 

The programming at this show is always very good and yet very few people ever go to any panels. I always feel bad about that. I do have to add that the Friday panels are usually by far the weakest of the weekend and the people who come on Friday are usually the hardcore collectors who are too busy scouring the dealers room.

[Aloha]

For a first time attendee here were some of my impressions:

 

Lots of old comic dealers with good selection, but understandably high prices (when compared to what you can purchase on the boards or off ebay). I was looking, but didn't see any deals. Which hopefully is good for the long term value of our collections since prices seem to be holding steady in a rough economy. However, it was disheartening as a buyer to see mid grade silver and bronze books that I buy and see on ebay all the time being marked up double and triple what they usually fetch online.

 

On the other hand, if the sellers were making a decent amount of sales with those prices, then that actually makes me feel better about my past buying habits since I tend to buy a lot of VF mid grade stuff, but haven't had a lot of faith in their future resale value since most of the collectors I hear about tend to only want HG stuff.

 

DC booth was a disappointment. This is always one of the highlights of comic-con for me because DC always has great signings and cool giveaways. Unfortunately for this con, they only had about two or three of the same artists signing each day and did not bring down any of the big names to the booth (Dave Gibbons, Bruce Timm) that were attending the con for other DC panels. They only had about 50 Watchmen movie posters for the whole con and only gave them out with about an hour left at the con on Sunday afternoon. It looks like Time Warner is really scaling back on what they are allowing DC to spend on promotions.

 

Artists Alley - I always try to pick up some commissions and sketches from the artists and while there was a decent selection of artists, many dropped out at the last minute and didn't show up during the weekend at all. For a con this big, it was actually kind of a disappointment. I got a few nice pieces from Dave Johnson, who was fantastic as usual and an all around great guy. I got on Art Adams list on Day 1 and was number 12 on the list, but he was so slow, he only got about 8 sketches done over the 3 days (and his work was not up to his usual standards in my opinion). J. Scott Cambell went to a lottery type system where you told him what character you wanted, how much you wanted to pay (suggested prices: $100, $500, and $1000) and if he was interested, he would give you a call. Love his art, but not really sure if it's worth it at those prices (these were basically head sketches). Overall, not a bad haul, but nothing to write home about either.

 

I don't think I would make the trip down from LA again for this con. It's a great local con, but it's not something to go out of your way for.

 

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

 

On the other hand, if the sellers were making a decent amount of sales with those prices, then that actually makes me feel better about my past buying habits since I tend to buy a lot of VF mid grade stuff, but haven't had a lot of faith in their future resale value since most of the collectors I hear about tend to only want HG stuff.

 

 

I am also a mid grade - mostly F-VF collector. I tend to buy them unslabbed. I am not so concerned about resale value as I am about undisclosed restoration and I know I have purchased books that have that issue. I have been toying with the idea of buying slabbed books in mid-grade and have started to do that but there are usually some interesting opportunities at shows with unslabbed books, but you take your chances.

 

I like to read my old comics not keep them in plastic but I don't think I would pull a 9.0 or above comic out of a slab and read it. Anyway, the bottom line is I think you have picked a good place to collect, it is much cheaper than high grade and you can find a good selection of material sometimes at a good price. I am trying to become more educated in regard to restoration. I tend not to think that all restoration is bad either, unless it is bad restoration.

 

Thanks for your show report.

[Aloha]

Yeah,

 

I love to read my books too. I've had some Golden Age graded 4.0's and below that I've bought slabbed and then cracked them out to read. I don't worry about restoration too much on books that are under $100 as long as I'm not paying close to guide.

[jimm94]

 

I don't think I would make the trip down from LA again for this con. It's a great local con, but it's not something to go out of your way for.

 

I flew all the way from Ohio for it, and it was worth every penny. Books at cons will never be as cheap as the low and mid grade stuff on eBay. There was an outstanding selection of gold, silver and bronze in all grades. In particular, there was an amazing number of Marvel SA keys available.

 

I don't worry about getting sketches/commissions done at shows. The artists are far too busy due to the number of people who attend. I just like to pick up sketch books and say hello if I really like their work. There may have been some scheduled guests that did not attend, but there were still a lot of great writers and artists there. Overall, I had a great time looking around and hanging out with friends.