WW Toronto con report - DAY TWO - all photos, all the time

[8milemax]

Is Wes Hagens sweater even legal?

 

awesome report

 

I can't believe that sweater. Wes has a knack of dressing in colorful colors. It seems that we peacocks each like to draw attention differently.

 

 

Go away, your supposed to be enjoying the show

 

Just joking

[VintageComics]

Is Wes Hagens sweater even legal?

 

awesome report

 

I can't believe that sweater. Wes has a knack of dressing in colorful colors. It seems that we peacocks each like to draw attention differently.

 

 

Go away, your supposed to be enjoying the show

 

Just joking

 

Just got back. We're staying at a hotel on the Lake Shore (5 minutes away) and about to head out for dinner with Paradise/CGC/Heritage and a few other cats.

 

 

[Bruno_s4]

Great pics Drew!

Good to see you again yesterday...

 

Can't believe it was busier on Friday than Saturday?

That's when everyone expected it would be busiest.

 

Who is going on Sunday? Any boardies?

 

[VintageComics]

Drew, this was a world class thread with photos of a world class city.

 

 

I can only encourage you guys to check out Toronto one day. I know it's my home town but it's just world class as far as atmosphere goes.

 

(thumbs u

[8milemax]

Is Wes Hagens sweater even legal?

 

awesome report

 

I can't believe that sweater. Wes has a knack of dressing in colorful colors. It seems that we peacocks each like to draw attention differently.

 

 

Go away, your supposed to be enjoying the show

 

Just joking

 

Just got back. We're staying at a hotel on the Lake Shore (5 minutes away) and about to head out for dinner with Paradise/CGC/Heritage and a few other cats.

 

 

Sounds fun.

 

[drewincanada]

Great pics Drew!

Good to see you again yesterday...

 

Can't believe it was busier on Friday than Saturday?

That's when everyone expected it would be busiest.

 

Who is going on Sunday? Any boardies?

 

Hey Bruno! Great to see you again, too.

 

No, it was definitely FAR busier today. But still relatively... um... "calm".

[drewincanada]

 

Just got back. We're staying at a hotel on the Lake Shore (5 minutes away) and about to head out for dinner with Paradise/CGC/Heritage and a few other cats.

 

 

Sounds like fun, Roy. I was hoping to get to Rob's board gathering, but I couldn't make it. I would have liked to hang with some of the folks at the con after hours, but at least I had a great opportunity for some extended conversations with people on Friday afternoon.

[VintageComics]

Great pics Drew!

Good to see you again yesterday...

 

Can't believe it was busier on Friday than Saturday?

That's when everyone expected it would be busiest.

 

Who is going on Sunday? Any boardies?

 

Hey Bruno! Great to see you again, too.

 

No, it was definitely FAR busier today. But still relatively... um... "calm".

 

Did you get the feeling that the isles were spaced far apart? Some of the dealers were saying that they were enjoying solid sales, and the crowd numbers seemed decent, but there was enough space to walk around.

 

From what I hear Wizard has already booked next year.

 

I spoke in detail with Heritage, Bob Storms and a few other US dealers how their presence up in Canada is not as strong as it could be. Canadians generally seem to remain fairly insulated from the US market and their presence in Canada at more shows may help break down the borders between the two countries as well as inspire hobbyists in Toronto, which used to be a terrific "comic town" years ago.

 

Anyhow, that was just a random comment I threw out there.

 

 

[cheetah]

What kind of process/paperwork does a US dealer have to go through to do sales at a con in Canada?

[thirdgreenham]

Great report, Drew! (thumbs u

 

Wish I were there.

 

Did you happen to notice any nice DC war books there?

 

Andy

[MattAllen]

Got back a little while ago. Today was much busier than Friday but the autograph area and artist alley to be pretty dead. It was already mentioned, but the dealer tables seemed a lot busier, which was great to see. The fire alarm was a bit of a person_without_enough_empathy, but thankfully it didn't last too long. And, they kept the show open an extra half hour to compensate (which I thought was a nice idea). Overall the show's been very pleasant so far, it's been great to meet some more boardies this time around.

 

Also, it's been great having CGC actually here again. I wish they'd come up more often! I don't know all their names but they've been really great. Special shout-out to Drew for doing the yeoman's work that is being the only CAW at the show.

[drewincanada]

Great report, Drew! (thumbs u

 

Wish I were there.

 

Did you happen to notice any nice DC war books there?

 

Andy

 

Hey Andy. Sorry, I paid no attention to the DC dreck.

 

I bet there were some lovely DC war books, though. I'm so used to the one-day cons at the MTCC where it's the same dealers every time, I was in paradise this weekend (both figuratively and literally - it may be a Wizard World con now, but it's still Paradise to me). There was a ton of great stuff to look at.

 

A shout out to all the US dealers who made the trek north (and to the Canadian dealers who only do the occasional show in Toronto): THANK YOU and please come back.

[SharpComics.com]

What kind of process/paperwork does a US dealer have to go through to do sales at a con in Canada?

 

I was just gonna ask the same question! (thumbs u So, can someone shed some light this?

[drewincanada]

 

Wes Hagan

 

 

Did you notice the "alphabetical order" signs on Wes' bins?

 

Wes has to have 100 long boxes that are entirely random. If you're looking for a specific book, you could spend 3 or 4 hours pouring through his boxes to try and find it.

 

Wes says he doesn't have time to put the books in order, but I think enough people griped about it that he has FINALLY (reluctantly) put some of his $3 books in some semblance of order.

 

He's only alphabetized a tiny fraction of his books, but it's a start.

[MightyBeanComics]

Gil Gerard looks great....Honkey Tonk, not so much.

[drewincanada]

 

Did you get the feeling that the isles were spaced far apart? Some of the dealers were saying that they were enjoying solid sales, and the crowd numbers seemed decent, but there was enough space to walk around.

 

From what I hear Wizard has already booked next year.

 

I spoke in detail with Heritage, Bob Storms and a few other US dealers how their presence up in Canada is not as strong as it could be. Canadians generally seem to remain fairly insulated from the US market and their presence in Canada at more shows may help break down the borders between the two countries as well as inspire hobbyists in Toronto, which used to be a terrific "comic town" years ago.

 

Anyhow, that was just a random comment I threw out there.

 

 

Yes, I agree that the aisles were quite wide – especially compared to the one-day MTCC cons.

 

I think that Canadian collectors are used to either buying online or traveling to US shows. They certainly aren't accustomed to having local access to the quantity and quality of books that we're seeing at this weekend's show.

 

I agree that it'll take a few more shows like this to build the proper buzz with Ontario collectors.

[LovinTheSurfer]

Weird but Alphabetizing is like my favorite thing to do...wonder if Wes would hire me to put all his books in order

[drewincanada]

What kind of process/paperwork does a US dealer have to go through to do sales at a con in Canada?

 

I was just gonna ask the same question! (thumbs u So, can someone shed some light this?

 

I can't recall which US dealer told me that it was a royal pain to get across the border. They had to have itemized documentation of their inventory. And they had to hire a customs broker, which ended up costing them about $1200. And it still wasn't easy. As you can imagine, telling Canada Customs that you're a comic book dealer makes them sit up and pay attention (and check you out especially carefully), if only because they're not used to hearing something like that.

[LovinTheSurfer]

looking at all these pics is killing me, I can't wait for the Boston Con!

[kimik]

Nice report. (thumbs u

 

The Calgary show in April looks like it is a busier event, though. If some of the US dealers were to venture a little further west for that they would likely clean up. There were only a couple of us there with accurately graded and priced books and we did very well. There were other dealers there with great stuff including a lot of Golden Age books, but one with nice books had a rep for not disclosing resto, and the other one was asking VF or better prices for GD to VG condition books. I know that Harley Yee used to do some shows up here in the past, and even if the sales were slow he cleaned up on trading/buying nice GA and SA books from local collectors for a song.