Wizard World Philly

[Foolkiller]

Last update fellas:

 

SteveB

Paul Litch

Mark Haspel

Shawn Caffrey

Jerry Stephan

Foolkiller

DAM60*

Shadroch*

Rob_react*

TomG *

Flying Donut*

Red Skull*

Chrisco*

Solar

Mitol*

Lantern *

Peter Dixon

Kevin Boyd*

Hari Naidu

Bronzebruce*

Ted VanLiew (w/ Mossow)

ArnoldT*

Bob Storms

Captain Tripps

Gary Platt

 

anyone I missed?

[Foolkiller]

Here are the plans: let's try and all convene at the CGC booth between 5:30 and 6:00 PM (when the show ends) by the time we all assemble and actually get going, I'm sure it will be 6:30, which is the time of our reservation.

 

At the point of arrival, we will be in the Palumbo South room where appetizers will be served from 6:30 - 7:15... from basically 7:30 - 9:30 salad, pasta and entree courses will be served, and then dessert... we are set to depart at around 10 or so (although I'm sure that's flexible)... we can then either hang out at the bar there, or walk to one of the local ones within walking distance.

 

Please PM me if need be for my cell if you are going to have questions or concerns.

 

 

SteveB

Paul Litch

Mark Haspel

Gemma

Jerry Stephan

Foolkiller

DAM60*

Shadroch*

Rob_react*

TomG *

Flying Donut*

Red Skull*

Chrisco*

Solar

Mitol*

Lantern *

Peter Dixon

Kevin Boyd*

Hari Naidu

Bronzebruce*

Ted VanLiew (w/ Mossow)

ArnoldT*

Bob Storms

Captain Tripps

Gary Platt

[shadroch]

Poker,Anyone?

[Foolkiller]

if we had enough interest, we could have a game afterwards at my house... I'd be willing to get beer and set it up... or we could just talk at the show.

[chrisco37]

if we had enough interest, we could have a game afterwards at my house... I'd be willing to get beer and set it up... or we could just talk at the show.

 

Man, we could set the game up in your back yard. Wouldn't even need to pre-buy beer...We could get a waitress from the bar to serve us over the fence!

 

Brian's house is sweet!

[dam60]

if we had enough interest, we could have a game afterwards at my house... I'd be willing to get beer and set it up... or we could just talk at the show.

 

Man, we could set the game up in your back yard. Wouldn't even need to pre-buy beer...We could get a waitress from the bar to serve us over the fence!

 

Brian's house is sweet!

 

dude, Brian is big pimpin!

[Comcasthawk]

Hey guys, what day is best to go to the show, Saturday or Sunday?? I am bringing big bucks to the show hoping to get a good deal by buying in bulk...

[shadroch]

Most often,Sunday is the best time for deals. Either dealers have had a [!@#%^&^] show and are trying to salvage something or have had a good show and don't want to pack all their stuff back up. The best deals are most often found in the first and last hours of any show.As long as you are aware that at the end of the show you'll be buying stuff that everyone else has passed on.Keeping this in mind,if you find things you want,you should get some bargins.

Bring large bills and let the dealers see your bankroll.

Scout out your options ahead of time,don't waste their time and you should be able to get a nice deal.

[Solar]

Hey guys,

 

I got called into work today (where I'm still stuck) and had to bail from the con at noon, hence my no show. I dont have anyone's cell, so I couldnt get in touch. I really apologize if I hold anybody up. Since I prepaid, get a round of drinks on me!

[dam60]

So you are probably wondering what I am doing up at 6:20am (now 7:15! it took me an hour to write this post with all these pics!). Well, that's how awesome Wizard World Philly was!!

 

Took the ever-lovin' Chinatown bus down to philly this AM which got me to the con at 11. It was a smooth ride and the lines in Philly (and I was an advance ticket holder!) were surprising. TONS of people. So I came in, got my daredevil father and then hit the cgc booth. Submitted some Valiants and said a few hellos.

 

The floor set up was good - it accomodated all the people well. A good selection of dealers (all the "usual suspects") but with a few guys that you don't always see in NY - aka graham crackers and tons of original art dealers.

 

The dinner was great - props to Brian for getting us our own room and our own menu. Really nice atmosphere for mingling. We had 4 8 man tables this year as oppossed to one gargantuan table in the middle of the main dining room last year. It was really nice. I ended up leaving early as my best friend was visiting NYC this week from Columbia and wish I could have spent more time but nevertheless it was a great time and I'm already looking forward to next year. Bar none, Wizard World East is the biggest and the best East Coast show and has the best forumite attendance.

 

A picture is worth a thousand words, so let's start:

 

At the CGC booth with Mitol Kevin Boyd and Gemma. The Cerebus's were unreal - all killer books great grades and great story behind it.

 

Foolkiller and Chrisco

 

Arnold T and Tom Gordon

 

When do we eat? Lunch l to r:

Tom Gordon, Foolkiller, Chrisco, ArnoldT, me

 

Rob React in Artist's Alley

 

Me with The Godfather Himself (BronzeBruce)

 

Me with Buzz - the best artist out there!

 

Talk about the royal treatment!

 

The CGC Room!!

 

Thanks to Foolkiller for the excellent food and the super respect!! Our own menu! WOW!

 

Tom G and I

 

Superworld Comics

 

Rob React, Flying Donut and Bronze Bruce

 

Tom G, PaulLitch, Foolkiller

 

Brian aka Lantern and his wife "Tory"(?)

 

Me and Paul

 

KevinBoyd, Gemma and ParadiseComics

 

The Good Captain, Chrisco, Litch and Quality

 

For the record Tripps brought some of the babies out tonight - wow. Even as a die hard DC guy seeing some of his stuff had me pretty speechless. How often do you see a FF #1 cgc 9.6!!!

 

Chrisco's holy grail courtesy of the good Captain

 

Here's Arnold with Tripps FF 4 cgc 9.6!!!

 

After a few drinks Foolkiller's thoughts on CGC come out! Take that Mark!

 

Heres' to a great show! See you all next year!

[Ares]

Hotdamm Gemma's cute..

Put her in the babe test

[supapimp]

Hotdamm Gemma's cute..

Put her in the babe test

 

[awe4one]

Only one of pictures will load......

 

Jim

[supapimp]

it's fine for me.

[Foolkiller]

It's 4:30 PM on Sunday... and the Wizard World East weekend has finally come to a close for me... personally, I'm exhausted. But, it was well worth it as I had a great time this weekend.

 

First, the thank yous.

 

Thank you first and foremost to Steve Borock. Steve, gracious as always, even with his busy, busy schedule, made the forum dinner a real success. His (and CGC's) generosity is without words, and his enthusiasm for comics reaffirms not only my faith in CGC as a company, but also makes me realize how much Steve cares about comics and the fans and the hobby. Although I have obviously met and spoken to Steve on several occassions before, I was really impressed by how he goes out of his way with the fans and just how much he's willing to do for the board members (including answering questions debating points etc., etc.). He's also great to watch with other people who aren't comics fans as he's such a genuine person.

 

Thanks to the other CGC guys who came out even after doing on site all day long. It was great seeing Mark Haspel after a couple of years and I found out I had a lot to talk to him about. The guy is so incredibly knowledgeable about comics (especially golden age books) it's just staggering. I had great time talking to him at the dinner and it was an extremely informative one.

 

Thanks to Paul Litch (sorry about the Flyers dude) who I also had a chance to talk with, but unforuntely didn't see as much of, because he was working... as always, Paul is a fun guy to just hang out with. Thanks to Gemma and Shawn Cafferty who also were busy all day at the CGC booth taking subs and the like. It was great finally putting a face to the name and it was just a blast!

 

Thanks to all the board members who I got a chance to meet (mostly again) including Rob React, Bronzebruce, DAM60, Shadroch, Captain Tripps, Red Skull, Chrisco, Lantern, Flying Donut, Kevin Boyd, and Peter from Paradise Comics... the show would not be the same without you guys, and I certainly wouldn't have rated my weekend such a success.

 

Onto the actual con report now...

 

Friday:

 

Unfortunately, I got to the con a little later on Friday than I wanted to as I got stuck doing a trial in the morning that I thought would take almost no time at all. However, I did get in the doors around 12:30 pm or so, and I would say for a Friday, it was fairly busy.

 

This year, the layout of the floor was much better and seemingly more organized. The first thing I did was go to the CGC booth and picked up some books I had dropped off a little early for on site grading. I was pleased with the results that I got on the books, and they were dead on with what I had graded them earlier. Since I had very little into the books, I was even happier. While on the floor then, I was able to sell a number of items that I wanted to move at good prices.

 

At around 1:30 I went to lunch with some co-workers then returned to the floor at 2:30 for about three more hours wandering around, seeing who was there and what they were carrying. I didn't go to any panels or see much of the exhibitor booths and talked a little to Buzz and wandered through artist's alley.

 

At 5:30 I left the show and went out later for the evening but didn't do anything with board members or anything comic related.

 

Saturday:

 

Being out really late, and not getting much sleep the whole week, made for one tired guy on Saturday morning. I woke up at 6:30 AM and couldn't fall back asleep... so I cleaned my house a bit and set out for the con at about 10 AM. Early on, I ran into Dave, Chris and Brian (Lantern) and his wife (who was really a pleasant person, who I learned was into comics no less!) On three hourse of sleep, looking at a packed convention hall seems like it's almost not worth it, but once I hit the floor and I started meeting people, I was starting to feel less tired. After hanging out at the CGC booth for awhile and gawking at the Dave Sim file copies, Chris, Dave, Tom Gordon, Arnold Bloomburg and I went out to lunch at the Reading Terminal market. I went back to the show but was waiting for a friend of mine to meet up with me so I could get out a little on some non comic related adventure in the middle of the day... but in the meantime wandered by Superworld's booth. As I was talking to Ted I decided to take a look at his copy of GL 76 that he had. The book was beautiful and the best raw copy of this book I had seen in years. Although structurally probably an 8.5, maybe a 9.0, what made the book so amazing to me was that the page quality was unbelievable... they were bone white. Chrisco and I discussed the book and he was also impressed by the quality of the book, and Ted gave me a nice price on it ($230) and I bought it. The book was very nice, and it's going to make a sweet addition to my collection.

 

After I bought that book, I wandered out to meet my friend for about two hours or so she could have lunch and I could just kind of unwind from the con for a bit. But I trudged back in for more at around 3:45 or so and headed to the Avengers panel. Here's the big negative of Wizard World this year... the panels were awful. Joe Quesada and the artists and writers need to seriously reexamine how much they blow off fans... and I'm not even a big modern guy. To me, their attitude bordered on condescending and rude. They were taking questions, and rarely answering them with the respect they deserved. They were more into making inside jokes with each other and the like. Worst of all, the panel provided little to no real knowledge about the Avengers. I heard from those that went to the DC panel and the like that it was similarly awful at each of them. There were some fanboys who didn't seem to care, but to me, Wizard needs to reexamine the guest list... here it was pretty underwhelming as, let's be honest, Michael Turner was NOT EVEN CLOSE to the draw Jim Lee and Alex Ross have been in the past. The rest of the guests were ok, and while I love JG Jones and Jim Starlin, it would've been nice for the modern fans to meet more of their favorite artists and writers at such a major con... plenty of great talent in the building, but I thought the buzz about it was just siginificantly less.

 

At 5:30, we started assembling for the Forum Dinner at Maggiano's (see DAM's pictures) and it was a blast. Food was good, company was great and it was a wonderful time. had a great conversation with Mark Haspel, Flying Donut and Ted VanLiew throughout the evening.... It was a blast. Seeing Doug Schmell's books made drool, and it had nothing to do with food... it's just stunning FF#1 9.6 AHHHHHH!!!!! Afterwards, stalwarts including myself, Rob React, Chrisco and Shadroch went to the Marriot Hotel Bar and talked til about 2 AM on various comics subjects.

 

Sunday:

 

Got to the show around 11 AM, bought some books from Bob, and because of a mix up I think Bob might have had about which "Brian" emailed him about Captain Americas, I wanted Lantern to actually get first crack at the Boston Cap 110... which was a beautiful book -- glad to see it go to a great home!

 

As always, I couldn't walk from the Blazing One's table empty handed and picked up a TOS 59 ($160, nice eye appeal upper mid grade F/VF prob) and a Cap 113 ($155). I did purchase the Cap 110 for Lantern and gave it to him for whatever it was I thought I paid with discount built in: $100.

 

I went then to Ted's table and traded a piece of artwork and got a beautiful Warlock #9 (value $45) and a Thor 126 (value $100). Ted is a great, friendly guy and his attitude towards customer relations and doing business is fantastic. He's probably the nicest dealer around and I will always make an effort to shop with Ted. You have to look at the books carefully, but the experience is such a good one, it keeps me coming back.

 

I picked up a number of trades including a collection of Alan Moore Swamp Thing, Emarld Dawn I and II and the Adam Strange trade with the story done by the Kubert bros.

 

I also picked up a number of dollar and 3 for a dollar books... fun stuff, nothing amazing.

 

On the way out I found a beautiful Nick Fury #4 (fantastic cover) that's easily a 9.2 possibly 9.4 for $84 from a Canadian dealer (can't remember the name).

 

The show Sunday was slower, but more pleasant environment for buying books... I wish I had really started looking harder, because I might have bought more.

 

 

Wizard World East was a blast, and I look forward to next year and seeing everyone again at the next con!

[supapimp]

thanks for the great report killa!

[Red Hook]

Thanks for the posts guys.......great pix DAM....although I am seriously concerned about the length of Borock's hair....DAMN HIPPIE!

 

And a great report Fool!

[Comcasthawk]

I went to show on Sunday and I have to say one thing: everyone had great books!!! I even saw a Marvel Comics #1 at 1.5 grade. I haven't seen that book at a show since '72 was I was 11 years old!!

 

I also saw alot of FF #1's. I ws glad to see some back in circulation and I almost bought a Fine copy but the dealer wanted $2500 and I was willing to part with $2000.

 

One thing of note, Thank God for eBay!!!! No, I'm not going to rant and rave about CGC or CGG or the prices of high grade books. What astounded me was the price of mid-grade books at the con!!! Man, what are you dealers thinking..?? Don't they know that a VG copy of Tales of Suspense won't be bought at $85???

 

Most dealers were very nice and I have the utmost respect for what they do..................but,.....................it seems that the "hobby" has become somewhat of "elitist" form of "keeping up with the Joneses"." Man o man, does anyone collect for the love of the book(art and writer} anymore. I guess since I am not able to buy the expensive stuff envy and jealousy might play a part.

 

But, I ask you all, when will the ceiling come down on all of this....??

[deathlok]

But, I ask you all, when will the ceiling come down on all of this....??

 

JC? Gene?

 

 

 

[RedSkull]

 

I had a great time at the show and dinner.Steve really goes out of his way to make the collector feel he is a say in what goes on in the industry. Now if Steve can only enlighten the owners of NGC of the importance that the collector plays in their business future. As a spokesman for CGC Steve does a great job of promoting the industry trust people expect in the CGC grading system. That trust is fostered at the CGC booth and the dinner gatherings afterwards. Wake up NGC Management and listen to Steve's ideas. Though he has a tough nut to crack in the shadowy coin world mentality that dominates NGC thinking, where the only place the coin world meets the collector is at the mail box when your coins are delivered. Hats off to Steve for his enthusiasm and devotion to the comic industry.