FanExpo - a quick report before my laptop battery dies

[drewincanada]

Saturday at the Expo:

 

Traffic wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I drove from home to the MTCC in about 15 minutes, and parked at Lakeshore and Simcoe, a 2 minute walk from the Convention Centre.

 

What a difference from last year. No lineups whatsoever at 1:30 pm on a Saturday. The show floor was extremely busy, but it was still easy to manoeuvre around the aisles.

 

It was a strong con for comics (at least as far as Toronto cons go). Vast tables of $1-3 books for the bargain hunters, and good representation of high grade gold and silver from Roy, Jamie, Harley and at least half a dozen others.

 

Congrats to Hobbystar and the FanExpo organizers for a solid show and nearly none of the overcrowding and lineup headaches of last year's con.

 

I was there for about 6 hours today. Spent the first hour or 2 looking through the $1 bins for a friend of mine, and filled about 50 holes in his collection. Then I wandered the floor for an hour or so, checking out the artists alley, the celeb area, and the other booths.

 

Stopped at Warner's booth to chat with the woman who runs their PR dept. (Warner is a client of mine.) They went all out this year, with a booth that's about 6 times the size it was last year, including a solid steel replica of the famous Warner water tower.

 

I was a little disappointed to see that there was a massive lineup to get an autograph from Tom Felton, while a few feet away there was only the occasional walk-up to get an autograph from Martin Landau and Malcolm McDowell. (EDIT: I realized that last sentence wasn't entirely clear: I was disappointed for Landau and McDowell, not because I couldn't get a Felton autograph!)

 

Spent some time chatting to Roy and Lou, and then it was time to go.

 

My only significant purchase was a Gene Colan OA page from Tomb of Dracula. An excellent example of Gene's work, and a fair price.

 

On Thursday I had my eye on a Bill Everett Sub-Mariner early bronze age page (1972 I believe). A really sweet page with Everett inking his own pencils. The dealer was asking $1K firm, which I thought was more than fair. I was tempted, but decided I couldn't really spend that kind of cash. On Saturday morning, Albert Moy spotted the page and snapped it up immediately. I expect to see it for sale again soon at 2-3 times the price he paid.

 

Left the show at 7:30, then drove over to the Canadian National Exhibition (another client!), had some ribs for dinner, and watched the first half of the Loverboy concert. The Kid Is Hot Tonight! Serious 80s time warp.

 

A most excellent summer Saturday in Toronto.

[A Baker Girl]

Roy i look at it as a great adventure. For someone having a great partner (hi lou), good kids, and possessing high dollar books, thats good karma bro!

 

Thanks

 

Roy & I make a great team and we have been very blessed to have 6 amazing kids to share between us too !

 

(thumbs u