Canadian National Comic Book Expo....who's going?

[justiceleaguer]

It's pretty ironic that Peter and Kevin were "banned" from being at Aman and James' show, yet both of these guys snuck into Kev's show in June and tried to recruit guests.

 

This feels like the basis for a "COMIC BOOK VILLANS 2" -script.

[Kevin Boyd]

It's pretty ironic that Peter and Kevin were "banned" from being at Aman and James' show, yet both of these guys snuck into Kev's show in June and tried to recruit guests.

 

Kind of, but we felt that it would only be correct to eject them if they promoted at our show. We didn't do anything until two different dealers complained about being approached with flyers and we saw James actively recruiting a guest. Why do you think they had new guest announcements on the week of June 21?

 

We would have let them in if they had actually asked to come in, and they could have promoted had they been willing to a fair agreement (flyers at our show, flyers at their show). Instead they snuck in the back door on dealer passes (again).

[Kevin Boyd]

Thankyou for the explanation kevin. I appreciate it...and kudos to you guys for sticking up to them. You guys have always been, as far as i'm concerned, the best comic shop in t.o. hands down. I can, however tell you, that i attend pretty much every con that you guys put out, and i honestly find yours much better...quality and atmosphere both. But until you guys can provide the same amount of dealers with a larger variety of material, which i'm sure you will one day,i'm not going to boycott them. Their selfish and bullying attitudes towards smaller companies in an interdependant industry is appaling, but at the moment they're my one big opportunity to finishing my collection. I'm sorry you won't be attending but i promise to have a moment of silence for you guys while i'm there in your honour.

 

Thanks, I appreciate that, and I'm sure Peter does too.

 

I wouldn't dream of asking or telling anyone not to go to the Expo. It's still a quality show and I don't want it to fail.

[Paradise_Comics]

Well I think Kevin summed it up well but I figure I will add my two cents. We indeed are banned from doing the show. I have always done well there and been a supporter from the beginning, but somehow Aman feels we are competition. In truth we just wanted a show that wasn't centered around Wizard top ten. I would be completely up for us promoting with flyers at each show. I don't see us as competition at all.

We are having a sale this weekend which is the same and more as the ones we have at the show traditionally so come on by if you can't find what you need there. We are only about 15 minutes away by car, 3278 Yonge St.

 

Thanks

Peter Dixon

[THE_BEYONDER]

Where is the expo..anyway?

[mitol]

Where is the expo..anyway?

 

3278 Yonge Street.

[THE_BEYONDER]

Where is the expo..anyway?

 

3278 Yonge Street.

 

[CGCMINT]

At the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, on Front street.

 

By the way, great show. I was able to get amazing sketches from Adam Hughes, Dale Eaglesham, Leonard Kirk and Tim Levins. By Saturday afternoon, around 12pm, the convetion hall was packed, lots of people and lots of sales.

 

John

[Kevin Boyd]

It was kind of funny and bizarre, but some guy called Peter up out of the blue this afternoon to congratulate him on holding such a successful show! (Meaning the Expo).

 

I hear the crowds were once again there at the Expo, as the hall reached capacity on a couple of occasions and they had to restrict access at various times.

 

Peter and I went down to the CBLDF Quick Sketch party at the Hard Rock Cafe at Skydome and we had a great time catching up with the local talent there and seeing some great work in progress. The auction is some time tomorrow afternoon, and I would recommend that if you are going to the show that you drop by and bid to support a great cause. I was talking with Ken from the CBLDF and it appears that they have a great guest in mind they would like to co-sponsor for next year's Toronto Comicon. Actually a lot of the artists seemed to have our show on the brain and are very excited about what to do next year.

 

Once again I would like to say thanks to all of the people who have been supporting our show - but I'd like to add that there's no reason why you shouldn't go down and check out the Expo. At the very least you will be able to see the glaring differences between the Expo and Comicon, and understand why the two shows aren't competing, and as a fan in Toronto I think you can really get the best of both worlds between Comicon and the Expo.

 

I might wander down there tomorrow (I will pay) to say hello to a lot of the dealers and artists who I haven't caught up with this weekend already (at parties, etc.). If they kick me out, they kick me out.

 

Kev

 

BTW we confirmed the date and location for next year:

 

TORONTO COMICON 2005

APRIL 29 - 30, MAY 1

EAST ANNEX

NATIONAL TRADE CENTRE

 

Confirmed guests (since Friday):

Dave Sim

J. Torres

Kalman Andrasofsky

J. Bone

Stuart Sayger

The Hive (Tom Fowler, Eric Kim, Attila Adorjany, Ramon Perez)

Willow Dawson

Matthew Mohammed

Tyrone McCarthy & Kilrush

 

Look for more announcements soon. This is very early in the process, but I think we will have most of the same local faces (plus a few more). We have already been talking with some great out-of-town guests and they have been waiting for us to confirm our dates and location before agreeing to come.

[Kevin Boyd]

Just looking over their promotional handout, uh, con booklet. I see that they have decided to schedule a one-day promotional event, a "fan appreciation day" (they owe Dynamic Forces for that idea) on May 29, which would have been three weeks prior to our OLD convention dates. Which is definitely deliberate.

 

Apparantly they are relying on stores to hand out admission vouchers with a $10 purchase at their store.

 

I'll give it to them for their sheer determination to screw us over.

 

Not sure who will be going to this, with Anime North 2005 scheduled for the same weekend they won't have the support of a number of dealers who know they will make money at Anime North. And the Toronto Comic Arts Festival is scheduled for the week before, and now our show is scheduled for a month before that. It all seems kind of anti-climactic now.

 

Congratulations, guys. You know, they kind of remind me of Wile. E. Coyote.

[justiceleaguer]

Well, i finally decided to write a report on this years' con......... I was not impressed at all. With the amount of money that these guys are rakin in per person, and the thousands of people that attended you'de figure they would be able to afford a few freakin felt barriers so people knew where the hell to go and where the lines started. 45 minutes in line to buy tickets to get in, and another 25 minutes in the line to get up the escalator, only to get to the top and realize there was nowhere to freakin move to. The entire con floor looks like it had been compressed to it's breaking points. Walking from one end of the hall to the other took about a good ten minutes. With this years addition of the "horror con" the amount of space dedicated to everyone else, especially dealers, has shrunk tremendously. Waiting behind people for five minutes to reach the dealer table, then realizing the dealer had either [!@#%^&^] or way-overpriced decent material was frustrating to say the least. I spent about 2 hours there before i decided i couldn't take it anymore. The sad part is that i spent $20 and a good 4 hours there and ended up walking out with only 1 lousy book!!! And to top it off, if you were getting hungry or thirsty....tough [!@#%^&^]. There were two pop machines in the whole place...one wasn't working and the was sold out. There was a small snack booth but i'll be damned if i was gonna wait in another 20 minute line-up at this point. What a waste of my day!!! I can't wait for the next paradise con. You guys are so much more organized and proffesional. Anyways, that's my rant...i mean report for the day.

[Kevin Boyd]

I just got home, so here's my report.

 

I decided to head down around 2pm with my friend Tyrone. While I was waiting I spoke to Peter, who told me that a transformer had blown downtown and the Expo had to be evacuated. We decided to go anyway, so I grabbed my hat and by the time we got down to the show everything seemed to be up and running again.

 

I entered the main foyer, which was cluttered with kids sitting around talking anime and playing with their toys (by kids I mean teens and younger). Got to the ticket purchase area and some kid told us we had to give our name and address in order to get in. So, since I had just watched Purple Rain yesterday I went in as "Jerome Benton" (Morris Day's assistant from the Time) and Tyrone was "Adam Weston". We bought our tickets and headed upstairs.

 

Main floor of the con was packed. I made the rounds talking to the dealers I knew. Most were doing OK, but only a few were doing better than our June show. Everyone seemed to be excited and positive about the next Paradise show. Not looking for any books in particular I just hung out and talked to friends. Some dealers were saying it was a terrible show for them sales-wise, that the kids weren't even looking. A number of dealers expressed interest in getting Peter and I to "make peace" with Aman. I'd like there to be peace too... but Hobby Star keeps pushing.

 

Artist Alley was interesting. I could tell they had been to our show because the setup seemed to be a little more like ours, with mid-level guests getting their own sign and backdrop. Too bad those blue and white backdrops look like [!@#%^&^]. Everyone was kind of miffed about being squashed in like sardines. I bought a JLA v. Titans print from Tim Levins (the piece that was the back cover to our program booklet, for $10. Talked with J. Torres, and a couple of other locals who all seemed unimpressed with the Expo and have lots of ideas for the next Paradise con. Kept running into Steve McNiven, who is one of the nicest guys around. He seems interested in coming back to our show next year.

 

Heard Aman on the loudspeaker telling dealers to book for the next "Toronto Comicon" one-day show in October. I joked a bit with dealers, saying "I thought the Toronto Comicon was a three-day show". They also announced their now free (as the stores apparantly aren't interested in doing the $10/free voucher deal) May 29 Fan Appreciation Event.

 

It dawned on me that The Toronto Comic Arts Festival is around that time, so a quick trip over to the Beguiling's booth confirmed that this "Fan Appreciation Day" is scheduled for the same weekend. Needless to say, they are not amused, nor are the dealers who have already booked for Anime North, also the same weekend.

 

Anyway, I was getting tired, and I lost Tyrone, so I packed up and headed out just before closing time at 6.

 

General impressions:

- room was packed to the gills.

- no real superstar guests on the floor except for Mack

- main artists were downstairs in some signing area room, so if you were there for the guests, why bother to come upstairs at all?

- very disorganized looking show

- demoralized artists alley

- horror expo was a great launch for Rue Morgue

- sci-fi area was kind of barren, almost no guests signing

[justiceleaguer]

My sentiments exactly kevin. And just incase you didn't notice, next year they are apparently adding a "gaming con" area. Talk about claustraphobic.

[Kevin Boyd]

Yes, but in their defense, they plan to expand the show into a second hall in 2005. That means they will be going from 50,000 square feet to 100,000 square feet. I would imagine that would allow them to spread out some more and add in the gaming areas.

[justiceleaguer]

Yes, but in their defense, they plan to expand the show into a second hall in 2005. That means they will be going from 50,000 square feet to 100,000 square feet. I would imagine that would allow them to spread out some more and add in the gaming areas.

 

That may be true, but i'm guessing that will just lead to twice the amount of confusion if the organizers don't get their thumbs out of their asses. You guys should be hired as consultants for them, maybe they'll finally get it right then.

[Kevin Boyd]

You guys should be hired as consultants for them, maybe they'll finally get it right then

 

That's not likely too happen.... um, ever.

[Kevin Boyd]

Fan Appreciation Day has mysteriously migrated to April 23 or May 1, depending on who you talk to. Hmmm... wonder why that would happen?

[mitol]

Fan Appreciation Day has mysteriously migrated to April 23 or May 1, depending on who you talk to. Hmmm... wonder why that would happen?

 

I've always tried to remain objective, not having ever met the people running the Canadian National, but if the date for this Fan Appreciation Day has really been set close to the date of the Toronto Comicon, then I guess the proof is undeniable.

 

As a pure comic collecting enthusiast, I have never once witnessed competition between the Toronto Comicon and the Canadian National. Coming from Vancouver where shows lasted only one day (barely) and there's even more excitement generated at the local Blockbuster in comparison, I thought what a good thing it is to be in Toronto where there are actually two weekend-long conventions with real dealers and healthy numbers of guests.

 

If a competition between the two shows does exist, is there any proof to back that claim? In other words, do the people running the Canadian National have any concrete numbers showing that since the Toronto Comicon's inception, the attendance numbers for the Canadian National has gone down?

 

I don't believe it's out of place to say that the Toronto Comicon is a comics-only show while the Canadian National has become the Walmart of collectibles shows. You want comics, bingo! You want anime, bingo! You want sci-fi, bingo! You want authentic weapons, bingo again! Just calling 'em as I see 'em. Where's the direct competition?

 

For me and many collectors I know, it's simple. If you're running a show that we're interested in attending, then we'll be there. If there are two shows we're interested in attending, we'll be there too. But if you try to force us into attending one show only by publicly and blatantly attempting to kill off the so-called "competition", well, then there are plenty of US shows that offer so much more to me, the comic collecting consumer than the Canadian National. One show does not a monopoly make. You still have to offer what people are looking for.

 

Alone, I affect nothing, but multiply a disgruntled me by 10, 100, 1000 and then we'll make a difference. To make it simple, grow up!!! Redirect all this "let's squash the opponent" energy into running a better show and everybody wins. The consumer wins because they want to attend the show and the more consumers that want to attend the show, the more tickets sold.

[justiceleaguer]

"If you hire porn stars, they will come"

[Ares]

"If you hire porn stars, they will come"

 

In more ways than 1!