Comicpalooza (Texas International Comic Convention) 2013

[alxjhnsn]

Well, Comicpalooza is over and I thought I'd generate a con report.

 

I have a bunch of pictures that you can see here:

 

MY ATTENDANCE

I was there most of Friday, Saturday late afternoon with the full family, and I went back almost at closing on Sunday.

 

This was a weekend of conflicts for me and that limited my con-time. On Saturday, I had a Rice game at 11am so I didn't get to the con until about 3pm. On Sunday, I was delayed by church in the AM and Rice winning the C-USA Baseball Tournament (1pm start). I have priorities!

 

I bring this up because I was limited in my ability to attend breakout sessions and so on.

 

 

BASIC LAYOUT

 

The con is on three floors and uses Halls A, B, and C.

 

The ground floor has three sections (L-R): artist alley, autograph room, dealers room, and more autographs. The second floor was for administrative stuff, e.g. ticket purchases and Will Call. The third floor had sporting events (Quidditch, Roller Derby, Wrestling, etc.), a stage, and the breakout rooms. I think there's another stage to the far right, but I didn't go that far down the way.

 

 

PARKING and FOOD

There's adequate parking around the GRB. $12 underground across the street. Surface level for $10 (generally) and the Hilton has hourly charges with a $12 maximum at the hotel. All in all, it's not bad if you aren't coming and going during the day.

 

Food was present (behind the dealers area) and there was a nice selection. However, there was no signage and if you didn't know it was there, it was a little hard to find. There were also some snack stands around the 1st and 3rd floors.

 

 

IMPRESSIONS

 

Organization: The con is still growing and there were the usual problems. Most of them were minor - late guest badges and a couple of guests without rooms. Otherwise, I was pretty impressed. Security was good and unobtrusive. Con volunteers were available to watch booths without too much effort to find one. The Con staff was friendly and helpful. All in all, I think that they did a great job.

 

 

Attendance: One rumor said that there were 20,000 days sold (call it 7000 per day). It didn't feel crowded though because the GRB is huge. The aisles between the rows were large and the crowds could move through them while shoppers were at the booth. That's a plus, but it does make the con feel sparsely attended. I'd guess they could use the same layout and handle twice the attendees if the need arose.

 

 

Tickets: I bought my family's tickets on-line and Will Call handled them in moments. That was really nice. There were about 9 booths open selling tickets and the lines seemed to move, but it was really long on Saturday at 3pm. I didn't get there soon enough on Sunday and I had early access on Friday.

 

 

Artists Alley: George Perez is amazing - signing, sketching, and smiling without a break seemingly. Bernie and Liz Wrightson were there signing and selling a few pieces. Bob Layton was signing and sketching. Thomas Zahler (Love and Capes), Paul Maybury (Dogs of M.A.R.S and some not yet released stuff), and Brent Peeples (Last of the Greats) were all doing the same.

 

Thom's a friend so I spent probably too much time at his booth scaring his customers away, but I think it was okay.

 

After two years, I finally bought a page of art from Brent. I really enjoyed "Last of the Greats." He had a great page with most of the cast last year that I really wanted, but couldn't pull the trigger on. It's sold, of course. This year though he was trying to clear his files and the lesser pages were inexpensive. I got a nice example and he made enough money to get back to Dallas.

 

By the way, I'm not very smart. I had some items I wanted George to sign and forgot them. I had a book that I wanted Bernie to sign and forgot it. Sigh... The good news is my daughter was at the house and she brought them and lunch to me.

 

There were a number of independents offering their books, signing, and sketching. I bought a few books and posters and talked to a few of the artists and writers.

 

Of course, "artist" does not just mean people who draw. There were lots of "stuff" makers, some writers, and lots of fan groups (Various SW, ST, HP, and others of a similar vein). I'm amazed at the number of people who make jewelry or related decorations and sell them at these shows. I'd bet 1/3 of the booth space was that kind of material.

 

The groups are always a lot of fun to visit. Always in costume and very enthusiastic about their particular group. I enjoy them for the atmosphere that they bring.

 

 

Dealers Room: Not enough comics in the dealers room. I understand a couple of national dealers were turned away due to lack of space. Sad if true. Still, there were books that really tempted me. One was a very nice (from what I could tell at a distance) copy of Adventure 247. The first appearance of the Legion of Super-Heroes. That book is pretty scarce and I've only seen a few. I have one that is pretty beat up, but it only cost me $25. Other than that, my youngest daughter and I went Katy Keene hunting with no real success. Harvey Yee had one, but she has it. Bedrock has two, one she has. The other wasn't compelling enough so she let it pass.

 

There were (literally) tons of toys. I'm not much of a toy collector (my wife breathes a sigh of relief at that, I'm sure), but there seemed to be adequate numbers of folks selling them.

 

There were book sellers, too, e.g., Murder by the Book. Kevin J. Anderson had a booth and was there most of the time selling his stuff. Seems like a nice guy, but the books he wrote with Brian Herbert filling out the Dune universe are populated by stiff, cardboard characters and stilted dialog. I don't know that that is Kevin's fault, but it sure cuts down my interest in his other work.

 

 

Autographs: I'm not really much into to celebrity autographs, but there were a lot of folks and they seemed to be well visited. I stopped and talked to Chris Claremont for a bit and got his autograph. $1 per signed item and all I had was a $20 bill. He could make change though.

 

Patrick Steward was there and spoke to the crowd up on the 3rd floor. Drew a huge crowd as he discussed making the new X-Men movie from Chris' Days of Future Past story (best X-Man story ever, IMO). Chris seemed pretty upbeat about it. He loves the casting.

 

My youngest wanted to talk to Patrick Stewart and get a picture with him, but he charges $80 for a signed headshot and a few moments of conversation. That wasn't a compelling enough deal for her so we passed.

 

We really wanted to see Cary Elwes - Wesley from the Princess Bridge, but he cancelled after I bought their tickets. That made all of them very sad.

 

Four people had special tickets (they didn't handle cash), the rest were walk up and talks. Generally, the lines were short but steady for all the folks that I saw.

 

 

BREAKOUTS

 

I didn't go to many breakouts because my time was so limited on Saturday and Sunday. However, I've attended many conferences at the GRB and their breakout rooms are excellent. Noise was not a problem from room to room as it was last year.