Philly Con reports...????

[Comcasthawk]

Let's hear 'em, please!!!

[arexcrooke]

Let's hear 'em, please!!!

Yep, dont keep us waiting any longer than you lucky bastads already have

[Foolkiller]

Tomorrow night I will do mine... busy tonight and tomorrow with work stuff.

[delekkerste]

The Philly show, by almost unanimous decree, was a huge dud.

 

This show was AWESOME last year. It was anything but that this year. Almost everybody I spoke to at the show wanted to know:

 

1. "Doesn't this feel a lot smaller than last year?" The aisles were not crowded. There were huge swaths of open space. It definitely seemed like the number of dealers and fans were down precipitously from last year.

 

2. "Where are the books?" Complaints all around that there was very little in the way of Golden Age and high grade books (I would add original art as well; this show had less art than a typical Big Apple Con in NYC). Even heavyweights like Motor City had much smaller displays than I am accustomed to seeing. Collectors I spoke to complained that there was nothing to spend their money on.

 

3. "Where are the guests?" I think Erica Durance from "Smallville" is hot, but she can't carry a major con. Kevin Smith was supposedly there too, though I didn't see him.

 

4. "Where are the artists?" Jim Lee was the marquee name there and there was a line like you wouldn't believe for him. The line was so long that a Philly resident would have been just as well off taking a train to NYC and getting in a shorter line to see him at one of his Big Apple Con appearances! Aside from Lee, I don't know if there were any other bona fide superstar artists there.

 

5. "Where are the fans?" The Forum Dinner had maybe 20 people and many of the usual suspects were MIA both at the show and at the dinner, thus supporting my contention that nobody bothered to show up.

 

The weather probably kept some fans away, but given that the number of dealers seemed to be way down and inventories were lean, I think it was going to be disappointing, regardless. I don't think it's tied to any downturn in comic values but rather due to (1) dampened enthusiasm due to the presence of the Javits Show in NYC; (2) poor marketing from Wizard (they apparently decided to rest on their laurels when aggressively stepping things up was needed to maintain their momentum going up against the NYC con for the attention of East Coast collectors); and (3) high gasoline prices.

 

As for my Con, I actually did pick up some art and trades from the indie series "Artesia" that I was looking for, so it was not a total loss. It was good to see the (few) other Forumites there as well, including hanging out with Greggy (who was stone cold passed out in the back seat of my car on the trip back to NYC ) and BronzeBruce (ok, Bruce, shall we discuss how much to keep me from posting those photos on the Boards? )

[langur88]

The Philly show, by almost unanimous decree, was a huge dud.

 

 

 

I have to strongly disagree. The only major differences were that the price of gas kept many fans and dealers from traveling and that the bootleg dealers were not there.

 

1. You can't blame Wizard for the price of gas.

2. The bootleggers and pirates do not belong with legitimate collectibles dealers. It was their absence that made the show appear smaller.

3. My booth sales were up over 30% from last year. There are some dealers who need to adjust their inventory and attitude. The show was fun and in a great venue. Thanks Wizard and Philadelphia.

[ArnoldTBlumberg]

I was just there on Sunday but it seemed pretty busy for wind-down day and still plenty of fun. And it was very refreshing not to see four hundred tables filled with illegal copies of Japanese horror movies and Saturday morning cartoons.

[fingfangfoom]

I agree. This show was definitely lacking. I had heard great things about last years show and was looking forward to another great show. For highgrade collectors there was little fresh material available. Some dealers out there are hauling around some very tired, and for some, well overpriced, inventory. I hope things get better before San Diego and Chicago. It's hard to justify a weekend hotel rate and airfare for 12 books. My "haul" was all pedigree copies, mostly Northlands, a few Bowling Green's, a couple Ohio's and a few Bostons. All Marvels and nothing really that stands out. More a case that I didn't want to go home entirely empty handed.

I'll pass on this show next year. I would rather attend Baltimore, it has as much to offer and is run better (I felt sorry for the hundreds of people stuck outside Saturday while the rain poured down and the Wizard photog ran up and down the lines snapping his pics. Memo to Wizard: water and comics don't mix well.)

Here's hoping that things pick up and that San Diego has a lot more to offer.

[esquirecomics]

I agree. Definitely not as good as last year, either in inventory or atmosphere. Though the schmoozing with forumites and colleages was worth the one day back and forth trip I made.

 

I think Baltimore is now a better show than Phily.

[Foolkiller]

Wizard World Philly Con Report:

 

Let me just say that as much as I hate to admit it, WW Philly was not a great show if you were looking for Vintage books or OA this year. I saw Vincent Zurzolo at the con on Friday and he basically indicated he didn't see all that much around either.

 

North Coast Collectibles (the guy who brought the Cleveland Collection to market) had a nice collection but there were 2 problems 1) it was unveiled in Pittsburgh where most of the dealers there got the first crack at it and before the show opened on Friday -- the rest of the dealers got to it. Had I been in the city Thursday, I would have gone over on set up day and picked through it. At least on Friday morning I would have gone early and seen a lot of it before it got picked through yet again. Even so, I was still able to pull some nice books out.

 

But other than that Friday was sort of a day where I spent it worrying about what shopping I was going to be able to do for the alleged forum dinner at my house – and lunch with all the guys at the Terminal. Other than that – it wasn’t all that exciting.

 

I felt less enthusiastic about WW Philly than I ever have before and checked out every single dealer’s stock at some point and just felt that there was very little material that was exciting – but as Dave Reynolds pointed out, I am super picky, so little was going to impress me. But I was looking for new inventory or exciting books, and I simply didn’t see it. Bob Storms’ new DC collection was nice, and as I said North Coast had some nice stuff… but overall, pretty disappointing… Ted from Superworld had some high grade but if you are trailing Brulato you’re going to have a hard time getting stuff – of course, if you had Brulato’s money, you could probably get access to the books that he does.

 

I saw him numerous times – have no idea what he did or did not buy.

 

Saturday was a better day at the show – much more packed with a ton of people in costume but a rainout at the forum dinner and we had to go to McCormack and Schmick’s – but it was still an okay turnout. I chalk up the low forumite turnout to my inability to lobby like I normally do and the absence of Steve Borock. We will be back next year in force.

 

Sunday was slow, but there were people there when I was there late afternoon still buying up stuff…

 

I'll post more detail later -- pretty tired right now...

[jkrk]

WIZARD WORLD PHILADELPHIA REVIEW

The show was fun, fun, fun! Tons of fans, artists and a strong dealer

presence. Congrats to Gareb and the gang at Wizard for a job well

done.

The buying trip worked out well and new acquisitions will be emailed to

you

within the next week!

 

 

 

Sounds like somebody did well.

[Foolkiller]

hype... to me nothing more.

[langur88]

hype... to me nothing more.

 

More negativity. The one percenter complaining that the overerall show was bad because it did not have enough of the tiny niche that he collects. We've heard it before. We get it. Is it okay for others to derive joy from this event? The anal retentives searching for the holy grail are never happy. If they found a mint Action 1 they would turn and say so where can I get a Tec 27? I saw the sad looks on the usual suspects, collectors and dealers. Some of us remain positive and keep selling books. Koops is a good example.

 

I had a insufficiently_thoughtful_person who attended my last Boston show complaining on these boards that the show sucked. I did a little research and found that he was disapointed by not finding original art by artists that were not at the show. What? Why would he expect art by non-attending artists? But he made some negative noise because he owns a computer, a screen name and fingers. But no credibility with his words.

 

Why does Foolkiller expect tons of new find high grade vintage comic books to spring forward at his approach? If they were easy to find there would not be so many "collectors" looking for these books and doing strange things to acquire them. This does not make a show "bad". You are in a small minority of the overall comic book collecting community. Please do not be a self hating comic book collector because you can never get enough so that everyone's show is "bad" if you don't find enough gold nuggets.

[Solar]

doing strange things to acquire them

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now where's my high grade comic?

[Foolkiller]

hype... to me nothing more.

 

More negativity. The one percenter complaining that the overerall show was bad because it did not have enough of the tiny niche that he collects. We've heard it before. We get it. Is it okay for others to derive joy from this event? The anal retentives searching for the holy grail are never happy. If they found a mint Action 1 they would turn and say so where can I get a Tec 27? I saw the sad looks on the usual suspects, collectors and dealers. Some of us remain positive and keep selling books. Koops is a good example.

 

I had a insufficiently_thoughtful_person who attended my last Boston show complaining on these boards that the show sucked. I did a little research found that he was disapointed by not finding original art by artists that were not at the show. What? Why would he expect art by non-attending artists? But he made some negative noise because he owns a computer, a screen name and fingers. But no credibility with his words.

 

Why does Foolkiller expect tons of new find high grade vintage comic books to spring forward at his approach? If they were easy to find there would not be so many "collectors" looking for these books and doing strange things to acquire them. This does not make a show "bad". You are in a small minority of the overall comic book collecting community. Please do not be a self hating comic book collector because you can never get enough so that everyone's show is "bad" if you don't find enough gold nuggets.

 

Y'know, I'm sure you would actually expect me to fire back defensively, but the truth is Dave, I actually would concede that your point has some validity, though I probably don't exactly agree with the extreme language you are using to state my opinion.

 

I'm not expect to find "tons" of new vintage high grade, but understand that a lot of the collectors had a similar reaction to me... I do realize that I am in the overwhelming small minority, but if you are asking for my impression, that's it.

 

Now the bottom line is that I'm not anonymous, you know who I am, come up and talk to me in person some time if you really disagree with me --

 

Were there a lot of fans there who enjoyed WW? I'm sure there were -- but the dealers area seemed smaller, people like Motor City had smaller set ups, Bedrock City and Quality Comix did not come at all... I saw fewer HG vintage books and the prices were still out of whack for what is happening in the marketplace --

 

and I will say this, I saw more overgraded books than EVER before at any one show that I can remember.

 

That said, I bought the following:

 

Cap 100 VF (eye appeal much better) North Coast -- White, white pages.

TOS 80 CGC 9.4 White pages -- North Coast

TOS 94 9.4 White pages (got a huge bargain on this book, everyone who looked at it said 9.4) North Coast Collectibles again...

Strange Tales 167 8.5 White pages North Coast

Cap 110 NM CGC 9.4 White Pages Pacific Coast Collection (from Nikos)

TOS 86 9.4 OW/W pages from Teddy VanLiew of Superworld

JIM 112 7.0 OW/W pages from Bob Storms of HighGradeComics.com

Invaders 1 CGC 9.0 White Pages from ACTOR donation

 

So yes, I was able to find books...

[Kevin Boyd]

Since the video dealers were removed. The show seemed more focused on comics, and I liked that tremendously.

 

I didn't get much time to walk the floor because I was inundated with requests for Signature Series at the show. On Friday I had to cap my line twice so that Gemma and I could catch up on processing, sorting and labelling the requests. So from my point of view the show was a huge success.

 

But all of those requests made me extremely busy. On Friday I had some time to pick up some original art I had asked Bechara to hold for me (the cover to JLE 8 by Bart Sears) but could do little else. Rinse and repeat for Saturday. I wanted to attend the Forum dinner, but I had so much work to do getting the signed & unsigned Signature Series requests sorted and had to submit the ones that were completed. That took me about 3 hours to do.

 

On Sunday, it was more scrambling to get the final artists needed, and to explain to the anxious submitters that Signature Series on-site takes time, because appointments need to be made with the creators when they have some time to actually sit down and sign the books. A SS book submitted on Friday morning might not be signed until Sunday morning, which means it's not going to be graded and back until end of show. Most of the Turner books went in on Saturday night (he signed at 3PM Saturday) so those books started coming back from the grading room around 2PM Sunday. Turner/McNiven books didn't show up until late Sunday afternoon because McNiven signed the books that same morning.

 

At 4:30 on Sunday I finally had some time to do a last walk of the floor, and I ended up picking up some discounted Marvel hardcovers for the plane flight home (Young Avengers Vol. 1, JMS' FF Vol. 1, Spider-Man: The Other). Then it was time to pack up the booth and splash some water on my face before the wrap-up dinner.

 

But overall, I thought the show was pretty good. It had strong guests. The fans seemed happy enough. The crowds were strong on Saturday (as they always are).

[delekkerste]

hype... to me nothing more.

 

More negativity. The one percenter complaining that the overerall show was bad because it did not have enough of the tiny niche that he collects.

 

Get real. The only one-percenters are those who actually thought this was a good show. In truth, it was only marginally better than a Carbonaro NYC show. There were about the same amount of celebrities in Philly, fewer "name" artists (though more artists overall), about the same amount of OA for sale, etc. Yes, the bootleggers were gone, but, hey, guess what, so were the fans. Our Forum Dinner was what, 1/3rd the size of last year's? Nobody bothered to show up. Mark Zaid is right; this Con has slipped behind Baltimore in quality, and that is a shame given how good it was last year. Who thought $25 was a fair price to pay for this show? Nobody that I know.

 

Instead of kissing Wizard's , people should be getting on their case for not stepping up their efforts to bring in the celebrities, artists, dealers and fans, especially in light of new competition from the NYC show and because fans need a reason to spend their money with lodging & transportation costs so high these days. Giving Wizard undeserved praise is not going to help them get their act together for next year - another bad show then and this show will be in danger of slipping into total irrelevancy.

 

Besides, it's not even a real Con if Borock doesn't show up.

[langur88]

hype... to me nothing more.

 

More negativity. The one percenter complaining that the overerall show was bad because it did not have enough of the tiny niche that he collects. We've heard it before. We get it. Is it okay for others to derive joy from this event? The anal retentives searching for the holy grail are never happy. If they found a mint Action 1 they would turn and say so where can I get a Tec 27? I saw the sad looks on the usual suspects, collectors and dealers. Some of us remain positive and keep selling books. Koops is a good example.

 

I had a insufficiently_thoughtful_person who attended my last Boston show complaining on these boards that the show sucked. I did a little research found that he was disapointed by not finding original art by artists that were not at the show. What? Why would he expect art by non-attending artists? But he made some negative noise because he owns a computer, a screen name and fingers. But no credibility with his words.

 

Why does Foolkiller expect tons of new find high grade vintage comic books to spring forward at his approach? If they were easy to find there would not be so many "collectors" looking for these books and doing strange things to acquire them. This does not make a show "bad". You are in a small minority of the overall comic book collecting community. Please do not be a self hating comic book collector because you can never get enough so that everyone's show is "bad" if you don't find enough gold nuggets.

 

Y'know, I'm sure you would actually expect me to fire back defensively, but the truth is Dave, I actually would concede that your point has some validity, though I probably don't exactly agree with the extreme language you are using to state my opinion.

 

 

I am exaggerating and using mild sarcasm to make a point.

 

I am glad that you were able to find books and agree with most of your opinions of our hobby. You are just using a broad brush opinion and sometimes negativity will drive out more collector's from the hobby than it attracts.

[langur88]

hype... to me nothing more.

 

More negativity. The one percenter complaining that the overerall show was bad because it did not have enough of the tiny niche that he collects.

 

Get real. The only one-percenters are those who actually thought this was a good show. In truth, it was only marginally better than a Carbonaro NYC show. There were about the same amount of celebrities in Philly, fewer "name" artists (though more artists overall), about the same amount of OA for sale, etc. Yes, the bootleggers were gone, but, hey, guess what, so were the fans. Our Forum Dinner was what, 1/3rd the size of last year's? Nobody bothered to show up. Mark Zaid is right; this Con has slipped behind Baltimore in quality, and that is a shame given how good it was last year. Who thought $25 was a fair price to pay for this show? Nobody that I know.

 

Instead of kissing Wizard's , people should be getting on their case for not stepping up their efforts to bring in the celebrities, artists, dealers and fans, especially in light of new competition from the NYC show and because fans need a reason to spend their money with lodging & transportation costs so high these days. Giving Wizard undeserved praise is not going to help them get their act together for next year - another bad show then and this show will be in danger of slipping into total irrelevancy.

 

Besides, it's not even a real Con if Borock doesn't show up.

 

If you had a clue who I was you would know that I have never kissed anybody's Ask around. My booth was in the very last row so I must have a lot of "pull" at Wizard.

 

The bootleg fans were missing. Not the comic book fans. My sales were up for the second year in a row. The last time I checked these were comic book boards.

 

The forum dinner was smaller because the bootleg dealers were not there? Nobody bothered to show up? Is this Yogi Berra? whatthe:

 

The comic book pie is shrinking right now. It cannot expand every year.

Simple enough

 

Baltimore is a wonderful show and I confirmed my spot over the weekend. It will most likely shrink due to the same exact reasons that Wizard World Philly did.

 

The bootleg absence is a positive for the comic book community as a whole. Do we need more news highlights of counterfeiters being led from a comic book convention in hand cuffs?

 

Calling this a bad show is just not being truthful. Wizard did an excellent job if you consider all the factors.

 

And I hope you're kidding about a comic book convention needing the credibility of Steve Borock as a comic book deity. He would be the first to laugh at that.

[ronm3-migration]

I am sure the show would have been alot better if I would have showed up.

[fingfangfoom]

Dave, why the combative tone over the personal assessment by collectors of a convention? I felt there was very little in the way of fresh material. I thought many dealers have not adjusted their prices accordingly. I thought the show was somewhat small for a show billed as a major northeast convention. Given these three items, combined with airfare, hotel rooms and realted costs (and I brought the family along for this one), I think the show was not worth the time, effort or expense.

Is it really constructive to insult board members who do not share your opinion? Nobody on this board ever wants to give a negative con report...

I think you'll find your in the minority is your analysis of the show although I will add that if you had a great show with strong sales, congrats.