The KC convention report. Forum members in their native habitat

[mica]

The somewhat incredulous yet fully believable Kansas City Convention Report of yours truly.

 

I loaded up the MicaMobile™ around 6:30 AM and left my driveway trying to not notice the muffled

voices of my neighbors asking "Is he gone yet?

I soon got on Bloody 13 Highway named that because of the numerous deaths that occur on that stretch

of road and headed for KC's Planet Comicon .

 

On the highway I dodged a turtle that was attempting to get to the other side. Unfortunately I noticed in

my rear view window that the Semi Truck behind me didn't and all I can say is... at least is was quick.

 

Along the way there were turtles every few miles. Not that that's out of the ordinary

I just don't expect to see more than 5 stretched out so far along the way.

Hopefully one of them made it across all those lanes but they really should plan

their "hook up" encounters somewhere else.

 

Taking one small stop in Peculiar, MO (Yes that's the town's name) I soon made it to the Kansas Border.

For those of you that don't know, this is/was my first Comic Convention. I had been to numerous Sci-Fi conventions

so I was familiar with crazy fandom, and used that to gauge the overall nuttiness of the crowd.

 

Arrived at the building that is mentioned on the website which is the wrong building. Stood behind some guys

at an information booth who were obviously comic readers. (It's like being a mutant... we can sense each other )

The information lady (mid 60's) was getting frustrated telling each comic geek how to arrive at the more likely convention center.

This was about 10:15AM and after she got around to instructing me I feared that she would be in for a long day.

Sure enough as I was headed back to the car I saw (sensed their presense) two guys walking in with backpacks

and I saved them the long walk and passed on to them the secret location of this convention.

 

Upon arriving I parked and made my way inside following close behind this guy.

He was one of the numerous Star Wars fans that were in attendance. On occasion you would see a Jedi guy

posing against the wall (for no particular reason)

 

Just posing in case someone happened to glance over there.

 

There was a Spiderman running around that looked about 4 feet 5 inches tall.

He changed into the costume during my trip to the bathroom. I had to walk around him

to wash my hands. I didn't stick around to see where he stashed his street clothes.

Saw these delightful people and couldn't resist taking their pictures. As soon as I did the guy on the left

told me I should get a picture of him in his headgear as well.

 

Not wanting to upset people that dress up like this (wise) I complied.

The gal in this trio was fascinated in my necklace which is a cross made out of nails.

She stepped out of the booth to come fondle it and was in my personal space WAY TOO long, and later was

smacking Clark Khaos with a foam sword.

This was after Khaos and I kept a straight face while they explained to us that their group participates in various BARBARIAN WAR get-togethers.

Apparently for $15 you can go to some field and watch these guys hit each other in some bizzare King Kull version of West side story.

 

I asked the guy on the right if he expected any protestors during the Barbarian War.

 

Khaos got the joke, but I'm not sure THongorr the Bold did.

 

Clark Khaos had given me his phone number earlier so I could locate him. I had described myself to him as

a round mound of a guy with a Fu Manchu but being that it was a Comic Book Convention I somehow still blended in.

 

He was standing next to Scheradon (John ).

 

I figured out who lighthouse was after standing in front of box after box of trade paperbacks.

I asked him if he was lighthouse, and he said yes but was trying to figure out if I was a parole officer or a crazed stalker.

I introduced myself and then got out of there quickly as there were literally collectors three deep

with cash in hand to buy stuff and I didn't want to slow down any of his business.

Told him I'd check back in with him. One of lighthouses potential customers was

Carbonaro from Neatstuff.

 

I strolled over to Herb Trimpe's table, and saw the huge line there.

The best part was seeing what people were having him sign. Saw framed posters that I never knew existed.

Herb

 

There were other artists such as Jim Lee there as well but I'll let some of the modern collectors tell you about them.

----part 2 coming shortly.

[mica]

Part 2 (of 391 parts )

 

I got in Don Rosa's line, enjoyed watching him make some Scrooge sketches for other people.

I had my eye on one of the comic cover parodies that he had made of various DC, Marvel, and EC books.

 

Since I prefer Donald over Scrooge It was a toss up between THE INCREDIBLE DUCK, and TALES FROM THE COOP.

 

I chose the coop parody of the classic EC cover.

Here he is signing it for me, and asking me where my name came from. I jogged his memory about some prior E-mails we had exchanged

and was starting to remember me by the time he had signed this poster.

 

I also told him his gag about the fire alarm was funny and he told me I was the

first to notice it.

You can't read it from this blurry photo but he had prices on yellow slips of paper all over the posters that were for sale on the wall behind him.

At the edge of where he put up posters was the fire alarm, so he made a price tag for it as well saying "ONE FIRE ALARM, USED ONCE, MAKE OFFER".

I wish you could see the details on this one. The chickens at the top are zombie with one of them having bolts in it's neck.

At the bottom one of the hatched ckicks looks terrified as it's trying to get away

from the dead GUS GOOSE. Rosa stylized his signature in the brown box where FELDMAN's sig

used to be. There are other small gags in it as well but enough about that.

 

Here's forum member BIG MIKE (Mike Bray Comics)

I asked him if he knew of forum member lhcomics who was supposed to have a booth there as well.

 

He walked me over to there, and surpisingly to me I had just bought two

GOLDKEY Disney's from lh moments earlier and didn't know it was him.

Here's lhcomics (Leroy Harper) after he tore down his booth.

Leroy had other books I wanted but I kept putting purchases off.

 

I was able to talk lighthouse down on a Spiderman 97 that had a tape pull on the front cover.

I had fun talking about the defects of the book, and he had fun pointing out the great shine the cover had.

 

Here's Whet (David)(with lighthouse in the background)

Whet made a lighthouse purchase as well. Some ordinary GoldenAge book that everyone has about 30 copies of

No really, Whet bought a great issue of Thrilling Comics # 52 .

 

Here's CD4ever (John)(a lot of John's there )cd4ever looks nothing like his avatar.

CD4ever introduced me to JonJesper (see what I mean about the Jon's )

I hadn't been able to find him earlier as he said he was going to be wearing a Duke sweatshirt until he found out how hot it would be.

 

Lighthouse called greggy and blackmailed him for cash otherwise he'd give greggy's phone number to Clark Khaos.

After some more good natured ribbing, the phone was handed to Khaos and I told him to tell greggy that the 100 pages down here were going five for a dollar.

 

The phone was then handed to me, and while I enjoy corresponding with greggy through PM's and various graemlins I realized that I didn't

have anything important to say to him.

 

Had I of had a keyboard it would have been different so I to asking him the usual "How are you doing?" "Fine".

I then told him the signal was breaking up because we were going through a tunnel.

(I think he bought it )

And gave the phone back to Khaos before he figured it out.

 

Here's Clark Khaos (name withheld by request of the Kansas Tourism Agency)

Clark had managed to do a fair amount of damage with his foam sword.

He picked up some nice sketches of which he'll be talking about shortly.

 

The Convention itself was great, and some of the forum members kept noting the sheer volume of Quarter Boxes, and 50 cent boxes.

I had nothing to compare it to as this was my first book convention, but I agree there were numerous such boxes.

I tried to raid as many of these as I could. I regret not picking up a beautiful Spiderman Treasury edition ($6)

 

Ordinary I bemoan toys and other such items at my LCS (but that's because I'm always disapointed with the selection of my LCS).

Here at the convention I actually enjoyed seeing the Movies, Toys, and gadgets.

Probably because when done properly (as in having a ton of books to choose from)the other items seem to compliment the books nicely.

 

Overall I really enjoyed the whole experience. It was a good show and I would say about 98% family friendly.

Saw quite a few kids there, and multiple strollers for toddlers.

 

We could have benefitted from some more evenly dispersed air-conditioning but it was tolerable. A few dealers had raw Spiderman books like ASM 4 for $3000ish

 

One dealer had a Fine/Veryfine Hulk181 for about $350

 

Great selections of Disney, Transformers, Ironman, Undergrounds, Spiderman (lots of spidey)

Conan, Lulu, New Funnies (Woody Woodpecker), and the occasional romance.

I didn't see many westerns but others might have spotted them.

 

I got a Journey into Mystery 98 for around $19 combined in a grouping.

 

To be continued shortly....

[greggy]

Would have been a better story if you smoked the turtle

 

Don't be shy next time the phone is handed to you

 

Oh yeah, this report sucks

[deathlok]

Would have been a better story if you smoked the turtle

 

Don't be shy next time the phone is handed to you

 

Oh yeah, this report sucks

[greggy]

Would have been a better story if you smoked the turtle

 

Don't be shy next time the phone is handed to you

 

Oh yeah, this report sucks

[AussieRuss]

Would have been a better story if you smoked the turtle

 

Don't be shy next time the phone is handed to you

 

Oh yeah, this report sucks

 

[mica]

Part 391

 

 

 

Here's some totally random and eclectic images of books I bought.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the forum dinner I wondered out loud if we were allowed to assemble and gather as forum members without a lawyer present. Apparently it's not necessary.

 

 

 

I had brought along a small token of forum friendship to each of the guys who attended the forum dinner.

 

JonJesper slipped out after dinner and didn't get his.

 

 

 

 

It was just a small pillow that I thought would be nice to make so I placed a black backing on them all.

 

I was hoping to find the symbiote pattern which would have made it more versatile.

 

Each Spiderman looked slightly different.

 

I'm not too craft minded so there's no danger of me making a Batman fannypack with a Bedazzler anytime soon.

 

 

 

Dinner was at Jack's Stack Bar-B-Que.

 

 

Here JonJesper cuts out early with his friend.

 

 

 

Conversations ranged from Book Sales to the latest posting habits of some of you all.

 

 

As you can tell from the camera flash I sat next to Khaos and saw his drivers license at one point.

 

He really does live in Midwestropolis.

 

 

 

 

After Dinner I ended up talking with Scheradon and Big Mike outside.

 

 

 

The others had moved on to eat Ice-cream. Khaos called me (yes him and I are moving rather fast.... what's your point)

 

and he was wanting to know if Scheradon, Mike and me were going to join him, Whet, and Lighthouse for Ice Cream.

 

It seems as if lighthouse's assistant wanted dessert well after us guys had dismissed the waitress earlier.

 

 

 

Mike, John and myself were too tired to join up with them so we graciously declined.

 

Speculation is swirling about a possible pillow fight that may or may not have occurred there, but hopefully that

 

sort of stuff won't happen until the big San Diego sleepover we keep having to read about

 

 

 

Drank way too much coke and dr pepper but it all came in handy cause I definitely needed the caffeine to make it home.

 

Taking the right exit helps as well.

[drice6900]

Would have been a better story if you smoked the turtle

 

Don't be shy next time the phone is handed to you

 

Oh yeah, this report sucks

 

 

[goldust40]

 

 

So this is what the infamous Khaos looks like....

 

Great report, Mica. Was Harley Yee there? He does every big show on the circuit - it would've been unusual for him not to turn up...

[MutantKeys]

Nice report Mica

[FlyingDonut]

Sounds like a great time. I'm looking for a 2008 Road Trip candidate and Planet Comicon sounds like a possibility. How many dealers were there?

[alecholland]

Nice report mica. My favorite part was the live version of Frogger (using turtles) you played on your drive here. I may have to write up a Con report myself. I didn't bring a camera though, so I may have to resort to courtroom style sketches using stick figures.

 

 

[Pirate]

Now everyone knows what jespersen looks like. Man he looked bad, almost like someone who had been up since 4am and had to get 500 books signed during the day.

[jonjesper]

Now everyone knows what jespersen looks like. Man he looked bad, almost like someone who had been up since 4am and had to get 500 books signed during the day.

 

double damn...I look rough....(3 AM...Anthony...3 AM)

 

I didn't get a pillow...

[johnenock]

Hey Mica...is there any way to contact Don Rosa or get ahold of one of his cover spoofs other than in person? Thanks-John

[jonjesper]

Those cover spoofs were unreal...I loved the Phantom Lady and Spirit spoof...wow!

[Ringfinger]

Those guys in leather looked, well, don't know how to finish...

[Pirate]

Now everyone knows what jespersen looks like. Man he looked bad, almost like someone who had been up since 4am and had to get 500 books signed during the day.

 

double damn...I look rough....(3 AM...Anthony...3 AM)

 

I didn't get a pillow...

 

4am my time

[topofthetotem]

Way better then Greggy's reports.

[mica]

 

 

So this is what the infamous Khaos looks like....

I guess it was a historic post. You'll notice there aren't any photos of me.

 

Great report, Mica. Was Harley Yee there? He does every big show on the circuit - it would've been unusual for him not to turn up...

I didn't see him, but being there Saturday only I may have missed something.