PARADISE COMICS TORONTO COMICON 2004 JUNE 18-20

[greggy]

Where's the pics of the Beyonder?

[dam60]

Where's the pics of the Beyonder?

 

 

[greggy]

Where's the pics of the Beyonder?

 

 

[dam60]

Where's the pics of the Beyonder?

 

 

 

[AlexH]

Dave,

 

Wonderful report. It is going to put mine to shame, but here goes:

 

FRIDAY - For me, my job was to ensure that the guests were happy and take care of any needs or problems they might have had.

 

Sort of a slow day, but a fair amount of people were there. But for me this is always a great day to get sketches. My first victim, err artist, was Dale Keown. If you ever get a chance to get a sketch from this guy, do it, it is well worth the wait in line. Luckily I got to him before anyone knew he was even there.

 

Some of the guests had trouble coming up due to a storm, but everyone eventualy got there except Bill Sienkiewicz, who apparently had a sore tooth, and didn't make the trip.

 

Anyway, I next tried for Greg Horn, who told me he wasn't doing sketches as this was supposed to be a vacation for him...WTF??? More on him later.

 

I ran into the Beyonder that night and we had a good talk. He found some really nice Byrne books for next to no money. I was very impressed by his bin jumping abilities (wait, that didn't sound right).

 

SATURDAY - The busiest, but best day of the con. Tons of people were there, but I have no idea on the final numbers.

 

Had a chance to catch up with Dave, and sat at the ACTOR booth throughout the day. For those of you that haven't met Dave, he is an absolute class act and wonderful person.

 

I finally bought myself a sketchbook and went and got a beautiful pic of Ghost RIder by Stuart Sayger (I'll try and post this one tomorrow, but it is rather large). It took him an hour to do it.

 

The guests were a fun bunch. Here are a few comments I would like to make:

 

Terry Austin - Class act. He reminded me of the high school teacher that everyone thinks is really cool.

 

Dave Sim - Didn't leave his booth for the whole day (except for the panel on self-publishing), not even to go to the little boys room. He also did sketches and took his time talking to everyone. Wonderful person.

 

Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner were great to talk to, as usual.

 

Tom Grummett - Looks creepy, but is a very nice guy.

 

Mike Kaluta is one of the best guests I have EVER had to deal with. Just fantastic.

 

Will Eisner - He's 87 years old, but looked fantastic. The best line of the convention came from him. As he was posing for a picture with 2 people, the flash goes off, and he says, "Oh, wait a minute, I didn't get a chance to fix my hair". The guy just cracked me up. Speaking of lines, his was huge. We had to limit people to 3 items each because it was so big.

 

Greg Horn - Didn't like him. Bit of a money whore. At least he made some cash for ACTOR.

 

Rob Van Dam - As he came in, he passed by the ACTOR booth when I was there, and I pointed to my shoulders and said, "I'm--right--here". That gave him a laugh so he came back to shake my hand.

 

Roy Thomas - Great guy. Loves to talk. Told us that he is working on a Dracula book with Marvel that is a continuation to a story he started 30 years ago.

 

Jim McLauchlin - He did a wonderful job of schmoozing with everyone. ACTOR is in great hands with this guy. Very professional.

 

Ed Furness - This guy created Canadian comics in the 40's. Most specifically a book called Freelance. He is 94 years old and showed up for the big Golden Age panel (did I mention that Sienkeiwicz had a sore tooth). He could barely hold a pen, much less sign his name, but his face lit up when he saw a couple of books that he was asked to sign, that he created in the 40's. The look on his face was enough to make my day right there.

 

Fred Kelly - He was the other gentleman who was a part of the big panel. He created Doc Stearn: Mr. Monster which was recently re-done by Michael Gilbert. Mr Kelly showed up in a wheel chair with one arm in a cast. I found out that he had just recently suffered a stroke (A freakin' stroke Bill, I hope you took an aspirin for your tooth and got lots of rest. I mean you wouldn't want to over do it).

 

So, after the show was the big auction for charity. Had a seat with Beyonder, Wasonff, Comicwiz, Eccomic, and DAM60. Some highlights from the night:

 

- I'm sure everyone has now heard that the Cerebus #1 SS CGC 9.4 book went for $10,600. Turns out the same person picked up 1-5 for around $17,000 - all of which is going to ACTOR.

 

- I picked up a couple of pieces (I'll post pics later)

 

- The big piece was a cover to Cerebus: The guide to self-publishing. There were 2 guys bidding against each other back and forth for about 5 minutes until it hit $800. The auctoneer gets to "...going 3 times..." and a 3rd guy (who had been silent this whole time) bids $900. And wins.

 

- The North York Harvest food bank made $700, and ACTOR pulled in another $2800.

 

There was a big party after the auction, but I only stayed around until just before 10:00 PM. But everyone I talked to the next day said it was fantastic.

 

SUNDAY - Woke up at 6:30 AM after my daughter decided to sit on me to wake me up. So I started the day exhausted.

 

On the up side, I showed up early enough to help set up and get a first crack at a sketch from Cary Nord (see attached). This guy is great, and will definitely be going places in the next few years.

 

Sat with Dave at the ACTOR booth, until I had to do an emergency pick up at the hotel (which is why you couldn't find me Dave). I had to get RVD and Greg Horn.

 

Came back, got a chance to walk around for a bit before I took off to be with the family for fathers day.

 

Only bought 2 books. One was a graphic novel called Hawaiian D i c k which looked pretty cool. The other was a benefit book for Cancer research called Drawing the line.

 

Overall, I had a great time. I'll try and post more tomorrow, but I've been working on this for the last hour and a bit, so I am going to bed now.

 

Kevin, Peter and Irene did a fantastic job this year. Way to go folks.

 

Alex

[AlexH]

Here is the Ghost Rider by Stuart Sayger. I had to shrink it, so some of the detail is missing, but you get the idea.

[hogations]

Great reports Dave & Alex! Amazing to see the Cerebus #1 go for $10,000+

 

I only went on the Friday and bumped into Alex at the Paradise booth. I had to scramble back home as I didn't realize CGC was accepting submissions at the site. Nice to meet Harshen and Gemma too.

 

So when's the next one, in November?

[Kevin Boyd]

JUNE 17-19, 2005.

 

Kev

[Kevin Boyd]

Check out this thread for links to three online convention reports.

 

http://www.comicbookconventions.com/yabbse/index.php?board=4;action=display;threadid=1104

 

The wheels are in motion for 2005!

 

Kev

[comic_manager]

JUNE 17-19, 2005.

 

Kev

Good to see you boys survived without me

Consider me in for the next show after a month in Portugal and Spain ( with stops for Euro 2004 games of course) I could use a little convention time

[Ares]

JUNE 17-19, 2005.

 

Kev

Good to see you boys survived without me

Consider me in for the next show after a month in Portugal and Spain ( with stops for Euro 2004 games of course) I could use a little convention time

 

So thats where you were!

I was wondering why you were not there!

 

Greece Rules Soccer

[Jagull]

Thanks!! Sorry that I missed you

 

So here are a few shots of some of the sketches that I got both at Toronto and the last few cons (Dynamic Forces and the last NYC con). Please pardon the "bleed through" on some of these pics:

 

Dale Keown Hulk:

 

Ty Templeton Two Face

 

Tom Grummett Robin:

 

Andy Lee Harley Quinn:

 

Jamal Igle Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) (NYC)

 

Andy MacDonald World's Finest (NYC)

 

Eduardo Risso Batman (dynamic forces)

 

Jim Starlin Batman (dynamic forces)

kick [!@#%^&^]; you just asked them to do a sketch?

[ultimatevenom]

JUNE 17-19, 2005.

 

Kev

Good to see you boys survived without me

Consider me in for the next show after a month in Portugal and Spain ( with stops for Euro 2004 games of course) I could use a little convention time

 

So thats where you were!

I was wondering why you were not there!

 

Greece Rules Soccer

 

Technically Greece only rule European soccer

[Ares]

JUNE 17-19, 2005.

 

Kev

Good to see you boys survived without me

Consider me in for the next show after a month in Portugal and Spain ( with stops for Euro 2004 games of course) I could use a little convention time

 

So thats where you were!

I was wondering why you were not there!

 

Greece Rules Soccer

 

Technically Greece only rule European soccer

Thats a start

[dam60]

Thanks!! Sorry that I missed you

 

So here are a few shots of some of the sketches that I got both at Toronto and the last few cons (Dynamic Forces and the last NYC con). Please pardon the "bleed through" on some of these pics:

 

Dale Keown Hulk:

 

Ty Templeton Two Face

 

Tom Grummett Robin:

 

Andy Lee Harley Quinn:

 

Jamal Igle Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) (NYC)

 

Andy MacDonald World's Finest (NYC)

 

Eduardo Risso Batman (dynamic forces)

 

Jim Starlin Batman (dynamic forces)

kick [!@#%^&^]; you just asked them to do a sketch?

 

Sketches really depend on the artist. I made a $20 contribution to ACTOR for the Dale Keown, Ty Templeton is the man and does everything for free!, Tom Grummett and Andy Lee were $20, Jamal Igle was $25 (also for ACTOR), Andy MacDonald was $30, Eduardo Risso is really a great guy and a true professional - after waiting in line for literally 3 hours he did it for free , Jim Starlin is my all time favorite comic creator - he did it for me for free too.

 

Generally speaking you can expect to pay something for a nice sketch. Most of the ones that I have that are free look it, although there are some really noticeable exceptions:

Phil Jimenez

Ty Templeton

Eduardo Risso

Don Rosa

 

and I am sure that there are others . . .

 

DAM