Dallas Comicon (Fan Expo Dallas) -- May 29-31, 2015

[Stronguy]

Crowds were good yesterday, especially for a Friday.

[inapicklecomics]

We were very busy today. Keys were going very fast! It's been a great experience meeting lots of people.

[mysterio]

Crowds were good yesterday, especially for a Friday.

 

Indeed, especially considering the weather. It's been a great show!

[marco7170]

This has been a good show as it pertains to comics and art. All the artist I have talked to were great. Whether getting a commission or an autograph they have shown their appreciation. This show did not disappoint. Getting to meet Maleev, Epting, Hardin, Peterson, and Conner made the show for me. Lastly, I know some keep bring up the repeat guest, but Amanda Conner by far had the longest line all day and this is her third straight year coming to Dallas.

[Monster's Lair Comics]

Great first two days! Super busy all day.

[mysterio]

At my next hotel after a great show! I didn't really take any photos this time, but will try to post a mini report in a day or two when I'm back home. I'm already looking forward to 2016!

[Psithyrus]

I managed to get everyone's signatures that I was hoping to get (missed one photo opp because it overlapped with another), despite an over 3 hour wait for one (and that's the benchmark for me, because they're a personal favorite, not doing it again) yesterday.

 

My brother's photo with Karen Gillan is the absolute best. She's ridiculous.

 

I did manage to spend some time on the floor, and while I didn't find the books that I was looking for, I did manage to pick-up a piece of art from Georges Jeanty and I was pretty happy about it.

 

Marco was right, too. Amanda Conner's line was the longest for the artists that I saw, by far. I like her, though. She and Jimmy are always great.

 

Saturday, by the way, nearly triggered a panic attack with the mass of humanity. I managed to find a quiet corner with some space, and get that under control.

[spideyfan68]

Saturday, by the way, nearly triggered a panic attack with the mass of humanity. I managed to find a quiet corner with some space, and get that under control.

 

Amen to that, ridiculous crowd level on Saturday. I dont know how folks do SD, NY, Balt. C2E2 or any other big show but it wasn't all that fun on Saturday. A friend who is a dealer said that when they moved to the DCC last year it was a much larger crowds but a much bigger venue so it was easy to get around, not so much on Saturday. Not sure how they are going to pull off Fan Days in October when it goes back to the Irving Convention Center. With the crowds they have been drawing to these shows it may not be pretty.

 

On another note I did see Harley Yee this weekend and I can't remember the last time he was in DFW.

[Psithyrus]

Saturday, by the way, nearly triggered a panic attack with the mass of humanity. I managed to find a quiet corner with some space, and get that under control.

 

Amen to that, ridiculous crowd level on Saturday. I dont know how folks do SD, NY, Balt. C2E2 or any other big show but it wasn't all that fun on Saturday. A friend who is a dealer said that when they moved to the DCC last year it was a much larger crowds but a much bigger venue so it was easy to get around, not so much on Saturday. Not sure how they are going to pull off Fan Days in October when it goes back to the Irving Convention Center. With the crowds they have been drawing to these shows it may not be pretty.

 

On another note I did see Harley Yee this weekend and I can't remember the last time he was in DFW.

 

He's been to the last two Comicpaloozas, but I don't remember seeing him in Dallas.

 

As for the crowds, I just started making my own paths and lines. Best get out of my way when I'm in that mode! Ha ha!

[kaholo1256]

Being a witness for CGC it was advantageous to find the quickest route from the booth to artist ally. For me I stayed along the back wall by the bathrooms to get to artist ally, went around the Halo games and through that first opening to get to the Celeb location. Made it an easy path. We were pretty busy so didn't do much through the middle of the crowd.

[thatdudebooks]

The show was pretty fun and A LOT busier than most anticipated. Glad to see so many folks out considering all the rain and flooding we've had in the area. Akoni was a rock star as always .

 

Nice to finally meet the Monster's Lair crew!

[mysterio]

The show was pretty fun and A LOT busier than most anticipated. Glad to see so many folks out considering all the rain and flooding we've had in the area. Akoni was a rock star as always .

 

Nice to finally meet the Monster's Lair crew!

 

I was glad you stopped by, it was great meeting you too! I also got to chat with Kaholo a bit on Sunday morning, it was great to meet him as well. We also owe a big thanks to the CGC crew for helping out their neighbor by setting us up with some of their leftover pizza from Saturday's lunch! We don't often eat a real meal during a busy Saturday, so the food was definitely appreciated!

[kaholo1256]

Fan Expo Dallas:

 

Friday, Not to bad got all of the commissions set up and ready to rock for my own books before having to really hit the pavement to witness for everyone else. McGuinness's line shocked a lot that haven't tried him before and his commission list was full before hour two of the beginning of this one. Jim Cheung also decided to take up the timed sketch verses the take to the room sketch way of business at this one. Most had to wait while he sketched and did make his line a little bit of a wait. Didn't bother going over to the Celeb side much except for coordinating for Stan to sign a few hundred books. I will say that Friday felt like a never ending day. The show opening up at 2ish and closing at 9:00pm kinda made it feel long.

 

Saturday... holy . So it was a good thing that Friday we got a lay of the land as it felt like straight cattle walking from area to area. Not sure why a convention chose to put us in the furthest corner of the convention hall away from the artists or celebs but obviously someone has no idea what CGC does. Its a good thing the goth jewelry guys got spots in and around artist alley though because they need to be so close to artists......

 

Anyways lots of books brought in for witnessing a few moments of drama through out the day but certainly a productive show. Robin Lord Taylor and Drew Powell were awesome and helped kick out some of the large volume multi-sig books I and another had for them. Got to meet some of the original cast for Godzilla as well and if you got a book signed by them I am honestly jealous. If you have never seen how those gentleman sign it really is something cool but takes a lot of room... Please if you got a book signed by them share them in the SS room for all to see. Carrie Fisher and her dog Garrie Fisher were one of the highlights of the show for me. While witnessing a few books for another this happened...

 

 

Hope you don't mind me sharing Yaw but this was pretty damn awesome in my opinion. But apparently Carrie "Loves this man"

 

 

He had quite a few books for her and kept asking her to sign above the head. I guess she just figured that after all of that she needed to sign directly on one of them.

 

The largest heartbreak of the show though was Bernie Wrightson. If you didn't know from past reports he has had some health issues so if you haven't lined up your run of Swamp Things, Batman, and anything else with him please do so and make sure you tell him how much you appreciate his art. I know he had to take a few breaks at the show due to feeling under the weather and truly hope he bounces back. When signing though he was always there with a smile and really amazing to simply talk to even for 5 minutes.

 

After the show... knocked out a large volume of books with Stan who I gotta say is looking as strong and vibrant as ever. His little jabs and quips kept us all smiling and his need for his juice had me laughing long after we left the signing. Always a pleasure to work with the NYComics crew members and Stan Lee Collectibles during these moment's.

 

Sunday, finally got to meet Mysterio even though we were the booth directly across from one another. It had just been that kind of show I guess. Anyways we had a few more celeb encounters with Gillian Anderson, Billie Piper, and a few others throughout the show as well as everyone's sketch covers to pickup. Got to see a few amazing ones as well as acquire a few in my sketch book and a few on some covers. As always Jim Cheung was amazing, Greg Horn wowed, and so many others blew away crowds.

 

Over all a really surprising show and great numbers for CGC on submissions.

[mysterio]

I love that photo of his head getting signed! I checked her line a few times over the weekend but never managed to get my posters signed. I just didn't want to leave the table for that long. I'll just have to wait for the next time...

 

I didn't remember to take many photos at the show, which is unusual for me. Here is one of the few I did take, of our booth. We were in a reasonably good spot, in the back corner of the "comic section" of the floor (more on that in a bit), and as Kaholo said, right across the aisle from the CGC booth (and I completely agree that they should have put you much closer to the artist/celeb area, but maybe next year).

 

 

For the first time at this show the promoters did what many of us have wished a promoter would do: put all the comic booths in one area to make shopping easier. So the first 20% or so of the con on the right side (if you were walking in the front entrances) were the concentration of comic dealers. I found this kind of nice, as you didn't have to wade through all the booths selling non-comic stuff to shop the room. Some felt that it ramped up the competition between dealers. I guess you can't make everyone happy, but I liked it and many of the customers I talked to liked it as well.

 

The show was busy all three days. We made most of our biggest sales on Friday, many before the show opened. Saturday was very busy and very steady, and we accumulated a lot of smaller <$50 sales that added up quite nicely. Sunday was fairly slow, and if it weren't for a large bulk deal it would have been a fairly disappointing sales day, I think. Overall we did very well, considerably higher than last year, and will be looking forward to next year!

 

A few notable sales included an Avengers #1 and 4 (CGC 2.5 and 3.0, respectively), a low grade Flash #139 (my graded copy got a ton of looks but no buyer), a VG ASM #39, a VFish ASM #194, two copies of Silver Surfer #3, two copies of Silver Surfer #44 (to dealers, they never saw the wall), Hastings variant sets of the interlocking Spider-Gwen and Silk #1s (we had more requests for Silk books than S-G, BTW), lots of looks at my two copies of FF #45 but no buyers. Several requests for Suicide Squad books, and surprisingly very few (like 1-2) requests for Harley Quinn stuff. For a change we sold a lot of X-books out of the $1 boxes, and those are normally totally dead for us at the Irving shows.

 

I picked up a nice VG Strange Tales #115 for my collection from Boyd at Black Cat, and also scored a nice Fineish Thor #126 for a good price. Other than that I worked on my Wally Flash run out of the cheapie boxes (picked up about 20 books) and got a dozen or so Starmans as well. I even managed to pick up about a half dozen DC Universe variants I needed.

 

Overall a good show for buying and selling; looking forward to next year!

[thatdudebooks]

 

 

Hope you don't mind me sharing Yaw but this was pretty damn awesome in my opinion. But apparently Carrie "Loves this man"

 

 

He had quite a few books for her and kept asking her to sign above the head. I guess she just figured that after all of that she needed to sign directly on one of them.

 

 

That whole situation was INSANE and I loved it, haha! She was awesome and so was her frenchie. I'll take gold sharpie over a glitter bomb any day.Getting a hug and kiss from Princess Leia makes this a show I'll always remember.

[Psithyrus]

Fan Expo Dallas:

 

Friday, Not to bad got all of the commissions set up and ready to rock for my own books before having to really hit the pavement to witness for everyone else. McGuinness's line shocked a lot that haven't tried him before and his commission list was full before hour two of the beginning of this one. Jim Cheung also decided to take up the timed sketch verses the take to the room sketch way of business at this one. Most had to wait while he sketched and did make his line a little bit of a wait. Didn't bother going over to the Celeb side much except for coordinating for Stan to sign a few hundred books. I will say that Friday felt like a never ending day. The show opening up at 2ish and closing at 9:00pm kinda made it feel long.

 

Saturday... holy . So it was a good thing that Friday we got a lay of the land as it felt like straight cattle walking from area to area. Not sure why a convention chose to put us in the furthest corner of the convention hall away from the artists or celebs but obviously someone has no idea what CGC does. Its a good thing the goth jewelry guys got spots in and around artist alley though because they need to be so close to artists......

 

Anyways lots of books brought in for witnessing a few moments of drama through out the day but certainly a productive show. Robin Lord Taylor and Drew Powell were awesome and helped kick out some of the large volume multi-sig books I and another had for them. Got to meet some of the original cast for Godzilla as well and if you got a book signed by them I am honestly jealous. If you have never seen how those gentleman sign it really is something cool but takes a lot of room... Please if you got a book signed by them share them in the SS room for all to see. Carrie Fisher and her dog Garrie Fisher were one of the highlights of the show for me. While witnessing a few books for another this happened...

 

 

Hope you don't mind me sharing Yaw but this was pretty damn awesome in my opinion. But apparently Carrie "Loves this man"

 

 

He had quite a few books for her and kept asking her to sign above the head. I guess she just figured that after all of that she needed to sign directly on one of them.

 

The largest heartbreak of the show though was Bernie Wrightson. If you didn't know from past reports he has had some health issues so if you haven't lined up your run of Swamp Things, Batman, and anything else with him please do so and make sure you tell him how much you appreciate his art. I know he had to take a few breaks at the show due to feeling under the weather and truly hope he bounces back. When signing though he was always there with a smile and really amazing to simply talk to even for 5 minutes.

 

After the show... knocked out a large volume of books with Stan who I gotta say is looking as strong and vibrant as ever. His little jabs and quips kept us all smiling and his need for his juice had me laughing long after we left the signing. Always a pleasure to work with the NYComics crew members and Stan Lee Collectibles during these moment's.

 

Sunday, finally got to meet Mysterio even though we were the booth directly across from one another. It had just been that kind of show I guess. Anyways we had a few more celeb encounters with Gillian Anderson, Billie Piper, and a few others throughout the show as well as everyone's sketch covers to pickup. Got to see a few amazing ones as well as acquire a few in my sketch book and a few on some covers. As always Jim Cheung was amazing, Greg Horn wowed, and so many others blew away crowds.

 

Over all a really surprising show and great numbers for CGC on submissions.

 

. . . and my flag for Alan Tudyk. Sorry for being a pain. I've missed him three times already, and almost didn't get him Saturday! When I say I barely got him, I was in the last 10. You're right, though, you guys were as far from where you needed to be as you could possibly have gotten.

 

I did stop by the Monster's Lair booth a few times, but you guys seemed busy each time.

 

[mysterio]

. . . and my flag for Alan Tudyk. Sorry for being a pain. I've missed him three times already, and almost didn't get him Saturday! When I say I barely got him, I was in the last 10. You're right, though, you guys were as far from where you needed to be as you could possibly have gotten.

 

I did stop by the Monster's Lair booth a few times, but you guys seemed busy each time.

 

We were pretty busy a lot of the weekend, sorry we missed you! Definitely stop by in October if you go to Fan Days. I'll be there Sat-Sun, and my brother will be there all three days manning the booth. We'll also be doing Alamo City.

[Psithyrus]

No worries! I will definitely stop by, too.