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Fan Expo Canada - August 31-September 3, 2017 Toronto, ON
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Started by Kevin Boyd,

356 posts in this topic

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Dwitkin82

Dwitkin82

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Here is my goodies from Sunday...I thought I would try something different and instead of blanks, I went after name plaques...all were free except for Scott Hanna who asked for a few dolllars...well worth it...I also got a small Dave Johnson Red Son sketch..only disappointment was Jae Lee wasnt able to start my sketch cover so he's going to do it at home and give it to Doug in Cinncinatti for grading....otherwise loved the show but felt pricing was a little on the high side across the board....cant wait till next years

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TheRealVenom

TheRealVenom

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It was a good show for me. Filled orders for a lot of customers, got a lot of books signed and sent out with cgc and got a couple commissions from Adam Hughes, Dan Mendoza and Dawn McTeigue. Pictures to follow in my con report when I get home Thursday. Nice meeting some boardies and Jim Eric and Andy. You sirs are all top notch. 

Have a few gripes but every show can't be perfect I suppose. Huge kudos to Kevin Boyd and his team for assembling one of the greatest artist guest lists I've ever seen.

going to enjoy a little vacation time in the city now and be a tourist for a bit!

Edited by TheRealVenom
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JakeM

JakeM

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Spent Friday and Saturday at the con. Made a few purchases, but didn't see any books that REALLY spoke to me like when I bought my CSS 22 at this show last year (Didn't find a single CSS, which is sad as I'm trying to put a run together). Picked up an ASM 15, while my father picked up a great looking Batman 41. We're both getting close to completing our respective runs (ASM at around 16 issues remaining, Batman at closer to 50, but that dwindles each passing week).

didn't get the chance to wander artist alley for once, which I'm disappointed by, but my dad's knees have been awful lately, and we had done more than enough walking for his pain threshold. Didn't want to push it.

Dropped some books off for grading - huge kudos to CGC making the trip up to Canada.

All in all, Fan Expo is always a good time. Will definitely make a weekend out of it again next year. Onto NYCC!

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sleepindeath

sleepindeath

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Thank you to Kevin for all the hard work as usual. CGC was super easy to deal with on Friday Morning. Also, Carlos at Gotham Central for looking after my Signature Series requests.

I usually go on Thursdays, but decided to try a Friday for a change and found the place to be way busier then Thursday last year.

Picked up a few books - Nothing too pricey.

Good time all round as the kids also enjoyed their time. Will be back again next year for sure.

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CKinTO

CKinTO

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As my first con ever, had a great time! Could only get "permission" from the wife to go one day (@Iceman399 :x) who politely reminded me throughout the day that she was at home looking after our crazy 1.5yr old :foryou:, so went on the Sat as I got the Jim Lee experience. Overall had a great time, and while it was busy on the Sat, it was still manageable and only in high-traffic laneways was it "elbow to elbow" for short periods of time. Never did I feel overly claustrophobic or that it was ever "dangerous". A couple highlights: 

- The Jim Lee CGC experience was great. While it wasn't cheap (C$189 for 3 autographed items!), I thought it was very well-organized. I spoke with Kevin Boyd briefly in line, and he mentioned the changes they made this time around vs Dallas FanExpo, and I thought logistically everything was very smooth (ie. as soon as you get your books signed, you head to the CGC line).

-  I also liked that the Jim Lee team was offering some additional add-ons (buy a print for $40, get it signed, and also get an additional item signed. I thought this was reasonable, and allowed me to get a Hush trade signed and personalized then and there, rather than try to wait in line for the public signings, which I was originally going to do).

- I was also quite happy with the "selfie" that was included in the CGC package (I heard that the non-CGC C$129 package, in order to speed things up, people weren't allowed to go up behind the booth for the photo with Jim). While I think the main reason for that was speed / efficiency, I thought being able to go up right next to Jim was a nice added benefit of the extra $60 for the CGC package)

- I thought the logistics for guaranteed seating to Jim Lee's panel also went well. Basically, if you had bought one of the packages, you got to line up outside the room to get first access to seats. If you didn't, you lined up in a separate room. They only let the separate room start filing in after package holders were in. I thought that was fair and worked well. Jim's panel was great and hilarious (and Tom King made a surprise visit!)

- Got a couple books signed / witnessed for CGC SS with Tom King and Artgerm. I was a bit concerned at first about logistics, but they went very well. For those who may be interested in how it went, some details below:

- First went to the signing area to make sure TK and Artgerm were signing then

- Went to the CGC booth and asked for a witness. I was worried that it would be really busy and there might be a waiting list or something, but I was fortunate that there were witnesses waiting around and I got one immediately (Chase, who was great!)

- Went to the signing area and the FanExpo staff did a great job of creating lines and directing us to the right place to wait for each creator. I thought this worked quite well to keep congestion in that area of artist alley as reasonable as possible. I had to wait about 20mins for Tom King, and Chase was happy to do so with me. We chatted a bit, as well as talking with other TK fans in line, and the time passed quickly. Definitely a highlight of mine meeting Tom King - he's a great guy, made time with each of us in line for a quick convo (meaningful, but reasonably brief given mindful that people are waiting in line). Believe dscott was handling / facilitating, and went very smoothly. For reference, it was first 3 items free and $5 for any additional item. CGC'd items were US$10/C$15 (a bit of a tough FX rate, but I get no one wants to deal with dollar coins!). I got my Mr. Miracle #1 and Vision #1 Sook Variant signed for CGC SS, and then my Vision trades personalized and signed.

- Artgerm booth was easily accessible and didn't have to wait very long. A very reasonable $5 for a CGC book (got my ASM 25 Artgerm Copic variant signed for CGC SS)
- People at the CGC booth were very helpful and friendly. I dealt with Melissa, who was great! She coordinated putting all my SS together (with the Jim Lee books) on one invoice, so I paid one invoice fee and combined shipping

- Spent the afternoon browsing comic dealers (and then about an hour looking through the rest of the South building). Caught up with Andy at Forest City, Jim at Guardian, and Eric at ER Comics and chatted a bit. I've bought some books from them before, but unfortunately, wasn't able to this time as I'm currently only looking for some pretty specific ones that they didn't have. They're great guys and are quite reasonable and fair in terms of pricing, and I definitely hope to continue buying books from them in the future! I was able to pick-up one book on my list (Uncanny X-Men 134 CGC 9.6, 1st App of Dark Phoenix) for a reasonable price (low-end of 3-mo GPA) from another dealer. During my convos with many dealers, in generally while the sticker prices were all well-above GPA, once they realized I was an informed customer who had bought lots of books before and knew current market prices, they were willing to negotiate to a reasonable price to get a sale done. I guess the general dealer philosophy is start high (for anticipated negotiation wiggle room), plus you never know if someone with deep-pockets will come in without a lot of price info and start with a high "anchor" point. 

Overall, an amazing experience, and definitely plan to make it next year! I echo Adam's kudos to Kevin Boyd and his team for an amazing comic experience!

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roach04

roach04

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I had a great show too!  A few random thoughts:

(1) My buddy Bri and I swung by to see @Iceman399 and @Guardian Comics.  Bri bought one of their NM 98 and a really good looking UXM 266.  I managed to get a 4-5 great House of Mystery & Secrets from Jim's stash and was quite happy with the wicked deal he cut me!

(2) Big shout out to @TheRealVenom for pointing me to Bill McKay (earlier in this very thread I believe!).  Got a great sketch from Bill and, God, probably 5-7 other sketches too.  Really great art haul this year.

(3) Ken Lashley mystery box - was stupid awesome.  Ken's booth is always a pile of fun and I was lucky enough to score the cover to X-Men Gold #12 in my mystery box (and would have bought 2 or 3 more of them but every day I went back, they were already sold out!)

(4) Adam Kubert experience rivalled the Quesada one from last year.  Fantastic.  Whoever this is next year, I'm in.

(5) Jim Lee was at least 45 mins late for the non-CGC experience but with those Image founders, 45 mins late is pretty much early LOL.  The white-shirt volunteers did a good job keeping the crowd contained but, as always with volunteers, didn't really know the full scale of things.  One woman in a white jersey said to me "everything will be on time because I'm in charge!!!".  I've chuckled about that line a couple of times since!  The positive thing about the time delay here was that I was able to leave Jim Lee, go see Adam Kubert for 60 mins, and get back to Jim Lee Experience at pretty much still the same spot in line.

(6) I must've gotten 45 books signed.  None for CGC (which is odd for me) but guys like Mike Zeck, Kevin Maguire, Pat Broderick - they're right in my wheelhouse and I just couldn't pass up the chance to get them to sign a small pile (probably 6-8 books each).  Adam Hughes too!

(7) I loved the layout of Artist's Alley this year.  The fact that I never had to use the signing area is part of what made this show so great for me.

(8) For the first time since I started attending Fan Expo I didn't see @Kevin Boyd in person.  And that was the only real downside to my show.  Great job Kevin - absolutely fantastic guest list, piles of great vendors enabling me to buy way too many books and the layout of that South Building is really coming along.  (I took one trip to North on my way-out Friday - looked good too but I just did a quick browse and hit the road so no legitimate input on that side)

(10) What could make the show better?  Paul Smith.  ‘Nuff said!

Edited by roach04
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TheRealVenom

TheRealVenom

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Hey roach glad you got some cool bill McKay stuff! I went with dan Mendoza myself. Just love his art. I'll be posting pics of all my commissions on Thursday. If anyone wants a sneak peek Check out dawn mctiegue's Facebook. That's mine ;) she's turning it into an art print to sell at future shows! 

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Guardian Comics

Guardian Comics

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19 hours ago, Iceman399 said:

Phew it's over!

It was a good long week(end).  I know Jim's ( @Guardian Comics ) has been posting a bunch of updates about our booth so let's do a small mini recap, cause most of our time was either spent on the road driving in/out or behind the booth.

We met with a number of regular customers and a ton of new ones.  You guys and your kind words make it worth what we do.  Without tooting our own horn we had many individuals come by and say we had the best books (really that means little to me cause everyone has different tastes), but the best things we heard several times over was how awesome we were to deal with.  We had someone looking for a book but couldn't find it in the bin (I knew we had it)...he left the booth a bit disappointed but we found it shortly there after.  Jim tracked him down in the convention centre (how I'm not too sure).  Guy bought it and was super happy we would chase him down.

Highlight sales would have been:
DD1, Avengers1, Saga 1, NM98 (every copy we had and could have kept selling, if we had them), ASM 300 triple signed, ASM361.  We also have a few guys that want to meet this week about picking up some bigger books they didn't expect to see at the show ;)

Move in was smooth as we did it thursday morning (after all the big guys have already cleared out).  Move out Sunday evening was a cluster.  I spent over 1hr45 min in the van waiting to get into the loading bay due to all the traffic.  Once in my crew moved their cabooses off and we were in and out!

Rebooked for next year.

The lady that made me cry has to be the highlight of the weekend. :cloud9:

Jim

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Guardian Comics

Guardian Comics

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7 minutes ago, CKinTO said:

:baiting:Need more info! Is that a "good cry" or a "bad cry"? haha

She came looking for some books for her son who lives in Alberta, and had a list of three books she was looking for, we had two of them.  She said we were the first dealers that she had stopped at and wanted to look around.  I told her that wasn't going to be a problem and encouraged it.  I said to her that I was going to put the two books aside and if she couldn't find them anywhere else she knew exactly where they were going to be and that they wouldn't be sold.  About an hour or so later, she comes back and says that she would like to take them and not only were they the best priced, but that we were the nicest, kindest comic dealers that she had met and have ever encountered over her years of coming to FE.  Immediately I start crying and had to turn away and clean myself up before I could finish the sale.  Eric from the other side of the table was laughing his azz off at the softiness that is me.

 

Jim

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CKinTO

CKinTO

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15 minutes ago, Guardian Comics said:

She came looking for some books for her son who lives in Alberta, and had a list of three books she was looking for, we had two of them.  She said we were the first dealers that she had stopped at and wanted to look around.  I told her that wasn't going to be a problem and encouraged it.  I said to her that I was going to put the two books aside and if she couldn't find them anywhere else she knew exactly where they were going to be and that they wouldn't be sold.  About an hour or so later, she comes back and says that she would like to take them and not only were they the best priced, but that we were the nicest, kindest comic dealers that she had met and have ever encountered over her years of coming to FE.  Immediately I start crying and had to turn away and clean myself up before I could finish the sale.  Eric from the other side of the table was laughing his azz off at the softiness that is me.

 

Jim

Wow, great story, and great customer service! No comment on you being a big softie... :whistle:

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