The Boston Comic Con was frustratingly good. As a vendor it was a great show. I made more than I’ve made at any show before and I had high goals for this show as there are a couple of personal issues I need to deal with currently. That was exciting. It was also exciting that even though Danielle is 13 years old, she managed that booth like a pro! She was even left alone there while I took care of some other business on the floor and she was the recipient of many wonderful comments and high praise.
Let me start at the beginning, and I’ll cruise over my pertinent thoughts on this show. Upon arriving at the Seaport World Trade Center, it was conveniently located off of the highway and easy to get to. We pulled right into the dock with no waiting and found that we had pulled right onto the showroom floor. Unloading was the easiest I have ever experienced. The aisles were big and wide and for the most part able to accommodate the large crowds. The problem I had, and found that many people had, was that there were no signs indicating aisles or locations. There were maps, but they didn’t seem accurate or to scale so they were very difficult to understand. At one point during the weekend I joked that I could make “Thousands by charging a dollar every time someone asked for directions”. No, I didn’t know where such and such booth was or which artist was where and the one time I could help, instead of trying to explain it, I just sent one of my guys to walk them over there.
I arrived early and set up my booth on Friday night so that I would be able to use Saturday morning to get the lay of the land. Saturday morning I noticed that somebody had helped themselves to one of the books on my display racks. I still have no idea what book was stolen Friday night, and it wasn’t that big a deal to me as it was probably only $6 to $25, but it did cost my faith in the security at the Seaport. High priced items traveled “home” and back with me every night, which was just one more slight aggravation. Saturday morning I had no problems getting into the show, but I talked to people who sat outside in the sun for two and a half hours waiting to get in the door because the show folks didn’t start handing out bracelets until the show opened and then I was told, it was only one person at the door. One couple I know of had to leave at about 3, arrived at 9, and didn’t get in the door until about 1. If that were me I would have been so pissed off somebody would be hearing from attorney. Not necessarily to get money back, but to frustrate and ruin someone’s day the way mine had been ruined, although that wasn’t me. It was me that gave a man a snickers and my bottle of water for $2.00 because he spent so long trying to get inside that his young son looked like he was going to be sick. I shouldn’t have charged him and regretted it afterwards, but at the time thought “there goes my lunch”, and there it went. I next ate at a little after 9PM (to be fair though, I did bring a box of 48 Snickers intending to sell, I just didn’t think they’d all be gone in 30 minutes). My other big disappointment of the day was that at one point a very cool Bumblebee Transformers cosplay stopped in my corner to take a break and get out of the costume for a little bit. Unfortunately, the crowd that gathered made moving through that corner impossible and people started “pouring” through my booth to get around the corner. The first few people I tried to be sympathetic for, but I quickly inserted myself in the way. Believe it or not, one woman told me I was “Rude”. I’m sorry Ma’am. I paid for this space, my merchandise is in this space and it’s not a public pass way.
I thought there would be a crowd for Bill Willingham but there wasn’t. That was fine by me since he was the reason I wanted to be there (other than putting braces on my son). Scott Snyder had a line and I thought that was done excellently. Tickets were handed out. Blocks of numbers were called and you got in line in numerical order to meet him. The problem I had with that was where I was located we couldn’t hear what was coming out of the speakers so I missed my number. Not a big problem as when I finally sauntered over there they just put me up front with the lowest number. That’s a very fair system allowing people to enjoy the show without wasting the day in line.
Sunday went just fine and I’d say about 2PM the crowds died down visibly enough that I was comfortable straying a little from my booth with no one at all there. Creators were fairly easy to get to, only one fan stunk so bad I wanted to vomit, and there were plenty of costumes, most very good, on display. There were actually a good number of young readers digging through my books, and by young I mean 11 – 15. Most of those, I either gave big huge discounts to or gave some dollar books away for free. I told one young woman that I love kids who read comics. I saw a lot of good friends. Friends I wish I could see more than once or twice a year. With smaller numbers of people it was possible to not necessarily be in “Sell mode”, but to have a real conversation with some of the fans and that was a huge hit for me. The other thing I dearly loved (again other than hearing someone tell me my daughter was “Really one of us!”, was a show piece I brought, not for sale, but to attract attention. It did its job. On Amazing Spider-man (vol 2) #36, the black 9/11 story, I had artist Scott Hanna draw the two towers for me in silver pen. As Far as I know it’s still the only one Scott’s ever done. I know there are a couple other’s done similarly, in acrylics, by an artist I couldn’t name, but this is a very rare and emotional image and many people asked to take pictures of it. One person said it was the single coolest thing he’s ever seen at a show and one man, from New York, actually got misty eyed. I love talking about comics and sharing stories.
Now as the show closed and we broke down our booths we were told that if we staged our material at the dock, we could then bring in our vehicles and get out of there. There were three docks and the most accessible one had a huge line in the queue. I chose to use one of the two docks close to where I was and found that one of the docks was “reserved” for Harrison’s Comics. That left us forming a line and waiting for the loading process while looking at an empty dock. The kid was just doing his job but so much for being ready to go. One other vendor’s argument for common sense won the day and we used the reserved dock and got the hell out of dodge.
All in all it was a good weekend. I just hope that next year’s show is much less disorganized than this year, because Jim and Nick have been doing this long enough, and they’re growing very well, that what was wrong with it shouldn’t have been this bad.
The sharing’s over and the Boston Comic Con is done for this year so let’s see what we might want to look for in shops this week, and in my opinion that starts with Dark Horse Comics' Fagin the Jew 10th Anniversary hardcover, $19.99, by Will Eisner. I’ve already judged some of Will’s work by its cover, or title to be specific, and regretted that. With that in mind I’m looking forward to this very much…
Image Comics has sparked my interest for more than a moment with J. Michael Straczynski and Tom Mandrake’s Sidekick #1, $2.99. Meet The Cowl and Flyboy: renowned superhero and sidekick, super-successful superheroes who were famous, popular, and happy until the Cowl's assassination. Now, without a superhero Flyboy becomes a joke of a sidekick. Follow his trajectory from barely tolerated hero to figure of ridicule and witness his slow descent into madness, darkness, and crime. I may wait until this is collected to read it, but I’m certainly going to read it…
Quantum and Woody #2, $3.99, from Valiant Entertainment is here and the first issue was as good as I could have hoped it would be. Here’s to issue #2 from James Asmus and Tom Fowler…
And Shadowman #9, $3.99, by Justin Jordan and Neil Edwards contains a wicked betrayal that can’t dampen the drama in this series. I don’t even need a synopsis to know I’ll be reading this issue before the rest of the comics are finished being inventoried…
And there are plenty more that are not listed. For a more complete list, feel free to visit your local comic store or favorite site. If you’re interested in more of what I think, follow me on Twitter at Mycomicstore001 or like my Facebook page.
Michael R. Murray is a full time Letter Carrier for the United States Postal Service who is way too tired to be working on this right now. A more than full time job is starting to take its toll after the last week I’ve had.