Wizard World L.A. 2008
I went to Wizard World L.A. last week. It was the first time for me at this particular con and I have to say that I was disappointed.
I’m probably not your typical comic convention goer. I rarely go to the panels and I don’t have much to say to the big name professionals. I figure that I can find more news online than I’ll ever get at a panel, and as for talking to the pros, well I really don’t have much to say. That is I don’t have much that I can say in 30 seconds and not sound like a jerk. I do like to talk to some of the independent creators as they are generally more able to take the time to have a conversation.
So if I don’t like panels and I don’t talk to the pros, what do I go to a con for? That’s easy. The dealers room.
I love looking at, or even better, buying old comics. There is nothing like the feeling of being surrounded by tens of thousands of pages of newsprint all covered in super hero goodness. That’s getting to be a bit of a problem though as I’ve been collecting comics for around 30 years. The simple fact is that I have most of the books that have come out since the early 1970s that I’m interested in – at least the ones from DC or Marvel. That leaves either pre-1970s books or independents.
As most comic collectors know, as soon as you get to books that came out before 1970 prices start to go up quickly. There are a few series for which I’m willing to pay those prices, but not too many. Currently those include the Legion’s run in Adventure Comics and the original Teen Titans. For other books from this era I can only afford reading copies. I refer to these as my A list and B list, in that order.
When I’ve spent as much as I’ve allocated, or run out of things to buy from those lists, I move down to my C and D lists. My C list generally consists of books from the last 10 years or so that I somehow missed or had to skip for financial reasons. My D list is stuff that I don’t even know that I want.
The San Diego Comic Con is my main convention every year. This is true mostly because I happen to live near San Diego. It’s big. It’s generally convenient, and up until the last couple of years, it’s had what I wanted. I say up until the last couple of years because somewhere in that time span it changed. Now, instead of being a comic book convention it’s transformed into a media convention.
I’m not really interested in a media convention. While the dealer’s room has grown ever bigger, the amount of space given to actual comics has decreased every year, and nearly every year I’ve over-heard at least one or two dealers saying that they won’t be back. This is why I’ve started to branch out to other cons.
Last summer I went up to the Alternate Press Expo (A.P.E) in San Francisco. Having never been there I was hoping to find a lot of the smaller publishers. I did, but they were smaller than I’d hoped. Fortunately S.F. is a fun city all by itself so the trip wasn’t completely wasted.
So we finally get back to what started this rather long post. Wizard World L.A. Maybe I was expecting too much. I was hoping for a good sized dealer’s room devoted to mostly comics, instead I found maybe 20 dealers, and that’s probably being generous. Frankly I saw more dealers at local weekend conventions in the 1990s. I was disappointed to say the least.
Still, I had spent and hour and a half on the road to get there, so I tried to make the best of it. A quick once through showed me I’d have to dig to find anything, so dig I did.
From my A list I found one book. Teen Titans #26 in VF+ to NM- condition. Oh well, I moved to my B list where I had a bit more luck. An early Captain America, a couple of Jimmy Olsens, a Lois Lane, and three World’s Finests. Not bad, not what I’d hoped for, but not terrible either. It was time to hit the dollar tables and lists C and D.
A Justice League Adventures, a Batman Strikes, The Phantom #1 from Moonstone, 17 issues of the Savage Dragon, 4 issues of Invincible, 7 Manhunters, a Wonder Woman and two issues of the current Captain America series. Now this was more like it. Somewhere in there I also hit the treasure trove, 27 issues of the Justice Machine, but I’ll get back to that in a moment.
I did run into the writer of Bizarre New World, Skipper Martin, and gave him a little crap. Regular readers of this column will remember that I rather liked his first mini-series and gave it a good review. As a reward for that he sent me a preview copy of his new one-shot. I gave that a good review as well. Really, it’s good, you should buy it. So why did I give him crap? He linked to my review and spelled my name wrong, not once, but TWICE! He was suitable embarrassed when I introduced myself. Nice guy. Buy his book!
I also ran into one of the creators of Necessary Evil, another under-appreciated book from Desperado, and the colorist known as Moose! who was selling prints of Gary Frank Green Lantern art. I picked up one that had Hal, John, Kyle, and Guy charging up. Nice stuff.
So back to the treasure trove. Justice Machine. I’ll try and post more about this later as it deserves a full review, but for now I’ll just say that this was a great little series, at least what I’ve read so far, and it was almost enough by itself to have made going to this con worthwhile.
So all in all while Wizard World L.A. didn’t live up to expectations, it wasn’t the world’s worst con either. I managed to pick up some good books and met a couple of cool people. I’ll keep an eye on it and maybe try it again in a few years.
Keith