Brant was a fan of comics as a kid and it stuck with him into adulthood. These days he's also an aspiring comic creator. This column discusses his personal journey from fandom to the annals of the creative society that is the world of comics. Brant's current comic series is Wannabez and this is his journey. (If it's you're first time joining him, you can visit the link at the bottom of the article to start the journey from the beginning.)
2009 CONVENTIONS AND SHOWS Part 3
The next stop on the 2009 convention trail was not one I actually attended, but it was the biggest comic convention of the year. I'm of course speaking of San Diego Comic-Con. And this year, Comic Related would cover the show in depth like never before.
Chuck Moore had the opportunity to go to the show in 2009 alongside Bill Love as both represented Comic Related and Comics XP to the various publishers and creators there. Plus they had a wonderful time just taking in the spectacle that is SDCC, or simply Comic-Con as it is known widely throughout geek culture and the media.
While Chuck was away, John Wilson and myself were on the homefront taking note of all the happenings and stories taking place and posting them right away on Comic Related. We had multiple stories an hour and covered nearly every single thing that came out of the event. Our coverage was so well-rounded that the site's traffic shot up a great amount, and those readers never left (Thank You!).
Chuck was also doing his part blogging live from the event on a special blog we set up just for the occasion. He would post mini updates and tons of photos, and it allowed all of us stuck on this side of the States to live vicariously through him and Bill for the duration of the nearly week long event.
SDCC was a bit of a turning point for CR. We kicked up our coverage for this event, as previously stated, and we never let up since. Before that we were still posting a lot, but since then we have tried our best to bring more and more coverage to the site, and it's still something we are striving to improve with even more and better coverage as we continue to grow. It kind of set the tone for what CR was and is to become.
After San Diego was all said and done, we got a short break in the convention season as we decided to sit out of Wizard World Chicago this time. We got some coverage from there courtesy of Chuck Kennedy and other sources who attended the show and C2E2's little year-early-launch-party, but there was no full presence of CR at the show. The coverage we got, though, was outstanding.
September brought us to the birth of a convention that we all had a tremendous amount of fun at, and that was of course the inaugural Champion City Comic-Con in Springfield, Ohio run by Scott Riley and CR's own Bill Gladman, who also run Main Street Comics & Games, which just celebrated its 1-year Anniversary this past weekend. You can read more about that later today on the site.
But Champion City was so much fun. I went in CR capacity along with John, Chuck and the Ringtail Cafe crew, and attended some panels and talked to some people, but mainly just hung out and had fun. The guys from Freestyle Komics and Studio Akumakaze were there, the Mutant Cactus folks, Bryan Miller, Frank Raynor, Chad Lambert and many others were present. It was just like a big party. They had a gaming room with X-Box 360s I believe, an auction to raise funds for a headstone for a close friend of Bill's who passed away years prior, and so much more. It was easily the most fun we had at a con because we were surrounded by friends in an intimate, but always buzzing event. I even sold a few books, and we're all looking forward to the second annual one this September. Yours truly, along with Scott D.M. Simmons will be redesigning the logo for the event!
And that brings us to the final leg of the 2009 Convention Season with October's Mid-Ohio-Con, another adventurous occasion in my journey. But you'll have to wait until next week for the full report on that one as I close out the year of 2009.
-B
Past Columns - Start the Journey at the beginning! Click here to check out all the past Journey of a Wannabe columns.
Brant W. Fowler / Writer, Letter, Creator, Reviewer, Columnist and Comic Related PR Coordinator
Brant W. Fowler has been a professional comic book letterer and logo designer for three years, and has been a freelance editor for the past five years. He has also worked with graphic design, writing and many other area of skills for several years honing his talents. You can learn all about what he's up to by visiting Gonzogoose
Design. Brant is also a member of the core
operations team at Comic Related.
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