Life In Four Colors #33
Covering Buckeye Con March 7th 2010
This past Sunday my fellow comic book convention road warrior and good friend Chris Metzger and I attended the Buckeye Comic Con. It was about an hour drive out of town and the majority of the conversation on the drive was still focused on the Main Street anniversary party the day before.
Chris and I have attended this show several times in years past and show promoter Jeff Harper has always put on a pretty good con, twice a year once in March and another later in July. Metzger and I do not always get to go to both shows, actually we rarely have, and it varies if we catch the first or second show. I do prefer the July show because the show is close to the OSU disc golf course which we like to hit afterward.
Or at least it used to be. This year the show moved and was being held at the main Ball Room at Fort Rapids Water Park and Hotel just outside of Columbus Ohio. Jeff was forced to move the show this year because the location of the show for the last several years (The Buckeye Hall of Fame Cafe) is being demolished and a new building is going up in its place.
The show has always been a smaller sort of show but the admission is very economy friendly at just $3.00 at the door. And I admit the drive was much easier getting to this location and the parking was a great improvement. The resort itself was huge, but the Ball Room the con was in was on the small side. I realize Jeff was left with finding a location at the very last instant and kudos to him for keeping this show alive, but it was a little cramped.
If any of you are familiar with the Main Street Comics and Games store front, it was about twice that size. Or about the size of the down stairs "Indy Alley" at Champion City. Still a quality show with some great vendors, but it looked as though the show had to lose a good 30% of past vendors to fit in this location. Creative artists attendance always varied from show to show even at the old location and this show had just as many creative talents at this show as the last show I attended in July 2009 (my first show as a comic vendor). But the guests were squeezed together and forced to share tables to accommodate the number of creators there.
Featured artists included Sean Forney, Stephanie Forney, Bryan "Stratos" Borgman (all in the above photo), Josh Medors, and Molly Durst. Sean said in a later e-mail that both he and Josh (who is an incredible artist and someone I'm very interested in having at Champion City in 2010) had a great day over all, which was nice to hear.
I had a very strict list of comics I was looking far as Metzger was looking to fill gaps in the first Thanos War (looks like he's been listening to a some recent Comic Related podcasts)...and I was in the cosmic set of mind as well as I was looking to complete my Silver Surfer run (at least issues #1-100 and annuals #1-6), as well as the missing portions of....get ready for it....Operation Galactic Storm.
Yeah....I stand on a very small island. I liked this stuff! C'Mon it's the Kree/Shi-ar War. How can you not like it? It's cosmic Marvel and a portion of Cosmic Marvel I always regretted getting rid of when I stopped collecting comics in the mid nineties and sort of forgot about until Brant mentioned it in a recent Zone 4 podcast (thanks Brant, seriously)
I was able to check every longbox in the show in one hour and ten minutes, finding several of the issues of the Silver Surfer series while Chris found most of that early Strange Tales and Warlock stuff. I picked up 13 books and spent 18 bucks if you count the $3.00 admission fee.
Looked like lunch was on me this time around as Metzger spent a considerable amount more (those Warlock books were in GREAT condition!)
I was looking for one issue of the Invaders to complete that series (issue #30), but unfortunately I couldn't find it.
At every Buckeye Con and Mid-Ohio Con I attend I have to stop by and talk to good friend Jeff Patrick at his Famous Funnies booth. Jeff operates out of Westerville Ohio, the same town the Forney's live in and that my daughter Raichal attends college at. When he's not on the road he can be found at Moore's Comics in Westerville, a store ran by Rob and Laura Moore. A very nice shop (which is actually a huge house converted into a comic shop and the ABSOLUTE best comic shop in that area).
I tried real hard to stay to just buying what was on my "hit list" but Jeff always has the best Bronze Age Marvel stuff and at the best prices. I couldn't leave his booth without picking up something so I purchased Incredible Hulk #300 and Omega the Unknown #2 (you'll have to watch the first episode of Geek Street to find out why that book was on the semi-hot list)
www.undergroundvideonetwork.com
I also spoke to Jeff about getting a table at Champion City in the fall. He wasn't able to get one last year because he was at the Pittsburgh show but it looks like it might be a possibility this year. Jeff is on a small list of vendors we didn't get at the show last year that we want to add this year (others include Heroes 4 Sale in Vandalia Ohio, Pack Rat Comics in Hilliard Ohio, and the Bookery Fantasy in Fairborn Ohio).
Hey it's a con...where else are you going to get all these different vendors in the same place at the same time. You got to make your connections when you can. I saw Bob Corby of S.P.A.C.E. Con doing the same thing over at the artist tables. Great minds think alike, right?
Last stop on the way out was to see Jesse Noble over at the Fearless Readers table to pick up some promo material for his upcoming Gem City Comic Con in Dayton Ohio April 11 th.
(hhmmmm.....that copy of Avengers #1 looks very familiar.)
Jesse and his partner in crime (Bill Thade) gave me some posters for the store to promote the show and several free passes to hand out to some of our favorite customers. He also said he was "pretty sure" he could find that issue of the Invaders for me before the Gem City show.
After a quick lunch on the way home at the Fazoli's in Hilliard we stopped by Pack Rat Comics, we usually do this.
Jamie and Teresa Colegrove (the owners of the store) partnered with Necessary Cool to provide some really cool door prizes for our anniversary party. I saw Jamie at the show and stopped by the store (where Teresa was watching) so I could thank them both. This was the first time Chris and I had been in the new, expanded store...and it was NICE. It looked great. A true inspiration as a comic retailer. And as happens to be the case more often than not, both Chris and I tend to find more at this shop of what we're looking for than at the show.
Their basement houses LITERALLY HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF COMICS!!! And all of them are ALWAYS a buck a piece.
Needless to say, Operation Galactic Storm is now complete, but I'll be heading back soon to look for the three Silver Surfer books I'm still missing and a guest appearance in Web Spinners #4.
Until then...see you in the funny papers!
Bill Gladman - Bill is a writer and illustrator and currently working on several different projects including the first issue of an ongoing comic book series (Prodigy), an illustrated fantasy novel (The Book of Noheim), and the first of four illustrated science fiction/fantasy novels (Jack the Rabbit, Living Legend of the Purple Plains) as well as a light-hearted on going mini-comic (Three Wise Men). Bill also pens a column for Comic Related and will be doing a mix of regional convention coverage.
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