Thoughts on Dallas Comic Con
So far, I have only attended two Comiccons, Planet Comicon in Overland Park, Kansas and Dallas Comic Con. Not too surprisingly, the Dallas Comic Con is larger in both its scope and attendance. This was the 10th annual Comic Con, held May 19-20. It included an impressive line up of guests and exhibitors.
There were three floors of activity. Most of the comic book artists were on the first floor in the exhibit hall. But there were some less fortunate artists on the fourth floor. Not surprisingly the first floor got the most traffic.
One of the cool things on the fourth floor was The Big Freeze, Worldwide. It’s a big new take on the photo booth. There is a small circular stage surrounded by 48 DSLRs that fire at the same moment and capture an image in a 360 video clip. I saw some creative takes on how to use the technical aspect. Some of the most creative takes were patrons in cosplay doing character moves. You can check out their website at www.bigfreeze.com .
The newest movement in comics is online comics. Brian Delaney is both the writer and artist at Silver Sparrow Comics. Silver Sparrow Comics has two story lines on line at this time. One features a young girl and the other features a young man who finds himself in New York with no idea of who he is or how he got there. Silver Sparrow features Hiroko, an eleven year old girl sent to spend the summer with her Grandfather (who happens to be a weapons engineer). And Blood Machines centers on a young man who finds himself on the streets with no idea of who he is or how he got there and parts of him are bubbling. Something has been done to him but even he doesn’t know what. Luckily for him he does have a wad of money.
El Peso Hero is a web comic based on the conflict in the Mexican border state of Coahuila. Hector Rodriguez is the artist and creator. Being of Hispanic descent, he noticed there are not many Hispanic comic book heroes. The comic is his way of creatively expressing the social conflict on the US and Mexican border. This comic will be available both on the web and in printed hard copy form. The artwork is bold with a loose sketchy feel. It has a raw and emotional edge to it.
Another interesting entry in the digital comics is The Dope Fiends. Dope Fiends is stop motion story telling with crocheted characters. It’s story telling with zany looking characters posed with props and backgrounds. It’s creator is Revy AP, he sent me this reply to my questions. I am using his words because I can’t say it any better.
“I am Andrew Aguilar a.k.a. Revy AP. I am the creative force behind the Dope Fiends. I write the story, music and lyrics. I crochet the puppets around stainless steel stop motion armatures that I purchase from www.armaverse.com. The faces of the puppets are made from Sculpey – a common polymer baking clay. I then create props and sets and photograph my puppets enacting the story. Later I edit the raw photography into layouts which include dialogue, special effects and advertisements. I am also responsible for the marketing, public relations, social networking and financial aspects of my venture.
My artistic hopes for the Dope Fiends comics is to tell an engaging and insightful story about the choice each of us makes between Hope and Despair. The Dope Fiends uses popular culture and the vehicle of sex, drugs and rock and roll to elucidate on the moment of choice as an actual physical entity. Each character in the story has a corresponding song on the audio CD.”
Team S.L.U.G. is just a fun comic book series. The basic premise is Hedgehogs vs. Slugs. There are slugs to represent different countries, each with their own stylized personas. The hedgehogs are loosely based on the Nazi soldiers. You can check out issue one at http://graphicly.com/team-slug/team-slug/1 .
It occurs to me that comic con is an excellent finishing school for how to stand in lines. There are so many people and everything seems to be set up to maximize the use of having people in lines. There were lines to buy the Dallas Comic Con passes, lines to get in, lines at concession stands, and lines to meet guests or get autographs. The thing that makes these lines bearable are the people in line with you. As a whole these are friendly people there to have a good time. They are easy to talk to and love to express their opinion about any number of science fiction, movie, television, or comic book topics. It’s like built-in entertainment to pass the time while standing line.
Thanks to all the great people I met and your willingness to share both your wares and of yourselves. Thanks.
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I like your line about packing your patience along with the superhero t-shirt. The great thing is that the people around you in line still make it fun.
I would just like the organizers to work on how to reduce lines. There has to be a better way with less lines. I am pretty sure that the smart people who go to so much effort to organize these can come up with better ways to handle the crowds. And they better put their heads together because it looks like Comicons are getting bigger and are not going away any time soon.
The reason the lines are too long is because they allow people to talk to the guests and have a small meet and greet. Ive been to 4 conventions so far and 2 have been the New Orleans first and second comic con by Wizard World. Jan 2011 and Jan 2012. I was at the very end of the line for WIlliam Shatner and it only took 30 minutes to get a picture with him. Autographs never took more than 45 minutes. They would not allow chit chat. They sign something, MIGHT allow a minute or less, but never 10 -15 minutes of chit chat while 5 hours of people could be sped up to an hour. Photo ops never take long because its shoot and go shoot and go. That is what Q and A is for people. If Dallas would stop the chit chat and speed up the lines, it would be a perfect convention. Ill still be going three times a year now since its not far from me. And New Orleans once a year, Oh except this year. This year its twice because it did so well, they moved it from Jan 2013 to Nov 2012 and instead of 2 days its now 3. And Im so Glad I decided against a photo with Patrick Stewart in Dallas because he is going to New Orleans. Dr Who and Torchwood are suppose to be there as well, which is what VIP Im holding out for, but anywho , Ill buy a Patrick Stewart photo op, maybe a VIP, and it wont take longer than 45 minutes to get my picture with him. No problems what so ever. But that is because Celeb Photo Ops knows how to run a picture taking show. Here is their link. My daughter’s picture with Madison Linz was used in their facebook page advertisement. She was so excited to see that.
https://www.facebook.com/CelebPhotoOps?ref=ts
So DCC if you want people running your photos who know how to speed things up. These are the guys for the job. When i told them 5 hour wait their reply was, ” Shane, I cannot fathom what went wrong for the line to be backed up to 5 hours. Even for a large show like Philadelphia , a photo op line would be a 40 minute wait at the longest. And if we missed anyone we slide them in at an alternate time for a few minutes. ” Anywho other than the waiting, which I passed on, my daughter and I and my friend had an awesome time. There was way more cool stuff to buy than in New Orleans. But as for photos and autographs, well New Orleans has them beat on efficiency and order. New Orleans has a large selection of stars as well, but DCC has a better group of Comic artists. I was able to get Neal Adams autograph and a sketch by his son Josh. But Brian Stelfreeze was very rude. He looked at me while I stood there waiting for him TWICE, for 15 minutes and looked at me and ignored me and , well, it just felt unwelcoming. I was going to buy a sketch from him but the first time he kept talking to this guy while there was a line of people waiting for signatures. I got my 2 signatures that day. The next day I was waiting to get him to sketch for me and he kept talking to this guy, looked at me a couple of times but just ignored me. So I walked away and said, well that was quite rude. And brought my business to Josh Adams. Neal and Josh will also be in New Orleans. Josh does lots of Dr Who stuff so if the Who Crew show up , it will be perfect. Well I had an awesome enough time to come back three times a year if possible. But no less than at least once a year.