Baltimore Comic Con 2015

A comic con from a fans point a view. 

I love comic books. My husband loves comic books. My brother loves comic books and some of our friends love comic books. The rest of our friends just roll their eyes and chuckle at us.  My husband and I decided that we were going to go down to the Baltimore Comic Con with a group of friends. Prepping the night before, we pulled out all the comics and graphic novels that we thought would be really cool to have signed.  Then we debated on what we were going to wear. My husband had two new tee shirts that were contenders.  Should we go with Free Hugs with Leatherface or Welcome to Mordor. Welcome to Mordor for the win.

Then in the morning we double checked to make sure we didn’t forget anything while listening to Wordburgler rap about comics and drink coffee. The trip down to Baltimore was not that bad. I love looking at every one that dressed up. It is fun and there are all sorts of extremes in costumes. I thought I would join in the dressing up in a small scale and had a Black Widow dress and some knee high boots on. If I were to ever to dress up as Black Widow again, I would forgo the boots and wear something more sensible.  There is a price for cute boots and I am not entirely sure it was worth it. 

We barely go through the doors and make our way into the center to try and get out of the fray and I spot Jeremy Bastian at a table and there isn’t a line yet.  He wrote and illustrated Cursed Pirate Girl, which is one of most beautiful books I own. I could sit there and look at the art for hours. It is incredibly and intensely detailed. I had hoped to have my booked signed, but he did one better and drew a picture that you wouldn’t know wasn’t there originally and signed it. Inside I was squealing while I stood there in awe. 

Not to long after we wandered over to Justin Jordan’s table. Justin is a great guy and signed everything that was shoved in front of him while we chatted about cats. I don’t know if that makes him sound like a crazy cat man or me a crazy cat lady.  Maybe a little of both. Either way it was great to see him and I regret not bringing Tom Waits a cat toy. 

It takes a special sort of person to come up with God Hates Astronauts, and Ryan Browne completely blew me away. I could not stop laughing as he and my husband traded compliments with each other as he drew hats and signed almost a dozen issues and then drew a picture inside of a graphic novel.  It shouldn’t  have surprised me that he was a cool guy with a neato personality  considering the number of mind bending things that go on in his comic, but it did. I know it was one of the highlights of the entire convention for my husband.

My brother is a big fan of Ben Templesmith. I will be honest, I haven’t read a single thing by him yet, but I do have all of my brothers Wormwood issues, so that is an easy remedy. Trying to be the good sister, I brought some issues to be signed. Ben was a striking figure dapperly dressed in black and oozes dark comedy that had me trying to unsee the loincloth man walking around the convention. The unfiltered commentary left me chuckling. It was only hours later that I wished I could  have gotten my brain moving to get something commissioned while I was there and picked up his SquidGirls. I regret that my brain was on overload. 

In between getting issues signed there were boxes to go through and vendors to visit. There is something for everyone there. I wish I had more money or at least had the ability to be more whimsical financially, because if I had that ability I would buy at least one of those mystery boxes and then perhaps a game or two at some of the tables and have some stuff commissioned. Despite my non ability to be whimsical, I think we still did pretty good on adding to our growing comic collection. I am looking forward to next trying to attend next year and am completely thankful to the artists and creators that gave us the time of day.

Baltimore Comic Con

I love comics. That is that hard to believe considering I have a comic book themed wedding. Despite this love of mine, I have never been to a comic book convention until now. Joining my husband and a couple friends who are convention veterans, I ventured to the Baltimore Comic Con. 

It was overwhelming. If you have never been to a convention before, you don’t realize how much there is to see when you get there.  When you go through the double doors into the convention center, there are booths and displays immediately in front of you, screaming for attention, while the people swarm around you trying to get by. There is what feels like a million booths to try and look at. Some of the booths have the artist and writers of comic in them that will sign some of their work, or for a small fee draw your something. Other booths are full of merchandise that you can purchase, such as toys, tee shirts, comics, prints and posters. 

Falcon

Then there are the people. There is a large variety of people that come to comic book conventions. It is like a kaleidoscope of whimsy. If person isn’t in Cos-play, they are probably sporting an equally nerdy tee shirt. I saw everything from Transformers, to Disney Princesses, to X Men and Mario. There were probably a dozen Batman, Superman and Green Lantern tee shirts, and maybe twice that many Doctor Who players.  I felt like I could happily sit in a corner and play Cos-play Bingo if they had such a thing.  I personally think that it takes a special sort of bravery to dress up in Co-splay. Not every can do it, and those that do do it, show the love for a particular character to the world proudly.

Keith Giffen

One of my favorite things about the whole Baltimore Comic Con experience was talking with artists.  Not every one in a booth wants to talk to people and be their buddy, in fact several of them I suspect would be much happier locked in a room with a pad of paper and a bunch of pens with nothing to do but draw what ever they
wanted. However, there are quite a few writers and artists that are sociable and very kind and patient to the chaotic swirl of hot sweaty bodies.  Justin Jordan (writer of Luther Strode) and Tradd Moore (Artist of Luther Strode and Morning Glories #28 Variant) were incredibly nice to talk with while they both signed my husbands copies of Luther Strode.  Keith Giffen  charmed my husband and I with stories of Lobo that were unfit for print. It was nice that even artist and writers that were just finding feet, such as Christopher Clements were engaging about what their inspiration was. To me, it seems like every one that took the time to be there was a super hero to some one, even if they weren't in costume.

I loved the energy of all of it. Even the not so great parts weren't horrible. I don't like crowds. It was crowded. I don't like touching people. I was bumped into a million times and if I wanted to look at anything, I had to get elbow deep into a crowd. I ran out of hand-sanitizer. My feet hurt by the end of the day, and the hard cement floor was unforgiving with someone who had half a dozen graphic novels and equally that many bagged and boarded comics in a page bag.  It didn't matter. Everything was perfect, when you can look person in the eye and smile and they smile back, because you both love the same thing. With much anticipation and hopefully a much larger spending wallet, I look forward to going to next years convention.