Earlier this month I attended Terrificon, the Connecticut based comic book convention that I consider my go-to comic con and the main event for me each summer. I have been attending the con since 2017 and I have always been impressed with it. From the venue to the guest list to Mitch Hallock, the con promoter, it never fails to be a great time.
This year boasted some legendary creator names (including Jim Lee) and some newer creators as well which meant I was pretty busy the three days I attended. Before I get to my adventures, a few global comments.
First off, the venue is unparalleled. The con is in the Expo center at the Mohegan Sun casino, a massive hall which is filled with celebrities, comic creators, and vendors. There's free parking. There are more than enough places to eat in the place from the concession stand in the hall to every level of restaurant in the casino - food court to high end steak house - to make the non-convention part of attending easy.
Second, as I mention each year, the vexing conundrum around signature and commission prices remains ... well ... vexing. It is hard to anticipate how much creators will charge for autographs and sketches and as such, it is hard to anticipate how many books/how much money to bring. When one legendary creator says 'no charge' and another says 'two free then $5 each after' and another says '$2' and yet another says '$40 per sig', there isn't an internal formula I can anticipate in my mind. More puzzling is when new creators, mostly cover artists, who haven't been doing comics for more than a year charge $20 a sig, it becomes a difficult problem to solve.
I want to go up to creators and tell them how much I love their work and talk about stories/covers I love. But to go up without purchasing something, especially if you have to wait in a long line, feels off. For the first time, there were some tables I didn't go to because the price tag was too high. And I understand that these folks need to make a living. I am not begrudging them charging. But I get books signed because I love them, not because I am flipping them. And I'm not sure that even if I was flipping them if the sig adds the value they think. To put differently, I might approach someone and get 6 books signed for $30. But I avoided a $30/1 book table. It is a calculation I need to make on the fly and one I cannot predict until I get in the doors. Thankfully, each creator had a sign on their table listing their prices.
Okay enough math talk. On to the fun stuff.
The commission sketch above is by Kesel which is a great addition to my collection.
Kesel was just the nicest guy, hearing me gush about his Superboy stuff and more importantly for me, his Hawk & Dove work. I told him how much I love Knockout, the female fury character in his Superboy run. How much I love Conner. And it was cool to get him to sign some Legends issues which I had signed by John Byrne at a prior con.
Hawk & Dove is a beloved book for me so it was cool to meet Kesel. One more thing with him down below.
I was also able to get a bunch of variant covers of the current Supergirl volume signed as well.
It was great to get veterans Jeff Dekal, Terry Dodson, Adriana Melo, and Chrissy Zullo to sign their covers.
And I was able to meet newcomers (at least to me) Ariel Diaz and Sozomaika.
Diaz said she didn't get much guidance on the content of her swimsuit cover. And she only asked if she could include Krypto.
Sozomaika said she was sort of tired seeing 'cute' Supergirl covers and wanted to put one where Kara had a little attitude. So her 'Are you kidding' cover was imagining a ticked off Kara about to pound on someone after they kicked her into a plane.
I'll showcase just a couple of books I got signed here too.
David Finch garnered quite a crowd! I was so glad to get Action Comics #894 with Death on the cover signed by him.
Jeph Loeb signed Superman #226, one of those beloved comics for me but probably dollar bin fodder. It was hard to justify the high cost for getting it signed by him. But I love the issue and it is already signed by Joe Kelly, Tim Sale, Jerry Ordway, and Howard Chaykin. So it was awesome to add Loeb's sig. Alas, he didn't have much recollection of writing his bit.
As most know, I am a huge Legion of Super-Heroes fan, especially the 5YL run. Karl Story was the inker on some of the later issues so I grabbed some signatures from him. He talked about working with penciler Jason Pearson and how Pearson's style was always evolving. And he told me that Pearson and him snuck some artist friends (Adam Hughes, Dave Johnson, and Cully Hamner) into some panels of issue LSH #38 (which he is holding).
And lastly, I got Karl Kesel to sign some issues of Hawk & Dove, including this issue which has a letter to the editor written by me.
So lots of creator moments.
But there were many many vendors there so if you were on the hunt for a comic, you could probably find it. And this ranged from a dime box (unheard of !!!) to the highest priced slabbed book.
As for me, outside of bin diving, the one book I was glad to grab was The Hunger Dogs graphic novel by Jack Kirby. I had never seen this in the wild before and now it is mine!
I love this con and as long as I am around and it is running I will be there!
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