It is hard to believe that convention season is basically in my rear view mirror. Obviously Terrificon is my main convention I aim to hit but there are others that dot the New England landscape in the summer and early fall.
I usually consider Granite State Comic Con to be the end of the con season as it usually happens in late September and there aren't many others I always try to hit in the months after. (I know Wicked Comic Con just happened and Rhode Island Comic Con is coming up but I wasn't/won't be attending because of other obligations.)
And Granite State is a favorite of mine because they often have solid comic creator guests. Off the top of my head I can remember seeing Aaron Kuder, Jeff Parker, and Michael Cho there. It has been growing in some ways, now occupying two different areas in the hotel it is in as well as the floor of an arena across the street. The media guests have been growing as well. Interestingly, the con used to be almost exclusively comic vendors, but much like Plastic City, there were only a handful of comic dealers there with toys, shirts, and other memorabilia filling up the bulk of the floor.
But I am burying the lede as they say. I was telling friends of mine that I was going to this con and many recommended that I try and get a commission from Dave Wachter, an artist best known for TMNT. Since I don't read TMNT, I had never seen his work but did a quick perusal on line. Suffice it to say my friends have great taste.
Wachter did the commission above and it is stunning. I love the pose, the shading, the background. I love Supergirl's happy expression and flexing. I am just floored by how great this commission is, a perfect ending to con season.
But wait, while not a con, there was one more Summer-ish 'event' worth talking about.
I went to Granite State on the Sunday of that weekend.
On Saturday, I drove to Rhode Island to go to the comic store Time Capsule's annual warehouse sale. I had been told that the owner was trying to liquidate his massive inventory and the information was not wrong.
It was in an old mill building. In a massive room. And filled ... I mean filled ... with long boxes with everything being a dollar. It ranged from stuff from the 70's all the way to just a couple of months ago. Some boxes were semi-organized, others random. Some books were bagged, others raw. It was basically panning for gold. But trust me, there was gold in there.
I stayed over three hours and didn't get through a third of the boxes. I will show you just a sampling of what I found.
I read Matt Wagner's Mage:The Hero Defined in the late 90s. But I have never seen the original Mage in the wild.
I was thrilled to find Mage, The Hero Discovered, 2-5, 7, and 8 in the boxes.
Can't wait to read.
I also found a couple of books I occasionally see as wall books, both in very good condition.
Blitzkrieg #1, a book I have always wanted to read because the concept is crazy.
And Sherlock Holmes #1 from DC, the one Holmes book they put out. Check out that Simonson cover!
As a amateur comic historian, I love finding comic magazines to read interviews and get a sense of the comic environment at that time.
Check out this batch with interviews about the Legion and Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, two of my favorite comic properties. And then interviews with Howard Chaykin and Grant Morrison, two of my favorite creators.
There was a whole glut of Wizard magazines too!
I bought some random old Legion and Superman books too and a couple of runs as gifts for friends. But the place was insane! I would have bought so much more if my funds allowed!
And so another con season officially comes to an end!
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