Salutations friends!

Ben and I got to wander about the Long Beach Convention Center this Halloween weekend at the ever-flavorful Long Beach Comic Convention (LBCCon)!  In its sophomore year, this youthful con has come a long way over the last year and boasts a bigger space, more exhibitors and a much wider variety of people.  If you want the short review, here it is: Long Beach Comic Con is awesomesauce poured over a plate of yummy respect for comics, slow roasted with sprinkles of informative and a side dish good times with a sparse serving of mediocre attendance.

For those who like their reviews with a bit more information, read forth.

The space inside of the Long Beach Convention Center is ideal for the needs of comic book gathering — 35% bigger than last year.  Aisles inside are clean and easy to navigate, with publishers up front, just in front of the entrance, and copious aisles for the two artist alleys (which here, should be called the artist stages, as they seem to take center stage and highlight the talent as opposed to various other conventions), surrounded by various retailer booths in between and along the outsides.

Talent at the LBCCon is impressive, pulling out some of the finest in the area.  This year the convention stars include (bold indicates particular favorites of mine): Tim Bradstreet (who struck up a conversation with Ben and I at the beginning of the convention and is quite a pleasant gentleman), Max Brooks, J Scott Campbell, Amanda Conner, Scott Lobdell, Jeph Loeb, Mike Mignola, Dustin Nyugen, Steve Niles, Jimmy Palmiotti, Whilce Portacio, Tim Sale, Mark Waid, Bernie Wrightson, Joe Benitez, Joel Gomez, Eddi Nunez, Lord Mesa, John Narcomey Jr, Ruben Martinez, Dave Johnson, Thomas Jane, Michael Jonathon, Kit and Emma Steinkellner and Louis Leterrier.

Publishers were a much stronger presence than last year.  Aspen and BOOM! made a return, but they brought some industry associates like Arcana, IDW, Image and Top Cow.  We’d be remiss not to mention one of our favorite retailers 4 Color Fantasies (manned by owner Chris Brady) as well.

Oh, and Pitof.  The guy who made the Catwoman movie with Halle Berry.  Dirty Pitof…

The only part of the convention noticeably less impressive than 2009 was the programming.  It wasn’t the quality of programming that left me feeling a bit “meh,” but the distance I had to hike to get there.  Am I lazy?  Yes.  But it was a pain in the ass to have to leave the convention, walk down to street level, then up a block, down another block to the right and back towards the parking garage where a group of rooms completely detached from the Convention Center awaited with panelly goodness.  After talking to some of the LBCCon employees I learned that this douchery was the result of another Convention Center renter annexing all use of the convenient rooms because they didn’t want our geeky germs all over the place (or something like that).  Unfair, to be certain, but unexecusably annoying.

The programming itself, however, was fantastic.  I went to a few including:  Comic Book Writing 101 — Comic Book Sunday!, Listen to Jimmy Palmiotti — Amanda Conner Spotlight, Secret Origin: The Story of DC Comics, Exclusive Premiere! Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam,  Webcomic Advocates Get-Together, 50 Questions in 50 Minutes with Mark Waid, Mike Mignola Spotight, Top Cow: We Create…Competition, and Getting Your IP Recognized with Jimmy Palmiotti.  Unfortunately there were several other panels I wanted to attend (especially the one with Louis Leterrier and Pitof the Destroyer) but time constraints and a small bladder kept me from listening in on all the goodness.

For some reason, despite all of this potential goodness, LBCCon wasn’t able to pull the crowds everyone hoped for.  It could be because the convention falls on Halloween weekend and most folks were out getting their ghoulish freak on.  Or perhaps a few fine fellows and gals got lost traveling from the con to the panels, never to be heard from again.  More than likely, the lackluster turnout could be a result of a second year convention feeling the empty pangs of growth.  Whatever the cause, it needs to get fixed.

Many of the presenters, exhibitors and professionals I spoke to were underwhelmed at attendance and disappointed at dismal sales.  Hopefully next year brings more fans to support our comic-labor of love because Long Beach Comic Con has the potential to be more than great -> It could be the greatest comic books convention in Southern California.

Check out the pics below (and a personal thanks to Zatanna, Ms. Marvel and the Invisible Woman — you were the bust best.)

Peace.

James

Salutations Semantinkerers!  This is Ben and James once again reporting from the first annual Long Beach Comic Convention!

Well, we expected Saturday to be a busier day than Friday, and it definitely was.  More Costumes.  More attendees.  More poor planning!  Wha– Huh?  That’s right.  I’m afraid that Saturday was a great deal less impressive then Friday, though I would still put the entire convention oodles (that’s right, “oodles”) above many others.

Apparently Japan has a different version of Star Wars.

I don’t know. Mr. Wolff wins.

Looks better than Nick Cage’s version.

Bad. Ass.

Here’s the deal:

Ben and I awoke with great zeal, excited to continue what started on Friday as a wonderful time.  We went to Ghettobux, wrote our blog, plotted out the various panels we would attend, and were heading back towards the Long Beach Convention Center by 10:30am.  The first thing we did upon our arrival was find the new artist-friends we made the day before.  First was Lord L Mesa, who had a throng of peoples awaiting his attention and still found the effort to give us a smile and warm greeting.  We gave Lord a copy of Mythoi and let him go back to doing his thing after a brief conversation.  On our way to the next drop-off, Ben ran into none other than the great Mark Waid!  Ben seized opportunity and chirped a bit about the book in Mr. Waid’s ear and he asked if he could have a copy (of course, we gave it to him)!  Geeking off of that encounter, we made our way to Joel Gomez who opened Mythoi without hesitation and gave some instant (and appreciated) constructive criticism.  Finally, we dropped the last freebie issue off to the mighty Doug Mahnke, who had no time to open or look at the book but asked to get back to us soon.  It may sound small, but as an independent writer/artist who grew up reading these guys, it means the world to Ben and I to have these guys read our stuff.  It’s an honor.  Really.

Well, with our hearts all aflutter we trudged around the rest of the convention floor which was much, much fuller of freaks, geeks and other forms of fandom than the day before.  We killed some time perusing various booths (taking notes for one of our own some day…) and then followed the wall of celebrities off the floor to the panel rooms above.  This is when things when sour(ish)…

The first panel we went to was the writer’s panel, presented by Aspen.  In the program it says that Jeph Loeb, David Wohl, JT Krull, Scott Lobdell, and Jimmy Palmiotti.  Unfortunately, only the first three showed up (still an honor for fans like us).  Apparently Mr. Lobdell has Swine Flu and Mr. Palmiotti was called to another panel.  Ben and I were understanding and shrugged it off — the might that did show up was still beyond worthy of our attention.  The panel was excellent.  As a writer I took notes as these masters delivered various tips and tricks to the audience.  This was the best panel and earned an “A” for the day.

Writers = “Directors”

Ben and I grabbed lunch at Island’s across the street (try the new chicken sandwich with fried onions — awesome) before making our way to the next panel of the day: editing in comics.  Promoted to be speaking in this panel were Matt Gagnon, Rob Levin, Scott Dunbier, and Matt Hawkins.  Dunbier no showed for one reason or another, and Hawkins was replaced by another Top Cow editor whose name escapes us at the moment, but was awesome and informative.  Once again, it was disappointing to not see who you allotted time for, but the panel was almost as good as writing, and may only have been lacking in audience questions, which was partially our fault.  Overall, we give this panel a B+.

Editors = “People who do everything else”

At this point in the day, Ben and I snuck away for a quick meeting with some investors.  After an hour on the phone, we hustled back to the convention to join in on the Art Panel, which featured Joe Benitez, Dustin Nyugen, Mike Choi, Ale Garza, Philip Tan, and another gentleman whose name escapes us because we are terrible audience members (maybe Micah Gunnell).  The artist panel was interesting.  It wasn’t bad, but the information presented wasn’t incredibly helpful to Ben (an editor), or I (a writer).  We had hoped that by attending the panel we could learn more about the artistic process, but really only learned about the types of music (or lack thereof) that the artists listen to, what types of pencils and/or inks they use, and what inspires them to work.  The answers to these questions were all case specific and changed artist per artist.  The panel was unhelpful for us, but probably great for fans.  Unfortunately, it felt more like a personal panel interview then a panel about the artistic process — to be fair, I again blame poor audience questions.  B-.

With two out of three panels not delivering what was promised via program, Ben and I made our way to the final event of the day:  Thomas Jane’s premiere of “Give Em Hell Malone.”  We weren’t bitter, but I would be lying if I said we weren’t a little bummed.  We walked into a very empty room at just fifteen minutes or so before showtime to meet Thomas Jane and a couple of his buddies setting up the Playstation 3 that (we assumed) would be gracing us with his latest cinematic adventure.  Unfortunately, after waiting until ten after the scheduled showtime, Thomas Jane announced to less than 100 people that we would not be seeing “Give Em Hell Malone,” but would instead be watching the black and white version of “The Mist.”  Don’t get me wrong, “The Mist” is a great film, but this iced the let-down cake for Ben and I so we trudged off with our heads down and left the rest of the theater to enjoy their time with Mr. Jane.  To be fair, Thomas Jane seemed very bummed that he couldn’t show his film, and Ben and I are sure it wasn’t his fault.  You’re still the sh*t, Thomas — we love you!

Back at our hotel room, Ben and I got all cleaned up and decided to attempt and retake our hopes from the night by attending Mark Waid’s party at our new favorite Long Beach Bar, The Auld Dubliner.  It wasn’t very busy when we got there around 9pm, so we found a table, grabbed some beers and played a game of Scrabble.  By the time the game was over the occupancy had tripled and the band was playing loud.  At one point we were stampeded by a bachelorette party for a young lady who loved to dance.  It was a great night full of drinks, talks, laughs, and eventually, great sleep.

Day 3, here we come…

James and Ben