Heroes Con 2015 - Post Mortem

Just a small portion of the Vendor's floor

Another Heroes Con is in the book. This was my eleventh straight year going and my initial excitement for the event is always the same. The past three years (the two I had to drive) ended up being times I had something happen at the Con that served to frustrate me. Two years ago, the AC did not work and that led to a hot drive back home. Oh and to top things off, there was a huge traffic delay that got us there about two hours late.

This year, there was the nearly hour long wait in the PRE-REGISTERED tickets line. Seriously, what's the point of buying tickets to avoid a line if you just end up in a line anyway?! People could walk off the street and buy a ticket and get in while we were waiting. If I hadn't already paid for my tickets, I would have got out of line and bought some tickets. However, it's not as bad as San Diego Comic was a few years ago. If I can stand in a line for three hours, I can stand in line for anything. I just like to get in during the first few hours when it's not crowded, so I can look unabated.

I digress, this will be the only complaining I will make here. Here's something you need to know about my con going habits. The first hour is magic hour for me. It sets the tone for my con, more or less. This is when I'm looking for the most wanted items on my list. I get one of the first runs at the vendors before their collections are picked over. Also, usually about 50% of my comic buying happens in my first couple of hours there.

This gives me time to get the lay of the land, find who has good deals and who I can see dropping their prices on Sunday. It also gives me time to see Artist alley and find the artists that I like. I can then come back later and buy some art from them.

On this trip, we debated why even do the full weekend anymore. I seriously do the majority of my buying on Friday. The next two days are just casual looks at vendors.

What I want to share is why I enjoy doing this. I enjoy the thrill of the hunt. I think dopamine is released every time I search through a comic bin and find exactly what I'm looking for. Words can't express how much I truly enjoy this, so I won't even bother. This is my own brand of fun.

This year, I didn't buy art from as many artists as I have in the past. Some of my favorite artists where there, but they did not have prints for sale or they had prints that had letters all over them. I don't like art that has words on them, with exceptions. I did buy an amazing Daredevil print from Matteo Scalera (who is amazing) and a cool, blaxploitation inspired Heroes for Hire print from Khary Robinson. Then I bought a couple of pieces that were art deco inspired (my weakiness) from a guy named Andrew Heath.

Per the usual, I ate well during my weekend at the con and took some pictures of some of the cosplayers. Even though I complained about the lines at the top of this post, it feels my heart with joy to see this Con doing so well. I'm glad it's growing and that it will keep growing. I definitely won't stop going anytime soon if I can help it.

It's that magical time of year...

Like the summer solstice, it's that special time in the summer. Heroes Con in Charlotte! Oh, I'm sorry, with a lead in like that you thought I would say something thought provoking? You should know me better than that.

Anyways, this is that special time of  year for me where I catch up on a few years of comic books on the cheap. However, I want everyone to know it's more than that for me. Well, not really, but let's just pretend it is.

Not everyone has been to a convention with me, so I thought I would use this post to reveal what I am typically like at a con. I've been to many cons (mostly repeats of this particular one), but I have developed a pattern that has me performing my tasks with a laser like efficiency that could probably put me in a more serious light than people are used to.

So here I am, baring my soul.

• I have a list. Yes, every year I go to Heroes Con, I have a list of books that I'm looking for. When I first started, I had slips of paper. Then I upgraded to an html table I used from my comic database. Then spreadsheets. Now, it's using an excel spreadsheet on Google Drive. What I've found is that by using the Google Drive, my friend and I can split up and mark off what I need on the sheet. No more clunky paper copies and marking things off with pens like we did in the past. Like I said, it's gotten EFFICIENT.
• I am notoriously cheap. Years ago, my friend called me "the Black Vulture". This is because I only pick off the cheap comics from the vendors. My mission is to get what I want at as cheap a price as I can get. A piece of me dies when I pay more than $5 for an issue of anything. So I usually hit the one dollar and two dollar bins hard.
• When looking for comics I have the following pattern: On Friday, I look for the books that I need the most. I will pay the most per an issue during this time. Saturday I do recon to see which vendors I want to hit on Sunday when everything is the cheapest.
• I detest unsorted long boxes. My biggest pet peeve at any convention is when someone is selling comic books and they are not sorted in any discernible order. Look, I'm thirty-five. I don't have time to spend an hour looking through boxes on my hands and knees. If a box is not sorted, I move on. Show some professionalism guys!
• I've become numb to cosplayers. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing cosplay. I've just seen so much that you have to have a really good costume to register with me at this point. Or in other words, I've seen enough Deadpools to last me five lifetimes.
• I love getting the chance to meet some of my favorite artists and buy pieces of art from them. The past few years I've spent just as much time looking around artist alley. It's always a treat.
• Since they've expanded the dealer's room, I love the vast openness this convention has. I don't have to be shoulder to shoulder with people when walking around. Personal space is pretty easy to come by.
• This convention is very laid back. Everyone is super nice, there's no rush to anything and all of the guests are very friendly. It is kid friendly and I hope to bring my kids here one day.
• Sometimes there are fun panels to go to. Unfortunately, due to the laid back nature, the rooms are rarely full and that emboldens people to ask the dreaded, "Con Questions".

To summarize it, I really enjoy this convention. It always makes me happy. This will be my eleventh straight year going to this and I have not got tired of it yet.

I will end on one fun fact: Years ago a TV crew was there filming a story about the con and I ended up in a segment that would show on the news. It was for something called Carolina Camera or something. The link has been since pulled down, otherwise I'd share it right now.

It's the small things...

I should have wrote about this sooner, but I saw something in a comic that I really enjoyed and it's such a small, innocuous thing.

I was reading "Ultimate End" #1 from Marvel comics a few weeks ago. Marvel has a big event where they are smashing together the regular (616 as it is affectionately called) universe as we fans have known it for fifty plus years into the "Ultimate" universe, which was a re-imagining of the universe for the modern era. So right now there is a mish-mash of comic characters mingling with each other. Some of the characters are so similar, it's hard to tell which universe they belonged to.

Then I noticed it. The font of the speech bubbles for the regular Marvel characters used bold, all caps font. The Ultimate characters used a more subdued font that uses proper case in the lettering. I thought this was such a cool little thing, that when I noticed it, I was surprised. At first I thought, "No way are they that clever.". Then again, it could ONLY be a deliberate choice. That made me appreciate it all the more. Such a small touch that was used so effectively. Now you can tell all the characters apart.

Lettering is like an offensive line in Football. You only notice them when they do poorly. If they're doing good, you don't notice them at all. In this case, I just thought it was a cool use.

What did I think of the rest of the issue? Who cares, it was kind of a mess. But the LETTERING, man! Let's focus on the important things in life, huh?