Big Apple Comic Con - Hats

June 8, 2008 on 5:25 am | In Comic Cons, Comics, Life in NY |

It was a dealer’s con, mostly. For every celeb from Friday the 13th part 2 signing autographs there were three tables of guys with bootleg DVD porn, 50 cent comics, and books that cost more than I make in a year. That’s an interesting thing about dealer cons - you can’t ever find what you’re looking for. Either it’s a dealer with 30 boxes of unsorted, beat-up crap, or it’s a billion boxes of golden/silver age stuff that 90% of the con can’t afford. Completionists like me either walk away empty-handed or spend an extraordinarily long time searching through garbage for the 1988 Manhunter #7 that I needed to fill out my run. And a lot of the con, seriously, was flea market stuff. The bootlegs, the overpriced bad condition comics, the bins of broken toys, that’s a flea market.

Luckily, the artists were awesome. Everyone was happy to talk and sell sketches, although there were many empty tables and a few missing names (Ice T and his wife were supposed to show too, but saw neither hide nor hair of them). I got a few more of my Mad Hatter commissions too, and as always I’m happy to show them off here.

Here’s a pencil sketch from Patrick Gleason, the artist extraordinaire for Green Lantern Corps and Robin. Super nice guy, one of the big rising stars in comics. His version of the Hatter is creepy and I love it.

Rodney (not Humberto, as his sign stated) Ramos, inker for Transmetropolitan, 52, and Countdown, gave me a brilliant ink sketch for my wall. He’s dandy and evil!

And finally, cartoonist Kev Toons gave me a cuter version of the Hatter, which will go well with my Art Baltazar crayon sketch.

So how was it? How was the con? It’s hard to say. I walked out of it with autographs, sketches, memories of conversations, photographs, and issues that completed my Manhunter and 1980 Moon Knight collections. But the heat of a 90+ degree day got into the building, making things hot as anything, and when you’re in close contact with enormous men who prize their NM copy of Punisher 2099 #1 (with holo-foil cover!) more than regular hygiene…well, if you’re not waiting around for a commissioned sketch, it’s very hard to justify staying around for too long. And for all the great stuff I got, at the end I think I might have stuck around just a little too long.