{"id":258,"date":"2007-06-09T08:39:30","date_gmt":"2007-06-09T13:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/2007\/06\/09\/at-the-toronto-comicon-last-night\/"},"modified":"2007-06-11T09:51:06","modified_gmt":"2007-06-11T14:51:06","slug":"at-the-toronto-comicon-last-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/?p=258","title":{"rendered":"At The Toronto Comicon Last Night"},"content":{"rendered":"

What I like about comic shows.<\/p>\n

I was at a comic book convention<\/strong><\/a> all day today, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m currently trying to decide if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be going to one a few weeks from now. My erstwhile employer is bordering on furious with me that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d consider leaving the country to go to a comic book show\u00e2\u20ac\u201dparticularly right now. (In case you forgot, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got my own comic book event in August that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m organizing in every spare hour of my day\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6).<\/p>\n

Seeing as the comic show today is about 36 minutes from being over (obviously this was updated later), I figured I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d figure out why I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m even tempted to get on a plane and head to New York in a few weeks, or why I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m here today. Because right now? My feet hurt, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a bit cranky, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done my best to alienate that nice Dr. McNinja fellow. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have to make it up to him later when we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re both drunk and easy.<\/p>\n

Well, one of us will be.<\/p>\n

So yeah, things that I like about comic book shows. Lets see if I can figure this out.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Friends. Definitely seeing my friends. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a pretty social person anyway, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t live my whole life online and get to see the people I like once per year. I mean, once-upon-a-time? That described me pretty accurately. But now? Now I just get to see people I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see very often all at once, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot of fun. Who wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a good time at a place where a bunch of people they like are all in the same room? Well, lots of people, judging by the bitching I see in con reports. But from out-of-towners to folks I know here in Toronto whose schedules don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite match up with mine, comic cons a re a great place to actually sit down and have a beer with someone. Or a $4 convention coffee, as the case may be.<\/li>\n
  2. Cute, chubby guys with beards\/glasses. If that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s your \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcthing\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 (or even one of your things?) then by God, the comic show is the place for you. If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not 100% sure what \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcbear\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 subculture is? Just trust that you can find it at the comic show, and half these guys aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even gay. (See: Dr. McNinja, alcohol)<\/li>\n
  3. Stuff you would otherwise never buy. I was totally lucky today, and scored two awesome purchases.\u00c2\u00a0 The first? A Revoltech Megatron action figure<\/strong>, to match (fight with?) my Revoltech Optimus Prime from San Diego. The second? A copy of Teen Titans: Scissors, Paper, Stone<\/strong>, an Elseworlds one-shot by Adam Warren with a criminally low print run a few years ago. I got it for $4! Thanks to Blake Bell for digging through bins for me.<\/li>\n
  4. Nerditry. I can be as nerdy as I want at a comic show, because this is the proper place and time for being nerdy. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like ordering a vodka-tonic at dinner as opposed to ordering one at breakfast. Time and place.<\/li>\n
  5. Air Conditioning. Granted, this one doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always work (see: San Diego from a couple years back, Book Expo America this year), and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not always the temperature so much as the humidity (and the knowledge that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s humid because of your fellow con-goers\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6ick), but for those of us without central air conditioning (or a job with air conditioning that just isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t up to the task\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6) being at a con for three days when it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s muggy and 30 degrees outside is Bliss. Arriving while it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s still reasonably cool out and leaving after the sun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gone down? Even better.<\/li>\n
  6. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s strangely relaxing. My job is one that involves a hell of a lot of multi-tasking, even on quiet days. When I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m working at a show, all I have to\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 or really can do\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 is work at the show<\/em>. Sell stuff, smile, say hello. No ringing phones, and while the emails are almost certainly piling up? Nothing I can do about it (until I get that Blackberry\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6.). Even when I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not working the show, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s much more social than not, since my social life is tied pretty close to the comic books on a lot of fronts. Aside from the travel time, I usually come back from San Diego or New York feeling really refreshed and excited about the industry (It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the opposite of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Newsarama Effect\u00e2\u20ac\u009d). I think that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gotta count for something\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    And now it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time to go\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 Maybe more updates later if I can work it out\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6<\/p>\n

    – Chris
    \n(Written @ 7pm, June 8th)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    What I like about comic shows. I was at a comic book convention all day today, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m currently trying to decide if I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be going to one a few weeks from now. My erstwhile employer is bordering on furious with me that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d consider leaving the country to go to a comic book show\u00e2\u20ac\u201dparticularly … <\/p>\n

    Continue reading “At The Toronto Comicon Last Night”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}