Snippets From Recent Letters To CR



We get a lot of great e-mail here, most of which is never intended for publication and so never finds its way there. Sometimes a passage or two is so nicely-phrased that I remember to ask if we can publish that portion of it somewhere on the site. Here's a few recent ones.

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Frank Santoro on FCBD in NYC:

The owner was "dug in" in the back room with a counter full of free buttons and posters. I walked back there to sniff out the free comics but none were on view. The owner said "take all the free buttons you want" when I looked at them. The guy walking in behind me asked for the free comics and he was handed a random stack of two or three comics. When the guy asked for "something like Iron Man" the owner responded "You're welcome for your free comics." (!!!!!!!)

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Tucker Stone on NYCC and Conventions In General:

I didn't attend that convention last weekend. I had the opportunity to go as a guest creator for the Comixology website i've been writing columns for, but with my upcoming wedding (this Sunday) I figured it would be pretty selfish to not be around, being as much of a support as I can to my future wife.

The thing is, I don't really have any interest in those things anyway. I went to one as a kid in Georgia -- the "Dragoncon" -- met a really mean Todd McFarlane and a really nice Tom Lyle, bought some comics i could've bought as a store and overall felt really uncomfortable and nervous around some goth-fetish guys. (I was 13, not a grown up liberal white male adult who understood differing lifestyles.) Except for last years MoCCA in NY, I've never been back.

I have, however, been to multiple dental conventions on my through childhood. My dad used to take the whole family to these once a year nationwide dental conventions, where various companies would show off their new products, they'd have panels on new developments in dentistry, etc, so on. They were great. They were opening, welcoming places, with a far higher attendance of professionals or families than any convention I've ever heard about in the US, on par with something like San Diego. (more, probably)

I never had any interest in what my father did at work -- nor does the rest of my family -- but we all looked forward to going and supporting him at the dental convention once a year. We didn't know that's what we doing, supporting, because we enjoyed it -- we enjoyed the way a bunch of scientists and sales reps were so quick to repeat their same PR lines, over and over again, answering the same banal questions, hand out the same free samples, all with an overall genuineness to their manner. I'm not naive enough to think a bunch of sales reps care anything about the future of dentistry, the current state of gum disease, etc. But they were open, friendly people.

When I look back on my memories of Dragoncon, or the Vertigo table at MoCCA, there's no comparison. If I was someone who really felt it was somehow valuable to my time with comics to meet and get an autograph from a writer, or an artist, maybe I'd understand all this talk about conventions. But I don't see the point, not at all. I can understand having PR shows, I can understand marketing comics to retailers, I can even understand that fans want to fill a room to hear Grant Morrison talk about stuff -- but the rest of this stuff? The dogged pursuit of signatures and meetings with other fans? The desire to tell somebody, in person, "Good job?" Or "Countdown sucked?" In a day and age where no comics convention is going to compete with eBay when it comes to finding a copy of Squadron Supreme?

I don't know what that is. But it isn't a trade show. It isn't a convention. It's something else entirely -- something depressing, something immature, and something that doesn't do anything for the art form itself.

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Dustin Harbin On Iron Man and FCBD:

Having just read your Iron Man thing, and speaking with my retailer hat on: I agree wholeheartedly that usually there's not that much quantifiable sales upticks around big movies. The big exception was the first Spider-Man, and the biggest disappointments were Daredevil and both FF movies. But Saturday I ran the register for probably about four hours all-told, during which time there was ALWAYS a line 12-15 people or more deep, and I was absolutely flabbergasted by the number of Iron Man anythings that crossed the counter. Both new issues, the Extremis trade, Marvel Adventures books, and -- most surprisingly of all -- Iron Man back issues! And I'm talking '80s Iron Man, with a lot of alcoholic storylines, which I always found pretty boring as a kid. What kid wants to see a hero sweat and stare at various bottles and highball glasses?

Anyway: tons of Iron Man stuff. Matt Brady was there covering things for Newsarama, and there was general agreement that not having Matt Fraction's new Iron Man book (it ships this Wednesday) out for Free Comic Book Day and the movie premiere was a let's-occupy-a-Middle-Eastern-nation level gaffe. Not to mention some other Iron Man one-shot or limited series, also coming out in two days.

The other things I saw a lot, which was very exciting: TONS OF CHILDREN, all of whom were buying manga, kids books, Bone (!!!), and various Japanese-themed merchandise comics (Pokemon, etc). While we get more kids in our store than most, this was a banner year for kids actually showing up AND spending money, which is a big difference from showing up and getting freebies, then leaving. Also: a lot of young girls, not only buying comics but (I'm sorry for all the capitals) STANDING IN LINE TO GET SKETCHES! It was a pretty good day.
 
posted 8:10 am PST | Permalink
 

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