Date:    Fri, 22 Jul 1994 22:15:33 CDT
From:    Jeff Mason <[j r m] at [elm.circa.ufl.edu]>
Subject: JEFF'S REVIEW: Dragon*Con - Part 3 - Exhibition Hall/Other


Jeff's Review: Dragon*Con/ACE '94 - Part 3 - Exhibition Room/Other

        This year's Dragon*Con/ACE was split into two convention
sites.  All of the gaming, except some of the live role-playing, was held
in the Westin Peachtree Center.  Everything else was held in the Hilton.
I never ventured into the Westin because I was not doing any gaming this
year.  The most salient feature of the Hilton was the uneven temperatures
throughout the hotel.  This is most noticeable in the Galleria level of the
hotel where the Dealer's Room, Exhibit Hall and the Comic Artists
Alley were located.  Many of the exhibitors displayed their products in
very cold areas, whereas the artists in Artists Alley were subjected to
sweltering heat.
        I am of the opinion that there are too many large summer
conventions going on throughout the United States.  I think that evidence
of this is that neither Marvel nor Dark Horse decided it was important to
show up or send representatives.  This is too bad because I had brought
the 1994 Internet Squiddies Awards to hand out and Dark Horse had won
quite a number of them.
        The dealer's room and exhibit hall were a mix of comic books,
gaming, weaponry, science fiction and fantasy novels, movies, etc..
Anything you can think of in a related hobby was available.  This
breadth however did not make up for the lack of depth in each person's
major interest.  I felt that anyone coming to Dragon*Con would find the
exhibit hall to be not as good as a pure genre show.  For example, a
trekkie would find a better Star Trek related exhibit hall at a Star Trek
convention.  This was definitely true for comics.  There were not more
than 15-20 straight comic book dealers at the show.  This was also the
case for the exhibitors that set up at the show.  Many gaming companies,
book companies, comic book companies made for a good deal of
breadth, but little depth.
        A couple of exhibit booths did stand out for me.  The Caliber
Press tables were staffed by Joe Pruett, Jim Pruett, and Ken Meyer Jr.,
whose work can be seen in Negative Burn, Kilroy, and Black Mist.  I
corralled them and told them that they had to do an interview with me on
Sunday, which they agreed to do.  If I can get back up to speed on
transcribing the interviews I have done, you will see this one soon.  It
may be possible that another "creator owned" publisher may be in the
works, along the same lines as Legend and Bravura.  There are some
really nice names on the list of potential creators!
        I stopped by the DC booth to see what was new in the Vertigo
titles.  I was most interested by two non-Vertigo books: The Big Book of
Urban Legends, a book that looks strikingly like the Dark Horse book of
a very similar name, and Starman, a really interesting looking new "anti"
hero series, hard to describe, but keep an eye out for it.
        The Claypool comics booth did its best to show the world that
they were no longer affiliated with the dying husk that is Eclipse comics.
It is surprising that titles such as Peter David's "Soulsearchers &
Company" are not doing well.  I feel that if Soulsearchers & Company
were a Marvel title, it would have some very good numbers.
        Dave Sim had talked with Ed Kramer, the main organizer for
Dragon*Con, about having his Aardvark-Vanaheim couch and coffee-
table set-up moved next to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund booth so
that he could do sketches for people that donated money to CBLDF.  Ed
Kramer said "sure thing," and some booths were shuffled around right
before the opening of the Dragon*Con exhibition hall the first day.  Sim
significantly improved the donations to CBLDF by doing "sketches as
good as the donation you give."
        Where Dragon*Con did succeed in getting depth was the Comic
Artists Alley.  Although it was warm and muggy in the Artists Alley, an
extraordinary lineup of artists set up to show off their work.  The first
person I ran into was Bo Hampton, who became one of my favorite
artists doing work for Eclipse a number of years back.  He was showing
off his new art for the latest "Elseworlds" Batman story, good stuff.
        I ran into Bob Burden and begged him to take Flaming Carrot to
somewhere else other than Dark Horse, they have had his completed
work on the next issue of the Flaming Carrot since January!  It seems
that he is no longer the "hot commodity" he was when he came to Dark
Horse to help them grow a number of years ago.
        William Messner-Loebs did a fantastic Wolverine sketch for me.
The sketch was the Wolverine from his wonderful Journey comic, not
the Wolverine from X-Men.  He said that he was indeed interested in
doing more Epicurus the Sage stories with Sam Kieth, DC has the option
for it for 5 years.  Messner-Loebs mentioned that he had 3 Journey
stories already done.  I do not remember who he mentioned would be
publishing them, I think it was Fantagraphics.  He is currently working
on a new story idea called "Sanctuary: Life on the Streets," that I
personally see as similar to an urban version of Journey.  He wants to get
a few issues in the can to see how quickly he can create them then shop
the title around to a few places.
        The most impressive table of artists consisted of: George Pratt,
Dave McKean, Jeff Jones, Jon Muth, Paul Lee, and a number of other
fantastic artists.  The sheer quality of their work is hard to describe.
Their table was a constant stop of mine in the exhibition hall.  Dave
McKean was nice enough to show off his Mr. Punch puppets for those of
us that were not able to make it to his earlier panel.  Walt and Louise
Simonson often sat at this table.  Walter Simonson purchased a really
nice original Walt Kelley Pogo page, which was to drool over.
        The Atlanta self-published comic scene is quite strong, with more
than 5 quality titles being displayed by their creators.  I would like to
see some of these do well on a national basis as opposed to a regional
basis.  See my reviews for more information on individual titles.
        I chatted with many other creators about their work and their
current and future projects, but this is what comes quickly to my mind.  I
was amazed at the caliber of the guests attending the show.  I plan to
attend next year and years to come.  I just worry that there are now too
many permanent big summer conventions and that because of this many
publishers and creators I would love to see will opt not to attend a
convention that I am attending because there are two or three other
conventions on two or three consecutive weeks following.  It seems that
there is a major convention every week this summer.  If you are in an
area where guests are invited to small local or regional shows, please
support those shows.  It is very important that these small shows
continue to exist as many smaller publishers and creators do not get that
much attention at larger shows.