Redartz: 2020 has been a remarkable year, in many ways. Remarkable, challenging, memorable, inconvenient, historic, odd, you name it. We all will remember this year for many reasons, both societal and personal.
One personal aspect of this strange year for me: it's the first year since 2006 in which I'll not be attending a comic book convention. Considering all that's going on, that's not really a big deal; obviously. Nonetheless, missing out on all the great aspects of a convention is a disappointment. There have been online 'virtual conventions', a couple of which I've checked out. They have been interesting, but it certainly isn't the same as attending a show in person.
Therefore, for me and for any of you who also miss the Con experience this year, we are having our own 'BiTBA Con' today. How, you may ask, is this to work? Read on, friends, and see.
There are four basic activities I love about attending a comic convention. Meeting creators, seeing displays of artwork, getting to know other comics fans, and (of course) hitting the dealer's room. Incidentally, I also like seeing the cosplayers, but that's out of my capabilities for now.
Anyway, we will sort of simulate these four activities as our topic this week. To wit:
1. Meeting Creators- leads to our question . At our 'virtual convention', we can offer the chance to meet any of our favorite Silver/Bronze age comics pros. So, given the chance, what one creator (alive or not is immaterial) will you choose to meet, and what will you ask them about?
2. Seeing Artwork- I hereby present a limited, but (I hope) enjoyable selection of original art pages for your perusal.
3. Getting to know other comics fans- okay, here we will share a little about ourselves, for the benefit of those who may not know or are newer to our group. Just pretend we're standing in line at the snack bar and decide to chat a bit.
4. Hitting the Dealer's Room- this means one more question for you. As times are tough financially for many this year, our funds are limited. However, each of us has somehow found 100 dollars (or the UK equivalent in Pounds) to spend as we like. What will you select?
To get the show going, I'll start off...
1. My creator: Will Eisner. I've admired his work since first seeing it in those great Warren magazines in the 70's. Later I learned just how huge a shadow he casts in the history of the comics medium. I would ask him what he thinks of comics today as published, digitally vs. print, and what he thinks is a realistic future for the medium.
3. A bit about myself: I've been reading comics for 53 years now, amazingly. I just love the medium and all it's genres; humor, horror, heroes, the whole works. And there are always new (and undiscovered old) comics to be found and appreciated. Spidey is my top favorite character, but I also love Archie, Sugar and Spike, the Spirit, Batman and the Avengers. Oh, and Neil the Horse. And my wife is great, totally understanding and supportive of my hobby. She always helps search at those flea markets we frequent...
4. With my 100 dollars, I'll try to pick up a sketch from one of the artists. They all are here, so I'll pick a Spidey sketch from John Romita. And expect to pay about 50 dollars for it. With my remaining fifty, I'll try to hunt down a couple issues missing from my "Sugar and Spike" run, and finish off with a few Marvel and DC horror anthologies (my latest craze, "Tower of Shadows", "House of Mystery", and so on).
Okay, that about covers my 'day at the convention'. I'll stand here and eat my overpriced hot dog while you all share your convention experience!
