WARNING: ALL PHOTOS ARE POORLY TAKEN ON MY BLACKBERRY.

I had some business in Toronto last Friday and managed to attend the FANEXPO on Thursday and Friday evenings. I arrived at my hotel around 6pm, checked in, grabbed some dinner and arrived at the show around 7pm (closing was at 11:00). I had been trying to call my LCS owner who was at the show and had a dealler's pass for me, but it turned out I had one digit wrong in his phone number. This mistake cost me $25 as I ended up paying to get in.

There were a lot of people leaving the show as I arrived so it wasn't too hard to get in or too crowded on the floor. Although the FANEXPO is advertised as comics, sci-fi, horror, gaming and anime, there was a heavy comic influence. There was a very big Artists' Alley covering the entire length of the room, a number of dealers (although mostly local) and an amazing amount of small press.

Thursday I didn't buy anything and basically just spent two hours walking around the floor. The comic dealers section wasn't very big and was mostly local guys. I did spend some time talking with a few people, but didn't have the time or energy for bin diving (also no room in my bag to take stuff home on the plane).

- As I mentioned, my LCS dealer was at the show and I saw two other dealers from Montreal (1,000,000 Comix and Bruno, who attends a lot of shows in the US).

- Harley was there as usual and we spoke briefly.

- Vintage Comics (Roy Delic) had a small booth packed with CGC 9.4 to 9.8 copies of key books. We spoke briefly and I met his girlfriend for the second time and his kids.

- Graham Crackers was the only dealer from the US, besides Harley, that I had heard of before.

- Former NOD member Wes Hagen was set up and I spent a while talking with him. It looks like I'll be selling him a some late BA and CA books at the Montreal in two weeks.

- There was an interesting guy from Pittsburg selling his personal OA collection. He had been at it for decades and was open to discussing his collecting over the decades. He didn't have much that interested me and I found his prices to be high, Albert Moy bought a few pages from him.

Here is the full list of special guests for the entire convention (not just comics). I was impressed by the people they attracted.

Here is the list of featured guests on the comic side. I have to admit that I don't care too much about meeting artists and writers or getting pictures with them and signatures. I spoke with Alex Maleev a bit and bought a piece of art. I would have liked to speak with Joe Kubert, but being there only Th/F evenings I missed out on a lot of guests and didn't really have time to sit in on any presentations.

Here is the list of small press at the show. This was really impressive to me.

Many of the tables were manned by people selling their own, self-published comics. I decided to support a local group and bought their new book - just unveiled that weekend so it is like a first day cover. I don't know if it will be any good, but the art looks fine and it was signed.

Here are some other pics from Thursday.

Standard Star Wars characters.





Image had a large booth with a big Walking Dead display.

Some gaming stuff.

Some robots





And a life size Lego Hagrid!!!!!!!!

There were lots of costums around, although I wasn't there at the busiest times. I'm told saturday is usually a madhouse.

This is Doug Sneyd (who I'll discuss later) with a couple of Steampunk girls with great costumes.

Bad picture of Martin Landau taken from far using the Blackberry zoom.

On Friday I bought a few things including a grail piece Albert Moy brought up for me. I could never afford an Allen St. John Burroughs related piece or pulp cover, but this pulp interior illo is pretty nice. I managed to do a partial trade which helped cover the bill, although I still have some selling left to cover the rest. There is a nice notation on the back detailing its provenance. Albert bought it from Frank Frazetta.

As mentioned above, I also bought a page from The Crow (1995) from Alex Maleev.

Just as everyone was being kicked out on Friday I grabbed this book from Wes Hagen. A nice Dave Stevens cover with articles on the Iger Studios inside.

I spent a lot of time talking with Doug Sneyd and his wife/girlfriend. Doug lives north of Toronto and is apparently a famous Playboy cartoonist (www.dougsneyd.com). It was interesting learning about his four step process to creating art:

- Quick sketch sent to Heffner for approval.
- Rough pencils.
- experimental color on a photocopy.
- Final version created by projecting rough pencils on a larger board, tracing and then coloring.

I bought a set of rough pencils and color guide and Doug gave me a copy of a small book of his favorite unpublished pieces. It has a sketch in the front and the back cover shows the four steps of his process.

Here is the back cover which shows the four steps. The final pieces are selling for $15,000 so I'll have to be content with a copy of the hardcover retrospective of his work if I can get a copy.

Here are the two pieces I bought.

All in all a fun six hours at the convention. Not really enough time to see everything as I didn't look at any comics, only spoke with a couple of artists, didn't get anything sign, didn't attend any presentations, didn't meet any celebs and didn't even scratch the surface of the independent publishers. I'll try and arrange some business again next year.

Mike

Looks like a really nice con. Great guest list.

I'm a bit jealous as it didn't look too packed. I'm looking forward to NYCC in about 6 weeks, yet I'm also dreading the crowds.

I think that Thursday and Friday evenings are good times to go, although many of the artists had already left for the day. I was told that it would be a madhouse on Saturday.

Mike

Great report Mike. Looks like a really fun time.
For one, such as myself, who only goes to shows once in a great while, I love seeing the reports, pics, and pick-ups from everyone. Thanks for posting.

-Bryan

Nice pickup on The Crow page. I talked to Maleev at Emerald City Con last year and told him for me that was his best work. He seemed surprised and said "that was a long time ago and thanks." He seemed like a nice guy and he's done some great work. Thanks for the pics and are you in any of them (put a face to the name)?

Nope. I'm not in any of the pics.