HeroesCon Report, Part 2

Saturday at HeroesCon was crazy. As several of the comic news sites have reported, rumors were flying heavily about shakeups at DC Comics that have yet to materialize, if they ever will.

One thing that made Saturday particularly crazy: The Dub Car Show going on in the other half of Charlotte Convention Center. For one, the bass coming from that show shook the entire convention center, and booths on one side of hall were having problems doing business. I don't know if any retailers complained formally, but I heard a lot of griping when I was on that side of the hall.

In addition, the Dub Car Show contrasted HeroesCon in a cultural clash that was incredibly revealing. The line for the car show was out the door and wrapped around the building Saturday afternoon. Not only did it have high attendance, but high security as well. Each attendee entering the hall had to go through both a wanding and a bag search. As one of the guards was overheard saying, "Found two guns and too many knives to count."

Meanwhile, these guys were walking around the convention center:

Along with assorted samurai, ninja, Borgs, Klingons, and Ghostbusters. And the only security they had to deal with was a couple of middle-aged women who made you throw out your beverages and got surly if they couldn't see your wristband. So, while one group was getting their various knives and guns confiscated, another was walking past with laser cannons, swords, giant hooks for hands, and plasma rifles all out in the open.

After waiting all day on Friday for Jeff Parker to show up, while I was also lugging around a shitload of his books to get signed, he finally graced the show with his presence on Saturday about an hour after the floor opened.

Seriously, who does this guy think he is?

In truth, Jeff Parker is a super-nice guy and a talented writer at the top of my list of creators that I will follow on any project. And, according to Rick Remender, he has some bizarre personal quirks that should not be publicly revealed, though they are deserving of our sympathy.

I also had a good time talking to Cliff Chiang, who always does incredible sketches. Cliff usually posts on his blog images of the sketches he does, and I hope he does that this week as well.

I thought I took a picture with Cliff, but apparently I didn't. This is probably due to the fact that my head exploded when I saw the prints he had out of various female comic characters in the mode of World War II pin-ups and propaganda posters. The two he had out of She-Ra and Poison Ivy were amazing--beautiful and hilarious--and he said more were coming for San Diego, including Supergirl, Scarlett from G.I. Joe, and some other names I didn't hear because of the aforementioned head-explosion. I definitely plan on picking one of these up next year, and if you're going to San Diego, you should check them out. I hope these, too, get posted to his blog.

In my next report, I'll talk a bit about the panels I attended, including the two DC panels featuring Dan DiDio.