This month marks the 26th anniversary of my very first comic book convention. This was hosted by Bulldog Productions at a hotel not too far from where I lived, and my buddy Ernie was the on who told me about it, and his mom was the one who dropped us off. I was just 12 almost 13 years old, and flush with cash from my paper route. Price of admission was just $2. There are so many things that still stand out to my mind from that first time.
It made me realize to just what level people took their gaming to. I've always been a gamer myself, but outside of the main hall there was a huge table with a 3D set-up to play BattleTech. Not only that, they all had their nifty painted miniatures to go along with the game. I didn't sit down and play that day, but I would in the not too distant future. These guys (and believe me they were all guys) were serious gamers, but were still very friendly and inclusive to strangers.
It was my first time to see an all anime room, or as we called then Japanimation. I'm not the biggest fan of the art. Like everything it has its hits and misses. I was less so then, because there was a siginificant amount that was shown here that wasn't even subtitiles in English. Forget about being dubbed. So, you had a roomful of guys, and back then they were all guys then, watching cartoons and not getting what was being said. One day I would learn to fear this room, but that is for another time.
The dealer room, oh man, the dealer room. What a magical place that was. A ton of pirated videos, which I had never been exposed to before. A white kid from the suburbs, what do you expect? Movie posters, sci-fi and fantasy books out the wazoo, old Playboys (get out of those kid!), old TV Guides, Mad and National Lampoon, board and role-playing games. And comics, more comics than I could imagine being in one place. I was in heaven.
This show was the first and last time I got to go through 10 cent comic boxes. "I don't really like Aquaman, but it's only 10 cents for this Adventure..." A ton of 20 cent comics back then of course. I didnt buy any at the time, but it was my first exposure to Silver Age comics, and the dealers were really nice about letting me handle them. Knowing that I wasn't a serious buyer. I don't think I spent more than 75¢ on a comic that day.
It was also a time to wheel and deal a little bit. A lot of the dealers were running their booths by themselves. One guy offered me a choice of any comic from one of his boxes if I would go grab him a coke from a vending machine. An issue of DC Comics Presents for those scoring at home. At the end of the show I helped another guy load up his boxes into his truck. My payment for that: he gave me two empty long boxes, which were my first boxes to store my comics. Another guy had me and Ernie run his booth for about an hour or so for $7 in trade. How he got that number I'll never know. I would later learn he was the guy who ran the show. I got a mini Creepshow movie poster, a book on George Perez, and some other poster as well.
A few things that occur to me now that never did then. One would any parent drop off their 12 year old kid at a hotel with a bunch of strangers? It happened all the time back then, but I don't know if it would today so much. Back then most of the dealers were just dudes selling their comics from their own collection. Into the '90s and '00s most of them were stores getting rid of extra stock (especially Manga). I think it is starting to swing back the other way. I see less and less stores at shows these days. I figure online sales have less overhead, less moving of inventory back and forth, etc.
I still have a lot of fond memories of that first show, and it was just Bulldog's mini-con! The big one, the Dallas Fantasy Fair, I wouldn't be able to attend the first time until over a year later.
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...I've wanted to post about the subject of conventions_________Based upon our personal circumstances and where we've lived , our amount of convention-going may've differed considerably , I realize .