Last week, my wife to be Tracy and I attended Fan Expo 2013. This was my first big convention, and for Tracy, a lot of firsts - first time flying, first visit to Toronto, first time on a subway car, etc. We arrived Tuesday night, spent all day Wednesday at the Toronto Zoo, and the con was Thursday to Sunday. I have stories I want to share with you guys, so I'll be putting a bunch of posts in here, but feel free to chime in anytime.
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A little bit about Fan Expo: there were several different components to it. It had Comics, Sci Fi, Horror, Gaming, Anime, and Sports. It was at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, which has two buildings comprising it. In prior years, everything was held in the South building, but this year Sports was new and the North building was utilized as well. Together, the con had 750,000 square feet of space.
Stan Lee was one of the guests, and as I had never met Stan before, I was excited. On Thursday night, Stan had a Q & A, and his energy level was unbelievable. He's a great storyteller, and entertainer. I got his autograph on my hardcover Volume 1 of Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks, and did a photo op too, which is a professional photographer taking a picture of the two of us. In both cases you only get a few seconds with Stan, but I made the most of it. I told him it was an honor and a thrill to meet him, and he thanked me for that. I don't think I'll ever forget shaking his hand! He was scheduled to be on hand all four days, but cancelled on Sunday. At age 91, I'm sure these things take a lot out of him.
When I first checked the schedule of guests for Fan Expo, I was pretty excited by the names I saw - comics pros, actors and other celebs, and sports stars. The site talked about autographs and photo ops. I was even more excited.
Then I saw the prices.
We were already spending a lot for airfare, hotel, and our four day passes. The cheaper autographs were $40, and about the same for photo ops. I had to cut my wish list considerably. It was a little disappointing, but I had to be realistic about it. I was mainly there for comics anyway, and outside of Stan and Neal Adams, no one from the comics world was charging for autographs.
One of the first cuts was Hulk Hogan. I've been a wrestling fan all of my life, and I never saw Hogan wrestle live, so again, at first I was pretty pumped. Then I saw he was charging $99 for an autograph and another $99 for a photo op. I did hang out in the sports section when he was scheduled to arrive. To Hogan's credit, he did stop and do some autographs for some people in wheelchairs, and posed for pictures with them, and I don't think he charged them for doing it. There were 3 people, and he chatted with each one for a couple of minutes; he didn't have to do that, but did anyway.
I did have a random encounter with Hulk though. We were approaching an escalator, and Tracy said "Hulk Hogan coming down". We weren't stalking him or anything, it was just a coincidence that we were there when he was. I had about 5 seconds to get his attention (tons of people were yelling "Hulk, Hulk" and sticking out their hands), so just before he reached the floor, I yelled "Hulk still rules, brother!". He smiled, and said "You know it, brother!" and put his hand out to me for a high five. Good news - I didn't botch the move!
More stories tomorrow!
I have a similar celebrity-charges-for-autographs story...
Pittsburgh Comicon, early 2000s, Erin Grey is one of the celebrities in attendance, and even then, she's what I would consider a minor celebrity. I read the Pittsburgh Comicon fliers in advance, so I knew she would be there and brought along an unopened pack of Buck Rogers Shrinky Dinks, which she was featured prominently upon.
So I get to the Pittsburgh Comicon and see there's not a person around talking to her. How weird I thought. Surely people would want to talk with her about her old Sci-Fi show or even Silver Spoons. But nope. No one's talking with her and she is just hanging out watching the crowds.
I eventually work up the nerve to talk with her and pull out my pack of Shrinky Dinks. She studies it carefully and asks "What in the world are these?" I explain and she seems intrigued by the very nature of the product. Then she signs the box.
We continue to talk for a few minutes and she tells me about some sort of healthy drink mix she's endorsing.
I notice that she isn't exactly eager to give me back my Shrinky Dinks, even as the conversation dies.
"Can I have my Shrinky Dinks back?" I ask sheepishly.
"Sure," she says. "That's $20, please."
My eyes bug. "Whut??"
"20 for the autograph."
I quickly recover. "Oh, yeah! Riiiight! Here you go."
I pull out a $20 and hand it to her. Realizing that's 5 fewer indy comics I can buy.
"Thanks!" she says.
And I mope away.
I swear. I SWEAR I had no idea that celebs charged for autographs. I thought they were paid by part of the gate proceeds.
Since that time I have vowed to NEVER pay for another celeb autograph. It just seems crazy. I don't mind shaking their hands and thanking them for their work.
But paying them to personalize something for me? No way! They should be thrilled I'm their fan.
But that's just me.
I think that's the way it used to be in a lot of cases, but Ebay has changed that forever. Just go on there, pick a celeb, and search for an autographed photo or whatever. There's a market for it, and in a way, I can't blame the celebs. Still, like you, it was a shock to the system for me.
John Dunbar (the mod of maple) said:
I've been attending cons since the mid-80s and the non-comic book celebrities have always charged for autographs. The worst I felt for one of them was when they put Butch Patrick (Eddie Munster) in a dunk tank, and no one wanted spend the 5 bucks or whatever it was. When I saw Neal Adams at a panel last year he was telling us some of these guys put off acting gigs because they can make more money over the weekend of the convention that they can the actual job. Especially true for the people who are cash only. I've never been real big on it, but whatever people want to do with their money. Most of them probably think I'm stupid for spending all of my money on comics.
Very cool you got to meet Stan Lee. The last time he was down here he stopped and took pictures with the police and EMTs working the show.
Even some of the comic pros I don't blame for charging. Like Bill Sienkiewicz (wow I actually spelled that right!) would sign the first 20 free and then charge a $1. Doesn't seem out of line when you have some people bringing up a small box for a guy to sign.
I was waiting in line for Dan Slott to autograph my copy of Superior Spider-Man #1, and there was a young lady ahead of me with the same comic. Ahead of her was a guy with a stack of 20-25 comics. Slott had just starting signing and was kind of jovial about it, he teased the young lady that she only had one comic for him. But he was just whipping out his signature and didn't really interact much with the guy with the stack of comics. However, he did have a nice (if brief) chat with both the young lady ahead of me, and myself as well. I think bringing a stack for one person is just selfish - not fair to the person signing or the folks in line.
Just about all of the celebs had long lines, but in the sports section, poor Rudy Ruettiger sat there hour after hour. I almost got an autograph out of pity but couldn't quite bring myself to do it. He was there all 4 days and didn't seem to be bothered by the lack of attention. The movie Rudy came out 20 years ago, and while lots of Canadians follow the NFL, I would guess few would pay attention to U.S. college football. I did see a few people get his autograph, but not many, and I think he had one of the lowest prices in the sports section at $30. I'm sure he would have busier at an American convention.
Neal Adams had a huge table. He was charging $20 to autograph a color reproduction of several of his well known DC covers. We had a nice chat - on Thursday, he wasn't being mobbed by any means, although there was a steady stream of people coming to his table - and he was appreciative of my fanboy gushing about his talent. He mentioned to me that he was signing for $20 each, or 3 for $50 in a very smooth manner, not at all pushy. I didn't want to blow my budget on day one, so I stuck with the one piece, and he just smiled and said "I'm here all 4 days if you change your mind". Very easy to talk to, as I find most pros are. But also a great salesman - and there's nothing wrong with that. I felt it was well worth $20 for the experience.
I have a Comic-con anecdote from San Diego in the early 70s. This is back when the attendance was only a few thousand. You could walk up to anybody and get an autograph. At the end of a panel, we all walked up to Ray Bradbury to get autographs. Bradbury famously never drove a car. He had come to San Diego by train. Apparently, he had no problem riding in a car, since he was offered a ride home to Los Angeles by a guy standing behind him. So he was talking to the guy behind him (and looking at him) while he signed his autograph in my convention book.
So I didn't get to tell him that his short story The Pedestrian got me started on science fiction and his stage play The Martian Chronicles got me started on live theater. This caused me to swear off getting autographs long before they started charging for them. Because of this I was able to walk up to Jack Kirby in a later year, shake his hand, and tell him how much I liked his work. I liked that much better.
When I was at the Mid-Ohio-Con, John Byrne would frequently come to attend, as a special guest. It was the only con he did after a while, and he was always in rare form, his usual bombastic self.
I can't recall if it was there or at the San Diego Con that I attended the year before, but probably in Ohio when I took both the Marvel Masterworks volume with the Dark Phoenix Saga reprinted in it, and something else that was special to show him.
I waited in line, and he would do a signature or two with a sharpee, but would limit it to 20 books if you would contribute $5.00 to ACTOR or some charity. It wasn't a bad deal and it limited the tons of books that people would have open and waiting for him to sign for them, to turn and make a profit on his signature.
When I got up to the front, I opened the book and told him how much I had enjoyed the story and how it had gotten me back into comics after an 8 year absence in high school and college.
He quipped, "Well I'm glad you enjoyed it, cause it wasn't much fun for us..." or something to that effect. It certainly colored my enjoyment of it and put a negative spin on what I had thought was a great collaboration between the writer and artist. I expressed my surprise that he was bitter over it, and thanked him for his efforts.
As he signed the inside cover for me with a flurish, I opened a flat box that might have contained hankerchiefs at one time. Inside was a carefully packed work of art. My wife had spent an entire weekend the year before in preparation for the San Diego Comic Con, cuting, filing, shaping, wraping and soldering together a close up face of Ben Grimm as The Thing. She had blown up the final image from FF #55 and spent a LOT of time and energy trying to finish it in time for our trip down from L.A. to display it and offer it for sale. Though many of her and my comic related art pieces DID sell, this one did not.
She had priced it at a dollar per piece of glass, and so there were about $55 dollars in the face. I was very proud of it, and I had hoped that my idol, John Byrne, might also be impressed and buy it. There was a small price tag on it, but I made no pitch to him, only told him that I wanted to share something and show him.
He looked down at it as I tilted it up and wryly observed, "Oh, yes, that's definitely a Jack Kirby head." And then he stunned me.... "Have you sent him any payment for using it?" The implication was that after all my wife's hard work and labor in creating this unique, one of a kind display in a new medium, that she in some way owed Jack a payment or royalty for the head.
"No," I stammered, "It's the only one of it's kind. It's unique. She altered some of it to make it her artwork, her craft."
"Oh really," he said, "I wonder if Jack knows you did that." And he turned and looked the other direction down the table, ignoring me and the artwork.
I gathered up the book, replaced the stained glass face (which was about a foot in diameter) into the foam padding, closed it up and walked away. I felt like I had been slapped. I never told my wife of his comment. He could have been nicer, but instead, I felt he had attacked unnecessarily... but he was entitled to his opinion. Nowadays, I can see his point.
I've never forgotten the sting of his comments to this day. (I think we still have that face, as we never displayed it again.)
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