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We’ve been mostly on the road or hanging out with visitors for the last 10 days or so, and while more than a week of living on chicken fingers and Guinness has left our innards in ribbons, at least we have a few photos to show for it. So before we move on to the “Stay at Home Season”, here’s a photo parade of the Baltimore Comic-Con, the Diamond Retailer Summit and the Big Apple Con. And we start it out with DC’s hand model, the Lord of the Rings himself, Stuart Schreck, whose modeling of the Lantern ring promotion has made him one of the most in-demand people in comics.

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A typo and a Surrogates Logo make for an alluring combination. BTW, we totally told Top Shelf’s Chris Staros he needs to start a Top Self imprint.

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Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer author Van Jensen poses with the amazing puppet he’s touring with — fully jointed!

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The Zuda crew after HIGH MOON’s Harvey win. R-L: Kwanza Johnson, Valerie D’Orazio, David Gallaher, Steve Ellis, Ron Perazza and in front Bobby Timony.

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This is the kind of bleak landscape we had to negotiate in Baltimore just walking from the hotel to the convention center.

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Just steps from the inner harbor. Really tragic and disturbing.

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Lora Innes, left, creator of the webcomic THE DREAMER, and her booth model.

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These guys were having fun.

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We’ve always felt strongly that it was the Spectre’s pasty white legs that were the most disturbing thing about him, and this guy’s costume backed us up in that belief.

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Stan Sakai and Carla Speed McNeil, pamphlet warriors.

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IMPULSE! Perhaps THE most incredible child costume we have ever seen. Hopefully someone has passed a pic of it on to Humberto Ramos.

Img 7545Tony Harris was modeling a sharp new T-shirt slogan.

THE RETAILER SUMMIT

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Part of the Captain Action display at Geppi’s Entertainment Museum.

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This was during the dinner presentation. BOOM! Studio’s Ross Richie started a campaign to get Diamond to raise BOOM!’s discount to retailers — something he says he’s been asked about repeatedly. The Bill is Bill Schanes, VP of purchasing, and the actual meaning of the slogan is too complicated to go into. The next morning Schanes quipped that they had realized BOOM!’s discount needed adjusting and changed it to 40 percent. Okay, if you are a retailer or publisher, that joke was very funny. We’ll explain it in a later post. Anyway, it was a ballsy move on Richie’s part, and Diamond took it with public equanimity.

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A slide for the year-long “Marvel Women” promotion.

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Lady Deadpool?

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The Deadpool Corps.

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Back in daylight, Jeff Smith made a surprise appearance, and Terry Moore was there.

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On the left, Mark Frangos; on the right, Fred Pierce, two of the folks behind the newly re-launched Valiant Comics. In the middle — their Diamond rep, whose name we have forgotten. More details on the venture soon.

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Ya know, Scholastic has amassed a pretty respectable line of graphic novels for the younger set. We spoke with the salesperson for a while, and she said it was the first time that Scholastic had exhibited at a Diamond Summit, but she felt it was a valuable experience, as she was finding that a lot of retailers were NOT aware of the line beyond BONE.

And now, moving on….

THE BIG APPLE CON

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Yes, it is true. There were FREE tampons in the ladies’ room. BEST CON EVER?

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YES it is true, Wax Steven Spielberg was listed as a GUEST at the show and no one knew why. But he did wear pleat front khakis.

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There were several open spaces like this art show.

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The littlest Batgirl!

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Dan Nakrosis wore a Dolphins jersey…and wondered why sales were down.

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A historic moment as writer Danny Fingeroth and artist Nelson meet for the 361st time. N thinks it is a good thing, but artist John Cebollero has a foreboding that great forces have been unleashed that may change the world…forever.
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The press room was not very busy.

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Monty Python’s 7th member, Carol Cleveland, was always busy, and why not?

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To get to the panel room, you had to go up this narrow, creepy escalator that wasn’t working. Fail.

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Those who didn’t make it.

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Even blue people need to preregister.

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Jim Lee’s panel on Saturday.

1 COMMENT

  1. YES! A “Year in Pictures”! Heidi can solicit photos just like the Halloween art, paste it up, and have it run on 12/31 while she’s on holiday!

    The same week, she can post a Top Ten review of the Year’s posts here, with perhaps some annual circulation analysis from the Hecate.

    Hey, if Diamond can have a skip week, why not the Beatrix?

  2. That Impulse costume truly is awesome.

    And here’s an idea of something you can do with those Blackest Night rings — use them to make imprints in cookies!

  3. that’s kevin conn as Wild Bill from GI Joe (along w/ Snake Eyes). you may remember conn as “Unemployed Skeletor”. his new character, Lava Roid, debuted the comic book of the same name written by Conn/Stephen Lindsay w/ art by the amazing Leeanne Hannah.

    heard there was some controversy about the costume contest at baltimore. the kid in the incredible home made impulse costume lost to another kid in at STORE BOUGHT snake eyes costume. where’s the justice?! or the YOUNG JUSTICE?! :)

  4. aside from a few awesome pics, like the full lantern rings!! and free tampons!!! Spread the word, lol!!!! :D

    quite sad looking con! O.o

  5. I’m looking at that first picture… are there Chocolate Lanterns? I will buy the crap out of that crossover.

  6. Hi guys ands gals. I made the impulse suite for my son Caleb who loves the book. Jimmy Aquino is absolutely correct about the contest. Afterwards Geoarge Perez told us he was shocked Caleb lost his category and that he gave him a 10, so that was really nice of him….

    Thanks for the nice comments and another pic for our scrapbook.