Dancon Fall 2013
Dancon Fall 2013 Limited PosterOne of the great things about attending a show like Dancon is getting to meet all of the awesome creators and see how much talent is out there. Chris told Missy that I spent the whole day walking around instead of sitting at the table, which wasn’t exactly true. I just spent most of the day walking around (the rest of the time I covered the table for Chris to check out the comic vendors!).
We did get mentioned by some bloggers who we had an opportunity to visit with.
Anthony Feinman came by, and we had a great conversation. We met in 2012 at the Kankakee Fantasycon, where we were both creators. We actually traded books, and I got the better deal because he only got one book, but I got three. He recorded his impressions of Dancon on his blog, Sleeping in Panels.
Peter G, another Fantasycon alum, stopped to visit and did a very nice write-up for bleedingcool.com. This one includes a snapshot of the goings-on, including a very aloof Chris.
Mandy Madrox interviewed all the creators. I appear around minute 22 in what is probably the most underwhelming 20 seconds of film ever created. See it here. The best part of the video is you can see some of the vibrant creativity I am talking about. There are some adult content types in here, so those of you with littlies shouldn’t assume it’s all good just because Raceboy and Super Qwok Adventures is kid friendly.
Of course, the Dancon Facebook page has a couple of albums of photos from the event, which is a great way to view some of the costumes people had, and also to witness many of the characters who came together to put on the show.
In my meanderings, I did manage to buy some things:
Solution Squad #1 by Jim McCleanIssue #1 of The Solution Squad, Jim McClain’s project to fuse mathematics and comics. I’ve already begun passing it around to the math teachers in my school. I hope I can help generate some interest, especially since Jim has bulk discounts that bring the price of a classroom set of 30 down to half price. Jim is a fellow middle school teacher, so he’s in the trenches. He even participated in a panel at C2E2 on integrating graphic novels into a Common Core curriculum. In the past I’ve tried to read at least one graphic novel with my language arts classes per year because I think the medium is so important to introduce kids to (and they love it; last year we read two Bone books and the first Amulet book). Having Jim use it to go a step further and turn it into a curricular device is awesome (and I bet A LOT OF WORK)!
Aw Yeah Comics! Issues 1-4, the indie-published comics from the creators of Tiny Titans. I picked mine up from artist Denver Brubaker, who has work in each of the issues.
My Only One by Gregory M. ThompsonGregory M. Thompson’s books, My Only One and Moderia, which was a Dancon special which Greg calls a “horror epic poem.” It’s dedicated to Poe, and I thought it could be a nice addition to my lessons on poetry, especially since we discuss Annabel Lee.
Superman Sketch Card by Juan GomezI had a chance to talk with artist Juan A. Gomez, whose sketch cards were just plain awesome. Anthony was lucky enough to purchase one (the very one Chris told me his brother wanted to buy, in fact. Poor Tim, Anthony beat you to it and even posted a picture of the card to rub it in). Of the sketch cards created for Dancon, Juan’s were some of my favorites. You can see the whole range of the sketch cards created for the show at the Dancon gallery here (Sorry if that link doesn’t work…It’s Facebook, after all; it isn’t like a real internet site — more like a Bizarro universe with it’s own laws and physics).
There’s more I could say about the day, but one final thing that I must mention is that I won one of the drawings of creator contributed stuff! Yes, that’s right. I bought items from more than three creators, turned my name in, and I didn’t win a copy of Raceboy and Super Qwok Adventures! Thankfully, the two donated copies went to people who I don’t know and am not related to who I hope will love the book and spread the word!
