Central Canada Comic Con

I have been a comic book collector for approximately 18 years. In that time I have amassed over 3000 comic books (if you break down collected editions into single issues it's probably over 4000). I don't buy comics to hide them away in hopes that they will one day allow me to retire on their accumulated value, I buy them to read them. And after 18 years and 3000 comics I have never been to a comic convention.

That changes this week-end!

I am going to be attending the Central Canada Comic Con in Winnipeg, and am pretty excited about it. While there certainly isn't the same scale or celebrity presence as you'd see at the big conventions in San Diego and Chicago (hosts of the two largest annual comic book conventions in North America, if not the world), there are still a few big names I look forward to meeting.

The headliner for the event is Adam West, who most everyone knows from his stint on the "same Bat time, same Bat channel" Batman television show. The younger generation may be more familiar with him as the Mayor of Quahog on Family Guy. I haven't decided if I'm going to stand in the giant autograph line I'm sure he will have, but I will be on-hand for when he speaks for sure.

Julie Newmar, who played Catwoman on the Batman show, will also be present, as well as Peter Mayhew from Star Wars (he played Chewbacca). While I enjoyed Star Wars I wouldn't classify myself as a huge fan (I'm more of a Star Trek kind of guy), but my friend Caleb is pretty pumped to meet him.

But I'm not going to a Con to see television celebrities, rather there are two comic book creators in particular I'm very excited to see. Bob Layton is one of them. Bob is most well known for his work on Iron Man, but I intend to get him to sign copies of the Hercules mini-series he did in the 80's. But the creator I'm really, really excited to meet is Marv Wolfman. Marv has been active in comics and television for many years (if I remember correctly he was one of a few big name comic writers to work on the original He-Man cartoon), and he may be the most well known for his reinvention of the Teen Titans. I just so happen to own issues #1 and #2 of that Teen Titans run (I have a few more too but these are of particular significance), which feature in #1 the creation of the new team and possibly more notably #2 features the first appearance of Deathstroke, a major player in the DC universe since his inception. I am greatly anticipating Mr. Wolfman signing these comics. Ironically his signature might bring the value of the book down, but I really don't care (I'll explain how comic grading and signing works if the interest is there in a future post).

It should be a fun week-end, though surprisingly my wife has decided not to attend with me. I tried to talk her into coming, because the guys who actually have wives or girlfriends are amongst the coolest of the cool at a comic convention! ;)