One of the great things about comic book conventions is the opportunity to meet some of your favorite creators. Artists and writers come to the conventions. They often will sign comics, create sketches, and talk to their fans.
I always look over the list of comic book creators before the convention. I pull comics I would love a signature on (usually a special issue like a Number 1). I head off with a plan of who I plan on meeting.
I know that some creators are more popular than others and will have longer lines than others. That is just a fact of attending Comic Conventions. Some creators are hard to catch between long lines, their participation on panels, and other commitments.
There are those special times when I get my heart set to meet a specific creator. Their work speaks to me. They have increased my enjoyment of my costly hobby of comic book reading and collection. Dan Slott is one of these creators.
Slott is the current writer for The Amazing Spider-Man. He has been writing Spidey since “A Brand New Day” (on and off for the first little while). He is a genius with the plot and twists for the Web Head, Peter, Otto’s take over of Peter, and all of the supporting cast.
I knew that Dan Slott was signing comics at the Marvel booth on Friday with Spidey artist Humberto Ramos. I showed up at the Marvel booth a 20 minutes before the signing. This was a mistake. The line was forever long. I stood in line on Friday for an hour but ultimately they capped the line a few people in front of me so I struck out meeting Dan on Friday. The Marvel guy in charge told us all to come back tomorrow (Saturday) for Dan to sign and we might want to come an hour and a half early.
On Saturday, I showed up for the Dan Slott signing at 1:30 for the 3 PM signing. They were lining up for the signing at 2 pm. I quickly decided to come back around 2 pm. I showed back up at the Marvel booth a little before 2 pm. It didn’t take long for other fans of Spidey and Dan to show up. A group began to collect around while we waited to be lined up.
Several times, were were all told to disband because they were not lining up yet. The problem is that no one was willing to leave. We all believed that as soon as we left, they would line up for Dan Slott and we might not make it.
As the group grew larger and larger, we grew more impatient. Time continued to pass but the official line continued to be evasive. I staked out the most logical place for the line to start and it appeared most people agreed with me and started lining up behind me.
The Marvel guy in charge seemed to ticked that the group continue to grow by the second. People continued to ask when the line would become official. At ten till 3 pm, the line was still not officially formed. The guy in charged was asked again and this time it appeared to push his buttons. He threatened to call off that whole Dan Slot signing.
All of a sudden, the spot Dan was going to sign appeared to change. The Marvel Guy finally did declare where and how the line would form. It almost appeared he changed things up to spite those of us that showed up early (as we were told to do) to spite us.
Since the line was formed a long distance away, I was not at the front of the line. In fact, I was quite a ways back.
Marvel finally brought out Dan out. We were all very excited to see Dan talking to people and signing comics. The only issue was that Dan is extremely friendly. He likes to interact with his fans and tell stories. This is a wonderful thing but it does make the lines go forever long. It is hard to not be excited that I would get my few minutes chatting with one of the top comic writers in the world.
The line did go slowly but I had opportunity to talk to several awesome people around me. There was a guy cosplaying Matt Murdock and his outfit was really good. He had a great sense of humor and a love for Spider-Man. Another gentleman is a school teacher who flew in for C2E2. Everyone was every polite and pretty fun to talk to about comics and geeekdom.
After waiting 3 hours on Saturday, it was finally my turn to meet Dan Slott. The one person I really wanted to meet on this weekend was happening. I drove nine hours with a buddy to come to C2E2 and now it was fully worthwhile.
Dan Slott was the nicest and coolest guy. He continued to joke with the crowd while signing comics for over two hours. He continued to show the crowd the difference between the sign of the devil and Spidey’s webshooters. He joked about Otto and Peter. He even noticed my Doctor Who- Calvin and Hobbs shirt and discussed his surprise meeting with David Tennant, 10th Doctor (which is an awesome story).
Most of all, Dan was concerned about his fans. He thanked me for waiting to meet him. He was shocked by my willingness (and many others) to wait three hours to meet him. You can tell that it meant a lot to him that his fans were willing to spend that much time of this convention to meet him.
Meeting Dan Slott was all I hoped it would be. He was a ton of fun to talk with him about everything. He is a big fan who is lucky and talented enough to work in this awesome field. He seems to appreciate it and his fans.
Dan is the type of guy you would love to go out to lunch with on a regular basis. But be warned, if you go to lunch with Dan, you better have 3 hours available. Dan isn’t one you want to go to lunch with over your hour lunch break at work.
Mr Slott, if you read this, thank you for being you. If it is possible, I would love to do an email interview with you. If you are interested, please let me know at Larry.Litle@geekykool.com
Stay Geeky My Friends!
