Project Comic Con started its two day comic convention on Saturday in St. Louis. Project Comic Con was a small to mid sized convention. This is the third year for Project Comic Con. I purchased a two day pass but ended up only being able to attend the first day. I did not feel I missed anything by not attending the second day.
Like most comic book or other geek centric conventions, it was an opportunity to meet fellow geeks. I love to resonate in geekdom with others that share the same and similar passions. I met numerous people with different projects and desires. Some of them I will be highlighting this upcoming week and discussing projects they are doing.
For a small to mid sized Con, Project Comic Con had several vendors. Most of them were comic book stores selling their merchandising. They had a few vendors selling various geek paraphernalia such as Doctor Who coffee mugs and Firefly/Serenity “money”. There was a t- shirt both with some fun shirts but unfortunately no Spider-Man t-shirts (which I was looking for). They even had the guys from Sonicquake.com selling technology to make anything into a speaker (very interesting- check out their site). The big problem I ran into was that many of the merchants were cash only. I ran out of cash quickly because I expected most places to take credit cards.
I was surprised by the limited numbers of cosplayers (costume play). I am used to the numerous cosplayers in Kansas City at Planet Comicon. I realize that Planet Comicon is a significantly larger con and has been around for several years but I honestly was surprised by the limited numbers. The best cosplay was a group of teenage girls dressed up as various X-Men (including some boy characters). I will post the Cosplay pictures soon.
Creator Alley was interesting and fun. They did not have many big names there. The biggest names I knew were Denny O’Neil, legendary writer for both DC and Marvel, and Steve Lightle (different spelling but same pronunciation of our last names) whom I know for his work on Legion of Superheroes and Classic X-Men. Some of the creators I have met before at other conventions. Everyone I talked to was awesome and super nice. No one acted if they were only there to sell you their art. Many of the artist did have art you could purchase and many were willing to do sketches for a price but they were primarily there to meet the fans.
They had a few panels but not very many. I attended one panel about the old Kirby character, Kamandi: Last Boy on Earth and the French comic book character Blacksad. The discussion was on Anthropomorphism (giving animals characteristics of humans). This discussion went all over the map to how many people find animal characters cute and fun to using them to discuss serious topics, such as Maus, to using similar animals for vulgar and seedy (often pornographic) “entertainment”. This was an interesting discussion by three experts but was only attended by 8 to 10 people. I was not sure if this panel was expected to attract more people or if it was not researched before booking it.
Overall, I give Project Comic Con a solid “B”. I had a good time. I did see a lot of people bringing their families which is always positive. I think it will grow into a really good mid sized convention. It was pretty good for their third year.
