Friday, July 10, 2009

Thanks to Adventure-Con and Heroes-Con!

Just want to pass my appreciation to the staffs at Adventure-Con in Knoxville, TN and Heroes-Con in Charlotte, NC - both were great shows.

Adventure-Con is a growing show and is a cross between comics and fantasy/science-fiction. The biggest thing those folks need to do is figure out their marketing and get more folks in the door. Scheduling is another concern as it was the same weekend as the Bonaroo Music Festival, just 167 miles away from Knoxville. Still, it was a nice show and hanging out in Knoxville was very nice and the staff at Adventure-Con was, again, top knotch.

Heroes-Con has been around for a looooong time and it is definitely one of the great pure comic book shows in the world. Tons of creators, fans and dealers attend and, listening to most dealers, everybody seemed to do well at this show. I know ol' Walkin' Willie's Comix had a fine show and looking forward to next year for sure. Shelton Drum and his staff know how to put a show together for sure.

Ol' Willie's has two more shows scheduled for the year - maybe one or two more in the fall. First up is the venerable Charlotte Comic-Con which is - in my opinion - just like they bill themselves: The best one day family friendly show in the country. Just comic dealers, creators and fans. It is coming quickly - Sunday, July 12th - so CHANGE your plans and come on down. This show has everything from the most expensive graded books down to the 3 for a dollar bins. We are somewhere in between - we will be bringing a decent Atomic Age collection, Silver and Bronze Age for sure and then - something new for us - 14 boxes of DEEP discount trades and hardcovers. Hopefully, we can draw some money off the floor - we'll see.... If not, then I'll walk around the room and see if their are any deals to be had. Doors open at 10:00 and it is only a six hour deal so plan accordingly.

Finally, Walkin' Willie's Comix is gearing up for Dragon*Con over Labor Day. This is turning out to be our best show of the year. I've said it again and again and again: If you have never been to Dragon*Con, you need to do it once in your life. It is one heck of a show....... more to come later

Hope to see you there!

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

The Idiocy That Is South Carolina....

The announcement came out in yesterday's papers - the ACC is taking its baseball tournament out of Myrtle Beach, SC and moving it to Durham and Greensboro for the 2011 - 2013 editions. You can read it here or in The State - Columbia, SC newspaper.

The bottom line is that the tournament is being moved because the South Carolina Chapter of the NAACP didn't sign off on the tournament being held in Myrtle Beach. The NCAAP didn't sign off on the ACC baseball tournament - just as they haven't signed off on any pre-determined NCAA, SEC or ACC championship held in South Carolina - because the Confederate Flag is still flown on state capitol grounds.

If you can, try to forget that flying the symbol of a treasonist cause on state capitol grounds is wrong enough, just imagine all the tourist revenue South Carolina is missing out on by losing the ACC Baseball Tournament for three years. There were 39000+ fans that attended the 2009 tournament in Durham, NC. Now that most likely is not 39k different individuals but if you assume a moderate 8,000 middle-class fans with disposable income coming in to your town for five days or so over three years, that is a LOT of economic impact. That isn't counting the eight teams with their players, coaches, administrators, etc. needing hotel rooms, food and such - that's a bunch of moolah too...

Also figure that Durham, NC is not exactly a tourist hotspot and the prospects of higher attendance at tourist-mecca Myrtle Beach surely had the ACC head honchos salivating at the money they too would rake in for the event.

All the SC State Legislature needs to do is just take down the flag... do it quietly without fanfare and most likely, no one - or not many - will really even care or even notice. The fact that they won't do it is somewhere between idiocy and gutlessness. After all, it isn't like South Carolina is one of the more affluent states - they are perpetually at the bottom of nearly all economic and education statistical categories. By keeping the flag flying, what cause is the SC Legislature supporting? The right to do stupid - or thoughtless - things regardless of the consequences?

One definition of idiocy is continuing to do the same thing and expect a different result. Does the SC Legislature think that if they keep flying the flag, conference tournaments and NCAA championships will eventually tire of saying "NO" and come back running, arms extended, to South Carolina to hold their events? Not likely....

Read the articles linked above and better yet, read some of the comments posted at the bottom of each one and then make your own conclusions....

Will promise to write something comic book oriented next time... just had to get this off my chest.
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