(This week, instead of your normal recommended reading, I have a special report from contributor Dan Grote, who took a trip to Asbury Park for this past weekend's con there, a con I had hoped to get to, but alas due to work around the new house, I was unable to. But we here at The Matt Signal love small cons, so I was glad Dan could report in. Without further ado, here's Dan -Matt)
This past
weekend I journeyed north to what has become my favorite annual con of the few
I’ve been to over the years, the Asbury Park Comicon, held this year at the
Berkeley Hotel in Asbury Park. Asbury’s is a small but growing con, not big
enough to bear the taint of Hollywood or to be a glorified autograph farm but
certainly bigger and better than a dirt-mall graveyard for $1 back issues and
$5 trades.
The
highlight for me was a panel starring Chris Claremont, who wrote Uncanny X-Men
from 1975 to 1991, then returned in 2000 and again in 2005. He's also writing
Nightcrawler again in a solo series that debuted this month. Mike Zapcic of
AMC’s Comic Book Men served as
moderator.
Claremont
is every bit as verbose as his captions, with a long story for the simplest of
questions. A boy asked him what characters he created, and he, with audience
assistance, rattled off a list that includes Rogue, Gambit, Dazzler, the New
Mutants, Mr. Sinister, the Marauders, Sabretooth, Jubilee, Mystique, Psylocke,
Emma Frost, the Hellfire Club, etc. He talked about his consultancy on the
X-movies, his appreciation of Liev Schreiber as Sabretooth ("I didn't know
Wolverine was Jewish"), righting perceived
wrongs done to Carol Danvers in the pages of Avengers and his issues with
Warren Ellis' sexualizing of Kitty Pryde in Excalibur (he says he de-aged the
character upon his return to the X-books). As Ellis' Excalibur was among
my favorite books in my early comics-reading years, my ears pricked up a
little at that last bit.
Other
creators at the Berkeley Hotel included Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD artist Jim
Steranko, Ren and Stimpy co-creator Bob Camp, Milk and Cheese creator Evan
Dorkin, Batwoman and Sandman: Overture artist JH Williams III, Longshot and Daredevil
writer Ann Nocenti, longtime Marvel editor Jim Salicrup, Hate creator Peter
Bagge, Wonder Woman artist Cliff Chiang, indie legend Denis Kitchen, My Little
Pony and Adventure Time artist Stephanie Buscema and many others.
Of course,
seeing as one of the organizers of the Asbury con is frequent Comic Book Men guest Robert Bruce, the
men of Jay & Silent Bob’s Secret Stash were among those in the house. With
that in mind, you should be seeing a group shot of Zapcic, Ming Chen, my wife
and myself either above or below this paragraph.
But I’m no
stargazer or sketch commissioner. I go to cons for the nerdly shopping. Most of
what I bought came from three tri-state area vendors with whom I was already
favorably familiar: Wildpig Comics
in Kenilworth, N.J., Conquest Comics
in Bayville, N.J., and the Comic
Book Shop in Wilmington, Del. My library of trades expanded as follows:
Essential
Captain America, Vol. 5 (includes reprints of Jack Kirby's 70s run on the book,
which I’ve been dying to read lately)
Essential
Ms. Marvel Vol. 1 (which my wife is currently reading, after the first two
issues of G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona's Ms. Marvel got her
Carol-curious)
Mystique: the Ultimate Collection by Brian K. Vaughn
The
Immortal Iron Fist, Vols. 2 and 3 by Matt Fraction, Ed Brubaker, David Aja, et
al (Note: Need Vol. 1)
Captain
America: Two Americas (completes my Brubaker run from the first omnibus to just
before Fear Itself; only volume I won't have in hardcover)
A stack of
$1 bin issues of Batman ’66, which my wife and I plan to give out as favors for
my son's 3rd birthday party.
Additionally,
I picked up three Funko Pops: The ’66 Batman and Robin, and a Winter Soldier
(full mask)
One small
quibble: I wish there’d been more apparel for sale. I could always use another
T-shirt. Get on that, vendors!
In my
wandering around I got to speak briefly with an organizer of next year’s
inaugural Atlantic City Boardwalk Comicon,
and while I wasn’t recording the conversation or conducting an official
interview, I will say he got me looking forward to the event, which will be
barely 20 minutes from my house the weekend before Memorial Day weekend.
And I
definitely recommend a stroll through downtown Asbury. My wife, friends and I
had some banging sushi at a restaurant called Taka for dinner, and browsed
through some swanky vintage records, clothes and books in the local stores. And
even though I’d just spent the day browsing through trade bins and racks of
collectibles, and my messenger bag full of swag was digging into my shoulder, I
still managed to pop into The Comic Crypt Café on Cookman Avenue and strike up
a conversation with the staff about Joe
Kelly’s Deadpool and Kelly Sue DeConnick’s Captain Marvel.
Final
verdict: A++, would con again.
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