Overview

HeroesCon 2004

I love HeroesCon.

For those unfamiliar, Heroes Con is the Comic Book convention put on every year in Charlotte, NC by the good people at Heroes Aren't Hard to Find, a comic book shop in Charlotte that seems to move from one obscure location to another on a fairly regular basis. If you want more detail than that, you'll have to check out their website for yourself.

Convention Center

HeroesCon has been a regular outing for us for the last few years and we have a blast every time we go. Brian and I and some of our friends started going to the con in 2000 (The year of Gorilla Comics). We stayed at Brian's in-laws' house and played Playstation games into the night... We went to all the forums and Danny was accosted by Sailor Moon. It was magic. For some reason, fate conspired to keep us all busy on Heroes weekend 2001, but 2002 and 2003 saw our little troupe expand and return to Charlotte with a vengeance. Check out the Timeline to the right for some highlights.

Badge2004 was the year of JackRabbit Stewdios - where we moved from visitor status to actual participants. We got a booth in the artist's alley and introduced GravyBoy to the comic world at large.

It was a great experience - though a little odd to be on the other side of the table. It was truly surreal to have people come up to us and ask for autographs - either on the comic book, on the programs or on their HeroesCon T-shirts.

Brian sat at the table most of the time doing commissions for a variety of people and working on some layouts for GravyBoy.

Booth

 

I, taking my cue from every other writer I've met at the conventions, spent a large portion of my time wandering aimlessly around and spending a great deal of money. Not to be seen as shirking my duties, I also shrewdly spent my time mingling and interfacing with several important contacts in the biz.

Scarlet

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our time at the booth was exciting, though. We met quite a few characters (literally) and made a few friends throughout the weekend.

  

One highlight of the convention for us was getting to meet a group from the Comic Book Resources Board, a forum that I post on fairly regularly. It was great to meet some of the people in person that I've gotten to know online. Many of them stopped by the booth throughout the day and a group of us met at the GravyBoy Booth at 1:00 on Saturday for a quick get-together and some photos.

 CBD

We got to know a couple of the folks (Ronald - 3rd from the left in the white T-shirt, and Jade - second from the right with the do-rag) really well and they hung out with us for a good part of the day on Saturday. They even watched the booth for me while I ran out to get some food. They hung out for a good part of the day and went out to dinner with us.

Jade agreed to be the official GravyBoy booth babe, but was unable to return on Sunday, leaving the job to Ronald (AKA RonLad) and Chris (AKA Little Bunny Kill-Kill).

Chris and RonLad

MessagesSales were surprisingly slow on Sunday (despite Chris' masterful promotional campaign).

 

 

 

 

Westin Marquee The Westin hotel is right across the street from the convention center and is within walking distance to just about everything in downtown Charlotte. One of the best parts of staying in the Westin (apart from the aforementioned Hulk sightings) is that a huge number of fans, creators and others from the convention can frequently be found hanging out in the lobby/bar Westin Lobbyafter the convention is over.

Essentially, staying in the Westin makes the convention a 24-hour a day experience. There's a sense of camaraderie that comes from being in a room full of people sketching, reading and playing card games - bound together by nothing except for a love of comic books.

There's also a sense of adventure that can only be experienced when you stick a bunch of hyped up comic-book folks in a room with a few "normals" and add alcohol.

It's even more fun when you're the sober ones.

 

We were pleasantly surprised on a walkthrough Saturday night to come across someone in the crowd inking (drum roll) GravyBoy!

Inker

 

We had talked to a few potential inkers on Friday and Saturday and had provided a few of them with pencils to show us what they've got. We had some really great leads from the convention and should be able to pass off the inking duties to someone else soon so Brian can concentrate on churning out pages.

 

 

 

 

I won't go into details about the rest of Saturday night, but we were unleashed on the streets of downtown Charlotte - resulting in some interesting moments.

AndyChrisBrian

Cellulite

    Gravy Crew On Patrol

SteinAlbum CoverPresident of NC

All this and sobriety, too.

On Sunday, everyone started packing up for the long road home. It was a slow day, but it gave Brian and I a chance to look around the convention and meet a few of the other folks who had been stuck behind their tables all weekend. It was an incredible experience, all told.

We'll definitely be back next year.

For those who have never been to HeroesCon, GO! It is an experience not to be missed.

For those who have been to HeroesCon, have you met Chuck?

 

Discuss this review on the GravyBoard

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   Heroes Timeline:

2000 - Our first Con. I meet my comic book idol, Mark Waid. His work on the Flash and Kingdom Come made me see comic books as more than just a place to show off pretty pictures.

After weeks of prepping on how to sell yourself and what to do and not to do at a con, I wait for my moment. When no one else is around, I walk boldly to Mark's table, thrust out my copies of the first and last books of his run on the Flash for his autograph and (barely) manage to stammer (Gilbert-Grape-style) "I like what you did with this." That, plus a hushed "thank you" is all I managed. True artistry with words - that's what makes a great writer. What's that they say about never getting a second chance to make a first impression? (sigh)

Actually, it turned out okay. I caught him out on the floor a little later and managed to actually express in human terms what I had expressed so badly in fanboy-ese. He's a really approachable guy, all in all. He took some copies of my writer 'portfolio' (a really badly formed pitch for a Flash-related book and a couple of mini manuscripts that I had written for Brian). He actually gave me his e-mail address, but after re-reading what I gave him, I never got up the nerve to e-mail anything else to him.

Still, it was very cool.

The Cast: Brian, Marty, Danny,  and Chris

On the tube: Video Games - and lots of them.


2002 -  Chris, so upset by the news of Stan Lee's upcoming project Striperella, in a QA session with Joe Quesada, Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo, raises his hand and begins this dialogue:

 

Joe: {pointing to Chris} Yeah?

Chris: Why doesn't someone STOP Stan Lee...

   [Pause]

    [Pause]

   [Inordinately Long Pause as the entire room turns to look at Chris and Joe Quesada looks more and more like he's swallowed a fly]

Chris: ... from doing Striperella?

 

If I was a betting man, I'd bet that that's the true underlying reason that Quesada cancelled the following year... as did Mark Waid.

In that same session, Chris had asked him "Do people ever ask you to sign books that aren't yours?" Promptly after the session Chris produced a copy of "Captain Canuck" and asked Mark to sign it. Ahhh, the joy friendship.

The Cast: Brian, Marty, Danny  Chris, Andy, Jay

On the tube: Serial Killer Bob (a ridiculously awful 'independent film' about a man who comes home and "promptly" goes insane after finding his wife cheating on him - the rest is just running through the woods and Photoshop blood: Click here for a review) and Niki Rose (a rock 'demo tape' that honestly must be seen to be believed).


2003 - This was the first year we stayed at a hotel rather than with Brian's in-laws. We stayed at the Westin. It was great to be that close to the convention center - especially since Brian had a leg brace that rendered him a VERY slow walker. It was also interesting walking out into the lobby and running into creators and other comic book personalities. One instance, I was riding the elevator down and when the doors opened, my exit was blocked by Lou Ferrigno. He's shorter than I'd imagined, but much more bulky. His body mass blocked off the whole elevator door. My brain, without warning,  said "Hey Ferrigno, quit hulking the door" and I had to frantically try to keep it from coming out of my mouth.

Click for Pictures from 2003 - Including Brian's evil twin. Chris had a cold, so almost every picture of him shows him blowing his nose.

We spent some time talking to a waitress who was very friendly. . . she told us several stories of the many guys with whom she had made out (one of them, apparently in drag). It was a fun experiment in TMI.

Everyone in our party was, at some point, accosted by a man in the Small Press area who said to every one of us, word-for-word:

 "Have you met Chuck? Chuck the Ugly American? Chuck hates everything. Except for one thing."

None of us were able to work up the nerve to ask what that "one thing" was, but I have a theory it's not puppies.

We found out that Cully Hamner would be doing a session called "Inside the Artist's Studio,"  wherein he would be interviewing Mike Wieringo. To help Cully out, we bought some blue index cards and wrote out some questions for him to ask Mike, including the following gems:

  • In the words of the inimitable Mr. Schwartzenegger, "Who is your daddy and what does he do?"
  • In your artwork, your pencils are really tight. Tell me, is your pantry alphabetized?

We came up with dozens of them. Most of which I can't remember and none of which were used (sigh). It was fun, though.

The Cast: Brian, Marty, Danny  Chris, Andy

On the tube: Hmmmm... Not much. Though bootleg copies of every popular movie were to be found in the booths at the con itself. Right across from the Marvel booth was a booth selling bootleg copies of SpiderMan. That's some chutzpah.


2004 - The year of the GravyBoy. It was really cool. We met a lot of cool folks and reconnected with some others. We sold some books and even garnered a booth babe! But that's all back in the main section.

Danny was accosted by a man in the small press booth who said to him:

 "Have you met Chuck?"
     To which, Danny replied,
 "Yeah, I met him last year."
     and kept walking.

The Cast: Brian, Marty, Danny  Chris, Andy

On the tube: Lord of the Rings - Return of the King ("Shaaaaare the Loooaaadddd") and Species 2 (what were they thinking?)