So Baltimore Comic Con was this weekend, and truth be told, it was pretty uneventful, especially when compared to Heroescon or any of the bigger shows (SDCC, NYCC). To be fair though, BCC was an excuse for the Hyatt bar to be “hopping” (that’s still acceptable slang right?) on Saturday night, as I got to talk to the likes of John Romita Jr (AvX, Kick-Ass, Amazing Spider-Man), Mark Waid (Daredevil), Reilly Brown (Cable/Deadpool, Amazing Spider-Man), Pablo Rivera (Daredevil as well), and Phil LaMar (Futurama, Justice League) among others. I also may have accidentally call Savage Dragon creator Erik Larson “David Finch”, and gotten Mark Waid to take a photo of him flipping the bird so that I could send it to a friend, because I’m five. Good times! And here, have a photo of my wife as Black Widow hanging out with awesome Carol Danvers cosplayer Bettie Bloodshed. This is literally the most exciting photo I currently have of the convention. Oh well, NYCC is next month, we have tickets available for sale. You should go because they literally have Elmo as a guest. Also because it’s a pretty great show.
(( All joking aside, BCC is a pretty great con, but coming off of C2E2 & Heroescon, I am le spoiled!)
Alright less con talk, more toy talk. I mentioned that the new wave of Marvel Universe figures are out in a previous article , so it’s probably about time to take a closer look at the line so as to recommend what figures to look out for. This wave is a bit of a mix, as there’s some REALLY good stuff, and some… not so much. Starting off we have the Beast, which man, is so close to being the best Universe figure to date if it wasn’t for one major flaw. Beast’s arms are flimsy as hell which is a shame, considering the fact that he has a great paintjob, amazing sculpt, and 29 points of articulation. Yeah 29, meaning he’s more poseable than most Legends/DC Classic figures. Considering Hank clocks in at 4″, that says a lot. I bought him to complete my OG X-Men set, which you should too if you have any interest in the Marvel Universe line.
And if it wasn’t for the Beast, good ol’ Horse-Thor himself Beta-Ray Bill would have been my pick of the wave. He’s a damn good figure with a great sculpt/paintjob and a solid amount of articulation, especially when you realize he has a moveable jaw! His arms aren’t flimsy like Beast’s are, but in my book, it hard to top 29 points of articulation. It doesn’t mean Bill is a bad figure, he’s just got a lot to content with when compared to the Beast.
However, if we are going to discuss unimpressive, the line also continues with a classic Ghost Rider figure no one asked for, and 2 Hulk figures, that once again, we didn’t need. The classic GR isn’t a bad figure per say, but it’s nothing to write home about (especially since it’s a re-release and not even the modern version of the character). As for the Hulk, the one with the Romita/McGuiness head-sculpt would have been fine, as we really didn’t need the original one with the horrid face back on shelves. I guess these re-releases are nice if you missed them the first time around, but man, they’re pretty rough to recommend, unless you’re in a need of a Hulk.
We’ll look at the remaining figures from the line next time, as well as a cool little surprise that fell into my hands today. I am legit excite to share it with you all, as I actually had no clue it existed until….well today!
Yeah I won’t deny that BCC had some awesome talent there this year. I was lucky enough to get stuff signed by Waid, the Riveras, Kitson, Raney, Quitely and the Adventure Time creative crew.
And a lot of the indy creators were equally rad as well, although I was on a budget, what with the Mrs birthday, a ton of video games around the corner, and NYCC coming up.
And again, I’ve been spoiled by other cons. BCC was the only con I didn’t get any sketches from, which is disheartening, because that it literally my favorite thing to do at comic shows.
@chris – yeah i can dig it. folks go to cons for different reasons, cosplay, shopping , etc. i’m not a big panels guy, so from that perspective i couldn’t tell you if the show was uneventful or not. i go for the artist and writers , so i spend most of my time in artist alley scoring sketches and getting books signed. from that perspective i can say that the show was eventful. a great mix of old school, new school, and independent creators always makes for a great time and some great sketches and this years they had some big names and folks that rarely appear at cons showing up.
Ack, why can’t I reply to individual comments?
Phil/abc- Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy pure comics shows. Like I said above, I really dug Heroescon this past year. The difference between Heroes and BCC was while there were some creator focused panels, the majority of them were just “Hey, these are the books we’re putting out”, with the exceptions to the Frank Quitely/Garth Ennis/said Stan Lee ones. On the other hand, I like Tom Breevort and all, but thank god Mark Waid was at the Marvel NOW! panel, or that panel would have gone downhill quick IMO.
Like I said above, I’m spoiled from the other cons I’ve gone to this year, and while NYCC is going to be crowded as hell, the comics guests they’ll have their are pretty amazing, which has me excited. But if you guys had a good time at BCC, awesome, glad you had fun, and thanks for the feedback. I appreciate when people post on my articles, even if we don’t see eye to eye on the matter! 😀
uneventful? the fact that this show is about everything that has to do with comics and nothing else is an event onto itself. the fact that one can walk around without getting the feeling of being a human sardine in a crushing crowd is an event. this con is an event that exists without the hollywood hype machine ‘s presense . i’ve been to heroes con and nycc (from the very first show) and while i do enjoy those shows the layed back atmosphere, room to breathe spaces, and easy access to comic pros makes the baltimore con one of the great east coast shows.
Maybe what’s unusual about Baltimore Comic Con is that the show is primarily about Comic Books and not so much every TV show or movie or all that other stuff that SDCC and NYCC seem to orbit around? It seemed like an event to me to sit in a room and listen to John Romita Sr and Jr and Stan Lee. Not to mention all the other panels that were just about the comics.