The Waffle House Mary and I tried to eat breakfast at on the way to the con was packed, so we ended up at the Country Table restaurant in West Jefferson, an unlikely place for two comments on my Jack Kirby Iron Man shirt. The sausage gravy there was superb.
Champion City Con took place in the Shouvlin Center at Wittenberg University. Mary and I met up there with long-time cartoonist and publisher Verl Bond and his lovely wife Adele.We had a table filled with books, original art and cool merchandise. Filled. With cool stuff.
Also set up nearby were SPACE mastermind Bob Corby and small press legend Larry Blake.
Dan Taylor, of Weird Muse, also shared a table on a second floor of cartoonists and publishers.
Ron Fortier, of Green Hornet and Captain Hazzard, had a table in the main hall. He was busy in conversation every time I passed by, but wish I'd made more of an effort to talk to him; I discovered after the convention that he writes a blog of pulp fiction reviews and also recently reviewed Startling Adventures Magazine, published by Daniel Poeira, a professor at the School of Fine Arts of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, and supporter of my series The Signifiers! Small world.
A recommendation for the next Champion City Con would be to invite vendors of older comic books. Dark Star Books was the only dealer who brought a box of Golden Age comics for sale. Also, my thirst for Baby Huey, Patsy Walker and Jughead comics went unsated. In fact, most comics for sale at the con were overstock from the past several years!
Another recommendation: the Champion City Con webpage on the Main Street Comics site (the #1 rated page for the con in Google searches) featured (and still does) a very incomplete listing of the vendors and guests at the con.
I did purchase some cool buttons from Mutant Cactus, a Jimi Hendrix poster by Larry Blake, '70s comics from Super-Fly Comics (still looking forward to getting copies of The Signifiers to your store, guys!), and the new Cornelia comic by Kel Crum.
We had a mostly enjoyable dinner afterwards at Linardo's Villa, an old, gorgeously decorated family owned restaurant in Springfield, the home of liver pate 'n' sour kraut appetizers. Couldn't escape the liver on this trip!
Ron Fortier's pulp review site: http://www.pulpfictionreviews.blogspot.com/
A review of The Country Table Restaurant: http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g51125-d918323-r25103594-Country_Table-West_Jefferson_Ohio.html
Dark Star Books: http://www.darkstarbookstore.com/
Daniel Poeira's Startling Adventures Magazine on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Startling-Adventures-Magazine-Travels-Fiction/dp/1451578318/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1273764842&sr=8-4
Kel Crum's site: http://www.dangerousbird.com/
Bob Corby's site: http://www.backporchcomics.com/
The Mutant Cactus blog: http://mutantcactusblogs.blogspot.com/
Dan Taylor's Weird Muse site on eCRATER: http://weirdmuse.ecrater.com/
Champion City Con's updated site: http://championcitycon.com/
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