So, SpringCon starts at 10am on Saturday. I and a couple of my friends get in line around 9:45. It’s raining a little, but we’ve got an umbrella and spirits are high. I pay my $12 admission, a lady slaps a bracelet on my wrist, smiles, and says nothing.
We walk in there and start taking the place in, Tom spots the Half Price Books booth on the far end of the building and we start wandering toward it at about quarter impulse power. Next thing I know, I’m catching some angry shouting out of the corner of my ear, followed by louder and angrier shouting. I turn around and discover that the world’s biggest asshole is puffing up on my friend Wally about being “a fan”, and is now bum-rushing me to give me more of the same.
Now…a few words about working retail “security”. I’ve been in that business for about a decade now, so I understand it from both sides. I understand the headaches of dealing with unruly and self-entitled patrons, and I also know that if you’re even a little competent at the job, you begin with respect. In the immortal words of Dalton:
“Be nice….until it’s time to not be nice.”
Well, nobody at the MCBA thought it wise to show their aggro little bouncers Roadhouse before the event. Something else the fine folks at the MCBA missed – the part where they train the staff to direct their customers where they want them to go, or post any kind of signage, or I don’t know….put up some fucking stanchions making a path upstairs where they want to house the chattel prior to 10am.
How difficult would it have been to have the person taking your money say “Hey, head upstairs and get in line until we’re ready to cut everybody loose at 10am.” That seems like a fairly simple thing to implement. Or not. How are the shouting gestapo going to get revenge for their bad high school experience if we tell them what we want?
But it gets better. Once the yelling stopped and actual English entered the equation, we went upstairs without so much as a backhanded comment. And believe me, a good backhand seemed justified. On the second floor I can see the masses in the back of the room, and I can see some folded tables in front of me. I was handed a little “goodie” bag when I paid at the front, door, but I carry a messenger bag with me to any Con I attend so I can have my hands free.
You can probably guess where this is going. I casually stop for a moment to put my goodie bag inside of my messenger bag, and wouldn’t you know it before I can even get the satchel open, there’s more shouting coming at me from forty yards away. I’m talking furious, piercing shrieking. Something about how if I don’t immediately get in the back I’m going to be the last person on the show floor. I couldn’t exactly tell, because I think most of the yelling was in actual German.
Folks….I’m just trying to put one bag inside of another on a convenient flat surface for a grand total of 30 seconds before I queue up with the rest of the Pod People. What is with all the fucking yelling?
The three of us line up in back. Nothing has been prepared or organized, mind you. They’ve got a few hundred people snaked around some pillars in an ad hoc manner. No stanchions, no tape on the floor…you can imagine how much angry barking it took to make that fly. Actually, I didn’t have to imagine it, because a couple minutes after we got in line, there was more shouting from the SS about moving to my right. The din wouldn’t stop until I moved about 8 inches that direction. You think I’m kidding, but I have witnesses. All of that absurdly over bloated rage? That was over 8 inches. I’ve been in the building for a total of less than five minutes and have now been verbally assaulted on three separate instances…..OVER NOTHING. Congratulations, MCBA. You really know how to show a gal a good time.
All of this abuse was for my benefit, mind you, to keep me out of the rain. Please don’t try to help me in the future, MCBA. Not your forte. I was perfectly comfortable outside with an umbrella to protect me from the rain. Who was going to protect me inside from the Fourth Reich?
Once the clock struck 10 and I could deal with the vendors instead of the wardens, everything was fine, of course. Half Price Books is always my first stop, and usually a significant money-maker for me. Not so this time. There was very little in the way of desirable out of print material, and what was there was marked up, not down. I saw an ex-library copy of the Buffy: Spike & Dru trade for $15. That’s a nice book in even average condition, but an ex-library copy is barely even a book. When they’re asking a premium on something that’s been checked out 350 times and is wearing an ugly library sticker on it, I think it’s safe to say that my TPB-selling-cat is quickly escaping its bag.
What I lacked in TPBs at Half Price I more than made up for in Bronze Age gems from Comics4Less, however. What a fantastic business model that crew has! They had about 50 long boxes set up, and 90% of it was bronze-to-modern beauties for $2 a pop. No wall books or silver age keys, but they did have a few long boxes full of some hotter material for $5 a book.
This wasn’t a pile of the usual garbage, either. You know what I’m talking about – the endless sea of post-unity valiant, return of the Supermen books, the piles of Brigade…blech. If you had holes in your collection for that early New 52 stuff? You could have filled a lot of those in for $2 a throw. There was a ton of 70s-90s Amazing Spider-Man available, even some of the rarer end-run issues from the first volume. Alan Moore era Swamp Thing? Check. Bronze Age horror and war titles? Check.
I filled in major gaps of my Master of Kung Fu run (now about 2/3 complete) and Power Man/Iron Fist run, (now about 85% complete) it was all around NM and dirt cheap. And because everything is the same price, there were no annoying price stickers to mess with. I’m the type that just can’t deal with a price sticker on my bag. So when the books come home, I either have to burn an afternoon trying to peel the damn things off, or I have to throw those bags/boards away and use my own. Long story longer, I like everything about Comics4Less.
The big score of the Con was the Layla Miller commission that Doug Mahnke did for me. Readers of this column might remember that I stole Monster Mike’s sketchbook idea during HalCon. Mike is collecting sketches of Supergirl for his daughter Kara. My story doesn’t tug on the heartstrings quite as much, but I sure get emotional about it. My favorite comics character is Layla Miller from X-Factor. So whenever I go to a Con now, I try and have my favorite artists add their spin on Layla to my book. What’s funny to me is that I’ve got three of them now, and not one of the artists even knew who Layla was. (Somewhere Peter David is frowning and doesn’t know why) Here’s the tip though, folks – if you carry a printed picture of the character for reference, most artists are happy to oblige. Some of them even prefer drawing a figure out of their wheelhouse. If you were Doug Mahnke, would you really want to draw another Hal Jordan?
Actually, he might. But I didn’t ask him to do that. Once I showed him my book, Mahnke’s response was basically “She’s just a woman with an “M” on her face? Pffft, I can do that.” And he did. I think it turned out exceptionally well.
So yeah. The comics made me happy, the original art I scored made me positively glowey, but unfortunately I think I’ll always remember this particular event as “SpringCon for Hitler”.How was your weekend? You can tell me by posting a comment below. You could also tell me how awesome my Doug Mahnke Layla Miller sketch is. I won’t mind.
PS: Doug Mahnke pronounces his last name” MAN-key”
PPS: Doug Mahnke thinks I’m fairly insane
PPPS: He might be right
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