After getting shut down, resurrected by new owners, moved to a new venue and taking place two month earlier than normal, the Mid-Ohio-Con (aka MOC) was this past weekend (October 4-5, 2008) at the Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, OH (USA). The convention is typically a showcase for Ohio area comic book artists and stores with a smattering of additional celebrity guests and other goodies.
There were two videogame booths a the MOC, one for Ninja Gaiden and the other was promoting Soul Calibur IV. At the Ninja Gaiden booth, there were three nice monitors and two ladies sanding around who I guess were supposed to engage passers-by, but really talked to one guy for about three hours and didn’t seem to hand out any of the T-shirts or wrist bands they were holding. One kid did manage to play at one station for the entire first day which seemed OK to others since no one else was really stopping. At least he scored a T-shirt (he eventually stopped playing to put it on).
The Soul Calibur IVbooth had three screens as well and one larger screen that looked like the guy just didn’t bother to take out of the plastic wrap. He also spent a lot of time tapping on his phone and then was at a laptop for a while I assume playing that game. There were a couple freebies at this booth for grabs, but the shoestring lanyard and two small linticular cards (not even the Yoda or Darth Vader images) are not even worth slapping on the scanner to show you.
Of course, comics and comic book talent are the real reason to head to a comic book convention. About 40% of the Convention Center was occupied by comic book stores and another 40-50% with talent. The bigger names got their own booths with the tri-colored curtains for backgrounds and others were at rows of smaller tables in the way back. It seemed like they tried to group things together, like celebs in one aisle, big name artists together, which caused some clogging in the center section.
The bigger the name the longer you had to wait in line. Artist Alan Davis, for example, had a pretty high price for his sketches and one group of guys told eme they had been in line for three hours, and the line never seemed to have less than 20 people in it at a time. Alan Dean Foster (writer) was rarely at his booth signing and was, seemingly, in panel discussions most of the day. Chris Claremont (writer) was moved to the other side of the center to make room for his line which seemed to be the longest. Artist and legend Joe Kubert also made a limited appearance at the con but was represented with two booths, one for himself and the other for his art school.
I stopped and chatted a while with the very friendly Patrick and Shelly Block, the Disney Comics writing and art team (who were doing free sketches, a rarity at any con), as well as artist Jamie Snell, who was “grandfathered into a booth” (which is why he had only the curtains behind him). Theirs and a few other tables were surprisingly empty from curious conventioneers who spent much of their time in the store booths and waiting in line for the “bigger name” artists.
The back, the Creators Commons was a good place to pick up some inexpensive comic or comic-related art by unknown and independent artists trying to start their own careers or simply make a few bucks from their own versions of recognizable heroes. (Batman on old planks of wood? Really?) I was only accosted by one and slightly insulted by one other, but pretty much all of them were really nice and willing to hold a conversation about what they do.
As for other fun stuff an celebs, this year you could sit in the 1977 TV series Batmobile and get your picture taken (for $20) and, less than ten feet away, shake hands with Lou Ferrigno and get his autograph and then scoot sideways to get Jason Mewes‘ (aka Jay from Clerks, who we barely recognized) autograph when he wasn’t taking a smoking break. Between Lou and Mewes was Cathy St. James with nary a visitor. Across an aisle from Lou (and the Batmobile) was Doug Jones who seems to play a lot of roles where someone else does he voice acting, including Silver Surfer in Rise of the Silver Surfer and Abe Sapien in the Hellboy flicks.
With the Batmobile, my son’s favorite thing at the event, I likely conclude my 2008 trifecta of BatTastic goodess: The Batpod from Dark Knight, the BatCopter from the 1977 Batman movie and the Batmobile from the 1977 TV series. Who thought Ohio would be such a hotbed for BatNostalgia?
There were also plenty of costumes to oogle, including a Master Chief, several Boba Fetts, a couple Storm Troopers, a Wonder Woman, a Rancor Trainer (!?), a little pink and glittery Batman (cutest costume ever in the 8-14 age group, complete with boot covers), a pair of Ghostbusters, a Batman (or two?), a Wolverine, an Imperial Guard, Beast ("One kid told his dad I was Wolverine without the blades,") and an unoccupied Darth Vader costume in, of all things, the costume booth. The most popular non-costume garment was the green Green Lantern T-shirt (I counted nine by 3 pm on Saturday).
I snapped photos of most of these as well as the Batmobile and booths, so make sure you check out the photo gallery from Mid-Ohio-Con 2008.
The MOC seemed to be well enjoyed by everyone, with fans not having to wait in huge lines and getting a few deals at the store booths and artists only feeling overcrowded when other appreciating he larger venue. There were not many freebies for conventioneers aside from a few movie posters and a pen and a luggage card cover with the MOC logo on it. The organizers seemed a little disorganized but it was only noticeable if you stopped at the MOC Information Booth (and especially to media members). At least one Ohio artist I had spoken with said he was unable to get a booth this year due to some mixup with the new owners, signage to the side room events was hard to find and the program table was nearly always empty until the foud someone to stay at it the last half of the first day.
Announcements were rarely made and when they were, they were kinda useless with Bart Simpson style stupid phone jokes. They could have been a bit more useful to announce the films being shown in one of the side rooms, the two rooms of panel discussions and the other two special stage events. Again, signage wasn’t very helpful.
The program was printed like a comic book, which is rather nice, with a montage of Marvel heroes on each side, depicted in two different stylers. The inside was a map of the floor, a list of guests and exhibitors and some bios. It had only two ads, one on the inside of each cover (likely to help pay for the printing).
The MOC is certainly an interesting convention, not nearly as big a deal or flashy as the San Diego Comic Con but, as several fans and exhibitors said, respectably improving in quality. If you want to skip some of the lines for the bigger names, get there right as the doors open to essentially camp out, then you’ll be able to do a bit more shopping and meet a few other artists. It’s certainly a small enough venue to allow for quality time with artists and shop yet large enough to warrant at least a full day.
See [Photo Gallery] Site [Mid-Ohio-Con] Read [PWTheBeat] Also Read [News Askew] Also Read [TheForce.net] Site [Heads Up Studios]
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