The 17th and 18th of November saw the great and the good of the European comic reading community descend once again on Dublin, for the second Dublin Comic Convention. Brainchild of John Hendrick, owner of comic book store The 3rd Place, the convention began last year on a fairly small scale and was a phenomenal success. This year saw the con grow beyond the scope of last years venue, the Temple Bar Music Centre, and as such move out of the centre of the city to the larger Tara Towers Hotel. The guest list was notably up on last year, including artistic heavy hitters like Carlos Pacheco and the legendary Jim Lee together with Millar and McNiven arriving hot off their Civil War success, and the schedule of panels was also more structured and organised. The whole con in fact was in a different league to last year in terms of organisation and presentation, clearly John and his team learnt a lot from 2006 and every bit of that was put to work to make 2007 bigger and better.
The venue was split into three general areas, a dealer room with some signing tables at one end, a seminar room for the panels and a separate signing area primarily to hold the queue for Jim Lee, but which also saw Carlos Pacheco, Steve McNiven, Andy Diggle, Nick Roche and Jock signing. Dealer wise there was the normal range of toys and books on offer, with a very large stall from the 3rd Place constantly swamped by browsers and buyers. While I didn’t buy anything myself a lot of people were walking round happily gripping their purchases and I got the impression that most of the dealers were pleased with how things had gone.
The panels kicked off on Saturday and ran all through the weekend, with both Marvel and DC focused sessions. Highlights included the Getting into Comics panel, lead by Marvel’s C.B. Cebulski with support from industry newcomers (well relatively) Nick Roche, Steve Mooney and Steve Thompson, where questions were fielded from the audience on a number of subjects including routes of submitting work to the big two, the best way to make contacts, what kind of work to submit and taking repeated rejection on the chin. All the panellists were very open and helpful, and C.B. in particular gave a lot of really good advice to those putting in submissions to the big two, and also revealed that Marvel plans to launch a new writers anthology at some point next year in order to give upcoming writers the chance to showcase their work in short story format. Later that day C.B. gave a Pint O’Joe panel to discuss Marvel projects in general, sadly there was no Millar/McNiven announcement but there were a number of titbits including details of the new X-Men Legacy series and of a new Garth Ennis series War is Hell together with some art previews for various projects. In general C.B. did a stellar job, answering questions as fully and honestly as possible, and came across as a real fan with the same concerns and questions as the audience regarding lateness and event fatigue. The Comics to Movies and TV panel on Sunday saw Adi Granov, Jock, Andy Diggle and Impact writer John Mosby discussing their experience of moving between, through and around different entertainment mediums and of the interaction between the comic and film industries. All agreed that Hollywood is having a love affair with comics at the moment mostly because comics provide a pre-packaged visually realised idea that is easy for studios to absorb and understand. Adi in particular spoke in depth about his experiences of working on the upcoming Iron Man film, and of his general disappointment with the attitude in the movie industry relative to that in the comic industry.
Signing and sketching sessions ran parallel to the panels throughout the two days and proved enormously popular. Millar and McNiven were swamped by fans, both old and new, clutching copies of Civil War and both were happy to do sketches for fans; and while in general Steve’s were slightly better, Mark’s had a politically controversial edge to them that you just didn’t find elsewhere. All of the artists from Liam Sharp to Nick Roche and from Jock to Adi Granov were swamped by requests all day and many stayed past their allotted time slots so that fans could leave happy. Serious recognition must however go to both Carlos Pacheco and Jim Lee. Carlos spent most of his weekend doing full colour sketches, some two pages, for fans; I stood and watched him for a good couple of hours on Sunday and everything he was giving out was just breathtakingly good. In addition he was just a really nice guy, and you could see he was getting a lot of enjoyment just from making a fan happy with something unique and beautiful. If anything Jim Lee actually worked even harder. The guy was basically a machine, sketching and signing from opening until closing; at one point I saw him sketching with one hand while attempting to eat his lunch with the other. He took the time to chat to each and every fan and you could see from the looks on their faces that the whole experience had basically made their year.
Outside of the Con hours the pros, together with the con staff and those of us lucky enough to be staying in the Tara kicked back and relaxed, and by relaxed I mean drank. Friday saw Jim Lee and Jock lifting people and an extreme level of bewilderment amongst the bar staff about when exactly we might want to leave. Saturday was the day of the charity quiz, and it was possibly the most epic quiz ever, running to several hours. It’s fair to say that there was some rather heated competition between Mark Millar’s team and that of Paul Cornell and that this may have translated into what can only be described as negative behaviour. Both teams however were rightfully put in their place when they came joint third, having been beaten by the pro team, who gained a number of extra points for sketches done on their answer sheets, and by the winners who were apparently from Newsarama and who really need to get out more. I think I answered one question, but I took part and that’s the main thing. Sadly I wasn’t there for the close out drinking on Sunday evening, but I’m reliably informed that fun was had by all.
The second outing for the Dublin Comic Con was beyond successful. The tireless work of John and his team meant that everyone from guests through retailers to fans had an absolute ball. For a lot of fans who can’t make the large US cons this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet their big industry idols, all of whom were incredibly friendly, for some lucky artists it was a chance to get valuable feedback on their work as part of C.B. Cebulski’s Chesterquest and for others, including myself, it was a rare chance to meet up with friends from the community who are usually only part of online life. Here’s to 2008, it can;t come quick enough.
Having recently finished a PhD in Immunology Ross is currently working for a UK biotech company. He lives in Cambridge where he reads comics, spends too much money on music and attempts to learn Portuguese. He owns at least 7 lightsabers, yet still manages to have a very attractive girlfriend who he misses very much, thus proving anything really is possible.