Why we cannot have nice things and comic cons
Nashville is a city with lots of venue and convention space, but only once a year we get a half assed dealer driven comic con (that is also a horror convention?). It is taking place right now over at the Nashville fairgrounds, against the smell of the dog show and the livery stables. I did not even bother to go this year. Why? Because it just gets worse every year. This year they hit the ground running with a decent list of guests, only to watch them erode away as other larger events lured guests away. (How bad is it that even the guy who played the 70's Shazam! won't come to your shows anymore and he lives here?) So why would an international bestselling vampire fiction author, an Eisner award winning comic creator, or the most popular X-men writer in the last 30 years bother to spend the weekend dodging redneck swine flu, dog piss, and cow shit in Podunk? Especially when Wizard is having one of it's fancy cons up in NEW YORK CITY! or you can go ply your wares and make real cash money deals in Germany at one of the largest book fairs in the world. It is a no brainer. I am not paying 10 bucks to get into a show whose only draw is paying Dante from Clerks and Otho from Beetleguise another 20 bucks each for an autograph. The "GUEST OF HONOR" was a big coup, but then Chris Claremont only popped up for a few hours on Saturday. So if you were not able to get there and stand in line then, you were just S.O.L.
Someone needs to make a real comic/fandom convention for this town. There is a large anime con that seems to grow every year in this town and a really big tattoo and horror movie convention each spring, so there is room to do better. It isn't just the location or the city itself. I think perhaps the organizers are not motivated to do better. They never try to move the show to better digs. There has never been an effort to try and change the show to a week that isn't competing with a huge con somewhere else. The website is an utter embarrassment. They depend too much on loose agreements and low balled guests getting misrepresented. The horror angle even appears to be petering out as they used to have "under the mask" guys from well known franchises show up for signings, and now can barely get a lackluster sequel Leatherface or more than one background Romero zombie. Even the reality show guests have largely bailed out and those people will do anything for some money and a bit of recognition. If you like no-name "pro-rasslers" though you might be in for a treat. There are a ton of those genetic roided out freaks showing up, which will only add to the odd odor coming from the fairgrounds.
So I am sending out an SOS for the Nashville comic convention scene. We need some help! Maybe the GMX kids, they are only one year into this sort of show and seem to be getting off to a decent start?
Someone needs to make a real comic/fandom convention for this town. There is a large anime con that seems to grow every year in this town and a really big tattoo and horror movie convention each spring, so there is room to do better. It isn't just the location or the city itself. I think perhaps the organizers are not motivated to do better. They never try to move the show to better digs. There has never been an effort to try and change the show to a week that isn't competing with a huge con somewhere else. The website is an utter embarrassment. They depend too much on loose agreements and low balled guests getting misrepresented. The horror angle even appears to be petering out as they used to have "under the mask" guys from well known franchises show up for signings, and now can barely get a lackluster sequel Leatherface or more than one background Romero zombie. Even the reality show guests have largely bailed out and those people will do anything for some money and a bit of recognition. If you like no-name "pro-rasslers" though you might be in for a treat. There are a ton of those genetic roided out freaks showing up, which will only add to the odd odor coming from the fairgrounds.
So I am sending out an SOS for the Nashville comic convention scene. We need some help! Maybe the GMX kids, they are only one year into this sort of show and seem to be getting off to a decent start?