Mel V.’s Baltimore Comic Con Wrap up

What up CHU Mel V. fresh from Anthony’s hometown Baltimore, Maryland, with you Baltimore Comic Con review. There is going to be some nice info in here. So grab ya favorite beverage and enjoy the article

This is the 1st time I have left the city of NY to attend any Con and let me tell you it won’t be the last time. Baltimore Con was an experience that any comic book fan should experience, I don’t know where to start.

DAY 1 -So many great artist and people I had the privilege to meet and talk with, starting with JG Jones of the controversial Strange Fruit, if you aren’t following this book you really should. The art in this book is simply amazing. Mr.Jones combines incredible detail in his art, and with the addition of the water colors, it really makes the visuals of the book stand out even more. I know many of the fans of the book were asking what’s going on with the release of issue #2, and rest assured, the book will be released soon. I was given the opportunity to take a peek at the 2nd issue and all I can say is WOW. Definitely be on the lookout for that one. Also there is a Baltimore Variant of issue #1 limited to 1000 copies.

After I left that booth, most of the artists and vendors were still setting up and it was a very comfortable vibe in the air compared to New York Comic Con’s intensity. POP Vinyl’s definitely were in full effect at this show, when I started collecting these things back in 2012 it would only be 1 or 2 vendors that carried pops but if your into Pop Vinyl’s then contact the fine people of Toytastic, they had the most pops of any vendor and even pops I’ve never seen before. The Unmasked Jason Voorhees really stood out and I never knew that existed, and like Anthony I’m a HUGE Friday the 13th Fan. Toytastik had fair prices and they are usually at most of the cons.

Then I headed over to the MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND, one of my favorite writers, Mathew Rosenberg. He had the We Can Never Go Home Baltimore Variant, limited to 200 for this con. As expected, they vanished off his table in the blink of an eye. Mr. Rosenberg is BY FAR one of the coolest people I ever had the honor to meet. I can’t lie the fanboy in me came out and I was a bit nervous, but when you sit down and just talk to him, you can tell he is a very humble, genuine and an overall great guy. Definitely the “super highlight” of the day, be sure to check out Quake by Matthew Rosenberg by the way, very well written, I will be sending Anthony the interview in a bit.

I finally found the great Guys at Creature Entertainment and they wanted me to tell all the readers of CHU “THANK YOU for helping them reach their goal with the Kickstarter” and something nice will be coming from them for you guys. I don’t want to say too much. I also handed them my rough draft for a future issue of the Gun *crosses fingers* hope they like it, but that’s all I’m going to say about that. They even let me sit down and try to sell some of their books, which is an honor and a very tough task, I give them nothing but respect. Jose Varese drew me a commission cover that TOTALLY KICKS ARSE. I’m going to frame this bad boy after I get it graded.

As I was leaving the Creature booth after an hour of just talking and hanging out with those guys. I
heard the magic words “Niobe”. Now ya know I been promoting the heck out this book since I featured it in Big Gems Small press. So I stopped and had a great conversation with Sebastian A. Jones of Stranger Comics, about Niobe and their other book “Untamed” which is being created for TV starring Sean Bell aka Ned Starks aka I die in every movie/to show I’m in. Anthony is going to do a bigger feature about them soon. So I don’t want to give anything away, but trust when I tell ya YOU’RE GONNA WANT TO GET ON THE NIOBE BOAT NOW. That book is going to be HUGE. Already being featured in People Magazine.
BUY MANY COPIES. With that my Day 1 concluded, I was beat.

Day 2- I meet up with Anthony early so the master can show me the ropes of the con and what a great learning experience it was. I can’t thank him enough for the chance he has given me to cover comics for his site. The 1st stop was Scott Zambelli’s booth, he is such a great talent you may remember him from his Batgirl Joker Homage he did with Princess Leia. He is an official Star Wars artist now so be on the lookout for his fantastic work.

Then we stopped by Larry’s comics. Now before you go knocking the guy let me be the 1st to tell ya Larry is a pretty awesome guy, and had one of the best comic booths of the show. Deals among Deals among deals. We are talking full runs of Battle Chasers, full runs of Secret Wars, full runs of Civil War for more than fair prices, cheaper than eBay. Larry has been in the biz for a while he knows his stuff, he showed us some nice up and coming covers I know you guys will like.

It was around this time I was ready to find one of my Holy Grail books “THE KILLING JOKE “.So after about an hour of seeing triple digits prices for this book I almost gave up. I stumbled upon a GREAT DEALER by the name of Craig George from Flashback Comics in Woodbridge VA. It was a small booth but filled with KEY ISSUES for GREAT PRICES. I mean GREAT prices super clean copies of high grade books. He gave me A FANTASTIC deal on Killing Joke. Hit him up mention my name and comicsheatiingup, he will hook you guys up. Definitely my vote for dealer Booth of the show

Here is the “cool story bro segment”
So my convention thing is that I get T Shirts made of favorite comic covers I love. I never resell them. I just keep them for my personal wear. On Friday it was the future legendary Gwenom from Guardians of Nowhere and Saturday it was He-Man Eternia War #10 By DC Artist Pop Mhan. So as Anthony and I are walking thru the con floor. I hear “Hey Nice Shirt “I’m like thanks and was going to keep walking, I happen to look down at the booth of the guy who said it and seen He-Man Eternia War #10 on the table, I look up and it’s other that POP MHAN, very cool guy. He took a pic of the shirt and gave me a signed copy of the book and really liked that I had his cover on a shirt, it was a very cool moment.

Another cool moment was we seen readers of the site David, Diego and George and they said “Your Mel? I really like the articles you write”. To me that was so surreal and I appreciate them and all the
readers of the stuff I write.

I WANT TO GIVE A SUPER SHOUT OUT TO Trey K. of CBSI, 1st time meeting him, another cool and down to earth guy…he knows his stuff check him out his site when ya get a chance.

I was really sorry I had to leave Baltimore early, I missed beer and wings at Hooters but NY only 2 weeks away and we have got to make that up. Last but not least, I want to give an EPIC Shout out to my Family Eric Johnson for letting me crash at his spot.

I will be back next year