Louie’s Phoenix Fan Fusion 2019 Wrap Up

Phoenix Fan Fusion took place on downtown Phoenix over the Memorial Day weekend, it’s our annual tradition to cover the event.  I still have a hard time not calling it Phoenix Comicon myself, but it really is a fusion of many fandoms. We had celebs from Star Wars and Star Trek, major anime and animation voice actors, and a giant list of creators and artists.

Something unique this year was a ceremony to officially declare May 25th as “Denny O’Neil Day”. Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego declared this day to celebrate Dennis O’Neil’s contributions to the comic book industry and all of the work he has done with the Hero Initiative.  Inspiring to see one of our comic legends get some love from the city.

Fan Fusion had great Celeb Guests for the populace- Billy Dee Williams, Adam Savage, Jeff Goldblum, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, Summer Glau – just to scratch the surface.

I don’t normally do the photo ops but wish I had for the Star Trek actors, I heard that Nichelle Nichols mentioned she was retiring.  So if you see her at a con, you don’t want to pass it up.

There was a lot of excitement around the show for Jeff Goldblum, his star has been rising with the younger generation.  I arrived 40 minutes early to his panel which is normally plenty of time and the line was already capped! Shame on me for underestimating, I heard his panel was only 30 minutes long but he rocked the house.

I did get into Elijah Wood’s panel which was awesome being a major LOTR fan myself. Elijah was very comfortable and conversational, sort of felt like you were personally having lunch with him. This particular crowd seemed extra crazy for Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. I have not watched this, but I have to now after seeing how rabid the fans were over it.

When asked what is was like to dedicate so much of his early career to LOTR, he brought up a great point: how cool it was to be filming slightly pre internet with no eyes on what they were doing. Studios were not digital yet so the original trilogy was filmed on actual film. Time to go back and rewatch the series, I feel they fully hold up despite being almost 20 years old.

Elijah owns a production company specializing in horror films.  He said it all stems from his older brother letting him watch horror movies when they were kids. At the time they created SpectreVision, elegant and artful movies like The Thing and Rosemary’s Baby weren’t really being made like they are in today’s horror renaissance (and it is a great time to be alive for horror fans).  They produced the wild Nic Cage film Mandy, and are in post production of Color Out of Space; also starring Nic Cage and based on a H.P. Lovecraft story. I’m in!

Another tradition is checking in with Stranger Comics booth, they have the largest booth of any publisher there. I am really happy for these guys getting the HBO deal, there is so much content in the world of Asunda that will look amazing on screen. Writer Darrell May is a friendly and gracious guy, he was so stoked to talk about it. Sebastian Jones will be the Executive Producer and sounds like Stranger Writers are working on the scripts so these shows will remain true to the original books.

This year Sebastian did a panel on how to take an idea from concept to creation. Why was this the subject? Because Sebastian Jones and his team at Stranger are awesome storytellers.  They have built a rich and dynamic world with Asunda where many of their books take place: Niobe, The Untamed, Erathune, Dusu, etc. And who knows, there may be a day where Sebastian won’t have the time to attend cons and give personal advice on storytelling so this was a must see panel with high attendance.

Sebastian was very well prepared with a powerpoint for reference.  He has a personal soundtrack to his creative process (jazz innovators like John and Alice Coltrane), and encouraged us to think about what the soundtrack is to our characters.  Take note each chapter of the Untamed is a classic jazz song like “Sinner’s Prayer”.

The panel included several tidbits of advice from Sebastian about trying to obliterate mediocrity in writing. A storytelling analogy he used resonated with me “play the king when they expect you to place the ace”, meaning, draw your audience in closer by setting up an expectation then surprising them.  A panel I won’t forget, can’t wait to see where Stranger Comics is this time next year.

As usual, Brian Pulido and Coffin Comics totally rule the big Phoenix event.  They go big on their hometown con with exclusives, raffles, and fan events.  Most of their exclusives sold out, including a cover featuring Sapphire Nova (best Lady Death ever!) who was at their booth all weekend for signing and pics.  They also conducted a panel on running a successful Kickstarter, which makes sense since Coffin has raised a whopping $2.4 million dollars to date.  Here are a few of their pro tips for anyone interesting in launching a crowdfunding campaign:

• Use extra capital from your initial campaign to get ahead on the next campaign, rinse and repeat.  This is how Coffin runs efficiently, by constantly reinvesting into themselves.
• Make sure you fully understand the concept of add-ons.  An early lesson learned was that most crowdfunding tools only let you pick one add-on which is too limiting.
• Viciously control shipping and materials costs – these can get out of control fast with a high amount of orders.  Spend your time researching multiple options.
• Place high priority on regular communication.  Too many people have been burned by Kickstarters that take an inordinate amount of time to deliver or never deliver.  Brian’s recommendation is at least 1 weekly update so backers know your progress and try to keep each communication fun.

They also discussed the current La Muerta Kickstarter which is already well above goal.  Brian and superstar illustrator Joel Gomez discussed how they want to honor Mexican culture with this book (e.g. Saint of Death, All Saint’s Day).  It’s a grim and gritty read, more grounded in reality for those that prefer noir over the fantasy realm of Lady Death.

The exhibit hall was hopping!  I was happy to see an official DC Comics booth again, they brought a ton of their gold foils although these seem to have really cooled off from last year.  I heard different things from vendors, was hard to identify trends and some were having a great show and some were not. I was surprised not to see more Swamp Thing on the racks. Personally I can’t wait for that show, comes out this week!

Is the pop bubble about to burst? I wonder every year, and so far the force is still strong.  Plenty of vendors with big booths of pops. The vendors offering deals of course did the best and had sparse racks by Sunday.  This year also marked the first time there was a Funko exclusive offered at Phoenix, a Majin Vegeta Pop which you could buy directly from Chris Sabat’s booth signed for $60.  Super long lines for this, but since they go for $100+ on secondary market, the lines were probably a combo of Dragonball Z fans and Funko resellers.

Looks like political comics are heating up with the recent madness over the AOC book.  Devil’s Due was their with some AOC variants and a sneak peak at a Bernie book coming out soon. I am not a political guy so these don’t do much for me, but you can’t deny there is a market there.

Scout Comics was there and I got to meet James Haick, very cool guy.  He had a box of some of their rare variants and I picked up a few as investments since several of their books have been optioned.  James mentioned that Once Our Land is the furthest along so that will probably be the first of their intellectual properties you see in live action.  

Kevin Eastman had a brutal line, started at the booth near a wall and wrapped many aisles down the convention center.  I swear it didn’t’ seem to get shorter every time I walked by, TMNT has an enduring popularity.

A few prices from the booths I visited.  Was mostly curious to see if anyone had a first print Naomi 1, but I did not see any.

Naomi 1 Final Print – $9

Naomi 2 – $25

Naomi 3 – $19

Naomi 4 – $10

Naomi 5– $9

Die 1 – $29

Immortal Hulk 2 – $79

Totally Awesome Hulk 22 – $79

Harley Quinn 58 (Chew Variant)– $12

Venom 13 – $7

Uncanny X-men 134 (1st Dark Phoenix) – $130

Spawn 1 – $35

Major X 1– $10

Venom 1(Regular cover) – $20

Heroes In Crisis 1 (Mattina Harley Cover) – $150

Detective Comics 359 (1st Batgirl) – $700

Batgirl 23 (Middleton Cover)– $90

ASM 156 (1st Mirage) –  $30

Ms Marvel 1 – $125

The Boys 1 – $60

Umbrella Academy (FCBD Version) – $120

Iron Fist 1– $100

New X-Men 128 (1st Fantomex) – $45

Eternals 1– $100

Venom Lethal Protector 1 – $50

There is no better way to start the Summer break than this Phoenix Con, I get to see so many of my friends and make new ones each year.  Well worth the time if you can make it out: https://phoenixfanfusion.com/