Click here for Page 2 of the Leader's Report on the Tidewater Comicon 2024

Click here for the Main Introduction Page to see the Leader's Reports on the Fayetteville Comic Con, the Columbus Moving Picture Show and HeroesCon

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Dealer Setup Day Friday 17 May 2024

Virginia Beach Convention Center About noon on Friday their was a long line of vans and trucks waiting for the gate to open into the loading docks area behind the Convention Center. Standing next to the Budget truck are Trilogy Comics vendors Chad Gray and Mike Smigel.	Convention Center Loading Dock The Leader.	Convention Center Loading Dock Chad Gray, Chris Adams, Mike Smigel of Trilogy Comics starting to load-in Trilogy's huge inventory of toys, comic books and Manga books.

Convention Center Exhibition Hall The Convention Center main exhibition hall is still mostly empty as it awaits the arrival of the many vendors who will be setting up their merchandise before the show opens to the public tomorrow.	Convention Center Vendor Check-In Desk The exhibition hall won't have to wait long. More and more vendors and arriving.	Harry Hopkins After a long drive from Fredricksburg, VA the Leader's longtime friend Harry Hopkins (Lt. Col., USAF, Ret.) arrived and is beginning to unload his van; that's a routine and familiar ritual for this old warhorse who has been in the comic book business for over 50 years. The Leader must stop taking photos now and help Harry load-in. The Leader's Report will resume in the photos below.

Gerald Hogan At far left is Trilogy Comics owner Gerald Hogan watching Chad Gray arranging merchandise. From left to right are additional Trilogy employees Chris Adams, Gerald's son Timothy Hogan laying on a cart, Mike Smigel. In the far background is Harry Hopkins.	The Trilogy guys with Harry Hopkins Harry Hopkins had one of the largest comic book inventories at the show and the Trilogy Comics people lost no time in perusing Harry's comic dollar boxes to look for bargains. From left to right are Chris Adams, Chad Gray, Harry Hopkins (red shirt), Gerald Hogan, Timothy Hogan. At far left is another vendor Karl Rickert who sets up with his partner Jamie Conner. I sometimes see Karl and Jamie at my regular comic book store Zeno's Books owned by Wayne Zeno.	Chad Gray Back in the Trilogy Comics booths is Chad Gray with two big hardcover books: The Fourth World Omnibus Vol. 2 and Superman The Golden Age Omnibus Vol. 7. For the past few years I have been buying the Superman and Batman omnibus books containing their stories from the late 1940s and early 1950s. Just recently both the Batman and Superman Golden Age omnibus books have been supplanted with the first volumes in the Silver Age. I like the Batman and Superman stories from the late 1940s through the mid 1960s so I hope DC Comics will keep releasing these omnibus books until I have all the Superman and Batman reprinted comics up to about 1964 or so.

The Fourth World Omnibus Vol. 2 I don't plan to buy any of these Fourth World or any other Jack Kirby books with Kirby's art at DC during the 1970s. I love Jack Kirby's art and I still remember being excited when I bought at Mr. Woo's 7-11 store in my hometown of Savannah, GA the first comic Kirby did when he moved from Marvel to DC: Jimmy Olsen #133, 1970. But my excitement soon turned to chagrin when I realized what a mediocre writer Kirby was. His story captions and dialog are stilted, clunky and even silly. None of his writing sings to you the way his stories did during his Marvel years when a far more professional writer, Stan Lee, wrote all Kirby's stories. However, because Kirby's art had lost none of its magic I dutifully bought all the Fourth World titles (The New Gods, The Forever People, Mr. Miracle) and Kirby's other DC books like Kamandi The Last Boy On Earth, The Demon, O.M.A.C and so on. I long ago sold all those comics on ebay and I don't plan to revisit them in reprinted books. When Kirby returned to Marvel in the mid 1970s sadly he still insisted on writing his own stories so the same situation continued: stories with great art and crummy writing to undermine them.	Tom Holcomb Tom Holcomb owner of Lighted Things had this eye catching display of handmade pop culture emblems you can hang on your walls. Each emblem is lit from behind to make it more dramatic.	Jamie Bramble Jamie Bramble all setup and ready for tomorrow's onslaught of customers. Jamie is another local Virginia Beach area comic dealer that I see in Wayne Zeno's store sometimes. We'll take a look at some of Jamie's Silver Age comics on page 2 of the Leader's Report.

Steve Edmonson Steve Edmonson and his partner Larry Fredickson are two vendors I see at this show each year with an interesting assortment of 3d printed pop culture characters. Here's Steve posing with some 3d printed weapons. In the foreground is an appropriately menacing bust of the Marvel villain the Juggernaut; this over muscled brute made a career out of making life difficult for the X-Men and other Marvel superheroes. He first appeared in the Marvel Universe in the The X-Men #12, 1965. Let's take a closer look at Steve's 3d printed statue of the Alien in the next photo.

Steve Edmonson's Alien Now that's one spooky looking Alien. I saw the first Alien movie in a theater near Sacramento, CA with two of my Air Force buddies Mike Paez and Cliff Golsarry when it was released in 1979. I remember the movie seemed a little slow for the first several minutes and the audience was getting a bit restless. But, everybody woke up when the baby Alien burst out of actor John Hurt's stomach and stayed wide awake for the rest of the film. When I was driving my two friends back to Mather Air Force Base we talked about how good the movie was. I summed up the general sentiment with my comment: "That movie had everything. Monsters for Mike, killing for Cliff and science fiction for me."

Click here for Page 2 of the Leader's Report on the Tidewater Comicon 2024

Click here for the Main Introduction Page to see the Leader's Report on the Fayetteville Comic Con, the Columbus Moving Picture Show and HeroesCon