Originally published at Comic Book Daily under my Bound Together column.
Saturday at Fan Expo was crazier than usual: the crowds were so intense all afternoon there was a long line waiting to get in. If only the deals were that crazy…
I dedicated the day to getting various hardcovers signed. Two options: snag a signature at the creator’s booth or at one of their signings. Some like Olivier Coipel and the Kubert brothers were only signing for one hour at a signing area; needless to say I didn’t get anything from them. I searched high and low for Steve McNiven but never saw him at his table.
I had a chance to chat again with Darwyn Cooke about upcoming works. He’s been contemplating one or two self published collections of unseen or rare work but is looking to do them digitally. I asked about oversize reprints of his IDW works in the same format as The Man With The Getaway Face one shot but he doesn’t think that will explored until all four Parker books are published. Darwyn did say he loved seeing his work at that size as it showed all his mistakes.
Chris Sprouse arrived very late Friday but was set up and ready to go when I arrived Saturday. He had a stack of pages for sale, all $40 each which is a steal in any economy. He apologized that he was charging $10 for head shot sketches; his wife was with him and insisted he charge so real fans were getting something and not just those trolling for free stuff. He said charging added pressure to produce really good sketches: when they’re free people don’t have much to complain about.
I did manage to get books signed from Cooke, Sprouse, Doug Mahnke and Ethan Van Sciver. When signing an Absolute or Omnibus hardcover they all included a small sketch in the book; the overall consensus was that they appreciated the purchase of the deluxe edition and felt it merited something special. Very nice!
After lots of laps around the show but didn’t spot any new collected edition deals. There was a Rocketeer Artist Edition for $130 but that was the only one I saw. Another dealer was selling a different trade paperback for $1 every few hours.
Although I had no plans to return for a third day I signed up for a Van Sciver Green Lantern headshot for $50 and Tim Bradstreet said he was taking requests on Sunday so it seemed worth the return.