Atlanta Comic Con

At Paige's suggestion, I decided to check out the Atlanta Comic Con this afternoon. I met her at work, and we switched cars to avoid waking our sons. The venue was only a few blocks away, and I arrived just in time to realize I had missed the Walkind Dead forum by 30 minutes. At this point I almost skipped the whole thing because I didn't want to pay the $20 fee, and I'm not the type to sneak in. I decided to approach the ticket booth in any case, and to my surprise, the attendent offered me a student pass at $5. I kindly paid the woman with gratitude, and entered the convention area.

Immediately to my left was Burt Ward. Just beyond him was Arthur Fonzarelli. Across from the Fonz was none other than Lando Calrissian. It honestly weirded me out, so I ducked to another aisle. Here there were dozens of artists selling prints and originals of everything imaginable. I ended up getting three prints of some Marvel zombies (Hulk (below), Spiderman and Captain America) for $10. All the artists were pretty reasonable and approachable.



There were also dozens of comics vendors. They had anything and everything you could ask for. One guy had a ton of old Alpha Flight, and I asked which one had the origin of Wolverine. He proceeded to tell me Logan's first appearance was in Hulk, but I asked about his ORIGIN story. I remember it being in #64 or something. I'll have to check it out. The vendors also made me think about liquidating my comics collection in order to acquire complete runs of just a few series.

The experience was time well spent. I should be more prepared next year. I honestly didn't know what to expect today. Once home, I read you had to pay the "stars" for autographs, even photos taken with your own camera. I'm glad I did not ask for one. It really would have added insult to injury.