Robserecaps Sixteen – episode 48 COMIC-CON! The Con Game!

Posted by Joe on Nov 6, 2020 in Robserecaps | 0 comments

by Joe

The Rob teased this episode on his Facebook by saying he was once banned from attending San Diego Comic Con. You have my interest!

• The Rob put out a call for anyone who has attended the secret underground cons that have been going on during the pandemic to contact him
• The Rob feels San Diego Comic Con will not return until 2022, but other conventions will be back next year
• The Rob does an impression of ‘seven guys from Reed Pop’ who constantly tell him New York is bigger than San Diego, but he feels they may be padding the numbers, grabbing people off the street and bringing them in
• The first piece of original art the Rob bought was a Justice League page from George Perez for around 60 bucks, the Teen Titans pages were a bit more pricey
• Of all his convention sketches, the only one he sold was a George Perez Cyborg for $100 over what he paid, he he still regrets it
• James Cameron was at a Biltmore Comic Con to promote the first Terminator movie with a three foot animatronic of the T-800
• The Rob can usually do 60 commissions over the course of a convention weekend
• Like Pauly Shore (the Rob’s words) and the WWE (my words), the Rob likes putting smiles on people’s faces, so he cut back the amount of commissions he does at a convention to he has more time to press the flesh
• The Rob specifically mentions he’s drawn Jonah Hex only twice
• Because of his father’s illness, the summer after his senior year of high school (1985), his family had relocate to Illinois, but with the fanzine connections he made, he was able to meet up with folks to attended the Chicago Comic Con for the first time
• The Rob relates a story of heckling a basketball player to people who aren’t fans of everyone’s work
• In talking about sharing an office with his uncle back in the X-Force days, the Rob brings back his impression of a fax machine
• That summer, the Rob was moved from his original spot at San Diego Comic Con since his crowd was too big and blocking other lines
• Jim Valentino coined the phrase of calling non-comics book people “citizens”
• in 1992, the organizers for Chicago Comic Con tried to make a deal to get the Image Boys (sans Jim Lee, his wife was expecting) be exclusive that summer to his convention only
• the Rob stood on a chair to try and quell the crowd at San Diego Comic Con but was ejected for allegedly inciting a crowd, ending in a very hostile exchange which ALMOST got him banned
• The Old Guard hated the Image Boys since they brought young people back into the stores and conventions
• The following year, at Great American Comic Show in New York, they had gold logo versions of their books that caused another near riot.
• This caused a comic book management/writer guy, who the Rob would not name, but called him a “notorious, know it all whiner” who blamed Image Comics for putting people in danger. I think The Rob is talking about Peter David, but I’m not sure. The Rob’s impression of him sounds like Sol Rosenberg from the Jerky Boys.’
• The Rob says by 1998, they were all burned out, Todd McFarlane stopped drawing in 1993 (which I don’t think is true) and Jim Lee sold Wildstorm to DC and went into hiding
• at San Diego Comic Con 2000, the industry was in a slump, Marvel was in bankruptcy, the convention floor was dark and empty but everything would course correct two years later
• After this time, the convention industry shifted to “bar cons” smaller cons in hotels but not the banquet halls
• the Summer of 2002 when Arnold Schwarzenegger (promoting Terminator 3) and Angelina Jolie (promoting Tomb Raider) did Hall H, everything changed
• In 2003, the Rob first met Robert Kirkman at San Diego Comic Con, they were inseparable the rest of the weekend and the Rob apologizes for being “uncouth” and peeing with the door open in front of him

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