Syracuse Comic Con & Heroes Expo
November 23rd. 10am – 5pm at the Holiday Inn 441 Electronics Pkwy Liverpool, NY
Adult Admission $ 8.00 , Children under 16 $3.00, free if in costume. Presale Tickets at Cloud City Comics $7.00
Hello and welcome to a very special review. This time out, I want to talk about local comic book conventions. Specifically my local cons. Local for G33kpod is Syracuse, New York. Yeah, Syracuse. That mid-sized city in between Buffalo and Albany where Donovan McNabb and Carmelo Anthony played college ball. Well, We have our own comic-cons too, and like any good g33k, I attend all of them…. it’s our duty after all.
First let me say that, this is second review I’ve written for this Con…. I scrapped the first one since it became more of a ‘History of Syracuse Comic Conventions’ piece instead of a critique of the most recent offering.
So, Let’s discuss the current Con. The winter offering was Saturday November 23, 2013 10 am to 5 pm. Adult admission was $8.00 unless you purchased Presale tickets at Cloud City Comics and Toys (Hands down the best comic shop in the Cuse if you ask me, but that’s a topic for a different column) which were $7.00. Admission for children under 16 was $3.00 UNLESS you bring the kiddos in costume, then they’re free. This show was first announced back in March and was hyped HARD as a big event with a great guest list and two, count ’em, TWO days of geeky goodness! Well sign me up! I was all about it, friends! Could not wait to get all the info on the next show and then the info…… stopped…. Syracuse Powercon as it was being called, would occasionally tease “big things” coming for their “Huge Fall Show” but info was never really delivered until the middle of September… We got a Date (yes… the HUGE 2 day show was now a single day) and a location, Ok… Cool… now who will be there? That knowledge didn’t come for another month and it was sparse to say the least…. Now, what I’m trying to point out here is this: Publicity and Communication for this show was DREADFUL. All in all they announced four guests with the promise of more to come …. but even after being rabidly hounded daily by facebook fans, no more announcements came.
So, on to the actual day of the show. My lil’ sidekick and I arrived to the show two hours late ( hey, ballet class took precedent!) The parking lot of the venue was quite packed but we found a decent spot and headed in. We walked right in and handed over our Presale ticket to the show organizer Ted Hanes and leapt into the fray! A quick survey of the room showed a nicely set up room: there were 10 – 15 vendor tables with the 12 guest tables intermingled throughout. The vendor tables were your typical Con fare, ranging from high priced wall books and collectibles( Everything from a Captain Marvel #1 and a full sized Green Lantern Power Battery) to dozens of dollar bin long boxes with some FANTASTIC hidden gems.
I even heard that someone found This treasure in one:
Yes, That is Secret Wars #8
I personally scored two of my Holy Grail books: The Man Called Nova #s 15 and 25
(Don’t Judge me!)
as well as 2 plush Jester dolls from one of my favorite books to read to my lil sidekicks (obviously, they each had to have their own Jester) Stuff of Legends,
I highly recommend picking up a Jester of your own from the Th3rd World Studios Online Shop. They’d be a bargain at twice the price! I also picked up a small press title called Today’s Hero by VA Comics which I will be discussing in it’s own column real soon.
The guests at the show were fantastic even if they weren’t quite the “greatest line-up ever” that was promised ( I distinctly remember meeting Ethan Van Sciver and Kane Hodder at previous Heroes Expos) The full line up of comics pros were: Guests of Honor Joe Sinnott and Roger Stern, Joe Jusko, Mike Raicht, Joe Orsak, Tom Peyer, and Jim Brenneman as well as the boys from VA comics: Paul LaPorte, Mike Miner, Dan Wameling and Steve Wameling. Finally, I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. John Ginty, who was at the con representing his forthcoming film Good Villain, which will also get some major coverage here at G33kPod VERY soon.
Now, I’m sure you’re wondering about the title of the column here…..Like I said, when it was originally announced and up to October this show was Called Syracuse Powercon Comic and Pop Culture Convention….. Then it morphed into Syracuse Powercon and Heroes Expo… well by the time the Event arrived, the sparse promotional materials that could be found were calling it Syracuse Comic-Con…. again, fantastic marketing/publicity strategy there Teddy.
Ok, time to rate the show, if you’re not familiar with our rating system, you can learn about it here: It get’s a total of :
Venue: 5 stars. As always, the Holiday Inn is easy to get to and perfect in every way that a Con needs to be.
Vendors: 4 Stars. Huge selection of merch from some great shops from all around upstate New York.
Guests: 3.5 Stars While all of the guests were Outstanding folks and treated me (and more importantly, my lil sidekick) extremely well, the caliber of guests were a bit of a letdown due to the hollow “Greatest Lineup Ever” hype … but there was a bit of redemption with the unadvertised small press artists that helped bump this from a 2.5
Publicity: ZERO Stars. Seriously…. nonexistant updates and false promises became the norm, nothing good to say here.
Total Value: 4 Stars. Had a good time overall. Saw many old friends and made some new ones. Got some great deals and the guests were gracious enough to do this for us:
So, at the end of the day, the sidekick and I enjoyed ourselves but it left me wanting more….. here’s hoping that we get more the next time around……