My Trip to Long Beach Comic Con 2015

Welcome everyone! I'm sharing my experiences with Long Beach Comic Con which is my first comic book convention. This is my 2nd visit as well as my 2nd convention with my first being Anime Expo in Los Angeles. Long Beach Comic Con is located on 333 E Ocean Blvd, Long Beach, CA 90802. It's a small convention, and it took place on September 12 and 13, 2015.

This will be a short blog since I have a midterm on Management this week. I'm usually detailed with my convention blogs. This time, I didn't bring a pen to jot stuff. My background in comics is small. I'm a new fan to comic books. Only experienced comics through the animated shows like Batman and Spider-Man of the 90's in the 2000's. Only read 2 comic series: Wonder Woman New 52 and Killing Joke.

I pretty much spent my Saturday with relatives who lived in the same town and then went back alone on Sunday.

Saturday

Had 2 panels, the Psychology of Daredevil and LBGT Issues in Genre Fiction. I almost miss the Psychology of Daredevil panel. The panel is so early in the morning while public transportation has less buses on the weekends. Oh yeah, the badge pick up line is long, too. I should have thought about spending the night at my relatives' home, but I didn't want to bother them. At least, I got to spend time with family after I met up with them during the afternoon.

Psychology of Daredevil Panel

Speakers

• Dr. Andrea Letamendi
• Christos Gage
• Ruth Fletcher Gage
• Tommy Walker (Francis)
• Peter Shinkoda (Nobu)
• Moderator: Tony of Comic Vine

It's lucky that staff allows folks enter the panel late. AX is a different story in my experience because there is more people, and the atmosphere is more business-like. Long Beach Comic Con is more family oriented. I missed the first 30 minutes of the panel.

From what I remembered, the panel talked about Batman and Daredevil similarities and explored Murdock and why he dons the mask. The panelists also shared about Francis and Nobu's characters (whose actors are present). Why did Nobu took it upon him to fight Daredevil? Why Francis is still working for King Pin. Our last character was Vanessa. She didn't have much of a backstory in the original comics. The Netflix series expanded on this character.

I went to meet Tony for the first time. Forgot to take a picture with him. Tony shared how he likes Long Beach convention than San Diego.

After the panel, I met with my relatives. Helped took pictures of the kids who wanted to pose with fellow cosplayers. Shopped for goods. Found out some comics are really expensive. Had no idea that some are rare collections. I saw a Batgirl Adventures in a thick plastic case. One of the sales person took it and then the boss yelled at the sales person to not bring rare items off the shelves. Bought stuff for the young kids, mostly toys. There were a ton of figures in addition to comics and artist comissions. Compared to anime conventions, there were figures but they were as abundant. Besides DVDs and manga, it was mostly balanced in merchandising: clothes, figures, bed sheets/body pillows, CDs, cosplay and props, video games, and make up. Surprisingly, there were only a few booths selling games, but it wasn't big collections. I remember in Anime Expo, there were huge video game booths, selling old, vintage games to new games.

Gallery

Turns out I forgot my credit card when I was scrambling to head to convention this morning. I had roughly up to 50 dollars. I didn't buy any comics or things for myself.

After my relatives left, I thought I would attend one more panel. I saw a panel that had 2 voice actors I recognized, Crispin Freeman and Troy Baker. I couldn't attend since it was full by the time I arrived. I decided to attend the next door panel which was LBGT. I thought I was going to learn about obscure characters in comics that are LBGT. However, I misread it. It was about LBGT in a broader genre, fiction.

LBGT Issues in Genre Fiction Panel

Speakers

• Michael Paul Gonzalez
• Cecil Castellucci
• Gallagher Lawson
• Christa Faust
• Sherri L. Smith
• Moderator: Sam Sattin

This was a very informative panel. The panelists talked about literature and fan fiction. Didn't touch upon on comics. I can't remember the questions but I do have a rough sense of topics. They were about increasing how to increase visibility of LBGT in academia and how to increase content of LBGT. One of the hurdles was that for folks who aren't LBGT (but want to create LBGT characters) are afraid of getting it wrong. One of the responses was that you create the characters as people first then relate to their issues. Just take a risk.

Some of the speakers share their experiences when their stories are shot down because they had LBGT characters who aren't the stereotypes. It was that if LBGT was marketed as something else like a struggle of identity, it doesn't get accepted. The LBGT that's are shown more are the stereotypes that are exploited to appeal to straight audiences.

Unfortunately, that's all I could remember.

Sunday

Had to check school e-mails and Anime Vice board requests like cleaning scans. Only attended one panel.

Kickstarter: Crowdfunding Practical Strategies

Speakers

• Siike Donnelly
• Ray Chou
• Jules Rivera
• Moderator: Madeleine Holly-Rosing

Chose to attend this one since I would like to know more about them after hearing about them in Anime News Network and from friends who talked about video games. Just going to list tips I had written.

• Use Social Media with kickstarter to bring exposure. Don't use social media in a way that distracts from the brand. Keep 2 social media accounts or more, one for personal use and kickstarter
• When introducing your kickstarter, share enough of your story and your project's story.
• Research other successful kickstarters such as their price points business model etc
• Never sell yourself short.
• Always do quotes and prototype mailing. Don't underestimate shipping costs of your rewards
• When doing kickstarter videos, keep it short and simple. 2 Minutes
• Do your own marketing to broaden your reach. Don't reply on companies to do the PR for you.

It was a fun panel. Got to learn something new.

Photos and Cosplay

Gallery

Most of the cosplay photos I took are with family. These are the only ones I had that are without my folks. Here's a news article that has a lot of cosplay.

In terms of cosplay, there were few anime ones: Sword Art Online, Attack on Titan, Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, and Fairy Tail. For comics, the most cosplay I seen was Deadpool and Star Wars, notably the Storm Troopers and Boba Fetts.

Source: Courtesy of Comic Vine

Pictures of Long Beach

I actually like the city since it's near the beach. I live inland so I don't get to see the beach often.

Gallery

Thank you everyone for reading!

That's pretty cool

Thanks for sharing. I attend conventions to get sketches and commissions and also to cosplay but I've never been into the panels. The DD one does sound like one I might have enjoyed though.

@irishx:

What conventions have you attended? If only I knew more about comic book writers or have a favorite writer, I would support them and buy one of their commissions.

I learned Comic Con is different from Anime Cons in that comic con has a huge artist alley. It includes professional and non professional folks. At Anime Expo, I only seen non professional folks. I guess because most mangakas are in Japan and other countries outside of the states. It's hard for them to attend conventions in the US and other countries to have a chance to meet with audiences who enjoy their work.

I went to my first comic-con three weekends ago expecting to spend all day looking at new and different things. Instead, I spent six hours with my head buried in comic book long boxes looking for deals.

@takashichea: I've been to Boston Comic Con, East Coast Comic Con, NYCC: Special Edition, MassiveCon, Terrificon (formerly called Connecticut Comic Con), and I'm headed to Rhode Island Comic Con in Nov. and Walker Stalker Con in December. Also go to my local cons which are Albany Comic Con and Chase Con Expo.

I haven't been to an Anime Con but my daughters are big fans and I'm sure I'll attend one soon. They'll be cosplaying as a couple characters from Future Diary at the next show we go to.

That's too bad about the artist alley at the Anime ones. It's definitely one of my favorite things to get a completely original piece of art. It's not always so bad to get a commission from a lesser known artist though. Usually the price is more reasonable and you never know they might just get big someday. Right now I have a good portrait artist, Jason Casey, doing a Hellboy (movie version) which is turning out to be epic. I'll be picking it up in Rhode Island then I'll get Ron Perlman who played Hellboy to sign it. So psyched!!!

@irishx:

Wow, you have a wealth of experience! I'm a little constricted with my public transportation and time due to being in school.

I'm still a newbie. I still have to read more comic books. Forgot to mention in the blog. I had asked dealers on what recommendations they would give. One memorable one was one guy telling me to dive into X-Men comics by reading the Death of Wolverine. I found out that interesting. Usually, you don't start with a major death. Didn't know they killed Wolverine. Though, he and others didn't have the first issue for that story arc.

Your family is big on comics. My family isn't into comics. My cousins are in video games. My little sister is into anime. I'm the only one who likes video games, anime, and comics.

Thanks for the advice about the commissions. I wasn't really sure how it works out.

@batwatch:

Had the same experience. I was browsing comic book issues and overwhelmed by the price difference. It's a big range. Old comics are either cheap or expensive if it's rare one. Found out that hard way when I saw the Batgirl Adventures (it reminded me of 1990's Batman cartoon).

I wasn't sure what was a good deal. One guy who was browsing with me told me most of the comics especially new ones are cheaper online.

I wanna go a comic-con.

@takashichea:

I think I have a copy of Batgirl Adventures. I don't remember where I bought it, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it was worth some money.

I use mycomicshop.com to decide if something is value. I pick the ones that I think might be valuable, sort them and then search the prices for them. I have a whole mental rubric for how much I'm willing to pay for them, but generally speaking, I'll pay money for anything I can afford which is selling at %20 of online value. The only problem with using MCS is if an issue isn't in stock, then you have to guess on how much it's worth, but there are some easy ways to make educated guesses such as looking at the value of comics around the same run which are in stock.

At the first con I went to, there were a ton of overpriced issues and a ton of cheap issues. I spent a lot of time on one booth in particular that had a lot of high end stuff, and the guy was discarding a bunch of comics that were worth about ten dollars a piece for a dollar a piece. I got some early appearances of Blade, classic Superboy comics and even some issues from the original run of Teen Titans. They were all somewhat worn but still worth more than he was asking. There was also a booth that had like fifteen thousand comics he was selling for twenty-five cents a piece, and though some of it was bargain bin filler, some were good issues of mainstream comics in fine condition. Sadly, I didn't get to spend much time there because that booth was swamped. I only got there at the end of the day as they were closing.

I went to another con the following week expecting similar results, but it was much smaller and I only found one vendor with reasonable prices, so I guess it's a crap shoot. One thing that surprised me is that the first con cost five bucks to enter, and the second one cost fifteen bucks, but the second one was only one sixth the size as the first. Kinda odd.

I love this. Looks like you had a wonderful time!

I recently attended the FanExpo up here in Canada and it was pretty cool. It's great getting to meet creators and discussing the industry with them, especially interacting with other fans. An experience worth having, for sure.

@ms-lola: I'm planning on attending the Toronto Fan Expo in 2016! Constantly get good guest at that show. One of my absolute favorites doesn't make many appearances but Jae Lee seems to be there each year. If I had known the star of my favorite film was going to be there this year I would have tried to get there to see Mr. Slater.

@irishx: You will have a great time! I went last minute, but I treated it as a mini vacay for myself. It's crazy, but worth it.

Welllll, I just so happened to meet Mr. Jae Lee and he is the most modest, nicest guy ever. He was overwhelmed by his popularity, haha. I couldn't decide what to get from him, and his prints were mostly gone by the first day of the convention. The one I really wanted was of Wonder Woman, but then again, I went for his mini art book. Even his autograph is extremely understated, just like him. Very, very soft spoken but very approachable.

@ms-lola: Of course I'm super jealous. Hopefully he will be there again next year. That's cool you got an art book of his too. I'll have to look for it myself.