Comic Book Resources

Con War dispatch: of con guests and collateral damage

Con War is hell, and you never know who's gonna get caught in the crossfire. Wizard owner Gareb Shamus's evolving effort to rebrand his publishing and online empire and take on Reed Exhibitions's C2E2 and New York Comic Con by aggressively counter-scheduling his Anaheim and Big Apple events has produced some nasty peripheral exchanges, even as direct confrontations between the two convention promoters have all but ceased.

Take the back-and-forth we noted last week between PvP creator Scott Kurtz and Comics Alliance honcho Laura Hudso . It started when Kurtz publicly blasted a Wizard/Shamus functionary with both barrels after the staffer obliviously sent him an email addressed to "Kurt" -- hey, these things happen -- soliciting his attendance at Anaheim Comic Con. Hudson took Kurtz to task for tarring all Wizard employees with a brush perhaps better reserved for the company's decision-makers. This led to a lengthy and ugly comment-thread roundelay between Hudson -- who, as the former senior editor of Tim Leong's defunct Comic Foundry magazine, need bow to no one in the "taking cheap shots at Wizard and its employees as though the two were fungible entities" department -- and Kurtz, some of his fans, and former Wizard staff writer Chris Ward. Over the course of the argument's five pages, posts were deleted; accusations of trollery, spamming, egomania and hypocrisy were thrown about like so much confetti; Hudson's problems during her tenure with Jenna Jameson-publishing Virgin Comics were hashed out; former Wizard President Fred Pierce was accused of buying off former Wizard critic Frank Miller; and a horrid time was had by all.

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More Con War skirmishes and Con Love treaties

(Yes, I'm enjoying the metaphors. Why do you ask?)

Full-scale warfare between convention promoters isn't universal, believe it or not -- some are giving peace a chance. In addition to the recent arrangement worked out by Heroes Con and Supercon to avoid a date conflict, Emerald City ComiCon's Jim Demonakos tells Robot 6 that following an unavoidable conflict with Orlando's MegaCon the weekend of March 13, 2010, he and MegaCon's Beth Widera collaborated on choosing dates for 2011 so that future overlap could be avoided. "We ended up on the same dates for 2010 and neither of us could move, but we've talked and coordinated and our mutual 2011 dates will not be on each other's dates at all," says Demonakos. "Con planning, always an adventure."

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Bendis, Con War conscientious objector -- and other dispatches from the front

Confirming yesterday's report on Robot 6, comics superstar and Marvel mainstay Brian Michael Bendis has announced that he won't attend Gareb Shamus/Wizard's Anaheim Comic Con, for which he'd been announced as Guest of Honor during last weekend's controversial Big Apple Comic Con. Why not? We'll let him explain it, courtesy of his Twitter feed and message board.

Tweet #1:

sadly, i will not be guest of honor or attending the wizard anaheim show next year. i will be staying home and making comic books.

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Is Brian Michael Bendis a casualty of the Con War?

"Last minute cancellations" at last weekend's Big Apple Comic Con (via The Beat)

With the initial salvos -- head-to-head scheduling, employee ejections -- out of the way, the battle between Reed Exhibitions and Wizard Entertainment's Gareb Shamus that began in earnest this past weekend may have produced its first major fallout.

Following Shamus's scheduling of next year's Big Apple Comic Con directly against Reed's New York Comic Con, previously announced Anaheim Comic Con guests of honor Brian Michael Bendis, Alex Maleev and Phil Jimenez -- all marquee names under Marvel-exclusive contracts, for what it's worth -- are now nowhere to be found on the Shamus show's guest list. Will Shamus's apparent loss be Reed's gain, particularly for that same weekend's C2E2 con?

For now, Con War watchers' eyes must turn to the PR front for answers -- and there, the battle's been mostly one-sided. Reed showrunner Lance Fensterman has been taking to news sites to discuss Shamus's Big Apple/NYCC maneuver. (Not to mention his pitting Anaheim against C2E2 -- itself seen as a rival to Wizard's Chicago Comic Con -- and Toronto against Boston's PAX East.)

Speaking with CBR's Kiel Phegley, Fensterman called out Big Apple's practice of allowing its big media guests to charge for autographs:

But to be honest, we've always shied away from "pay-to-play" guests, meaning you have to pay to get a signature, because we've always tried to view ourselves as all-inclusive. When you buy a ticket, the many guests of honor that we've lined up are there for free. You buy a ticket, and you have a right to see those people and get a signature. We never felt it was our philosophy to say, "No. Buy your ticket, and then everyone you want to see costs $100 to get a signature." It wasn't our thing.

And in this interview with The Comics Reporter's Tom Spurgeon, Fensterman gingerly addresses rumors of misconduct by Shamus's organization:

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Begun, the Con War has: More on the Big Apple/NYCC match-up

All smiles: Joe Quesada and Gareb Shamus at the Big Apple Comic Con

Next year's same-weekend, same-city showdown between Reed Exhibitions' New York Comic Con and Wizard Entertainment/Gareb Shamus's Big Apple Comic Con looms large in fandom's collective mind. But what about the here and now?

By several important measures, this weekend's inaugural Shamus-owned Big Apple Comic Con was a major success. For starters, it received an avalanche of enthusiastic coverage from the mainstream press, from both local and national outlets. (Lack of this kind of promotion has been a problem for Wizard shows in the past.) Meanwhile, guest of honor Jim Lee was thrilled with the show, while his fellow headliner Joe Quesada signed on with Shamus's new GeekChicDaily newsletter (as seen in the photo above). And a look around relevant message boards, Twitter accounts, and comment threads provides any number of happy anecdotes regarding apparently terrific bargains from the show's retailers (Acme Novelty Library #19 and The Collected Doug Wright for four bucks apiece!) or delightful interactions with its nerd-heaven line-up of comics pros (Lee, Joe Quesada, Joe Mad, Jim Steranko, Neal Adams), geek icons (William Shatner, Adam West, Billy Dee Williams, Linda Hamilton, Carol Cleveland) and crush objects (Kelly Hu, Adrianne Curry, Bottomless Suicide Girl, Linda Hamilton, Carol Cleveland).

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World War Con: Big Apple 2010 scheduled for same weekend as NYCC 2010

Next year's dates announced in this weekend's Big Apple Comic Con program

Many things can be and have been said about Gareb Shamus, founder and CEO of Wizard Entertainment, but "he lacks chutzpah" isn't one of them: As reported by Comic Book Resources, Shamus has pitted his recently purchased Big Apple Comic Con head-to-head against Reed Exhibitions' New York Comic Con. Both shows will take place in Manhattan on Oct. 8-10, 2010, with Big Apple starting a day earlier on Oct. 7.

Shamus is no stranger to aggressive scheduling and positioning against rival comic conventions. Word surfaced in 2005 that he'd planned a potential Wizard World Atlanta against regional staple Heroes Con; though company spokespeople quickly backpedaled in the face of withering industry criticism and the Atlanta show never materialized, the increasingly crowded convention scene saw this year's Heroes Con once again overlap with Shamus' rebranded Wizard World Philadelphia Comic Con.

Shamus also responded to convention powerhouse Reed's announcement of the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo, a rival show to his Chicago Comic Con (formerly Wizard World Chicago), by creating the Anaheim Comic Con and scheduling it directly against C2E2's debut. He also waded into one of the most acrimonious con feuds in North America by purchasing the Paradise Toronto Comicon, which itself has a history of disputes with the larger, more pop culture-focused Fan Expo Canada. Shamus' convention organization has also been quite aggressive in fending off a perceived challenge from the nascent Long Beach Comic-Con, created and staffed in large part by former Wizard employees, going so far as to ban LBCC's Steve Hoveke from Wizard's Philadelphia show despite having okayed him as an exhibitor.

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