I hate Sundays. Not having to get up early but there is no buses until 10 which meant I had to quickly walk to the bus station. As it was I didn't have time to get a coffee from Tim Hortons before the bus ride.  Lucky there was a Tim Hortons just steps from the drop off point at the Royal York.

It was a dull dreary day. Raining. After a week of wonderful warm spring weather, it was cold.  Thankfully this year's event was in the North hall downstairs. The line-up for this year was typical and if you seen one line up shot of mine. the line up here was no difference.  I did get to chat with a person in line about comics, show off some posters of past 4 komas.  My one argument that the art of storytelling is lacking in today's books.  I was glad to hear that Marvel was going to resurrect Marvel Presents.  This time they're using the manga or Japanese model. Put one draw title story line in the book along with some less but possible potential artists and stories.  The one thing I didn't harp on was pricing. It's hard to justify a 22 page book at 4-5 bucks when you can get a manga tradeback with nearly 200 pages for 13-14. Of course, those manga tradebacks are ones that made it and not the second stringer stories that didn't in the Japanese pulp weeklies.

The hall during the day was packed at times though one retailer thought there was less people but a different crowd.  There was a difference. Parents where the husband or teenager was the comic collector brought their whole family.  A delightful change to see.  As for less, sometimes it was packed but this year's hall was bigger thus more spread out.
 
 

Life of the Party _ Final Fantasy _ Harlequin Sadly I only spotted two persons brave enough to cosplay for this con. There was woefully so little anime-manga content but then last month's con was solely anime.  There was a better content to anime manga last year. The Poseidon mobile. This left me with a sinking feeling I do not use it as a bad pun.  It was fun with last year's House of Wax mobile but it does leave me queasy at another remake.  This time it was The Poseidon Adventure.  Old movie which in it's day was cool. However, we now know today that such an event as a tidal wave capsizing a ocean liner is false. A wave doesn't crest until it hits shallow water of the coast. An ocean liner would be safer bet since it would ride ride over the wave.  _ The one impact the Poseidon mobile did make was on one of the 4 koma panels, God or kami as Jim Su choosed to draw the poseidon, himself, god of the sea. Sadly time ran out before I could get artists to finish the strip but I have two panels and plenty of other opportunities to find two other to finish it.

The artist alley was better attended this year though there were more apparel and other booths. As oppose to last year, there were less to choose from for artists that could draw for the 4 Koma Project.  Good or bad it's hard to say.  Maybe artists are branching out with more products.

Large line-ups awaited me with the guest comic artists. Legion of comic fans with tons of comic books to sign. This was not for me. The only value I put on a signature is my paycheque.  I can only wonder how much of it was for ebay fodder.  I managed to talk a few of the guests which one (not pictured) was impressed by the 4 Koma Project. Just line ups made it difficult to include them.  All in all, the 4 koma was meant as challenge to the younger artists to give them more exposure.  Even if it's only to look briefly at these newbies work, it's worth showing to these pros. Personally, I do believe that the new generation of artist are capable of having the torch passed to them ... as long as they keep drawing.

It was a chance to stand on the sidelines and try out the camcorder in the aspect of using the longer zoom and picture capture feature.  I shot completely on memory stick and not tape. Unfortunately the miniDV camcorder could not handle the lack of lighting since the guest artist sat under a poor or non-existent lighting from overhang in the room. it was a chance to practice using the camcorder and pushing the limits of the camcorder. I may have walked away with poor photos but I learned what didn't worked, and will try to find out what will work next time.
 
 

I did manage to buy one item other than the art. Tired. I left, it was still raining. Sigh. I manage to get back at a reasonable time and it had stopped when I reached London and a coffee at Tim Hortons.