There was only one place to be this August 25th-28th, Fan Expo Canada, the 3rd largest convention in North America, located in the heart of downtown Toronto.
As well as having Doug on hand, we were joined by both Shame: Conception writer, and VMT/War of 1812 colorist and raconteur Lovern Kindzierski, and editor and Shades of Grey/Blood Light writer Alexander Finbow. Adding back up support was Dominic Doom who had walked across the continent from Vancouver to be part of the show.
Lovern and Alexander were soon busy telling attendees all about their books and the forthcoming titles 'Dept. of Monsterology' by Gordon Rennie and PJ Holden, Alan Grant's 'The Loxley's and the War of 1812', William Simpson's VMT, and Richmond Clements' Turning Tiger. We took pages from those projects with us as well as some of the stunning artwork Al Davison has created for Blood Light, and William and Lovern have put together for the Shades of Grey second book '24 Days in Rio'.
As we've found with sales through book and comic stores, Shame: Conception continues to wow readers with it's dark fairytale story and beautiful artwork from John Bolton. We had the first 10 pages of book 2, fresh from John's easel, which showed that John is raising the bar even higher on the second book.
Comic sales at the Renegade booth were brisk for both Shame and Shades of Grey, but nothing could top the approaching juggernaut that is VMT. Despite being several months away from release, the comic series has garnered a lot of advance interest and once again the preview poster sporting the now infamous tagline 'Real Vampires Don't Sparkle' was our best seller. Thank you to the many fans who popped over to tell us how much they liked it and buying one.
Meanwhile Doug was enjoying meeting fans and signing copies of Spinechillers audiobooks. Those fans included legendary director and Renegade favourite Guillermo Del Toro who stopped by and picked up all 9 Spinechillers volumes. Doug is at the Montreal Comic Con this weekend, marking his 2011 Canadian convention hat trick. Tell him we said hi if you see him there.
Meanwhile Holly Halftone, artist and Lovern's daughter was busy meeting actress Eliza Dushku and presenting her with a signed copy of Shame: Conception, which she gladly accepted. We hope you like it Eliza.
As well as meeting fans, Fan Expo was a great show for meeting other publishers and creators including our neighbours Image comics. We had good conversations with Eric Stephensen about a possible partnership, as well as talking with editor Dave Elliot, and hiring Gianluca Glazer to handle some PR and marketing for both Shame and The War of 1812 book. Arcana's Sean O'Reilly stopped by the booth, and after several hours of meetings with Alexander they are still discussing some possibly interesting business developments for both companies. Of course all meetings can be interrupted for a good photo opportunity.
Sean caught Spock taking time out from exploring where no man has been before and these two, well, great costumes joined together by some slightly dodgy Goblin photoshop editing.
We've just about recovered from a fun and successful trip, and sit here in the Mountain Lair preparing for the next convention; New York Comic Con. This will be our first time exhibiting at the show and we'll have Lovern, Al Davison and Alexander joining us at the booth (2743). If you're going, be sure to look us up as we'll have some new exclusives and Al will be sketching at the booth.
We'll have comics and graphic novels, including advance copies of Richmond Clements and Alex Moore's all ages adventure Turning Tiger. And lots more. Right, I'd better get back to the chisel, these comic tablets don't make themselves you know.