Baltimore Comic Con 2026 is over. I went Sunday for one day.
I got in at opening and walked around. Hit some $1 bins and other vendors.
Met a ton of cool people and checked in with creators I am friends with.
Stopped by Jimmy P and Amanda Connor’s booth to say hi and see if they and/or Patrick from Paper Films were there. They were not. Patrick’s wife was there and we talked. I told her I would try to stop by and say hi to Jimmy Amanda and Patrick, but never made it back around.
Stopped in to talk to Joe Pruett. Haven’t seen him since before Covid. He introduced me to Garth Ennis a bunch of years back and I went out to the bar with them that year. One of the best comic book moments of my life. Sitting next to Garth having a pint of Guiness.
Stopped by and talked to Tone Rodriguez. Haven’t seen him in 26 years. We hung out years ago at Wizard World Philly with eBas at a bar and he remembered it well. He asked why it took 26 years for me to hit him up again. I laughed and said I haven’t run into you.
Helped my friend Eric get some books signed.
Stopped in to talk to Sozomiaki. I was disappointed. She wasn’t very nice. My friend Joe stopped by to buy some of her covers later and told me he didn’t buy any. When asked why, he said she wasn’t very friendly. So it was not just me who thought that.
Talked to Larry Welz, the creator of Cherry Poptart and other underground comix. He was cool. Very nice man. Old hippy for sure.
Hit the floor some more and bought a ton of stuff.
One thing I can say is Baltimore didn’t seem as good as years past. There were a large amount of comic vendors and of course the knock off lego guys and other crap. The selections of older stuff was good but I didn’t find many people selling recent books so the hunt list I had printed out was useless (yeah printed in case WiFi wasn’t working)
I approached her at NYCC last year or the year before. No one was at her booth. She was very quiet. I had a book I wanted her to sign…asked if she had prices as most have them posted. She did not…I recall her saying something like $30. While most artists were $10 on par with her popularity.
She wasn’t rude to me or anything…I just couldn’t believe she thought that she’d get that price. I just walked away in disbelief.
Haha, Anthony I walked up to Tone Rodriguez as you were talking to him! I thought I recognized you from your recent YouTube video but I wasn’t sure so apologies if you noticed there was someone in a Simpsons t-shirt looking at you oddly! I even contemplated the coughcough “Anthony” strategy to sus out of it was you. I believe you were with a kid (but not your kid as your conversation with Tone revealed).
Tone drew me an amazing colored Dungeon Crawler Carl/Simpsons mashup (Homer as Carl, Snowball as Donut) on a blank DCC Sketch Cover that I submitted to CGC so I had come back to thank him and donate to the Heroes Initiative.
I agree, modern ‘hot books’ were close to non existent, I didn’t find much except a Sex Criminals #1 for $1 that I got Chip Zdarsky to sign. Did pick up a DWJ Do a Powerbomb #1 for $10 - the rest were mostly fun older $1/$2 pickups. Nary a beefcake Nightwing in sight though.
Erik Larsen was signing for free so I found a bunch cheap ASM books for him to sign (none with Venom though, those were all sold out or heavily marked up). Amanda Conner and Jimmy Palmiotti were awesome and signed a Harley Quinn and Marvel Knights issue respectively. Dan Jurgens signed a Superman issue for me. Snyder changed up his dates due to the storm so I missed his signing windows (was on the fence though due to his long lines and if there would be any bumps in value on my Absolute Batman #1). Walt and Louise Simonson had long lines so had to skip on both. Ryan Ottley had long lines and was busy making $$$ with his ridiculous signing prices (up to $100 for a signature on a raw Invincible book - even more if getting graded).
Utilized CGC’s on-site grading for a copy of Giant Size X-Men #1 I had picked up recently. Me and my presser estimated a 5.0-6.0 on it and it came back 5.5 so smack dab in the middle.
As always, I was on the lookout for my trade and hardcover flips - pickings were slim but came away with a handful of out of print Marvel Epic Collections that cost me around $25 each but well for $80+.
Last time I was at Baltimore Comic Con was two years ago, I agree this year did not seem as exciting. Felt like most eyes and ears were towards NYCC the next weekend. Attended all three days - Saturday was absolutely packed though. Friday and Sunday were relatively quieter. I think the weather on the East Coast did affect things.
I did manage to take in a Mexico vs Columbia soccer friendly on Saturday night at the M&T stadium which wasn’t too far from my hotel and the bad weather forecast didn’t materialize so I got tickets pretty cheap. Was a fun atmosphere!
Having attended Heroes Con earlier this year (which I enjoyed), I may start to switch to an alternating Heroes Con + NYCC and then Baltimore Comic Con + NYCC rota every year.
comicaddictpk Don’t repeat the story. Lol. I can say that night in Philly with Tone was crazy.
You should have said hi, that was 100% me.
The kid was my wife’s friend’s son. He is getting into comics. I drove him and his girlfriend in. He was bummed about Snyder as well. First place we went when we got in, he wanted some Absolute Batman comics signed.
The guy in the bright orange Orioles gear was my buddy Eric who I helped get books signed for
He and his girlfriend tagged along with me at the end.
I had a blast, to be honest. But comic picking was a little lax in the way of new comics. Only found one dealer who had Nightwing books, he was over where Sozomaiki was. All his recent comics were marked up pretty big time.
I drove down from NJ on Friday (I still can’t believe they are working on 95 in Maryland, it seems like it has been going on forever). I did very well hitting the bins. I picked up two short boxes of TPB’s and probably half a short box of $1 to $10 including some very low print run sought after Sonic books.
Ryan Ottley was a big fan of Violent messiahs as a kid. He came to Tone for a portfolio review. Tone liked his work and told him to do a pinup for the book and they would publish it. Years later Ryan came up to Tone Rodriguez and recanted the story. There is no Wizard anymore so Tone had no idea who he was. He asked why Ryan didn’t do the pinup, Ryan said he chickened out. Tone, not knowing who Ryan was asked him if he wanted him to review his portfolio again and what he was working on. Tone figured maybe a fanzine or some minor published work. Ryan said, Invincible and some other books, and that he was Ryan Ottley.
And that is the story of how Violent Messiahs Lamenting Pain almost became Ryan’s first published work.
