Wait, it’s already Wednesday?! Oh man~
Stacy and I woke up before the sun on Monday and flew home from Seattle after World Con. Our heads are still on west coast time and overall exhaustion from this schedule is driving us into weird work hours and napping over the past couple days while we try to reorganize before Fan Expo Canada.
(Above is a panel from Marvel Comics #1000, a celebratory anthology issue I was honored to contribute to in 2019. Working with Canadian superstar artist Nick Bradshaw on a Blade story, even just a 1-pager, was such a blast. I’d love to write more street level or supernatural superhero stories and Blade is a character I know I could use to deliver thrills, chills, and mighty blood spills. 🙂 )
The World Con That Was
After boothing with Howard and Sandra Tayler at Gen Con just a couple weeks ago, it was amazing to see them again and experience our first World Con with their guidance. World Con is the oldest science fiction and fantasy convention and it’s not quite like any comic or tabletop gaming convention I’ve been to before.
The heart of World Con is panel programming – hundreds of panels, really. This year’s program guide had 3-5 panel listings per page and was 196 pages! Since we didn’t have a table of our own, Stacy and I attended way more panels than ever before, taking in a cross section of fan and professional discussions across a wide range of subjects. Most of the workshops covered the basics in terms of writing, editing, and marketing, while some of the more obscure panels were fun in terms of digging into ideas and worlds that don’t normally get much emphasis. It’s diverse, dynamic, and all quite dizzying.
Being at the Hugo Awards was a fun experience, similar to any other award show, but with the added prestige that the Hugos has across genre publishing. Being there when my friend Ryan North won the Hugo for Best Graphic Story or Comic was a thrill.
I ran into quite a few friends but also met a lot of new people too – authors, artists and editors working in sci-fi and fantasy. Comics have never had a huge presence at World Con, but entrenched attitudes about the medium are slowly shifting, so it was good to represent sequential art on discussions and hoist the flag for comics in general. I don’t know if it’s a show I can add to my schedule every year (especially since each World Con is hosted in a different city, so travel costs can vary wildly), but it was worth being there this time and putting a face to the name of a lot of people whose work I admire.
All that said, it was five days of intense conventioning, after the five days that was San Diego Comic Con and five days that was Gen Con, so I’m definitely feeling creaky as we head into Fan Expo Canada this week-
Fan Expo Canada is This Week?!
Yes, this week is Canada’s biggest pop culture convention, Fan Expo Canada, August 21-24, 2025. I’m a special guest at this year’s show and will be set up with in the Comic Sketch Art section of Artist Alley at CREATOR TABLE CP70.
Since this is my local show here in Toronto, I’ll have quite a few Conan the Barbarian back issues and variant covers on hand so, if you’re on the hunt, feel free to reach out and hopefully I can fill in gaps in your collection and sign them at the same time. My location is the opposite from last year, down near the food vendors in the exhibit hall:
Conan Is Even Bigger Than Before
This October, Titan is releasing CONAN THE BARBARIAN Vol. 1: BOUND IN BLACK STONE in a new oversized hardcover deluxe edition, and they just posted up this quick flip-through of the book to show readers and retailers what’s inside:
Current + Upcoming Releases
Upcoming Appearances
| Aug 21-24, 2025 | Fan Expo Canada | Toronto, ON, CANADA |
| Aug 28-Sep 1, 2025 | Dragon Con | Atlanta, GA, USA |
| Sep 27-28, 2025 | Chattanooga Comic Con | Chattanooga, TN, USA |
| Oct 16-19, 2025 | Gamehole Con XII | Madison, WI, USA |
| Nov 3-14, 2025 | D&D in a Castle | Newcastle, UK |
| Nov 15-16, 2025 | Thought Bubble | Harrogate, UK |
Other Links
• When I was an instructor at Seneca, one of the courses I taught was Animation History, so I have an extensive collection of old animated films and always keep an eye out for new releases of classic material – This November, Cartoon Logic is releasing a restored high definition collection of Aesop’s Fables cartoon shorts from the 1920’s. I have a lot of these cartoons, but the quality is quite low so I look forward to upgrading.
• John Shableski talks about explosive graphic novel sales growth at Otto Bookstore, an independant shop in Williamsport, PA – “Our graphic novel selection went from those three titles to 1100 and nearly 3/4 of the titles are middle grade.”
Jim
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