Big Lick NOVA 2024 - Convention Book And More

 

As my convention book fills up from show to show, I find myself being more selective of who I ask to sign it. I'm looking for the people who mean something to me, and not necessarily just anyone sitting around the show. Two reasons for this. The first, I already stated. Space is getting limited. The second reason is that I just don't feel like paying people for an autograph if I really don't know who they are.

Big Lick 2024 yielded only four new signatures.

Signed by Guy Dorian Sr.
at Big Lick NOVA 2024.

Signed by Art Adams, Jeph Loeb,
Jim Salicrup, and Joe Rubinstein
at Awesome Con 2024.

Signed by Art Suydam, Jim Shooter,
Mark Waid, Michael Golden, Renee Witterstaetter,
Rick Leonardi, and Ron Marz at Big Lick NOVA 2023.

Signed by Al Milgrom, Alex Saviuk, Bob Hall,
Bob McLeod, Bob Wiacek, Brian Michael Bendis,
Chris Claremont, Howard Chaykin, Jim Starlin,
Jon Bogdanove, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Judy Bogdanove,
Kieth Williams, Klaus Janson, and Walter Simonson
at Baltimore Comic Con 2023.

Guy Dorian Sr. (Gold)

I only opted for Guy Dorian Jr. and Sr. because they were taking donations as part of the Hero Initiative. A buck a piece was sufficient, considering by the end of the day I'd already donated close to $100.00 between the other comic creators.

Signed by Christopher Priest,
Guy Dorian Jr., and John Beatty
at Big Lick NOVA 2024.

Signed by Mark Bagley
at Awesome Con 2024.

Signed by Howard Mackie, Jae Lee,
Pop Mhan, and Terry Kavanagh
at Baltimore Comic Con 2023.

Christopher Priest

Guy Dorian Jr.

John Beatty

I also added a few more signatures to my symbiote suit Spider-Man figure from the defunct Marvel Legends Retro collection. Today, I added Christopher Priest, AKA James Owsley, John Beatty, and Louise Simonson.

Also signed by Jim Shooter, and
Rick Leonardi at Big Lick Nova 2023,
Al Milgrom at Baltimore Comic Con 2023,
and both Art Adams, and Klaus Janson
at Awesome Con 2024

Louise Simonson

When signing, Mr. Priest made an interesting comment about how he was going to sign above Al Milgrom, and that (sarcastically in tone) he would "love" that. I guess there's some bad blood there.

Christopher Priest

John Beatty

Unlike prior shows, I actually took the time during Big Lick NOVA 2024 to do some serious shopping for books.

First up, I grabbed my bajillionth copy of Todd McFarlane's Spider-Man issue 1. The seller I found this at had it on his wall, but priced at just ten dollar. Of course I'm going to take it for that price.

Next up, I grabbed Conan The Barbarian issue 241. I'm not a reader of this title. This was on my list for one specific reason - It's a Todd McFarlane cover. I picked this one up from Joe, the dealer who I met years ago, and who helped me put together my collection of 80's G.I. Joe figures. He actually thanked me a year or two ago, saying that it was my purchases from him that helped him build his business, and ultimately open the roving convention comic store he takes from show to show.

There was another book on my list, What If (Volume 2), issue 105. While I did find one at the show, it was graded, and I think the seller may have fallen out of a tree and seriously hurt their head. They had it priced four times more than its value. So, unfortunately, I didn't get to come home with that particular book.

What I did, however, come home with, was a book I had been wanting to pick up for a while. In fact, this is what I went looking for at Awesome Con earlier in the year, but couldn't find one.

Edge Of Spider-Verse issue 2 is the first comic book appearance of Spider Gwen. She has since evolved into one of the most beloved multiverse characters in the Marvel universe. This book set me back a hefty price, but I expected it would.

Though I bought a weekend pass, and was still under budget, since I managed to accomplish everything I set out to do in one day, it really wasn't worth my time to go back for day two. I'm okay with that. I came away from Big Lick NOVA 2024 very happy, and that's all that matters.

Next stop, Baltimore Comic Con!

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The Marvel Univese Explodes With Wave 11!

George of G.I. Jigsaw delivered a powerhouse of Marvel characters for wave eleven. It definitely solidified my wants, desires, and need to have a Marvel Universe, and not just a Spider-Man series. Now, I just have to convince George.

While all of these characters were either mainstay's in other seires, or had their own ongoing title, what made them part of the Spider-Man collection was their frequency in which they crossed over to the various arachnid titles.

Kicking things off this round was Black Widow. Starting with issue 81 the pages of Daredevil, The Man Without Fear, became a team-up book featuring the two characters. With issue 92, the series even received a title change to Daredevil and the Black Widow. It would revert back to "The Man Without Fear" with issue 108, with the team up staying in place through 124.

A surefire way to turn the pages of Spider-Man into oddity was to include Dr. Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts into the mix. He frequented the pages of Marvel Team-Up, but admittedly, with it came very drab stories that didn't personally interest me. Still, I dig the character a lot, and George's rendition is spot on.

Alcoholic billionaire, turned super hero, Tony Stark filled the pages of both his own ongoing series, Iron Man, as well as graced the pages of The Avengers. He comes in many differnt armor variations, but I like mine pure vanilla, thank you. His red and yellow suit is classic, and iconic for a reason.

He's the original super hero of Marvel Comics, and the one on this list who's been around the longest of them all. Captain America not only headlined several golden, silver, bronze, and current age comics, but even found time to lead The Avengers in their ongoing series, beginning with his ressurection in issue 4.

The villanous Doctor Doom makes his long awaited Peg People debut. He was the ultimate thorn in the side of the Fantastic Four, and the self imposed leader pulling the strings of all the villainous characters stranded on Battle World during the original Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars.

The symbiote stalked the streets of New York after escaping the capsule prison imposed upon him by Reed Richards. His goal was simple. Find, and rebond with Peter Parker. After his final defeat in the pages of Web of Spider-Man issue 1, the alien would eventually find the much more agreeable host, Eddie Brock, becoming the deadly Venom. I wondered how George was going to pull this one off, and let's just say, he didn't disappoint - not that he ever does with these "figures".

The Man Without Fear comes to Peg People, endowed in his classic red suit. Now the question remains, will George make a yellow and brown "mail away" variant?

Introduced in the 2007 Free Comic Book Day, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Mister Negative's origin came from the same series of expirements that created Cloak and Dagger. Harnessing both light and dark, he used his powers to take over the Chinese gangs to become a criminal mastermind.

Allstair Smythe is a unique character in the Marvel Universe. Unlike most, he was not created for American audiences. Instead, his first appearance was in the Yugoslavia released series, Eks almanah, published by Dečje Novine. He would become a mainstay in the American Spider-Man The Animated Series, as well as cross over to several Spider titles throughout the 90's and beyond. He met his fate in the pages of Superior Spider-Man issue 13 in 2013.

Allstair's father, Spencer, on the other hand, was a mainstay in the original pages of The Amazing Spider-Man, making his debut all the way back in 1965 with issue 25. He would die in issue 192, blaming J. Jonah Jameson for the cancer he contracted. Smythe was the mastermind behind all the Spider-Slayers, and stated that all the units Jameson hired him to building caused him to be continuously exposed to dangerous materials, which caused his disease.

We jump back over to The Avengers to welcome The Mighty Thor, another character who was featured in the team pages of the series, as well as headlined his own monthly title. Oh, boy. It just popped into my head how amazing it would be for George to make a tiny frog Thor Peg People. Thor was changed into the enchanted creature by his brother Loki in the pages of The Mighty Thor 363 - 366, a classic story arc by Walt Simonson.

Next up was the large size Peg People Hulk, or The Incredibl Hulk if we're speaking formalities. Much like Iron Man, there are a ton of itterations you can choose for him, but for me, it's all about the classic green (ok, occassionally grey, especially if in his Joe Fixit outfit).

Another larger figure in the bunch was the Infinity Gauntet weilding Thanos...sans his gauntlet, so...nevermind. Though he's mostly known for his quest to obtain all of the cosmic gems and form the afformentioned gauntley, Thanos actually began his Marvel history in the pages of Iron Man.

Then it was time for this batch's mystery "figure", which turned out to be a two for one. George has been knocking these out of the park, all of them, but especially the mystery charactes, which I so look forward to receiving. This time around, he produced the tiny, and I do mean tiny, Ant-Man and Wasp.

These two are litterally a fraction of the size of everyone else.

So cool!

Once everyone was accounted for, it was time to update ye ol' checklist. One of the things that had been bothering me for the longest time with theis...Well, since wave two, was the size difference of the "figures" from wave one. Trial and error was the name of the game back then. I took the time today to revist this, adding all the pictues of the original characters again, and resizing them to match. It was bothering my OCD, and looks so much better to me now.

Page two is fleshing out nicely! It almost looks as great as page one!

I also wanted to get away from the original "mail away" format for the mystery figures, and better track them long term. While I came up with the below as an initial format, I'll probably work on this a bit more to make it pop in the future. For now, it serves its intended purpose.

George is absolutely cranking these out, and I love every minute of it!

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An Immediate Arrival Of Series Nine and Ten!

When George of G.I. Jigsaw stopped by yesterday with the awesome series eight of Peg People, he handed me an extra large brown bag and said, "And here's series 9 and 10." Wait a second, mind blown. Wave 9 and 10!!?!? Heck yeah! George has been mad busy cranking these "figues" out, and I'm loving every minute of it.

When George handed this to me, he said, "Your
neighbors are going to think we're dealing drugs."

This one turned in to quite the game of guess the character, as George went rogue, and bounced all over the checklist. He stumped me completely with one, and I asked for confirmation on another, but had the right name associated with it.

First out of the bag was the unwrapped Angel. Quite an impressive wingspan meant this one couldn't be wrapped up in the traditional paper towel. No worries. It arived in one piece, with wings still attached.

This was followed by a newer character to the Spider-Man universe, Jackpot. There was a lot of specualtion surrounding Sony making a movie based on her a few years back. This caused her first appearance to jump in price, only to quickly tank back down to the dollar bins it originally came from.

Then there was the classic Marvel Team-Up chracter, Ka-Zar! I never quite understood Marvel's hangup to keep including him in Spider-Man stories, but I went with it as I read along.

When I first pulled this one out, I thought, okay, is this Basalisk, or Iguana? Could be either. After deciphering the method to George's checklist jumping, it was solidified as the latter.

He's one of those blink and you'll miss him chracters. Finisher, AKA Karl Fiers, first showed up in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man Annual 5, a story where we finally get the story on Peter Parker's parents.

Speaking of which, George also included Richard Parker...

...and his wife, Mary.

Returning to the pages of Marvel Team-Up, we next have Mockingbird...

...As well as Doc Samson.

Then I unwrapped the amazing Captain Universe Spidey variant. Man, George put a lot of work into this one. It's tied for first place with what was my favorite from these two waves.

That tie just so happened to be the next figure, Battle Damaged Spider-Man. When I envisioned this one in my head, this is exactly what I saw. It has a McFarlane vibe, Spider-Man issue 5 to be exact, and I absolutely love it.

We then jump back into the obscure characters with a former Daily Bugle co-worker of Peter Parkers, Ben Urich.

But then charge headlong into this awesome version of Julia Carpenter's Spider Woman, who first made her appearance in Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars issue 6. Much like Spider-Man in this era, she too sported a black suit.

In a nod to the classic creatures of the silver screen, Marvel too had their own Werewolf, among others. Believe it or not, Spider-Man either fought or teamed up with most of them.

Mirage didn't make many appearances in the Marvel Universe. His first was actually in the pages of the issue featuring the marriage of Ned Leeds and Betty Brant, The Amazing Spider-Man 156. He was kind of a villain of the week.

Though he would go on to be a larger thorn in the side of The Punisher, Jigsaw, much like the anti-hero, made his first appearance in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man. However, his story and background would be more violently fleshed out in the full Punisher series.

Another late entry to the Spider-Man universe was Kindred, who first appeared in 2018's first issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, volume 4. By this point, I was sparsly reading new titles, pretty much just sticking to key books.

We pop back over to Marvel Team-Up for our last character, Valkyrie.

Well, I suppose I can't say last character. Once again, George dropped a mystery figure into the lot. One that wasn't included on the original checklist, but which fits in just nicely with the bunch.

Say what you will about comic book movies, but I dare say Kick-Ass wouldn't be the "household name" he is today without the film. Until it hit the big screen, this relatively unknown character who got his humble beginings in 2008 in Marvel's Kick-Ass, wasn't on most comicbook fan's radars. In fact, until the film came out, the books were pretty much relegated to dollar bins. Forgotten in time.

Kudos to George for yet another well thought out suprise "figure". I want so badly to start blurting out potential candidates (THE CROW), but I'm trying really hard to leave him to his own creative devices without input.

Then there was this one...

This is the one that stumped me. I didn't recognize it at all, and had to finally ask George. Fortunately, I wasn't lacking my spider knowledge, so that, at least, made me feel better.

When creating this most recent batch, George pulled images for Smasher, but you know, being Marvel Comics, there's of course more than one iteration. This particular version wasn't on the checklist because it's the X-Men version, a completely different character from the villainous The Smasher . I guess having "The" in front of his name makes all the differnece in the world?

No worries, as this X-Men variant will get added to the bunch, and hang around. It's still a cool "figure".

With everyone accounted for, and few extras, the checklist was updated.

Additionally, a new mail away promotion featured the all-new, Kick-Ass.

Collect them all!

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