The Great Allentown Comic Con

 Yesterday I posted about meeting Walter Jones up in Allentown. Over the weekend I attended the Great Allentown Comic Con, which does live up to it's name by having lots of comics. The show also has lots of cosplayers and celebrity guest.

I went to a panel with Veronica Taylor who was the voice of Ash for the first 8 seasons of Pokemon. I faithfully watched the first season or two of the show, but lost interest when they continuously discovered hundreds of new Pokemon each season.

Veronica was very engaging and the panel was extremely enjoyable. She spoke in Ash's voice off and on which was fun. She  discussed the process of "finding" his voice. In the late 90's it was popular for little boys in cartoons to sound stuffy. She said she took a lot of inspiration from the voice of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, specifically when he had the black cover on his nose. Eventually she backed off the stuffiness and Ash was found.

Veronica also talked about the ins and outs of the voice over industry.

Two years ago at Retro Con, I bought a few 4x6 prints from Geek Boy Press. I saw this one of Jim Henson's Dinosaurs and had to get it.

I really enjoyed the show, and even had a lot of toys from the series as a kid. They all got sold off when I was in middle school along with my X-Men and Ninja Turtles toys.

I also attended an Animation Panel that featured Carol "Cotty" Kilbanks who worked on Rocko's Modern Life and many other cartoons in the 90's. Carol and her friend (whose name slips my mind) brought with them many examples of their work including cels, backgrounds, and character designs. Carol spent a lot of time talking the various studios she worked at over the years. Carol specialized in painting backgrounds and doing character designs. She worked on Ninja Turtles, Ren & Stimpy, as well as Iron Man.

 

I picked up a copy of GI Joe 3D with the glasses for four dollars. This was one of my first comic book buys. There were many people wearing great costumes at the show. I sort of forgot to take pictures of a lot of the cos players. I asked the guy in the Putty suit if I could take his picture after the martial arts panel. Walter Jones (The Black Power Ranger) was walking by just as he was finishing putting on his mask and gloves. I asked Walter if I could take his picture with the putty, but he "had to get back to his table". Oh well, would have been a fun picture.

 I picked up a couple of super cheat quarter comics. Superman: the Wedding album and two issues of Detective Comics from the Knight Quest story line that followed Knightfall in the 90's.

I was shocked to see a copy of Interplanetary Lizards from the Texas Plains on a table at the show. As a kid when I went to Wizard World (Philly Comic Con) I had dozens of artist and writers sign a little autograph book. One of the artists that signed my book drew a picture of a lizard in a cowboy hat. Well, it turns out he's still plugging away at making comics featuring his Cowboy Lizards and so I told him about meeting him years ago, and he was pretty amused. Another interesting feature of the show was that they created a set of collector cards specifically for the show, The gave one two you when you paid admission, and then you had to ask around to get the others. Some of the guests and vendors handed out random cards if you asked them. The only card I got was for Bonnie Piesse, who played Beru (Luke Skywalker's Aunt) in Star Wars Episode II & III. I felt kind of bad for her. I didn't see to many people talking to Bonnie. She had a pretty minor role in the films so aside from being attractive there wasn't a lot of reasons for attendees to go talk to her and get autographs.

Aside from the Power Ranger, the guest I wanted to meet the most was artist & inker Scott Hanna.  He is know for his work on Spider-Man, Batman, Iron Man and Green Lantern. I knew Scott was from near were I grew up, but never had the opportunity to meet him before. I took issue 1 & 2 from the New 52 Green Lantern Corps. to be signed. I also took some 90's Knightfall issues that I've had for a long time.

Here are two issues of Detective Comics that Scott signed for me nine years after writer Chuck Dixon signed them. Below is another issue from Knightfall, this one is from the monthly Batman book. Scott signed the cover, which was I has signed by artist Jim Aparo years ago, and inside (right)  was signed by writer Doug Moench. There are very few comics in my collection signed by writer, artist, and inker... but this is one of them.

 I also bought the first 20 issues of Shogun Warriors. This comic was written by Doug Moench to support the giant robot toyline out at the same time. I owned a few random issues already, but I've been wanting to read the series, so I figured it was a good pick up.

The Great Alllentown Comic Con is a small show, but was a good time. A lot of my collector convention friends were there. The show was held at Merchant's Square, which is a blessing and a curse. The good thing about it is that there are many vintage toy, model, video game shops there.. The down side is that there is little room for the event to expand.