A convention director who's running one the right way
2 Comments Published by Avi Green on Monday, April 15, 2019 at 1:01 AM.
The Penn. Courier Express wrote about a comics store manager in St. Marys who's doing for 3 Rivers Comicon what bigger conventions like SDCC used to do, and all but stopped doing in the past decade or so:
Engel's setting a good example as somebody who admires the medium of comicdom, and I wish him and his colleagues luck in getting this convention on the road to success.
[Jon] Engel works for Todd McDevitt, and the two of them talked about starting a comicon when Wizard World Pittsburgh ended.He's doing the right thing there. Why, if the more major entertainment conventions like SDCC really don't care about the book materials anymore, then they should just stop calling themselves comic-cons and start calling/titling themselves what they're really emphasizing today - movie-cons, video game-cons, music-cons. In other words, be honest about the focus, for heaven's sake.
“Mostly, we had to figure out what we really wanted the show to be, which we decided to focus more on comics,” Engel said.
Many shows now relegate the comics to the fringes while cashing in on the movie/television personalities associated with comic properties. McDevitt and Engel wanted to make sure that their con did not follow that track.
“I mean, it’s in the title: COMIC-con,” Engel said. “I have always been tied to the arts. In college, I studied music, so art and artists, to me, have always been family.”
Engel's setting a good example as somebody who admires the medium of comicdom, and I wish him and his colleagues luck in getting this convention on the road to success.
Labels: conventions
Agreed, the primary focus should be on comics first and foremost (especially comics as the original medium). Of course, to be fair in the case of Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin or Mario or Metal Gear, they've had comic adaptations, so they technically fit the mold of comics, but the movie/video game/TV series adaptations of comics really shouldn't be allowed in Comic Conventions, especially when they get far too much attention as it is.
Not just a factor of comiccons, but other -cons are getting morphed into general -cons instead of specific ones like books or tv shows. Speaking of which, what -cons do you go to in your area?