Geek World: Columbus – Buckeye Comic-Con
Buckeye Comic-Con is not a real big event… in fact, it’s not even the biggest annual comic book convention in Columbus, Ohio. The entire show floor consisted of one loop in one decent-sized room. The audience for these types of shows is a specific niche of comic collectors, people who have every issue of that G.I. Joe run from the 1970s except for that one that’s hard to find. It’s great for them. The one group of girls attempting to cosplay, however, may not have been quite as happy.
In previous years this con has been held near the Ohio State University campus at the Buckeye Hall of Fame & Cafe. That building is being torn down, though, and this year the event was held in the very strange surroundings of the Fort Rapids Indoor Waterpark Resort. It’s a big brown building just off the highway on the Eastern outskirts of Columbus, decked out in outlandish western decor. Many Columbus residents (especially those who don’t have a regular reason to take I-70 East out of town) do not even realize the waterpark exists. If you take a wrong turn from the water slides, you’ll find a bar (or “saloon”) with several small ballrooms behind it. The Buckeye Comic-Con took up only one of these this past Sunday morning. Another was occupied by a church service, sending new agey hymns wafting into the convention hall.
Many comic book shops, local or not, take these conventions as an opportunity to get rid of some of their excess inventory. The single loop was lined
Ladies and Gentlemen, we've hit the motherlode.
with box after box after box filled with old comics, marked Marvel or DC, 50 cents or $1. I purchased all but one issue of Neil Gaiman’s Marvel 1602 mini-series for a total of about four bucks at one stand. Many vendors also featured comics from the Silver Age or older, which are usually a little bit pricier. These are for the serious collectors, or those looking to frame a particularly pretty original Lee/Kirby Fantastic Four issue. The convention was very well-attended considering what it was, which was nice to see for the Columbus comics community. Sometimes it was hard to look through the boxes because of the crush, though.
What I love about these cons is that you never quite know what you’ll find. One stand featured dozens of obscure collectible card tie-in sets, for everything from Stargate to Highlander to “Playmates in Bed”. Another had several boxes of old indie comics from publishers like Charlton, where I discovered gems that these days would be presented ironically but in those days took themselves perfectly seriously. “Zip-Jet, Supersonic Enemy of Evil” faced what might be my favorite-named villains of all time, “The Fantastic Brain Destroyers”. Another comic was titled “Sea Hunter”, and on the cover carried the text “Mike Nelson loved danger, and he found it… deep down!” In a box of Gold Key Comics I found an extended mid-60s run of Magnus Robot Fighter 4000 A.D., which, I want to emphasize, was not intended as a parody. But you don’t have to go back to the sixties for this sort of stuff. I found an issue of Batman vs. Predator mixed in with perfectly sane-looking issues of old Star Wars tie-ins.
This con was particularly strong if you were looking for figurines and action figures, especially obscure ones. Most of these are priced significantly below what you would have paid at your local comics shop initially, which is particularly good if you’re like me and the purpose of these is to find figures you like and take them out of their boxes and show them off rather than just keeping them as an investment. At one booth I found the proverbial diamond in the rough… a ten dollar Aquaman figure from that period where he had a mullet and had a trident
The convention filled a single room to the brim.
where one hand should be. I think his hand was eaten by pirahnas or something. In any case, it will occupy a place of honor when I move into my new apartment next week.
The strangest thing going on was the appearance of MTV’s Made. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s a show where high schoolers are “made over” with a goal in mind, the more astonishing the transformation the better. They were apparently looking for a nerdy female comic book fan looking to be made into a prom queen. I have basic philosophical problems with this, and it was kinda nice to see that their booth was the least busy in the place.
It looks like the Buckeye Comic-Con will survive its change of venue. It’s not often you find a comics convention with small children dragging beach towels through the aisles, but it works. If you’re in Northeast Ohio next weekend, you can check out the Saturday’s Child Nostalgia Convention the Richfield Days Inn. It’s from the same organizers and I’m told is pretty similar. If, like me, you’re the kind of person who is always up for a $1 impulse buy of an issue of Peter David’s Fallen Angel because it has a pretty cover, you’ll find plenty to interest me.
Affiliates
