#peoria comic book convention

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Convention/Event Review Master List

Because now that I can, I am definitely going to gather these all in one place. It’s a good excuse to go back and edit things. I’ll be adding reviews as I find them in my archives or as I add them in the future. 

Anime Central 2017

SoyCon 2017

Anime Zap 2018

UChi-Con 2018

Free Comic Book Day 2018

Anime Central 2018

Cogs & Corsets: A Steampunk Happening 2018

Bloomington Normal Video Game Convention 2018

HPLD Nerd Con 2018

Olde English Faire 2018

Anime Midwest 2018

Peoria Geekfest 2018

Ignite Peoria 2018

Springfield Micro Con 2018

Peoria Comic Book Convention October 2018

TFCon Chicago 2018

Anime Zap 2019

UChi-Con 2019

PeoriaCon 2019

QuadCon Peoria Spring 2019

Anime Central 2019

Anime Expo 2019 (Virtual Attendance)

Anime Iowa 2019

Springfield Comic Expo 2019

QuadCon Peoria Halloween 2019

Anime Zap 2020

Sixty-Six Games Expo/BN Video Game Convention 2020

Peoria Comic Book Convention Jan 2020

UChi-Con 2020

PeoriaCon 2020

Cogs & Corsets: A Steampunk Happening 2021

QuadCon Peoria, June 2021

Anime Iowa 2021

Anime Magic 2021

QuadCon Peoria, September 2021

PeoriaCon 2021

QuadCon Peoria, December 2021

Anime Zap 2022

PeoriaCon 2022

Anime Central 2022

Cogs & Corsets A Steampunk Happening 2022

Anime Iowa 2022

Anime Magic 2022

TFCon Chicago 2022

PeoriaCon 2023

Anime Central 2023

Illinois Game Con 2023

Game On Peoria High School Gaming Expo 2023

Otakon 2023

Anime Magic 2023

QuadCon Peoria November 2023

PeoriaCon 2024

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Convention Review: Anime Zap

Convention: Anime Zap

Location: East Peoria (aka the middle of nowhere), IL

Date: Jan 7-9 (Fri-Sun)

Table cost: $98

Table size: 6'

Table placement: closest to entrance on one of the 4 artist rows

Application: FCFS

Items for sale: 11x17" posters (fanart and original), coloring book, zines (fanart and original; sfw and nsfw), pins (original), resin coasters and jewelry

New items/display: New moth, butterfly, and bat/dragon wing earrings from a 3-D printed mold

Mask policy: Vaccine card required for entry (though mine was never checked); masks required

Previously attended? Yes, 2020

Pros: inexpensive table, previously attended

Cons: Convention family run by rapist; cold weather, small show, not well organized

Most popular item(s): Posters (45), Resin jewelry (18)

Least popular item(s): coloring book (1)

Anime Zap is in the same con family as Con Alt Delete, making this another convention run by a problematic person.

The convention itself is not a huge convention, and you definitely see a lot of the same kids running around. The crowd seems to be a majority of pre-teens and teens, meaning they're not necessarily flush with cash and often want to buy the cheapest thing at your table.

Regardless of the miserable (sub-zero on friday, freezing rain on saturday) weather people did show up, and the hotel was nice and toasty inside (most of the doors were sealed shut to prevent heat loss). Winter conventions can be difficult beyond just the bad weather, though, as people tend to spend less post-holidays (usually lasts until the weather starts getting nicer)

The artist alley was badly coordinated; tables were fcfs, with some 8' tables in the hallway and the rest being 6' tables in the exhibitor room - but also an artist moved an 8' table into the room, there were some empty artist tables inside the room, and some empty tables in the hall as well.

Gross sales: ~$1300 ($25 more than in 2020)

Recommend/will attend again? If it were a little closer, maybe, but its a 5 hour drive through very boring Illinois and Indiana, and the profits are only about $800

Other 2021 convention reviews:

Anime Ohio

Inconjunction

Gem City

AnimaticCon

Westwood Art Show/second saturdays

Cincinnati Comic Expo

New York Comic Con

Voltcon

Anime Weekend Atlanta

Art on Vine

Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (C2E2)

Con+Alt+Delete

These reviews take a lot of time and effort, but I think they are something the artist alley community needs! If you would like to support me so I can keep doing these, please consider donating or buying from my shops!

https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=JBTBC5WRMRTJ2

Storenvy

Etsy

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Sensor Sweep: Windy City Pulp Show, King Arthur, Star Wars Target Audience, Model T in Combat

Conventions (DMR Books): The 19th annual Windy City Pulp and Paper Convention took place this past weekend in Lombard, IL. It was a three-day affair, but unfortunately I was only able to attend for part of the day on Saturday. Five hours may seem like a good amount of time, but it wasn’t nearly enough to take in all the event had to offer.

Doug Ellis and Deb Fulton were gracious enough to share some of their table space with me so I could peddle DMR releases.

    Anthologies (Tip the Wink): This nineteen story anthology is edited by one of Baen’s best, Hank Davis. Though the book is pretty new, the stories range from as early as the Thirties all the way to now. So I think it qualifies as a Friday Forgotten Book for it’s contents. For the most part, this is the kind of science fiction I grew up on and still love.

  Fiction (Old Style Tales): Doyle’s final great horror story is truly a worthy swan song – a tale who’s science fiction maintains a level of effective awe in spite of having been categorically disproven by aviators a mere decade after being written. And indeed the tale is science fiction, fitting snuggly on a shelf between the speculative horror of H. G. Wells which preceded it and the cosmic terror of H. P. Lovecraft which succeeded it.e cosmic terror of H. P. Lovecraft which succeeded it.

    Myth (Men of the West): Of all these Latin chroniclers by far the most important was Geoffrey of Monmouth, Bishop of St. Asaph, who finished his “History of the Britons” about 1147. Geoffrey, as has been said, is not a real historian, but something much more interesting. He introduced to the world the story of King Arthur, which at once became the source and centre of hundreds of French romances, in verse or prose, and of poetry down to Tennyson and William Morris. To Geoffrey, or to later English chroniclers who had read Geoffrey, Shakespeare owed the stories of his plays, “Cymbeline” and “King Lear”.

  Authors (DMR Books): James Branch Cabell, who was born on April 14, 1879–just over one hundred forty years ago–has slipped into genteel literary obscurity. An author once praised and befriended by the likes of Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis, JBC had his entire fantasy epic, known as “The Biography of the Life of Manuel,” printed in a uniform hardcover eighteen-volume set at the height of his popularity in the 1920s and early ’30s. He was, by far, the preeminent American literary fantasist of that era. And yet, he is barely known outside hardcore literary fantasy circles now.

  Cinema (Rough Edges): I didn’t mean to write about two Raoul Walsh movies in a row, but that’s the way it’s worked out after last week’s post on DESPERATE JOURNEY. COLORADO TERRITORY is a Western remake from 1949 of the Humphrey Bogart classic HIGH SIERRA, also directed by Walsh eight years earlier in 1941. Both are based on the novel HIGH SIERRA by W.R. Burnett. In COLORADO TERRITORY, Joel McCrea plays outlaw Wes McQueen, in prison for robbing banks and trains, who is broken out so he can take part in a payroll heist from a train in Colorado.

  Popular Culture (Jon Mollison): Long time genre fans expect to see the usual Boomer perspectives.  Naturally, his version of the story of science fiction begins and ends with the era of the Boomers. To be fair, he is a film guy making a film about film people, so it’s no surprise that his documentary would ignore the foundational stories of the genre.  It does start with HG Wells, but then skips straight past four decades of science fiction to land on rubber monster B-movies. The usual Big Pub diversity hires get trotted out to offer Narrative Approved talking points about how the genre has matured under the careful guidance of perverts like Arthur C. Clarke without a mention of giants like Howard and Burroughs and Lovecraft and Merritt and the rest of the True Golden Age writers.

  Star Wars (Kairos): Two cultural observations that have repeatedly been made on this blog are that Star Wars has been weaponized against its original fans and that decadent Westerners are perverting normal pious sentiment by investing it in corporate pop culture products. Now a viral video has surfaced that documents the unholy confluence of both phenomena. Watch only if you haven’t eaten recently.

  Cinema (Mystery File): I’ve spoken often and highly of Fredric Brown;s classic mystery novel of strip-clubs and theology, The Screaming Mimi (Dutton, 1949) and recently betook myself to watching both film versions of it, side-by-side and back-to-back, through the miracle of VCRm watching a chunk of one, then the other, than back again…

  Pulps (John C. Wright): So what, exactly, makes the weird tales and fantastic stories of that day and age so “problematic”?

The use of lazy racial stereotypes, did you say? This generation has just as many or worse ones, merely with the polarities reversed. See the last decade of Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who and Marvel comics franchises, for examples.

The portrayal of women as weak damsels in distress? I will happily compare any number of Martian princesses or pirate queens from the pulp era to the teen bimbos routinely chopped up in the torture porn flicks of this generation, and let the matter of malign portrayals of women speak for itself.

  Fiction (Nerds on Earth): Howard Andrew Jones (who we’ve interviewed not once, but twice!) strikes that balance masterfully in For the Killing of Kings, the first book of an expected series. The book drops the reader right at the moment when a scandal in the Allied Realms begins. This controversy involves the legendary weapon of the most famous commander of the vaunted Altenerai Corps, N’lahr. Jones doesn’t even let two pages pass before the reader is invited into the discovery that something is wrong with this magic-infused sword, and it is that problem that carries the book’s action from start to finish.

            History (Black Gate): Enter the Western Frontier Force, a hastily assembled group of men from all parts of the empire that included two of the war’s many innovations. The first was the Light Car Patrol, made up of Model T Fords that had been stripped of all excess weight (even the hood and doors) so they could run over soft sand. Many came equipped with a machine gun. Heavier and slower were the armored cars, built on the large Rolls Royce chassis and sporting a turret and machine gun.

  Westerns (Tainted Archive): Geographically and historically the concept of “The West” is very loosely defined, when associated with the literary and film genre of the western. With the possible exception of the Eastern Seaboard almost every part of the USA had been called “The West” at some stage in the country’s history.

  Authors (John C. Wright): Gene Wolfe passed at his Peoria home from cardiovascular disease on April 14, 2019 at the age of 87.

This man is one of two authors who I was able to read with undiminished pleasure as a child, youth, man and master.

I met him only briefly at science fiction conventions, and was truly impressed by his courtesy and kindness. We shared a love of GK Chesterton. I never told him how I cherished his work, and how important his writings were to me.

  Authors (Rich Horton): Gene Wolfe died yesterday, April 14, 2019 (Palm Sunday!) His loss strikes me hard, as hard as the death last year of Ursula K. Le Guin. Some while I ago I wrote that Gene Wolfe was the best writer the SF field has ever produced. Keeping in mind that comparisons of the very best writers are pointless — each is brilliant in their own way — I’d say that now I’d add Le Guin and John Crowley and make a trinity of great SF writers, but the point stands — Wolfe’s work was tremendous, deep, moving, intellectually and emotionally involving, ambiguous in the best of ways, such that rereading him is ever rewarding, always resolving previous questions while opening up new ones.

Cartoons (Wasteland and Sky): One small loss of the modern age I’ve always been interested in is the death of the Saturday morning cartoon.

For over half a century they have lingered in the memories of just about everyone alive in the western world as part of some long ago age that will never return. But nobody talks about them beyond nostalgic musings. The problem with that is they require a deeper look than that. I don’t think it’s clear exactly why they do not exist anymore, and it is important why they do not.

  Fiction (Tip the Wink): It’s the stories, not the book, that are forgotten here. From the publisher’s website:

“Known best for his work on Popular Publications’ The Spider, pulp scribe Norvell Page proved he was no slouch when it came to penning gangster and G-man epics! This book collects all eleven stories Page wrote for “Ace G-Man Stories” between 1936 and 1939, which are reprinted here for the first time!”

      RPG (Modiphius): Horrors of the Hyborian Age is the definitive guide to the monstrous creatures inhabiting the dark tombs, ruined cities, forgotten grottos, dense jungles, and sinister forests of Conan’s world. This collection of beasts, monsters, undead, weird races, and mutants are ready to pit their savagery against the swords and bravery of the heroes of the Hyborian Age.

Drawn from the pages of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories, this roster also includes creatures and alien horrors from H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, to which Howard inextricably bound his Hyborian Age. Other entries are original, chosen carefully to reflect the tone and dangers of Conan’s world.

Sensor Sweep: Windy City Pulp Show, King Arthur, Star Wars Target Audience, Model T in Combat published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

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QuadCon Peoria: Halloween 2019 edition

Tumblr already ate this post once during posting, so we’ll see what happens this time around. 

QuadCon came to Peoria once already this year, in the spring. Last month was the Halloween edition, though it was actually mid-October (10/19/19). 

As with the spring edition, this was a one-day event. But there was a little more on the schedule this time around.

Unlike in the spring, we didn’t see any signs of the Ghostbusters vehicle when we pulled up to the Riverplex. Parking was still in the visitor lot, which is actually divided from the main lot by a set of train tracks. At one point during the day, this became an entertaining issue. 

When the train came in, it didn’t actually fully block the access to that lot - it was a minor inconvenience at best, actually. But it was kinda funny to have happen.

Admission to get into QuadCon was still low -$3 each for @lechevaliermalfet  and myself, since we hadn’t shared anything on social media this time. Hand stamps were still being utilized as the indicator of paid entry.

There were piles of bags at the counter when we arrived and we later learned that if we had been part of the first 100 at the door, we would have received a goody bag with cards, a coupon for the next quadcon, a comic, and possibly one or two other small items. It was not something that QuadCon did during the spring event, and I don’t recall seeing it advertised via the Facebook event page. Time will tell if this is something they will repeat again - the QuadCon events are fan-run and they admitted during their charity auction that they mainly just break even on these cons. 

The room arrangement was the same as the Spring con - Panels in a RiverPlex classroom, and vendors/cosplay/gaming in the gym.

Once inside the gym, I noticed that at least once change had been made to the layout:

Tabletop gaming had been given more space, in an area that had previously held a row of vendors. Whether this meant that fewer vendors signed on for the October event or whether QuadCon simply restructured their tabling layout, I couldn’t say. There was still a wide variety of merch on hand, from hand-crafted to old toys to local authors like @fullofworlds to items that I thought were likely ordered via Wish. 

Just a sampling of items for sale - and yes, I absolutely bought that Snoopy WWI Flying Ace plush. He shakes, laughs, and makes flying noises!

Video gaming was still right next to the cosplay area. 

The panelists for the October event were largely the same as at the Spring event - which I thought was cool. These guys are big on audience participation - their panels work best as an interactive discussion between themselves and attendees. And since participation means entry to win a book on nerdy stuff, there is incentive to interact.

Both @lechevaliermalfet and one of our friends won books during the panels. 

During the cosplay contest, there appeared to be more competitors than at the Spring event, which was awesome to see. As before, the charity auction took place while the judges deliberated on scoring. I was eager for scoring, since I knew a few of the participants in the contest (I myself did not cosplay that day). @el-draco-bizarro was one of the participants I knew, and she received an Honorable Mention from the judges for her Scorpia cosplay. 

There was one thing I wish QuadCon had done differently, however. During the judges’ deliberation - and prior to the Charity Auction - the event organizers called for a group photo of all cosplayers. It did not matter if you were part of the costume contest or if you were just observing - if you were in cosplay, you were encouraged to come up for the photo.

Here is the problem I had:

That’s @el-draco-bizarro​ talking to the judges about her cosplay, and 2 more participants still waiting for their final discussion with the judges. I overheard one of the event organizers telling the Depressed Thor cosplayer to join the group photo, only to have the contestant remind him that he still wasn’t done with being judged!

Don’t do this! Wait until the line of contestants has cleared the judges’ table! Maybe I’m just persnickety, but it seems rude to call out for a full group photoshoot and still end up potentially excluding people because they chose to participate in the cosplay contest. I’m sure it was a timing mixup, but I really hope it doesn’t happen at the Spring 2020 event.

Since we were at a 230 panel right after the cosplay contest, we missed the Halloween parade that QuadCon offered its younger attendees. I know that several of the vendors had candy on hand for the parade participants.

By the last hour, attendance in the vendor area was getting sparse. Things had emptied out quite a bit around the various tables. 

But gaming was still going! 

Just like in the spring, we stayed until the event closed. 

QuadCon is definitely a nice, low-key entry to the convention scene if you’re new. If you’re experienced, I feel that smaller cons are a good “breather” entry in your calendar - you get a bit of that con atmosphere and activity, but it’s over in time to allow for a decent meal and sleep. I’m looking forward to their Spring 2020 event at the Peoria Civic Center.

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Peoria Comic Book Convention, Jan 2020

To be honest, I debated writing about this one at all. But, I figured, why not? It’s fandom-related, after all.

This event was the same weekend as the Sixty-Six Games Expo/BN Video Game Convention. Instead of going back to that on Sunday, we did this Sunday afternoon instead.

So, the first thing to put out there is that this is more of a comics show than a convention as I usually write about. @lechevaliermalfet​ and I went once before, in 2018. 

These events are all over the Midwest area, and all are free. Also, if you sign up for their mailing list, you will get a reminder postcard when the show comes back to your area. 

If you bring the postcard to the show, you get a free comic!

Yeah, they’re likely to be leftovers from either Free Comic Book Day or Halloween ComicFest, but if you missed those events, at least you can snag one of the titles on offer this way. 

And then, you are free to shop. There are boxes upon boxes of comics laid out, from different vendors. Some of those boxes had funny sayings.

FYI, the dealers we interacted with requested purchases be in cash. 

If you aren’t a traditional comics fan, there are still things to read you may be interested in. There were graphic novels and manga on hand. We even found a volume in Japanese, which was a surprise to see at an event like this. (It was sorta tempting, but I can’t read the language and we have it in English).

There are also usually old action figures / promotional items / some fan-made merch for sale.

We probably would have had more interest in the Transformers if they had been labelled as to who they were - unlike @shbumi​, who probably could do it, @lechevaliermalfet​ and I can’t name all the bots on sight. 

Now, I did burn out on browsing faster than @lechevaliermalfet​ did, so I also played Pokemon Go. I know, I know, what a shocker!

We did find a couple items to buy, though. @lechevaliermalfet​ got reading material, and we both went for custom Lego figures. And seriously, I love these.

As I said, this was the same weekend as the BN Video Game Con. So in the end, we squeezed two nerd events into one weekend, and left both with some cool swag.

There will be more comics shows in our area through the year. I don’t know that we’ll go to all of them when they come around, but it’s definitely worth checking out at least once a year.