First, an announcement for Cincinnati readers. I will be the guest of Loch Norse Magazine on Friday evening at 6:30 at the Bowtie Cafe in Mt. Adams and will be reading from my forth coming collection, “In Love, In Water and Other Stories.” Loch Norse’s open mic will follow.
On Saturday I went to the Cincinnati Comic Expo. I also took my German exchange student along for the “cultural experience.” 🙂 We both had a good time. It’s always interesting to see the people in costume. (Though I still believe some people should probably not wear spandex in public. I would be one of them, and no, I didn’t.) I also liked the variety of booths and merchants there. I wound up buying a Minion Aquaman. (It is so cute!), a Space Ghost glass, and the Cincinnati Pops CD of last year’s Superhero concert. I also bought some small press graphic novels and prints to go with them. I stopped by the booth of the amazingly talented artist/author David Mack (Kabuki, Daredevil, Dexter, and too many others to mention) to say hi. I stopped by the booth for my local comic book supplier, Rockin Rooster Comics. And I stopped by the booth of Post Portem Press. I look forward to being on the other side of their table there next year selling copies of my new collection of short stories.
There were plenty of guest celebrities as well. I won’t mention the names, since I really found it a little problematic. Many of these were actors from fan favorite shows and most still have active acting careers. I understand they are giving up their time to come to the convention. However, $30-$40 for an autograph? Seriously? I bought the DVDs and I watch the Netflix episodes. You’re getting money from my watching, so $40 for an autograph? I can see charging something but that seemed a little, well, greedy. Needless to say, I didn’t get any autographs, except for David’s, who will sign your comics, prints etc.
In the evening I went to Chilicon, the annual party thrown my friends from The Cincinnati Fantasy Group. The food was great and the company superb. If you are in the greater Cincinnati area, look us up.
Hope you all had great weekends as well!
pandrewmiller 
What time were you there? I went on Saturday but mainly got stuck around the Legos.
Sports fans are to blame for having to pay for autographs. Sports conventions used to have fans pay to get in and have their stuff signed for free but the athletes at the shows demanded so much money up front and fought over who got paid the most, that the convention officials lowered the price per convention but had fans pay specifically for each autograph they actually got. (I can see how this is fair–if you had Joe Schmoo and Babe Ruth at the same place, most fans would go to see Ruth).
I’m definitely not happy with the situation–I’m out $10 because my daughter got her picture with a certain friend of Buffy–but it looks like it’s spread to all fandoms.