The second circle of hell - Manara ? Mañara !

I'm finishing my series on the other blog to bring some kind of closure to this so I thought that I should also do some stuff here that I didn't finish. Since I managed to do all the solicitation stuff in one post I think it's about time for a return to the comic convention from hell on today's 180th post - according to the new numbering after the relaunch.


I alredy told everything that happened on the first day - even if it took me three posts. Now let's descend to the next circle and find out what happened at the second day :

My luck only got worse even if there were more people signing today. On the second day there are more artists who sign and you finally get a schedule of who appears where. I took the official program that had been handed out at the first day and marked all the artists I found interesting. Then I made a seperate list of when to be where because without it you can easily forget where you wanted to be. Now while the good part is that on the second day there are much more artists to sign the bad bad part is that because of that there are more people attending. While the first day is rather quiet and you can take your time to see the exhibits the second day is much more crowded.

EL JUEVES ( a satirical magazine that publishes a lot of funny and erotic comics like the original version of BETTY BY THE HOUR ) has announced a lot of people but I can't see anyone at their booth.




Like always they have put up quite the displays like last year. This zone always stands out and it's a good reference point to navigate through the convention.


Being a satirical publication that often goes to the limits of what you can do they had put up one of their covers that got censored which was the Prince of Spain rear - ending his wife......to put it nicely.


There are cutouts where you can put your face to have your picture taken and that is quite the big attraction.

el jueves homepage

betty by the hour page

Today there are much more fanzines present than Yesterday. I'm looking around but the only thing that seems interesting is Harry Potra a parody on the Harry Potter books. The art is really crude like in South Park and the story is full of sexual innuendo and dirty jokes - which is part of the charm.


It's one of the classic copied in the copy shop 100 percent handmade fanzines. The story doesn't have anything to do with the books and all kind of characters appear in the book like Son Goku from Dragon Ball or Shin Chan.


In the stories Dumbledore is trying to kill Harry, Harry wants to become evil and turn the female students of Hogwarts into his lust slaves, Hagrid is a special agent for the FBI and they are always talking about getting it on and stuff. As you can see it's an all ages comic and I bought issues 1 and 6 because the magic dragon from Dragon Ball and Shin Chan appear. It's a bit difficult to read for me because it's in catalan but thanks to DRAGON BALL I can understand most of it.

harry potra homepage

I'm looking for more comics and find a dealer's table where they have tons of JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED issues for 50 cent. They don't have those at my comic shop back in Germany and surely not at this price so I buy a bundle of issues. At home I only have the pocket book collections which are nice but I already have all of them and I don't think there are more collections planned.


The JUSTICE LEAGUE animated comics are some of the best comics of the Justice League franchise. The art is solid, they mostly tell a complete story in one issue and you don't need a score card to find your way. They always manage to boil the character down to their essential persona and put the spotlight on facets of the hero you haven't seen before. The recipe for their success sounds simple but it's much harder to pull off : concentrate on the people behind the mask and just tell a good story. That's why you can read them again and again.

I have already put the episodes of the cartoon show on my blog or maybe you have already seen them all on tv. So I don't have to tell you how good they are. If you like them you should really give the comic version a try because if not you're missing out on some of the best JUSTICE LEAGUE comics.


Aside from that I also found other comics at one dollar each like the GOD WAR issues from ULTIMATE FANTASTIC FOUR by Pascual Ferry which I hoped to get signed. After that I bought the spanish version of WHEN IN ROME - which was translated in Germany with AT THAT TIME IN ROME which not only sounds stupid but it destroys the double meaning. The original title is clearly the first part of the old saying WHEN IN ROME DO AS THE ROMANS. Which refers to Catwoman adapting to how things are done in Rome.


Now the second meaning has to do with the part that is not said in the title with the word ROMANS also refering to the criminal organisation of Carmine Falcone. He's the untouchable crimelord from the LONG HALLOWEEN who is called " the roman " because he's old school sicilian mafia.

In the story Catwoman embarks on a journey that was only hinted at in LONG HALLOWEEN where she tries to find out if Carmine is her biological father or not. You see, there's much more to the title than you can grasp at first but like always the germans screwed it up in the translation. Thankfully the spanish translators suffered from no attacks of dementia and left the title as it was with SI VAS A ROMA.

Due to the success of HEROES the line for Tim Sale was extremely long but since there weren't that many people left on my list I tried to get a sketch.


Now one thing I have noticed at this convention is that I have to organize better. Compared to the other people in line I'm a rank amateur. They have really professional sketchbooks which sometimes look more like an artist's map that you show to editors at conventions than a sketchbook. And some of them even have chairs. Since I'm not the youngest it's really hard for me to stand in line for hours so the best thing is to bring your own chair. After the comic convention I went looking for a camping chair that was small enough to fit into my trolley but it took me three months to find one.

Another thing I have noticed is that most of the people come in pairs or packs. They have two or three sketchbooks or they just swap it around and they take turns standing in line. That's one of the reasons why most people don't go to comic conventions alone : they can take turns standing in line. Nice if you can pull that off but since I'm either alone or accompanied by my brother who has other priorities than standing in line that's not an option for me.

Mostly I just walked up and down a bit or sat on the floor to rest my feet.After two and a half hours it's finally my turn but as always Tim Sale is finishing his signing session so all I get is a tiny sketch of one eye and the nose in my comic and the same in my book. I'm tired, depressed and my feet hurt.


I got a signature and a sketch in my small book from an artist of the fanzine GATO NEGRO for buying the special superhero issue.


The idea of the comic is pretty interesting : it's an anthology of short stories each dedicated to a certain type of hero with an introductionary text that describes the kind of hero of the following story. They have a chapter for THE FALLEN HERO, THE MYTHICAL HERO, THE ANTIHERO, THE VILLAIN, THE AVENGER, THE ADVENTUROUS ORPHAN and THE FANTASTIC HERO which explore a different aspect of heroes.

The art in some stories is really crude and not on the same artistic level as your general mainstream comic but the stories are all very interesting and with a 56 page bookshelf comic for 3,50 bucks it's a solid read that's well worth your money.




After that I went to get a signature from Milo Manara but I didn't have much luck there either. The book I bought at IL GRIFO is dented and we have to wait one hour before the signing begins. Apparently Milo Manara arrived much earlier but for whatever reasons somebody else had to finish first. Now you might think that it would be possible to make some room for an artist of Manara's calibre but that was not the case here. After two additional hours of standing in line the remaining people get numbers which we can swap for Tomorrows new numbers so we get our sketches first. It's not very much for standing in line three hours but better than nothing. And I didn't expect to get a sketch at the first try anyway.


I think the best part was when a woman had her picture taken with Milo Manara. She looked like the women you usually only see in porn movies with really big bouncing breasts and all.

It's still raining so the benches are still too wet to sit down. Yesterday Rohrschach, Clark Kent and Supergirl were strolling through the convention center and Today I have seen Batman at Superman's coffin.


I got a JLA / JSA poster by Carlos Pacheco when I bought the CATWOMAN hardcover at the PLANETA section but with all the standing in line I lost it. I was hungry so I went to the part where they showed the trailers of upcoming movies. So far I have managed to avoid seeing the new trailers of HELLBOY 2, INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRISTAL SKULL, IRON MAN, WANTED and the new HULK movie but they were giving away free popcorn at the HULK trailer. Of course it was green but it tasted normal. Of course that's what they all say at first so maybe I'll turn into a gamma irridated monster later on. But hey : free popcorn !

Since I was extremely tired and wanted to sit down I went to the fanzine panel.


They talked a bit about their publications and publishing fanzines in general and then someone sacrificed a fanzine in a strange ritual that was cheered by the public. It was kind of strange but a lot of fun.


After that I went looking for some of the fanzines that were mentioned in the panel and it took me quite a while. Today I held out till 20.00 hours but now I'm totally wasted. I make it back home at 21.30. So let's take a look at the swag I got Today.

comics I payed for :

Milo Manara - Donne e Motori ( to sign ), Catwoman - Si vas a Roma ( signed ), Animaniaco 3, Dos veces breve - Iberomanga Special, Harry Potra 1 and 6 ( signed ) and Gato Negro 3 - Superheroes ( signed ). JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED 16, 17, and number 19 to 38, JUSTICE LEAGUE ADVENTURES 29 to 31, 33 and 34 all for 50 cent each. for 1 buck each : New Avenger Illuminati 5, JLA 5 ( Arthur Adams cover ), Ultimate Fantastic Four 33 to 38 ( to sign ). For 1,80 EUROS Brave and the Bold 7 ( Power Girl and Wonder Woman ), for two EUROS Avengers classic 1 ( another Arthur Adams cover ) and the complete 4 issue Seven Soldiers Bulleteer series for 6 EUROS.


comics I didn't pay for :

Naruto 10, Saint Seya 1, Batman begins ( again ), Spider - Man 53 and 54, a JONU MEDIA DVD with the first episodes of BLEACH and SUPERGALS and another two animes and the Ladrido preview.

All things considered I didn't get much for standing in line five hours and a half. Just one sketch of Catwoman's eye and her nose. I found a lot of cheap JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED comics but I was only halway through the convention with the worst still to come.

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