I had picked up a copy of Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Game Civil War event book and it mentioned the Illuminati. One of the books I was looking for was a copy of the New Avengers: Illuminati. I only had to remember the story line that I was looking for and which company had produced it. I didn’t have to worry as much about which issue I was looking for or was it silver age or bronze age. I was on much firmer ground when I was browsing the trades. I was very intimidated by the vast array of back issues and only made cursory forays into them. As I mentioned earlier, I have just gotten back into comics. It was interesting to see such a large collection of long boxes with a stunning variety of books to peruse. All the comic shops in the area were represented as well as shops from points north and south. The thing I noticed first was the large variety of back issues and trades available for sale. My local comic shop was right there by the entrance, so I stopped by to say hello and then began the trek through the aisles. Outside of not seeing anything like that, the setup was not very intimidating. I believe that I had expected to see all kinds of different comic dioramas and such and was a little disappointed when there were none to be found. The one major difference was there no booths on scale with the things that Wizards did at the recent iteration of GenCon. The Expo itself was very reminiscent of the vendor hall at GenCon. I arrived a little before the doors opened to those of us without a VIP badge but didn’t have to wait for very long as the line was for those waiting to purchase entrance and I just breezed in when the doors opened. The convention center was easy to find and there was plenty of parking at 10 in the morning. So, that morning I got out a map, donned my badge, and headed down to the grand metropolis of Cincinnati. I ended up not hearing from him right before the show and the plan fell apart. The plan, of course, was to attend the show with Edgar as he is a veteran of comic conventions having recently attended C2E2 and was in the midst of planning to go to New York Comic Con in October. As things are wont to do around me, things went a little bit pear shaped.

I picked up my two day pass at my comic shop and made plans for the first day of the expo. I knew that it would not be like what I see on YouTube in regards to SDCC or C2E2 but it was certainly something that I was looking forward to experiencing. After some minor prodding, I agreed to attend the convention and see what it was like. I became aware of the Cincinnati Comic Expo through Comic Book World, my local comic shop, and my friend Edgar. I was enticed back into the fold with the Flash Point event in DC comics and began reading again in earnest with the launch of DC’s New 52. I have only recently returned to comics after a long hiatus. I’ve just never had either the time or the inclination to go to a comic convention until recently. I have been going to GenCon for many years so I am no stranger to attending geek conventions.

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