C2E2 Staff And Fans Open Up About The Weekend, Why Marvel And ...

Perhaps a more serious recurring complaint during the good-natured panel came from those who felt as if this year’s convention suffered from a lack of advance notice about guests and exhibitors alike – and, in a few high profile cases, a lack of specific exhibitors altogether.

“Yes, [guests] locked in super late this year,” Rogers admitted, quickly adding that ReedPop was happy with the show’s final line-up. Her reason for the lateness was straightforward: “Unfortunately there is still a bit of a pandemic happening.” The lack of certainty made guests understandably nervous, delaying final decisions about attendance until the last minute. “I promise you, we didn’t wake up a month ago and go, ‘oh, right!’” she joked.

More complicated was the lack of larger comic publishers on the show floor. In response to one fan asking where Marvel and DC were, Rogers replied, “You should probably tell Marvel and DC that you want to see them at C2E2.” Another panelist, Senior Director of Global Sales Ryan Will, offered more detail: “The easy answer is that [Comic-Con International: San Diego] was two weeks ago and they couldn’t make it,” he said. “That’s true, but the comics industry is in a bit of flux right now.” That flux, he went on to explain, impacted publishers’ ability to exhibit at every convention.

“It’s a bummer, because most of the time [pubishers say] we want to go, we love that show, but we can’t do it,” he continued. “Marvel specifically, they wanted to be here... It just didn’t work out. DC, not a very different story. But at the end of the day, there’s a lot that goes into their decision making. We can influence that to a degree, [but] this would have been a situation this year where we would have had to have the stars align.” For next March’s C2E2, he promised, “I will have a much more enhanced focus on staying on top of this.”

There was, however, an upside to the absence of larger publishers at big shows like C2E2, Will argued. “This whole disruption, this glitch in the matrix, has paved the way for smaller publishers who might not have otherwise been able to take advantage of that because [the opportunities] didn’t exist.”

Smaller publishers mentioned by Will and fans who were praised for exhibiting included Vault Comics, Devil’s Due Publishing, and Zenescope. “Make sure you give some love to the [smaller] guys because they’re out there too,” Will said.