We went to the Cincinnati Comic Expo today -- second year in a row they've pulled it off. They only have a few panels, a crap-ton of vendors, a costume contest, and a gaming room that's open from 10 am to 10 pm (even though the actual Comic Expo programming ended at 5:30).
I'd like to see more panels, but the ones they have aren't heavily attended. I think they need bigger names to get higher attendance -- or branch out from comics to larger pop culture/genre TV and movies.
One panel was a Captain America retrospective, with a husband/wife team who ink and color some of the current Cap titles, as well as 87-year-old Allen Bellman, who was drawing Cap back in the early 1940s. I have to say, Bellman was so great to listen to. He got all teary when he said that in his wildest dreams, when he was 19 years old and drawing Cap in the bullpen, he would never have thought in 2011 he'd be on the red carpet* at the premiere of the movie.
*(It was apparently actually a red, white, and blue carpet.)
There was also a panel with Michael Uslan, who has a new autobiography out called The Boy Who Loved Batman. (It is NOT slashy fanfic, despite the title, and yes, I already made a kajillion jokes. t edit NOT to him; to Tim.) He was really interesting, talking about buying the film rights to Batman back in the early 80s (or maybe the 70s) and then getting laughed out of every movie studio because he wanted to make a dark Batman movie rather than campy.
He also moderated the Captain America panel, and it was obvious how much of a fanboy he was and is, because he just raved about Art Bellman's work, and talked really knowledgably about the husband/wife team's art on current Cap titles.
Then we went down to the gaming room with some friends and I learned how to play Settlers of Catan, which I didn't really understand until about 5 minutes before the end of the game, which I won in a crazy twist of luck and 3 Knight cards in a row.
Good stuff. And now I have a new book to read.
We didn't go to the costume contest, but we saw about 10 stormtroopers and 5 Boba Fetts. One of the Boba Fetts was pushing a stroller with a kid in a Jedi robe in it -- but around the stroller was built a Millennium Falcon, complete with a stuffed animal Chewbacca on it.