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Motor City Comic Con 2000 "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" - rules for a wedding...and a comic convention, apparently. |
The show started out the absolute best way possible - you get free stuff. Granted, I'm not much of a comics collector or anything, but I still think it's a cool thing to do, and even *I* know who Spider-Man is, for cryin' out loud. Couple that with an enormous table right at the entrance with flyers, posters, business cards, and all sorts of other items that were just begging to take up every available square inch of space in my backpack, and you've got yourself a freebie feeding frenzy that belonged on the Discovery Channel. To be realistic though, I've got absolutely no idea what I'm going to do with a stack of posters for movies I've never heard of before, three reams of paper flyers for events there's no way I'll be attending (Me? Goth party? Not likely...), or the little black cards with a Spawn-looking design on the front which...well, to be totally honest, I only snagged because all the teenagers were grabbing them by the handful, so that means they've got to be cool...right?
Yeah, I know. I already threw them away.
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Something Old...
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We ran into a number of familiar faces at this year's event. People like Brian Rood and Matt Busch were in attendance again this year, and it's always great to see the both of them...it teaches you humility. Just about anyone can build themselves a website with the tools that are out these days...but the artwork that Brian and Matt create are one of the main reasons to attend the show in the first place. In fact, the work of Matt Busch was good enough to draw the eye of LucasFilm, which led to him working on official pieces such as the cover from "Tales from the Empire" and more. To see more of Brian's work, take a look through our Fan Art Gallery, and to see more of Matt's work, take a look at our interview with him, a special piece on his Darth Maul creations here on Echo Station, or of course, you can always visit his website. His site has an online store through which you can purchase his work in the realms of Battlestar Galactica, portraits, comics, and of course Star Wars as well. It's well worth the visit.
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And, of course, just like last year's event...there's another spark of controversy. Wouldn't be any fun without that, right? Unfortunately, it revolves around the same person. In last year's write-up, I discussed the issues surrounding a certain Hal Wamsley, who claims to have been a cast member in the original Star Wars motion picture. Conveniently (or "unfortunately", if you believe his story...), he has absolutely no evidence whatsoever to substantiate his story. As far as anyone and everyone I've ever spoken to is concerned...with the obvious exception of Hal himself, of course...he's a complete and utter fraud that needs to be stopped. In fact, after publishing the story last year and including all of the information I had at that point, I received an overwhelming number of emails from people that had similar stories about him, and from convention organizers who had booked him to appear at their events...and of course had never heard of any of the problems with him before then...and some even subsequently dropped him from their show rosters. Oh, and I also got a couple laughable emails from Hal himself threatening me with lawsuits if I didn't pull the article from our site (which, as of the last time I checked the site was still live...) because he claims to have never given me permission to use our discussion in the course of the article...even though he did so at the time of our talk, and again in the course of emails afterwards...and also because it was a "slanderous" and "libelous" piece. Well, the screaming hordes of attorneys he threatened somehow never materialized...so I'm guessing it won't bother him too terribly much when I run this story, either.
Coincidences being what they are, I stumbled across Hal this year in much the same way that I did last year. It all started because of a conversation with Bob-A-Lou collectibles. Their booth is a great place to gather signatures and signed artwork if you're a collector, and it also started my interest in Hal last year rolling after their mention of his shadowy claims. I stopped by their booth to see what they had in stock this year (many of the same type of items, but still interesting nonetheless - cast photos autographed by groups ranging from Monty Python to MASH, and from the original Star Trek series to the casts of all the spinoff creations spawned by the original) and casually mentioned that gee, I didn't see Hal Wamsley there this year and chuckled.
My laughter wasn't returned and I was led about two aisles down the show exhibit floor, where I was pointed in the direction of a booth about half way up the row with a snort and the words "He's right there, pulling the same stuff again."
Now, I'm happy to see that he's no longer touring with any of the "official" guests (at least he's not doing so at the Motor City Comic Con...and that's one less weed in my own backyard), but unfortunately the word hasn't been spread far enough or wide enough to warn people about what's going on around him. I caught up with the owner of the booth he was sitting in (signing things, of course...), and this is what the booth and business owner had to say about the matter:
So as you can see I had no ideal about the debate about him and now that I do I feel like I was taking advantage of for being nice to someone."Well this is quite interesting !! I had no idea there was such a debate about him. I just read your report from last year and found it very informative.
I guess I'll try to explain how he came about sitting at my booth. I was outside smoking and he was out there also he started up a conversation with me because he recognized me from another show, and uninformed of the debate about him we started talking. He told me some other dealer was going to let him sit at their booth to sign photos so I said to him if that don't work out I could set some space a side for him for a couple of hours if he like. I figured it might attract some people over to my booth and I was helping out someone who seemed like a nice guy. So he came over and said he'd come over around 1:00 to sign for a couple of hours if it was still cool with me. Still uninformed of the debate I had no problem with it. He came over about 1:00 to sign I sat some space aside and the first thing he did was sign a photo to me. I didn't get any cut [of his signing fees] and I wasn't expecting anything in return I was just trying to be nice and hoping he attract some people to the booth.
To be honest with you he only sold two photo's and he was only there for about an hour. He complained that he was getting cold because where my booth was the air vent was blowing cold air right down on the booth space.
Not to mention the fact that he wanted some old "Bantha Tracks" I had for sale and ask if he wanted to trade for some autographs and of course stupid me said go ahead. Now I have six autographs of someone who might of or might not have been in the movie.
Which really ticks me off because like yourself I am a big Star Wars fan and if someone like Hal is out there taking advantage of fans like myself that really sucks.
I would like to know more about this if you could keep me updated also I would really appreciate it if you would not mention my name or my company's name in any article you do. I'm getting ready to start my own comic project and really don't want to be known as the dumb guy who fell for Hal's story.
Thanks for letting me know and if I find out anything else about him and his story I will pass on the info.
Once again thanks!
I do have one question - was there a young lady when you took the picture or was I there because I went out to smoke one and as soon as I was done playing he pretty much decided he was too cold to continue. Which makes me think he saw you and decided to skip out before I was let on to any info about him? I'm just wondering on this one because like I said before he was only there for about an hour and then decided he was too cold.Also do you go to any other conventions because as he was there at the booth he told me the same story about his Mom knowing someone and all that stuff but he also mentioned he was going to be at Dragon Con in Atlanta and he invited me to go over to Planet Hollywood with him because he said him and a bunch of other celebrities go there and sign stuff for fans and usually get free food and all that stuff, but what I'm getting to is I would not like to see him once again taking advantage of fans and it would seem you have some kind of influence on him and would LOVE to see him taken down for skimming fans."
Well, as I promised the operator of the booth in question, I'm deliberately leaving his name and his company's name out of this article...but I do find it oddly convenient that Hal left right after this picture was taken:
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I most certainly did take his picture, and I definitely saw the look of recognition in his eyes as he realized who it was that was about to take his picture...and of course likely write about him again...and when I wandered back by the booth about 15 minutes later, he was nowhere to be found. Coincidence? Maybe. But then again, maybe not.
I wish that everyone out there - both the fans whose merchandise he's potentially ruining and the dealers that invite him into their booths and risk their reputations on his shaky story - knew about this story and could be warned in advance...but I leave that up to you, our readers. Take this story and give out as many links to it as you can, and send emails to folks like the webmaster for DragonCon (which you can do by clicking here) letting them know that people like this shouldn't be allowed in the door of their exhibit hall, let alone sitting in a booth somewhere.