At the recent Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle, I noticed a serious lack of EVERYTHING Conan. In the past you could always count on finding some statues, toys and tons of back issues a reasonable prices. However this year there was nothing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There were not toys, no statues, no figues, and most distressing almost no artwork. Granted Mr. Ernie Chan passed recently, god rest his soul, and even if you weren't a fan of his artwork he was one nice and courteous human being. I shared many emails with him before his passing and met him in person twice. What a great guy! Yet there were maybe one or two artists out of hundreds, that were displaying anything Conan. To top it off these artists were just free-lancers showing off their work, not artists who had done any magazines or comics.
The only support I found were Dark Horse comics had artist Brian Wood present signing copies of the latest series. I'm sure there are many who would like to comment on that subject, if they haven't already.
Lastly, and this probably will make most happy, the price of Conan early issues has skyrocketed! Last year I was able to pick up fairly decent copies of Conan the Barbarian #1 for $60 to $80 at the convention, this year the lowest I found was $225 and most were over the $300 mark! Like gold, now is the time to see boys! LOL
What have you noticed lately in the merchandise area?
