Thoughts From the Convention Director

Our 2009 convention will very much be a linchpin year for us, further fulfilling our promise of becoming the signature pop culture convention in the southwest.

It marks our first full THREE day convention, with a Thursday Preview night.

We’ve held off for a few years on expanding to three days till we knew we could provide the high level of convention experience we’ve come to set for ourselves.   There were so many MORE activities and events that we wanted to do this year, but couldn’t due to time and space constraints, that we knew the time was right to expand.

Our guest list will also expand – especially due to the incredibly positive response everyone has shown the wide variety of guests we have featured at our show.

We’ve already got a great list started:
   Wil Wheaton:  Author, blogger, and Star Trek: Next Generation actor
   Ethan Van Sciver:  Artist Green Lantern, Batman, Flash
   Ben Templesmith:  Artist 30 Days of Night, Hatter M, Fell, Star Wars, Buffy The Vampire Slayer
   Kevin Anderson:  Author Star Wars, X-Files, and Dune prequels books

And we’ll have more to announce in the coming months.

Finally, a personal comment:  You may have noticed the update in our website and our logo.  Our web needs have grown to a point where we needed a more robust site to better present everything our convention offers in a clean, straightforward manner.  

We also felt that the time had come to present a new logo that further reflected our growing stature.

Our many thanks first need to go to Lonnie Tapia, for creating our original logo that has served us well for these past six conventions.  

Our new logo was designed by Daniel Davis, of Steam Crow Press.  Daniel and his family have been staples in our Artist Alley for the past three conventions, and he graciously put his time and talent on the line to come up with the design that we know will serve us well as we expand in the years to come.  For those not familiar with Daniel’s work, you have got to check out www.steamcrow.com, see all his cool monsters, and get yourself some freebies he has available.

We also have a great new t-shirt available to staff and volunteers.  Check it out on our Volunteer page.  Ben Glendenning of Skulljammer came up with the concept and the art, and did a variation for our cool flier available in local stores around town.  Ben and his family have been joining us at the convention for the past few years, and his art graced some of our badges this past year.  He was glutton for doing more work for us and we totally talked him into doing our t-shirt and first flier design for us.  See more of his work at www.skulljammer.com.

To get your hands on one of these t-shirts – step up and volunteer for the convention.  The fliers, of course, are free to pick up and stick on your refrigerator or cubicle at work.   

A huge thank you goes to our Art Department for designing and maintaining all of our print and web work, which includes all of our fliers, posters, tickets, and webmails.  Revamping the website is a huge undertaking that often goes unnoticed but plays a huge role in the presentation of our convention.

And finally – many thanks to all of our attendees for coming out to the show, being enthusiastic, and proving why the valley of the sun is the coolest place to be for creators, authors, and actors.  

Gratefully,

Matt Solberg
Convention Director
matt@phoenixcomicon.com