Tuesday 27 August 2013

Toronto Con 1978

Promotional Print for Toronto Con 1978
Art by Dave Sim
DENI LOUBERT:
(from 'A Note From The Publisher', Cerebus #2, February/March 1978)
...Despite the fact I complain about it, I do enjoy meeting all these people, though. Comic book people, both the fans and the dealers selling the comics, are colourful in their own special way. For instance, on the way home from a convention in Toronto (where I was introducing Cerebus to as many dealers as would listen to me) we stopped off at a restaurant to eat.

Now this isn't just three or four fans. This is a whole vanload of fans and dealers who have just had a full day of looking at and comparing comic books. We descended on that restaurant, hungry, tired and energetic as hell about comics. There were only a few other people in the restaurant at the time and I fear they will never be the same. Gesturing wildly, and talking loudly about Road Runner cartoons and the various merits of different artists, we more than filled the place. At one point, I just had to sit back and take a good look at the scene. There was no way we could be ignored, and yet everyone there was too busy being caught up in his or her enthusiasm to notice that we were being a three ring circus for the benefit of those few patrons there.

Comics is a crazy business, but you know something? I wouldn't want to be anyplace else. That is if I had the choice. Which none of us do once the bug has bitten.

Deni Loubert was Aardvark-Vanaheim's publisher for the first 70 issues of Cerebus. Deni and Dave Sim were married from 1978 to 1983. Deni subsequently moved to Los Angeles to start her own comics publishing company, Renegade Press, which closed its doors in 1989. She was inducted into the Joe Shuster Hall of Fame in 2010.

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