The Convention Fans Blog

Welcome to 2012, fellow convention fans! 2011 was full of great cons, fan events, and announcements; from Leonard Nimoy retiring from the convention circuit to SDCC’s registration crashing, from totally new mixed genre conventions like CombatCon to the announcement of a second InvaderCon.

Here’s a look back at CFB’s top 10 articles for 2011:

Steampunk is pretty big here at Convention Fans Blog, but I didn’t realize how much our readers loved it to until I found that half our top 10 articles last year were about retro-futurist events.

1. Rob Granito Called a Fraud, Banned From Conventions

   • There was a storm-wind of disgust and rage gusting through fandom and across the internet directed at one Robert Granito over accusations the “artist” was copying and selling the work of other people as his own. It began with a Bleeding Cool article and culminated at MegaCon when the irate Mark Waid and Ethan Van Sciver delivered a verbal smackdown. Now several conventions, including Wizard World, have dropped Mr. Granito.

2. Photos from The Steampunk World’s Fair 2011

   • CFB’s Editor-in-Chief Kelly Rowles had a blast at 2011′s Steampunk World’s Fair and brought back a bunch of awesome photos to share with us.

3. Top 10 Steampunk Holiday Gift Ideas

   • For December 2010 I put together a top 10 gift guide for steampunk lovers and it’s been such a hit that a year later it’s still one of our top three posts.

4. New Steampunk Conventions For 2011

   • 2011 saw many brand new steampunk conventions opening their doors for the first time.

5. Upcoming Steampunk Conventions for 2011

   • A simple quick look list of the steampunk events that had already been announced for 2011 back in December of 2010.

6. Comic-Con 2011 Cosplay Photos

   • An album of cosplay seen at the 2011 San Diego Comic Convention. The costumes were great as always and both Javi and I wore our shutter-fingeres to the bone snapping pics. This album is the best of those pics collected in one handy gallery for general ogoling.

7. Comic-Con 2011 Photos – Steampunk at SDCC

   • An album of steampunk outfits seen at the 2011 San Diego Comic Convention. Steampunk had a bigger presence than ever at the 2011 Comic-Con, so much so that we put together a gallery post of just our best photos of the retro-futurist costumes we saw.

8. Upcoming Torchwood / Doctor Who Conventions for 2010 – 2011

   • Another post from 2010 that was a top 10 article for 2011. This one a mini-post about cons for the DW events.

9. Rob Granito Doing a One-Man Show at New York Comic Con?

   • Fans were steamed, big time, about the alleged plagarism by Mr. Granito (we say ‘alleged’ purely because there has been no arrest or lawsuits so we’re covering our asses from same). This is a follow-up to our original post about the scandal

10. Update to the Rob Granito Story: Granito Sends Out Press Release and His Interview Fees

    • Did you know that “to Granito” has become slang in the comic art and fan community now for the act of copying another artist’s work and passing it off as your own original artwork? That and the fact that this is the third update to our coverage of the issue that made our top 10 for 2011 should indicate how incensed people were (and still are).