Almost as soon as I walked into MoCCA on Saturday, the first bits of news I got were show-related. Cliff Galbraith of the much liked Asbury Park Comicon, announced that next year the show will be TWO days long, on April 19-20, and will be held at a nearby hotel.

Galbraith is also launching the Newark Comicon for a date in June 2014 TBA. Yes THAT Newark. Galbraith says he already has the city officials behind the event, and we suspect that come next year we’ll learn just how much Newark’s charismatic mayor (and probable senatorial candidate) Cory Booker likes comic books. It’s an area hugely underserved, and as Galbraith pointed out, the only city in the US with an international airport that doesn’t have its own comic-con!

Along with his partner, Robert Bruce, Galbraith is set on putting on a series of fun, nostalgic and comics-centric shows. Given the attention he got for the last Asbury Park Comicon, they might just pull it off. He says they were expecting 2000 people and got well over 3000 to last weekend’s show. People like comics an cartoonists.

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Another show that is just getting some attention: the Grand Comics Festival which will be held this June 8-9th at Bird River Studios in Brooklyn. The show was put together by Pat Dorian, and will showcase local cartoonists like R. Sikoryak, Andrea Tsurumi, Blaise Larmee, Meredith Gran and so on, in a studio set-up. Sounds good to us. Check out the above website for more info.

1 COMMENT

  1. Let’s not forget that the Newark Museum hosted half of the “Masters of American Comics” exhibit back in 2006-07. In fact, the day some friends and I hopped the PATH train from NYC to Newark (a short and easy commute) to see that show, we actually ran into and spoke to Mayor Booker there at the musuem. I know we weren’t the only ones to make the trip so Newark officials must remember that comics bring crowds.

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