Conventions

The other day The Beat was the first to report that LA's Epic Icon Comic Con had been cancelled a week out. The two sites...

We've just heard through the grapevine of another con fail: this time Epic Icon Comic Con, to be held May 4-6 at the Los...

The comminity rallied in Baltimore this weekend to create an event that is being called "Nerd Woodstock."

If you're looking for a good time at a con, this weekend' sEast Coast Comicon is just what you might need.

Headed by Mike Towry and Chairman Matt Dunford, this convention pays homage to the early days of Comic-Con. Organizers of Comic Fest pride themselves in its intimate setting. In many ways, I find it to be quite charming, lacking the Hollywood of Comic-Con and instead allowing attendees and invited guests to mingle together. A lot of love goes into this convention.

“Five years ago, Marvel was in charge, and they ruled everything I did as a retailer. It was ‘Marvel first.’ Now, they are the bastard children of the industry. I’ve lost probably 25% of my comic readership because 25% of my Marvel fans got tired of my higher cover prices, the non-sequitur storylines, the almost incomprehensible X-Men this and that… Marvel has done nothing to drive the industry towards us.”

If you spent your weekend doing fun things like seeing family or going on vacation, you may have missed perhaps the biggest imbroglio in "When A Con is Crap" history, Universal Fan Con.

Looking back, Berger could see how the idea was very much in Shelley Bond’s and Vertigo’s interests. “The thing about Grimm Fairytales, the real fairytales, are that they are frick’n scary and bloody,” she said. “There is something domesticated about them nowadays… And I think most people today have their ideas of fairytales because of Disney.”

Several groups have stepped in to create events in the Baltimore area for those who were to attend Universal Fan Con, as the community rallies.

“It was quite a challenge because it was unlike anything DC had done,” said Bruning. Though they had been in the industry for years, they didn’t know how to deal with online talent and online competition. In many ways, they had to “rebuild” and rework their established view of comics.

“You can count the comic book editors on one hand who are so influential to the medium and whose vision for their material is so strong that they really define a brand that gives the audience that kind of confidence. And one of them is here to my left, Karen Berger.”

“If we have it that one culture can’t tell the stories of another culture, we restrict ourselves.”