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Despite a Twitter non-denial denial, from owner Renee George, Wizard World has confirmed they have acquired the long running Pittsburgh Comicon, to be held September 11-13 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. “We are excited to have acquired the long-standing and popular Pittsburgh Comicon from Renee,” said John Macaluso, Wizard World CEO. “We are excited to inject the Wizard World flavor in the Pittsburgh market, a city we’ve been wanting to expand to for many years. We are looking forward to seeing all our fans in September!”

The Small Press Expo, to be held this year Sept. 19-20, isn't a fully curated show. About half the booths are grandfathered in, but the rest are open in a "lottery" that is nerve-wracking but ultimately fair. While curated shows like TCAF and CAB present a sleek line-up, it's good to have some element of the random for one premiere CAF. REgistration is open from February 1-15 and the rest of the process is laid out in an announcement. "What to expect when you're expecting to table."

This educational comic from 1957 is credited with inspiring many to take on non violent protest as a means to achieving civil rights for all. Most famously, a young John Lewis read it and was inspired to march, a story told this week in March Part 2 by Lewis, Nate Powell and Alfred Aydin. The comic, published by the Fellowship for Reconciliation, was written by pacifist Alfred Hassler and drawn by an unnamed artist in the Al Capp studio; it's been translated other language and in 2011 used as a tool in Egyptian protests.

Dynamite has been making a lot of announcements, and there isn't even a con coming. Here's the round-up: • CEO Nick Barrucci is selling art from his personal collection by Tom Raney, Mark Bagley, Scott Hanna, and Patrick Zircher from books like The Outsiders, The Punisher, Uncanny X-Men, Ultimate Spider-Man, The Order, Robin, and more. A portion of the proceeds will go to benefit the CBLDF. Barrucci owns hundreds of pages of art, and fans can order by artist: orders will be filled randomly for $75 a page.

Last fall, we here at The Beat teamed up with the awesome folks at The Devastator to put together a survey for convention exhibitors. With all the controversy over who is spending and what cons are con games, it seemed like time to seriously upgrade this survey. And you responded, with more than 100 people taking the survey, giving results on the top cons and CAFs that revealed average sales and average amount of satisfaction with each show. In case you've never heard of them, The Devastator is a humor/comic magazine based in LA that features sharp satire and art by founders Geoffrey Golden and Amanda Meadows as well as people from The Onion, the Daily Show, Adult Swim, Marvel and more. The result, as crunched by the Devastator's staff, has some eye-opening statistics. You can read the entire report right here, and see some of the Devastator team's own comments below, but here are a few of my own eye-openers:

It's not a surprise, given that it was a fairly big ratings success, but FOX has renewed the Batman prequel series Gotham for another...

Earlier this week, WB Animation announced the voice cast for Batman vs. Robin, the 23rd feature in their DC Universe Animated Film line-up. Today,...

Archie Comics is going bleak with the Dark Circle Comics line. The new titles are following up on the recent successes for the comics...

Brought to you by Publishers Weekly, it's More To Come, the weekly podcast of comics news, interviews and discussion with Calvin Reid, Kate Fitzsimons...

In the post Amazology world. many digital comics apps and companies have sprung up trying to stake their claim in this growing world. Farrago Comics is an app for iPad and android that offers a range of free comics. As suggested by their motto "Comic Book Freedom!" the idea is to provide a manageable app for sampling and reading—which isn't a bad one given today's crazy quilt of digital platforms. Revenue is provided by ads, as it is with many apps. Up until now they were offering mostly Golden Age and indie comics, but they've just sign up with IDW to offer some fan fave #1 from the likes of Steve Niles, Ben Templesmith, Jonathan Maberry, Chris Roberson, Ashley Wood, etc.

Yawn. Batman and Saga led the comics and graphic nvoels charts for Decembers 2014, as they so often do, according to just released stats...

Project Superpowers: Blackcross #1 Writer: Warren Ellis Artist: Colton Worley Colorist: Morgan Hickman Project Superpowers had a few different titles published by Dynamite around 2008-10.  The line is...