For nearly 35 years Chicago has had only one major annual comics convention—Chicago Comic Con, also known as Wizard World since it was taken over by New York-based Wizard Entertainment in 1997. That’s about to change.
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While Reed is a newcomer to comic book conventions, having staged its first in New York four years ago, it’s also “the world’s leading organiser of trade and consumer events,” with 2,500 employees in 35 offices around the globe, according to its Web site. Reed has been running the American Booksellers Association’s BookExpo America since 1992, and has put together a comics-centric lineup for Chicago that features 175 panels and screenings, 200 exhibitors, and a roster of 250 artists, including big industry talents such as locally based stars Alex Ross and Chris Ware.
Then there was the C2E2 party hosted by the Chicago Comics store in Lakeview on the Saturday of Comic Con weekend. The Chicago Comics folks promoted it with flyers they handed out at Rosemont, even though they weren’t exhibiting there. Featuring a devil tending a barbecue, the flyers advised conventioneers to “Get the ‘F’ Out of Rosemont.” Chicago Comics owner Eric Kirsammer maintains that was merely his way of inviting out of towners to escape the tarmac-and-tollway suburb and see the real Chicago, but C2E2 producers bearing gifts and prizes were prominent among Chicago Comics’s guests.
Mark Beatty, owner of Dark Tower Comics and Collectibles in Lincoln Square, hung in with Wizard last year, but says he thought the show “really took a dive.” Besides the missing major publishers, it looked to him like they “scrimped on details . . . and the focus seemed to be too much on the old TV shows and not enough on the comics.” But the final straw had to do with money. Beatty, who bought the equivalent of four booths, says he was charged full price only to learn from other exhibitors that they’d been charged less.
Charet, who closed his store in 2002 but still deals on eBay, will be at C2E2 to take part in a panel called “Chicago Vintage Comic Fandom” on Saturday at 12:15 PM in room E352. Charet says the panel will include a tribute to Sarno.