I posted several of the pictures I took during the Heroes Discussion Group on Fantastic Four by Hickman vol 1 TP on the Heroes Flickr site. Click here to check them out! We all had a great time discussing Fantastic Four, SHIELD and Nightly News with Jonathan Hickman. If you missed the discussion then you can listen to it here via the Dollar Bin!

Stay tuned to the blog for pictures from the Steve Epting and Jonathan Hickman signing!

Check out our Flickr page for photo reports from Baltimore Comic-Con and SPX!

Click here for the Flickr set for Baltimore Comic-Con. I got a couple of good shots of Shelton working at the booth. I really wish I would have taken more pictures. And I wish the ones I did take were a little better. But I had fun and that’s all that matters, right?

And click here for the SPX photo report. I took a bazillion pictures but limited the set to around 30 of the best pictures I took. I had a blast roaming the floor, buying mini-comics and hanging out with some friends. If you haven’t ever been to SPX I would highly recommend masking the trek up to Bethesda, MD!

In which Shawn looks at the New Releases and lets you know which books she is most excited about: HeroesCon style!

1) Mystery Society #1

I read this during my lunch break and I must say that I thought it was great. Mystery Society is about an organization that was founded by a rich, young couple who want to unearth secrets. It was written by Steve Niles with art by Fiona Staples. Niles will be at HeroesCon! The story is fun and engaging and I dig the washed-out tones of the art. Check out the awesome HeroesCon variant! Stay tuned to the blog for more exciting news about Steve Niles and Mystery Society variants!

2) Dazzler #1

This issue features not one but two stories about the roller-skating disco mutant. Both stories are written by Jim McCann who will be at HeroesCon. I like how they put her in her original costume complete with disco ball.

3) Fall of the Hulks Savage She-Hulks #3

This book has two people on it who are coming to HeroesCon: Jeff Parker and Jonboy Meyers. This issue is jam packed with action. And Hulks. Lots of Hulks.

4) Incorruptible #6

I think Mark Waid has written for every comics company ever. He will be at HeroesCon at the Boom! Studios booth. I am a big fan of Waid’s work. And he is a super sweet guy. You should definitely stop buy and say “hi” to him!

5) Secret Warriors #16

Jim Cheung and Mark Morales who worked on the cover will be at HeroesCon (Justin Ponsor also worked on the cover but he won’t be at the convention). Also writer Jonathan Hickman will be there! Hickman also wrote Fantastic Four #579 which came out this week.

Courtesy of our buddy Matt Knapik, check out these sweet photos from Saturday’s Charlotte Minicon! I happen to have been one of the guests (super exciting!) so I can tell you from both sides of the table that it was a lot of fun!

One really cool thing was what I saw as an increased number of families attending together, both dads and daughters, and even Moms, the rarest demographic at a comics show. I love it, super fun. The highlight of the show for me was having one kid and his dad hang out in front of my table for a while, having me sketch all sorts of weird stuff (a Jedi, a stump being chased by a warrior, etc.). I had a good time talking to those guys, it made me wistful for my days as a Pokemon Leader or Jedi Master or whatever you call someone who runs a Pokemon League.

Also cool was sitting next to Rich Barrett, who is worth checking out if you guys haven’t already. He’s one of our customers who has recently taken the plunge into webcomics, and even more recently beginning to publish those comics as mini’s–I do believe you can find copies of his Nathan Sorry minis in the store! Rich was too cagey to get photographed though, he’s like Bigfoot that way.

Plus of course the tons of other talent in the room. Francesco Francavilla was in the hizzy with his lovely wife Lisavilla Francavilla (actually just Lisa), plus our bros Budd Root and Andy Smith, plus our other bros Chris Brunner and Jason Latour, plus our South Carolina bros J. Chris Campbell and Duane Ballenger. Plus our other SC bros from the Dollar Bin who were in full effect all day. Plus a ton of you guys! Thanks to everyone who came out and made the Charlotte Minicon a success! Don’t forget to check out the full photo report here!

Thanks to “Snappy” Matt Knapik for acting as photojournalist last Saturday at our big Holiday Sale and Store Signing. Though it was cold COLD, a bunch of people came out hunting some sweet deals and to meet our visiting stars, which included Nathan Edmondson, Chrissie Zullo, Andy Smith and Budd Root. Shelton provided cookies and coffee to take the tinge off the cold and replace it with some holiday cheer, and as usual our patented mix of friendly pros, friendly customers, and friendly staff made for some friendly times. Actually the patent is still pending, but things look good.

You can see the whole set of photos over on our Flickr page! Thanks again to Matt and to everyone who came out to make our Holiday Sale a success!

Okay I’ve spent most of the day answering a TON of e-mail and checking out the TON of Twitter posts and retweets and so forth regarding the show. I have to say that, while we’re all ridiculously tired, and I can barely stand up from 4 days of walking back and forth over 100,000 square feet of concrete floor, we’re incredibly encouraged and enervated at the very VERY warm and congratulatory messages we’re getting. By all accounts so far HeroesCon 09 was a huge success, which makes all the hard work over the last few months worth it!

I’ll be posting a short series of photo collections and reports over the next few days, but in the meantime I wanted to say thanks to everyone who came this year, from fans to dealers to pros! HeroesCon runs 100% on the support of our community of family and friends, and believe me we appreciate it.

UNRELATED–there was a problem last week with our server which has prevented us from being able to upload this Wednesday’s New Releases–we’re working on it and hopefully will get them up tomorrow. Sorry for any inconvenience!

I’ll leave you today with this photo in our store of employee Matt Knapik and X-Men writer Chris Claremont. Note that Matt is holding a copy of X-Men #4, the first issue after Claremont left the book back in the 90’s. It’s a nerd joke, but everyone around in the store was cracking up at this. Matt went on to explain the current X-Men continuity to Chris, which was twice as hilarious. If you’ve met Matt, you know how entertaining his explaining of anything can be, so watching him explain the X-Men to probably the best-known X-writer ever was pretty hysterical to the rest of us.

Now up over on our Flickr photostream–an exhaustive photo report on last Saturday’s Free Comic Book Day! Without a doubt this was our most successful FCBD event ever–the number of people in our store was MASSIVE all day long, really stunning, and with the roster of talent we had signing and doing free sketches, there were just as many people OUTSIDE under one of the four tents Shelton set up for the event.

If you weren’t able to make it, or just want to see a really nice comics shop with a hundred people inside, I invite you to mosey over and check out the Flickr set we’ve created to venerate it! Tons of pictures of fans, guests, and a bunch of the sketches.

And thanks to everyone who made this year’s Free Comic Book Day such a massive success! Not just the many MANY fans who showed up (although thanks!, or the 14 different guests who generously gave their time and drawing power to us for the day (thanks to them also, of course!), but to our bedraggled Heroes staff, who did a really amazing job getting the store ready and then being friendly and helpful all day long!

This past Monday we held another installment of our ever-growing Heroes Discussion Group, led as always by our main man Andy Mansell (perhaps making him our Main Mansell?). This was one of our biggest Discussion Groups ever, second only to the Watchmen discussion we held a few months ago. While we of course like to think it was of us, more likely it was due to the fact that we were joined via telephone by Iron Man writer Matt Fraction.

As we miss no opportunity to mention, Matt worked here years and years ago, before he achieved fame and fortune first as an animator and filmmaker, and more recently as a big-time comics writer. So it was extra-awesome to have Matt join our discussion of The Invincible Iron Man Volume One: The Five Nightmares. Andy (and us, here and there) quizzed Matt about his process, how he became a writer, and some of the ideas that went into the relaunch of Iron Man. Unsurprising to everyone there, it was awesome!

Facilitating said awesomeness, and recording it for future broadcast, were our friends from The Dollar Bin podcast, Adam Daughhetee and Brian Eison. Adam brought a tower of sound equipment, and patched our phone line right into it–Matt’s voice was pumping out of the speakers, and we were all miked so Matt could hear us. I’ll post a link here when the DB guys have the podcast available on their site, but I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if you went and poked around on their site right now–it has a ton of reviews, interviews, and of course their regular show. Not to mention a TON of recorded panels from last year’s HeroesCon!

Okay–I took a bunch of photos, which you can check out either on our Flickr photostream, or roughly the last third of this Heroes Discussion Group photo set. Check it out!

Holy Mackerel! When we agreed to have a special in-store signing with film director George Romero, we thought it would be a good way to promote the store to people who may be unfamiliar with us.

But JEEZ LOUISE, what a turnout! If you’ve ever been to one of our massive Free Comic Book Day shindigs, it was kind of like that, EXCEPT that all of those people were there to meet just one dude! Whoa Nellie!

The signing was part of the "American Zombie" film retrospective organized by The Light Factory, and in some ways sort of the lead-off event. Many thanks to Wendy, Juliette, Dee and the whole staff for putting on a great event and being able to adjust to some pretty wild challenges on the ground!

Read on for all the gory (get it? gory? zombies?) details at the Flickr set we’ve posted, containing over 60 photos!.

UPDATE! My man Russell Smith just sent me this short YouTube video in our store. Although he’s referring to a different “Dustin” in the video–MY directing idol is Russell himself. Check it:

Well, I said it briefly yesterday, but now I have said it in a much more longwinded fashion: Claudio Sanchez is a super-nice guy, the signing we hosted yesterday went almost impossibly smoothly, and everyone had a great time.I mean, check out all these peeps:

Okay, there are 40-something photos, most with wearisome descriptions and anecdotes, all yours for the viewing over at our Flickr site (I just noticed we’ve crossed 1200 photos!!). I sincerely hope you enjoyed them. I’m home sick today, and it was extra hard to think of anything to say when I was so busy pitying myself. The things I do for you!

Oh, but before I forget, for those of you who couldn’t come but want a piece of the action:

Before he left to go play last night’s Coheed & Cambria show at the newly named Bojangles Arena, Claudio kindly signed the rest of the “bloody” Kill Audio vinyl figures we’d gotten in for the event. If you’d like one of these tour exclusive fellas, drop Shelton an e-mail or call us at 704.375.7462 with your charge info to order one. We’ll probably charge you $5 or $6 or so, depending on where you live–and of course you can just pick one up in the store anytime, until they’re all gone. Okay–go drink in the photo report!!