Whoa seriously? Yes it’s true. I’ll say more tomorrow, because I gots to go print up some flyers to give out in the store. But I just wanted to let those of you out in the INTERNET know!

For now, feel free to leave your questions in the comments below if you have them.

This just in! New to the HeroesCon 09 Guest List on this fine Friday afternoon are some fine, fine fellows. I say Witness:

GEORGE BRODERICK JR :: has worked all over the place, most recently for Bongo on books like Radioactive Man and the Simpsons Super Spectacular; as well as for Moonstone on Kolchak the Night Stalker!

VITO DELSANTE :: is a sweet dude and an up-and-comer; besides writing in the past for Superman and Scooby-Doo, this year will see the premiere of his new book from AdHouse Books, FCHS–first as a FREE Comic Book Day book, and later as graphic novel!

BOB MCLEOD :: is no stranger to X-Men fans OR HeroesCon. He’s most noted as the co-creator of the New Mutants, as well as creator of the Superhero ABC book, and editor of Rough Stuff Magazine.

THOMAS SCIOLI :: is the creator of the Xeric-winning The Myth of 8-Opus, as well as the artist of the popular Godland series!

Okay! I’m looking at my “to-do” list of guests to announce and they are seriously starting to back up, so expect weekly additions from pretty much here to June! And have a great weekend!

by Carlton Hargro

OK, you’ve got to give it up to Robert Kirkman.

He said he’d get his trio of Image-brand comics (The Astounding Wolf-Man, Invincible and The Walking Dead) out on time, and for the last few months it appears that he’s been delivering on that promise.

And I’ve got to say, now that his books are coming out more frequently, I find myself reading everything he writes — which has given me a newfound appreciation for his talents.

Kirkman is not a blockbuster-level writer yet (like, you know, guys like Mark Millar, Grant Morrison or even Brian Michael Bendis) but he churns out some entertaining stuff.

Invincible is a consistently engrossing superhero comic that’s fun without being silly or devoid of substance; The Walking Dead is a dark, violent, gory, unpredictable and addictive horror comic; and The Astounding Wolf-Man is an action-packed, scary and blood-soaked superhero/horror series.

If you only read comics from the Big-Two, then you may have read Kirkman’s runs on Ultimate X-Men or Marvel Zombies. But honestly, those works weren’t a great representation of his writing abilities. Flip through the pages of his creator-owned stuff (like, you know, those three comics I previously mentioned), and his love of comics and command of the art form is evident.

On top of that, his books feature the best letter columns in comics (yes, even better than the letters pages in Powers).

All that to say, buy some Kirkman books. You’ll dig ’em.

For more comic reviews from Carlton, visit www.charlotte.creativeloafing.com.

On Saturday we held our annual Charlotte Minicon, one of the oldest one-day shows in the country! The turnout was great, with over 450 through the door, and there were smiles all around! People turned out not only to meet our guests–including (deep breath) Greg Adams, Duane Ballenger, Chris Brunner, J. Chris Campbell, Ian Flynn, Georges Jeanty, Jason Latour, Buddy Prince, Budd Root, and Andy Smith–but to enter our door prize drawings. We drew 5 different prizes, each consisting of a copy of the white-hot Amazing Spider-Man #583, with the last one being the SUPER hot Obama variant! Even better, the Obama variant was donated by our bud Paul from Dominion Comics in Lynchburg, Virginia! I think Paul earned himself a “Minicon MVP” award there. Thanks Paul!

But if it were up to me, I’d give MVP Honorable Mention to our own Seth, who (once again) made us all look bad by being the first one in with Shelton at 7 in the morning, and the last one out when we loaded back out that night! Seth makes the rest of us employees look bad, but we’re working up a smear campaign to take some of the wind out of his sails, don’t you worry!

Also earning a prize of some kind (Booby Prize? No-Prize?) is Shelton and his lady-love Linda’s dog Bodie, a puppy that they miss no opportunity to show off, carry around, or just accept generally accept and agree with compliments over. Linda brought Bodie by in the afternoon, and suddenly all the pictures Shelton was taking, which were previously of the guests, dealers, or crowds, became all about Bodie, Bodie, Bodie. I admit though–he IS a cute dog.

These are just a few of the pictures Shelton took, but you can see the whole set over at our Flickr page. Check it out, and while you’re there, feast on the bajillion other pictures! If we don’t see you in the store, we’ll see you one month from now for the George Romero signing in our store! More details to come!

Shelton just walked into the office to say that he’d had a dream. “What was it?” I asked, expecting something wild, something bizarre.

“We’re going to give away door prizes tomorrow at the Minicon.”

“Door prizes.”

“Yes, door prizes. A copy of the first print of Spidey #583 every hour. And one of them will be the Obama variant cover.” I swear this is what happened. This is how Shelton talks ALL THE TIME. In his dreams, he is thinking about Spider-Man comic books. ALL THE TIME.

But his dream will come true! When you come to the Charlotte Minicon tomorrow, bring in the postcard we sent out this week, and you’ll be registered for one of the FIVE door prizes, which will be a copy of the incredibly hard to find, already going to a 3rd printing, Amazing Spider-Man #583 FIRST PRINT! AND, also per Shelton’s magnificent dream, ONE of those copies will be the EVEN HARDER to find Obama variant cover!

If you didn’t get a postcard, DON’T WORRY–just sign up for our mailing list at the Minicon and you’ll be registered too!

And of course, there’s plenty more besides the door prizes going on: there’ll be dealers from all over the Southeast, and a guest list including Georges Jeanty, Budd Root, Andy Smith, and more! See our original post or scroll to the post below this one on our blog to get all the details.

The Charlotte Minicon will go on from 11am to 5pm in the Palmer Building at Fireman’s Hall (2601 E. 7th. St., click here for Google map). From our store at 7th & Pecan, head east (AWAY from uptown) to the very next light, at 5th Street. Fireman’s Hall will be on the left, and there’ll be signs a-plenty that Shelton will put out early that morning. This is presuming that he doesn’t have another wild dream and oversleeps. See you there!

This Saturday is the 2009 Charlotte Minicon! Going on in the Palmer Building at Fireman’s Hall (2601 E. 7th. St., click here for Google map). See below for details! This is one of the oldest 1-day conventions in the country, and with all the buzz this week over the hard-to-find Amazing Spider-Man #583 with the Obama backup story, attendance is sure to be through the roof! There’ll be dealers from all over the Southeast, plus a bevy of awesome artists and writers:

Just added to the guest list of the 2009 Charlotte Minicon is Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 artist GEORGES JEANTY! Georges is an old friend of ours, and a regular guest at HeroesCon, so we’re extra proud of how high his star has risen lately. If you’ve never met Georges (pronounced almost exactly how it looks, like GEORGE-ess), he’s a super sweet guy, and is sure to be a popular guest at the show.

ALSO NEW to the list, and no less sweet, are good ole GREG ADAMS (Thunderbolts, Excalibur) and Charlotte local BUDDY PRINCE (Night). They join an existing guest list including:

CHRIS BRUNNER: Gotham Central, Loose Ends (forthcoming)

J. CHRIS CAMPBELL: Zig Zag, Project: Superior

IAN FLYNN: Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic X

JASON LATOUR: 24/7, The Expatriate, Loose Ends

BUDD ROOT: Cavewoman

ANDY SMITH: 52, Green Lantern

Add to that some of the biggest and best comics dealers from all over the Southeast, not to mention a huge number of fans, and you’ve got the Charlotte Minicon. Going on Saturday, January 17, from 11am to 5pm. Admission will be $2 per person, and the event will once again be held in the Palmer Building at Fireman’s Hall: from our store, just head east on 7th Street until you get to your first light at 5th St. Fireman’s Hall is on the left!

And before I forget, Ian Flynn informs us that he may have a ton of Sonic freebies available while supplies last, so be sure and bring your kids! If you have any questions, feel free to post in the Comments section below!

Just added to the HeroesCon 2009 Guest List are an old chum and a new chum. Adam Hughes is one of the most reconizable and sought-after artists in comics, and one of our very dearest and best friends. He and fellow new-to-2009-guest-list-artist Allison Sohn are part of the “spine” of the convention, which is hard to imagine without them, frankly.
Loston Wallace is no stranger to HeroesCon either. And this year sees the release of his new book Lorna Relic Wrangler from Image Comics!

David Petersen is the creator of the extra-super-popular comic Mouse Guard, now in its second series. David’s making his very first appearance at a HeroesCon, joining what promises to be our most massive Indie Island yet, which already includes luminaries like Jeff Smith, Ben Templesmith, and a bunch more, and to which we’ll be adding half a dozen MORE names to next week!

This year’s HeroesCon is already shaping up to be IMMENSE! Look for announcements over the coming weeks regarding more HUGE names, some brand new incentives, and more! And don’t miss the Charlotte Minicon this weekend!

Every Wednesday we run down the 5 most interesting comics or graphic novels coming out for the week.

5. FINAL CRISIS #6 (of 7)
Written by Grant Morrison; Art and covers by J.G. Jones and Carlos Pacheco and Jesus Merino
DC Comics
$3.99 | 40pgs

If you read the last issue of Grant Morrison’s Batman: RIP and thought “hey wait a minute, Batman didn’t really die” well, he might die here since this is now billed as the actual end to that story. Yeah I don’t get logic of these cross-pollinating event books either. But then again, superhero stories never really end anyway, do they? Who knows what’s really going to happen in this book which is definitely turning out to be a crazy bit of superhero ragnarok as Darkseid is reborn and reshapes the world into a nasty place. I don’t know for sure if Batman is going to die in this issue but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that something potentially earth-shattering could happen here.

4. HOUSE OF MYSTERY VOL 1
Written by Matthew Sturges and Bill Willingham; Art by Luca Rossi, Ross Campbell, Sean Murphy, Zachary Baldus, Steve Rolston and Jill Thompson; Cover by Sam Weber
DC Vertigo
$9.99 | 128pgs

I mentioned this book in this list before, back when the first issue was released, and it’s worth mentioning now that the first softcover collection is out because it’s been one of Vertigo’s highest acclaimed new books. Not surprising since it comes from the creative minds of Vertigo’s most acclaimed books – the Fables franchise. Bill Willingham and Matthew Struges write this anthology series that is structured around a supernatural bar in which the patrons pay their way by telling strange and otherworldly stories.

This first volume collects the first 5 issues of the series and like all first volume Vertigo books it’s priced at an affordable $9.99 so to make sampling a new book that much easier.

3. TALES OF OUTER SUBURBIA
By Shaun Tan
Arthur A. Levine
$19.99 | 96 pgs

Shaun Tan’s last book The Arrival was a critically acclaimed book that was part graphic novel, part collection of beautiful full page prints. His work takes the fantastic elements of children’s book and renders them realistically into our own world. Here he presents fifteen short stories in which a strange situation occurs in the down to earth reality of suburbia. Things like a wise water buffalo that lives in a vacant lot, a nut-size foreign exchange student named Eric and a sea creature that appears on a family’s front lawn.

2. DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN PREMIERE HC
Written by Frank Miller; art by David Mazzucchelli
Marvel
$24.99

There’s been a lot of Frank Miller reprints flooding the shelves lately, especially of his long and historic run on Daredevil, but this is the one that it’s all about. This is the one where then-regular Daredevil artist, David Mazzuchelli, transformed into the master storyteller he’s known as today. This is the one where Frank Miller went from being a successful writer/artist of ongoing montly comics to a creator (and collaborator) that told complete, self-contained and character-defining stories. And this is the one where Daredevil became a book that would be here on out about the main behind the mask, Matt Murdock.

Yeah, it gets a little crazy in that last chapter with that very ’80’s bad guy– the bare-chested, drug-addicted, Vietnam Vet named Nuke – but this is an amazing book that reads like a great film. So good that it took almost 20 years for the book to live up to it, when Brian Michael Bendis finally made it great again with his run a few years ago.

1. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #583
Written by Mark Waid; art by Barry Kitson
Marvel
$3.99

Is your Collector-sense tingling? If so you better hit the store early this morning because this one is going to go fast. The latest comic release to get a barrage of mainstream media coverage is also a comic that features our President-elect on the cover and if you tried to buy a newspaper on the day after he was elected you’ll have an idea of how fast this book is going to fly off the shelves. Not to mention the fact that the book has probably been underordered since no one expected the media flurry. Bring your own mylar bags!

Barack Obama actually only appears in a backup story of this issue. The main story deals with Peter Parker going on a date or something. But this is the first time Obama has appeared in the Marvel Universe which historically sticks close to the real world as far as presidents go, unlike DC which has people like Lex Luthor as president.

Plus, Obama is an admitted comic fanboy who used to collect Spidey comics so you know this has got to make him feel pretty cool (I mean if he has room to feel any cooler than he already does).

AND THEN WE HAVE THESE…

PIGEONS FROM HELL VOL 1
Collecting the creepy mini-series by Joe R. Lansale with great art from newcomer Nathan Fox

BPRD: BLACK GODDESS #1
A new mini-series of the best Hellboy series that doesn’t have Hellboy in it.

RASL VOL 1: DRIFT
A quickie collection of the first few issues of Jeff Smith’s new post-Bone series.

by Jen Van Meter and Cully Hamner
reviewed by Carlton Hargro.

I hate Black Lightning.

And, honestly, I hate him mostly because I’m black.

You see, African-American comic readers — especially guys my age — have been subjected to a legion of lame black characters over the decades, and Black Lightning is one of the lamest.

I mean, here’s a guy who wore a 1970s-inspired costume with big, flyaway collars until the 1990s — and a mask that was attached to a huge afro wig.

On top of that, the guy had lame powers and lame villains (like the fat gangster Tobias Whale). Moreover, he was another brother (one of many and plenty) fighting crime in “the hood” while guys like Green Lantern were flying to other planets.

Taking my hate for the character into consideration, you shouldn’t be surprised to hear that I wasn’t excited about picking up Black Lightning: Year One #1. I figured that any re-telling of the character’s first year in action would be some lame storyline involving BL fighting gangs in the ghetto. After reading the comic, however, I’m happy to say that I was only partially right about the series.

In BL:Y1, the hero does fight gang members, but the story — by writer Jen Van Meter — is far from lame. The issue does wonders for showing BL as a complex person, instead of one-note B-lister. Read an old issue of The Outsiders, and BL comes off very Tabula Rasa-ish. But Meter presents him as someone who gets angry, has hopes and sometimes gets things wrong.

On the art side of things, I have to admit that Cully Hamner really put his foot in these pages (that’s a compliment). His line work, as usual, is clean and confident. You’ve got to love an artist like Hamner, who gets the storytelling right, fills the background with great details and still serves up everything with his own stylized personal style. I wish all these wannabes artists who swipe from manga art could learn lessons from Hamner.

Oh and, still focusing on the art, the colors — by Laura Hamilton — are very much on point: rich, moody and cinematic.

After reading this, do I still hate BL the superhero? Yep. But, I’ll be sticking with this series.

Carlton Hargro is the editor-in-chief of Creative Loafing. For more reviews from Carlton Hargro, visit the Arts section at http://www.charlotte.creativeloafing.com/.

THIS JUST IN!

Just added to the guest list of the 2009 Charlotte Minicon is Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 artist GEORGES JEANTY! Georges is an old friend of ours, and a regular guest at HeroesCon, so we’re extra proud of how high his star has risen lately. If you’ve never met Georges (pronounced almost exactly how it looks, like GEORGE-ess), he’s a super sweet guy, and is sure to be a popular guest at the show.

ALSO NEW to the list, and no less sweet, are good ole GREG ADAMS (Thunderbolts, Excalibur) and Charlotte local BUDDY PRINCE (Night). They join an existing guest list including:

CHRIS BRUNNER: Gotham Central, Loose Ends (forthcoming)

J. CHRIS CAMPBELL: Zig Zag, Project: Superior

IAN FLYNN: Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic X

JASON LATOUR: 24/7, The Expatriate, Loose Ends

BUDD ROOT: Cavewoman

ANDY SMITH: 52, Green Lantern

Add to that some of the biggest and best comics dealers from all over the Southeast, not to mention a huge number of fans, and you’ve got the Charlotte Minicon. Going on Saturday, January 17, from 11am to 5pm. Admission will be $2 per person, and the event will once again be held in the Palmer Building at Fireman’s Hall: from our store, just head east on 7th Street until you get to your first light at 5th St. Fireman’s Hall is on the left!

And before I forget, Ian Flynn informs us that he may have a ton of Sonic freebies available while supplies last, so be sure and bring your kids! If you have any questions, feel free to post in the Comments section below!