Whoa Nellie! Did you see that headline? DC Comics is returning this summer to HeroesCon! For the first time in some years, DC will be setting up in force at HeroesCon, with editors, panels, and probably lots of swag and glimpses at the upcoming shape of the DC Universe! We’re super-DUPER excited about this, and have been trying to make it happen for awhile now–the stars have aligned! Be sure you let DC know that you want them to stay at HeroesCon in coming years!

And on the DC tip, fan-favorite artist Ethan Van Sciver will be appearing at HeroesCon as well this summer–Ethan has become a popular guest at the show over the last few years, and will know doubt have long lines once more this year with his work on Flash Rebirth and the big DC event, Blackest Night!

Oh, and there’s still another big publisher announcement to make, but I think I’ll save that one for next week when I have a few more details locked down. Let’s just say that it’s going to be a banner year this year!

New to the HeroesCon 09 Guest List today are six more awesome names–as we move into the last month before the show, the announcements are going to turn from new guests to new pieces of schedule, hotel announcements, and more, so keep your digital eyeballs glued to this site and the Heroes Hotline for all the updates.

But for now, check out these sweet peeps:

CULLEN BUNN returns to HeroesCon this year along with fellow guest Brian Hurtt. The two have collaborated on two The Damned series so far, with a third “Daughter’s Danse” on the way. Look for Cullen in Immortal Weapons, coming up from Marvel!

MICHAEL KRONENBERG is a writer and designer who has written for a ton of books including The Batcave Companion, Spies, Vixens, and Masters of Kung Fu, and designed books like the recent EC Archives and more. He’s a regular contributor to TwoMorrows magazines including Rough Stuff and Back Issue.

BRIAN REBER is a colorist who’s worked for most of the big companies, most regularly for Marvel and DC on books like Captain Britain and MI-13, X-Men Legacy, Outsiders, and Runaways.

DURWIN TALON is an artist, editor, and professor. His comics work includes Beautiful Scars and Bonds, and he also edited the excellent Panel Discussion book focusing on a number of iconic comics creators and their approaches to their art.

GREG “DARK ONE” WILLIAMS is best known for his creation Animal Mystic. These days he’s behind Paleo Pirate, published by the new company Void Comics.

MATTHEW WILSON‘s color work has appeared in The End League, Gigantic, and Phonogram. Please help us welcome him to his very first HeroesCon!

Okay, more on the way! Stay tuned!

A quick post while working on a longer post for later this morning: we’re getting a lot of e-mails about the HeroesCon host hotel announcement. We are right on the cusp of making an official announcement, just crossing all the t’s and dotting all the i’s.

We will make that announcement first through a special edition of the Heroes Hotline, our weekly newsletter. If you’re not already receiving it, you can sign up here. If you’re already getting it, then you’re good to go.

Once we’ve announced it through the newsletter, about a day later we’ll announce it here on our blog. Note that I’m subtly hinting that you should totally be getting our newsletter. It’s the nazz. Okay back to the impending Guest List update! And the schedule is coming together–I’ll be posting the first parts of it tomorrow, including the much asked-about SCAD workshops!

Huzzah, huzzah! A new addition to the HeroesCon 09 Guest List to celebrate the week’s end–we’re what? about 5 weeks away now, so things are starting to get crazy around here. But we think we’ve got something extra special cooked up for you… in the meantime, feast your Internet eyes on these new guests:

PAUL AZACETA has had art in a bajillion different things lately, including BPRD 1946, Foolkiller, Potter’s Field, and Daredevil. This will be his very first appearance at HeroesCon!

JONATHAN HICKMAN returns to HeroesCon this year, having added a number of Marvel titles (Secret Warriors, Dark Reign: Fantastic Four) to his already fan-favorite list of credits (Pax Romana, Nightly News).

JAMES “DOODLE” LYLE is an old buddy of ours, and no stranger to HeroesCon. His donations to the annual Art Auction are often among the top bids of the night! Doodle has had work in Negative Burn, Doorman, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and many more.

Another chum is smilin’ RICO RENZI, one half of the Kickstand Kids (along with fellow guest Chris Brunner), and a totally studly color artist. You’ve almost certainly seen Rico on Perhapanauts or Killing Girl, and you should certainly check him out in the upcoming Loose Ends and Talisman.

ROBBI RODRIGUEZ also returns this summer. His sweet brush stylings are all over Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen, Maintenance, Hazed, and less recently on Hero Camp from Image.

And bringing up the alphabetical rear this week is legendary letterer JOHN WORKMAN, whose career in comics goes back over 40 years, and whose credits include Wolverine, Howling Commandoes, Heavy Liquid, Thor–pretty much everything. He’s often associated with his buddies in the Boulevard Studio. Welcome back!

Okay, more to come early next week, and soon we’ll be seeing the schedule come into focus! Have a great weekend!

Oh yes! New to the HeroesCon 09 Guest List today are Rantz Hoseley, the editor of the recent hit Comic Book Tattoo book from Image, AND Jason Levesque, the cover artist! While I believe Jason was at the show last year (although in stealth mode due to a last-minute appearance), this is he and Rantz’s FIRST “official” appearance at HeroesCon, and I hope you’ll welcome them with all the pomp and foofah that HeroesCon is known for.

Also new today is our man Andy Kuhn, who has worked all over the place during his career, most recently on the hit book Firebreather. He’s also been penciller on Marvel Team-Up and IDW’s The Easy Way. Welcome back, Andy!

Oh, and last thing–check out the image Roger Langridge did for our Art Auction! Fans of Doctor Who and The Muppets will go into paroxysms when they see this badboy–I’ve already had one request from a fan in the U.K. to be able to lodge a proxy bid at the auction!

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!

Today is Free Comic Book Day at Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find! We’ve got the tents set out, Seth’s put out his magical dollar stock–25 boxes of dollar books, all in order, tons of gems–and fans are already lining up in front of our door! Matt Brady, Newsarama’s Editor-In-Chief, is here and will be live-blogging all day long, and if you follow our Twitter stream, we’ll be tweeting all day as well! With thirteen special guests signing autographs (from 1-5pm) under four tents, something is bound to we worth talking about!

To review: this is what you get when you’re a customer of Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find on Free Comic Book Day:

TWENTY-SOMETHING DIFFERENT COMICS, which you can have absolutely free. No catch, you don’t have to do or buy anything, although we hope you will. Our buddy Rich Barrett posted a great list of suggestions of things to buy related to the Free Comic Book Day books right here.

THIRTEEN (or more) GUESTS, including Mark Brooks, Chris Brunner, Ian Flynn, Sanford Greene, Cully Hamner, Matt Herms, Adam Hughes, Jason Latour, Budd Root, Chris Schweizer, Andy Smith, Allison Sohn, and Brian Stelfreeze! Whew! They’ll be signing and doing sketches from 1-5pm! NOTE that previously announced Laura Martin, Doug Wagner, and Karl Story will be unable to make it this year, but all three will be at HeroesCon next (gulp!) month!

FOUR TENTS set up in front of our store and down its side, which will not only contain our many guests, and their many fans, but also:

MANY DIFFERENT ITEMS including a ton of dollar boxes, as always COMPLETELY IN ORDER and containing tons of hidden gems. AND a selection of half-off trade paperbacks, deep-discounted statues and other stock.

Okay, Happy Free Comic Book Day and we hope to see you here!

Yes! We’ve been trying for years to get him, and at long last we can announce that JASON LUTES will be attending his first HeroesCon this summer! I sound pretty excited, huh? If you don’t already know, Jason Lutes is the critically acclaimed graphic novels Berlin and Jar of Fools, and a professor at Vermont’s Center For Cartoon Studies. He’ll be appearing with CCS alums Joe Lambert and Chuck McBuck in Indie Island, so be sure and welcome him!

Speaking of cartoon colleges, today we’re also adding a coterie of students from Georgia’s Savannah College of Art and Design, who are appearing together as “The Temple of Cartoon Mojo.” Their name, not mine, I promise. I KID, I KID!

And, while I haven’t quite decided whether he would fit best in Indie Island or with the superhero guys, today we also added first-time guest SCOTT WEGENER, artist of Atomic Robo! I have a feeling Scott is going to get mobbed by original art collectors for sketches, so if I were you I would race to his table Adam-Hughes-style first thing that morning!

Okay! More to come–don’t forget that Free Comic Book Day is going on ALL DAY tomorrow, with our 13 magical guests signing and sketching from 1-5! More info right here, yo!

Tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day at Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find! If you’ve never been to a Free Comic Book Day, be warned: Shelton really kicks out the jams, and this year is going to be bigger than ever. Here are just some of the things we’ll have for you:

TWENTY-SOMETHING DIFFERENT COMICS, which you can have absolutely free. No catch, you don’t have to do or buy anything, although we hope you will. Our buddy Rich Barrett posted a great list of suggestions of things to buy related to the Free Comic Book Day books right here.

THIRTEEN (or more) GUESTS, including Mark Brooks, Chris Brunner, Ian Flynn, Sanford Greene, Cully Hamner, Matt Herms, Adam Hughes, Jason Latour, Budd Root, Chris Schweizer, Andy Smith, Allison Sohn, and Brian Stelfreeze! Whew! They’ll be signing and doing sketches from 1-5pm! NOTE that previously announced Laura Martin, Doug Wagner, and Karl Story will be unable to make it this year, but all three will be at HeroesCon next (gulp!) month!

FOUR TENTS set up in front of our store and down its side, which will not only contain our many guests, and their many fans, but also:

MANY DIFFERENT ITEMS including a ton of dollar boxes, as always COMPLETELY IN ORDER and containing tons of hidden gems. Plus other books, statues, and other stuff deeply discounted to make room for new stuff!

To review: there’ll be between 20-25 different comics we’ll be giving away while supplies last (we always order a TON, but some things sell out before others). We’ll open our doors at 10am, so come early and stay late. The signing/sketching/kibbutzing jamboree will start around 1pm, and go until 5. Although Brian Stelfreeze is always sketching like an extra hour after everyone else is done. Don’t miss out on this totally FREE event! Okay see you tomorrow!

With Free Comic Book Day just three days away, we continue our steady march towards HeroesCon 2009 today with another update to our Guest List!

Joining the list first of all today is STEVE EPTING, the incredibly popular artist behind books like Captain America, Avengers, El Cazador, and scores more–not to mention a prolific illustrator and digital painter. Steve is also a regular collaborator with fellow-guest Ed Brubaker–look for their upcoming series The Marvels Project this summer, redefining the early years of the House of Ideas!

Also new today is our old buddy SCOTT HAMPTON, who is as comfortable working in ink (Simon Dark, Batman: Gotham County Line) as he is in paint (The Life Eaters, Spookhouse). Scott’s an old buddy of ours and a great guy, so it’s always fun to have him back.

ALSO fun to have back this year will be ANDREW ROBINSON, the muscley writer-artist behind Dusty Star. Andrew’s also worked on Gen 13 and recently done a ton of high-profile covers for DC, including their “Faces of Evil” event, Superman, and Detective Comics!

Attending his very first HeroesCon this year is writer KEITH R.A. DECANDIDO, who’s currently writing Farscape for BOOM! Studios, as well as recent Star Trek: Alien Spotlight, and tons of novels set in the worlds of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, and more.

And returning this year from NC-based Tsunami Studios are GARRY MCKEE and JASON WALKER. Both have worked on numerous RPG and CCG games, including Warhammer 40K CCG and Legend of the Five Rings (Garry) and City State of the Invincible Overlord and Scarred Lands (Walker).

Okay, more to come–and don’t forget Free Comic Book Day on Saturday!