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You say you’ve always wanted to meet Cassie? Saturday is your lucky day! Cassie Hart Kelly will be at the Heroes Pop Swap with her beautiful work on display for you to drool over. Purchase that art, take it home, hang it on your wall and then your friends will be the ones drooling! Take a look for yourself. Click the image to go to Cassie’s website. See you Saturday at the store, 10AM to 4PM.
Heroes Creative Director Laureate, Master of Minutiae and Ignatz Awards Host Dustin Harbin will be at the Heroes Pop Swap this weekend!! Not only will he be bringing his regular comic convention set up, (which includes a few new things like his Doug Wright Awards mini, and this SWEET dino print colored by Sam Bosma and Kali Ciesemier) we will also be the beneficiaries of Dustin’s other talent, his great taste! Dustin will be bringing some fabulous and no doubt rare items from his personal collection to sell at his table. See you this Saturday, October 29th, 10AM-at least 4PM at the store!
When we knew the 1st Heroes Pop Swap would be so close to Halloween it was a no-brainer to invite local artist Jared Moraitis! Jared runs Beast Wreck Shirts & Stuff and his art and Halloween go together like peanut butter and jelly. Come by the store this Saturday to meet Jared and many other talented local creators!
The Heroes Pop Swap :: Charlotte’s Pop Culture Swap Meet takes place outside our store on Saturday, October 29th from 10 AM until at least 4 PM. There will be local artists selling their arts and crafts as well as local collectors selling great items from their collections. Available items include original art, comic books, graphic novels, hardcovers, novels, magazines, t-shirts, records & compact discs, video games, Star Wars toys, Transformers, action figures, statues, wooden carvings, and lots of other collectibles! Trick-or-treating and costumes are encouraged! This is a fun Halloween event for the entire family and a great place to do some early Christmas shopping!
Local Artists in attendance include:
Free comics to kids in costume while supplies last!
Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find is seeking to raise $10,000 for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund by sponsoring its Fall Comics Grab Bag! Debuting this weekend at New York Comic-Con, the CBLDF Fall Comics Grab Bag includes 10 comics for a $20 donation, with rare and signed comics guaranteed in every bag!
We have contributed a vast array of rare comics from the Silver, Bronze, and Modern Age to support the Fund. Comics guaranteed to be included in the Fall Comics Grab Bag include Avengers #57 (1st Appearance of the Vision), X-Men #46, X-Men #48, Batman #185, Luke Cage #1, Nick Fury: Agent of Shield #3, Sub-Mariner #5, and dozens more. Signed comics were contributed directly from their artists, including Amanda Conner, Garth Ennis, Neil Gaiman, Jim Lee, Frank Miller, Jill Thompson, Gail Simone, and many more!
“We’re extremely grateful to Shelton and the HeroesCon team for supporting the CBLDF with this fundraiser,” says CBLDF Executive Director Charles Brownstein. “On top of being a great fundraiser, this grab bag is a little taste of what HeroesCon is like, with a fun diversity of great comics from across the decades, autographs from incredible creators, and a pile of great stories you want to take home and read. We’re glad to reward our donors with this cool new item.”
HeroesCon 2012 30th Anniversary show will be June 22 – 24. A coupon for $10 off a 3-day pass to the show is available in the CBLDF Fall Comics Grab Bag and can be redeemed at Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find’s NYCC booth, #1369.
Get your CBLDF Fall Comics Grab Bag and check out the huge range of donation incentives available from the CBLDF’s Booth #1158 at New York Comic-Con! See you there!
Sandman: Endless Nights
While I was preparing for our 6th Heroes Discussion Group which featured Sandman: Seasons of the Mist, I pondered whether Sandman was the most influential comic book of the last thirty years. Four years and twenty eight discussions later, I believe it to be true. Do you agree?
For Halloween, please plan to join us for our 35th Discussion group as we revisit Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series with the stand-alone anthology, Sandman: Endless Nights.
The afternoon will be rather exciting for a number of reasons, namely:
For those of you who have never read Sandman, I believe you are in for a treat.
Many love Gaiman’s comic work; but he has some very strong minded and vocal detractors.
Why not read the book, stop by the store on Saturday October 22nd at 1:00pm and add your two cents to the mix? We’d love to see you!
One thing is for certain; I promise you will not be bored.
And remember—just around the corner we have Love & Rockets followed by Planetary.
As usual, Heroes is offering a special 10% Discussion Group discount on Sandman: Endless Nights, but remember to mention it to the store clerk when you check out!
See you there!
Have we got a fun announcement for you! Buy! Sell! Trade! Saturday, October 29th 10AM-4PM
Heroes Pop Swap is an idea that I had on the way back from a recent road trip. Before Heroes Convention and the Charlotte Mini-Con and even the Heroes store, local comics fans would gather and trade comics and talk about our hobby. It was usually something like a sidewalk sale put together by a local bookstore and/or newsstand. I remember going to similar events in Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Raleigh and the famous Murray Brothers’ backyard and basement gatherings in Durham during the latter half of the 70’s. None of us “old-timers” were official dealers yet. None of us had stores. We just shared a common interest in collecting as well as buying and selling comic books and related stuff.
Click here to reserve your space today!
We thought we’d try to bring back that feeling from those events with the Heroes Pop Swap: Charlotte’s Pop Culture Swap Meet. For a nominal fee anyone can reserve space and sell items from their personal collection to other fans who are sure to give that item a good home. We are also encouraging local artists and artisans to come and sell their art, pop-culture related crafts and comics.
There will be no professional dealers. Professional will be defined by me personally. If you buy and sell comics regularly either at conventions or online you will be excluded from setting up, but I encourage you to come shop! I anticipate a lot cool items being offered.
We want to limit this event to local creators and comics and pop culture enthusiasts who have interesting items from their personal collections that they are willing to sell and self-produced comics and related products. People who are purchasing space are encouraged not only to bring comics but any items falling under the pop culture umbrella. That could be toys, games, music, movies and more.
Reservations are 1st come, 1st served. Click here for the application.
You can reserve 4 ft ($10)-6 ft ($15)-8 ft ($20) space.
We can provide a limited number of tables, if you have your own table you are encouraged to bring it. You will still be charged for the space.
We will provide chairs if needed while supply lasts and you are welcome to bring your own as well.
Set-up starts at 9am, please plan to stay set up until at least 4 PM but you are welcome to stay later if things are going well for you!
Since this event is so close to Halloween don’t be afraid to come in costume. Trick or treating will be part of our advertising for this event, please consider bringing a treat of some sort for the kids (candy, button, stickers, comics etc..).
We think this will be a fun event for everyone involved and if it is successful we’d like to make it something we do few times a year.
Thanks!I look forward to bringing back some of the “old school!”
Shelton Drum
John Carpenter’s classic remake gets a back story this year. Set in the ice of the Antarctic, scientists find ‘the Thing ‘ which soon becomes….them.
And we’ve got tickets to a pre-screening on Tuesday, October 11th! So be sure to get one while they last! Just drop into the store and mention this post.
Don’t forget to join us at Heroes this Saturday at 1 p.m. as the Heroes Discussion Group tackles Dan Clowes’ Ghost World. Our fearless leader Andy Mansell has lots of interesting points to bring up about the book that will inevitably lead to lively discussion. If you haven’t checked out our ever evolving Discussion Group and are a fan of Clowes’ work, this is a great chance to come see what an enlightening and enjoyable part of Heroes this has become. Hope to see you Saturday!
It’s the day after Small Press Expo 2011 and we’re back to work early to let you know about some of the great books we picked up for our Heroes customers.
We’ll start with Paying For It. Yes, the latest book from Chester Brown has already been in stock at Heroes for a few months, but we just had to get another one. What makes this one different though, is that Mr. Brown was nice enough to sign and sketch in the book for us. If you’d like this signed/sketched copy of Paying For It, it’s yours for cover price. There’s only one of these, so we’ll have it for the first person who comes to the store, mentions that they read it on our blog, and asks to purchase it. We should note, if you comment on the blog and ask us to hold it for you, or if you call us and ask us to hold it for you via phone, we won’t honor that as a request. We want you to come to the store and ask in person.
Though not officially released yet, we managed to snag a copy of Blue Collar/White Collar by Sterling Hundley. This new offering from Adhouse features a variety of works from Hundley, an artist you might not be familiar with, but should seek out. He primarily illustrates for magazines, but also exhibits in galleries, and covers a wide range of topics and themes in his explorations of diverse art styles. If you’re an art lover, do yourself a favor and check out this book. Hundley could end up having a James Jean type career that crosses over the worlds of fine art and comics.
We also picked up Stargazing Dog, an acclaimed manga from Takashi Murakami that will soon be released by NBM. This one was being well received by fans of manga and literary comics, and its story of a frustrated man and his loyal dog should appeal to a variety of readers.
Old-Timey Hockey Tales is a new book from respected indie creators Robert Ullman and Jeffrey Brown. Though the subject matter is hockey, the real draw of this book is the chance to see two very talented, and very stylistically different creators explore the history of the sport in their own unique ways. In addition to this one we also picked up two volumes of Ullman’s Traffic and Weather strips.
Since we’re on the subject of mini comics, I’ll go ahead and mention some of the others we picked up. Dan Zettwoch and Kevin Huizenga had a nice selection of minis, and we picked up three of their collaborative books, The Factoids of Life, Fact Parader, and Factual Healing, all three feature the two creators alternating stories. Both of these guys are really talented cartoonists, and it’s something to see their distinctive individual works take place in a collaborative setting.
Also new to our mini comics sections are new
arrivals Monster Isle, from Mermin creator Joey Weiser, March by Bill Burg, and 3 volumes of Messed Up Fairy Tales, featuring art from attendee Joe Foo, whose art caught our eyes.
The Venice Chronicles is described as “a travelogue in pencil, watercolor and varying shades of silliness.” Written and illustrated by Pixar director/head of story Enrico Casarosa, this one reminds me a little of Lewis Trondheim and Scott Morse, but stands on its own for the sheer quality of the author’s original voice.
We also ran into Alec Longstreth and his magnificent beard and Tugboat Press publisher Greg Means. We picked up Yes, Let’s, a comic written by Alec’s sister Galen Goodwin Longstreth and illustrated by Maris Wicks. This book’s fun use of rhyming couples nicely with Wicks’ fine line work. This is one of the best all ages offerings we picked up this year, so be sure to check it out.
Heaven All Day is a wordless comic from John Martz. He has a style that evokes Canadian cartooning great Seth, among other cartoonists, and this simple, well-paced story of a the comings and goings of a scientist/machinesmith and a robot stood out to both myself and Rico in our SPX wanderings.
Finally we have A Graphic Cosmogony. This is an anthology I picked up for myself at Fluke in Athens a while back, and was glad to pick up a copy for our store this weekend. This is a fine example of Adhouse’s Adistro program, where publisher Chris Pitzer has started to distribute comics from around the world that he wants readers to become more familiar with. This book comes from England’s Nobrow Press, and features 24 artists each taking 7 pages to tell a story of creation. There’s a lot of variety and quality within these pages, and chances are if you pick this one up you’ll be introduced to the work of a few cartoonists you’ll want to continue to enjoy.
We had a blast at SPX and are happy we were able to pick up some really interesting books for all of you to enjoy. Stop by the store and give them a look for yourselves!
SPX photos by Heather McKinney
