While were pushing hard to get ready for the Charlotte MiniCon this month (register for your FREE pass here) we can’t forget about the big show coming up in June! We have a bunch of great guests to tell you about today! Get your HeroesCon 2013 tickets here, don’t miss the fun!

Please give a warm welcome back to Ming Doyle! Ming combines science fiction, super powers and sports in her new miniseries Mara (with Brian Wood) and we are happy she is returning to HeroesCon this year!

Tom Fleming is a talented painter who has worked on titles such as KULL, Elektra, Vampirella, Heavy Metal, Magic: The Gathering and many more!

Artist Tom Lyle is also returning to HeroesCon 2013.  Tom has illustrated numerous books like Spider-man, Robin,Punisher and Batman.  He’s also an instructor at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD)!

Mark McHaley began his career when he was just 19 years old and since then he has illustrated for countless companies. Recently has done a wide array of sketch cards including DC Universe: Legacy, Indiana Jones: Heritage, Star Wars Galaxy 5 and Lord of the Rings: Masterpieces II. Check out his website for more!

Joe Quinones is well, I’m just going to let the beautiful Captain Marvel cover below do the talking. Geez Joe!

Robbi Rodriguez has self published 2 volumes of his acid western comic Frankie Get Your Gun and is working on the 3rd now. His first comics work was 2004’s Hero Camp followed by Image titles which include Night Club, 24seven vol.2 and Hazed. He also illustrated Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen and the Harvey nominated series Maintenance, published by Oni Press. Look for his new monthly series Collider from Vertigo later this year!

Tony Shasteen was the illustrator behind the Burn Notice graphic novel for DC Comics and USA Network, the Talisman graphic novel, co-written by Stephen King and Peter Straub, and 12 Gauge/Image Comic’s The Occult Crimes Taskforce (the O.C.T.), co-created by David Atchison and Rosario Dawson.

Tim Townsend pleased our eyes with his immaculate inks on Chris Bachalo’s Wolverine and the X-Men art in 2012 and this year he’s on Marvels big re-launch of Uncanny X-Men with Bendis and Bachalo. He’s been inking Marvel Comics for 20 years, stop by and wish him a happy anniversary!

Maris Wicks wowed us a few years ago with her beautiful Yes, Let’s comic and has continued to show that she is comfortable with all aspects of comic storytelling. From doing covers for Bravest Warriors and Adventure Time to writing scripts for Spongebob Comics. Check out her blog for more great drawings of your favorite superheroes as you’ve never seen them before!
Kubert School grad Thom Zahler’s Love and Capes series is a fan favorite. He has won awards for both his graphic design and illustration work. He is also a recurring presence on Cleveland broadcast media, both television and radio. He recently made the jump to the national spotlight as a contestant on the syndicated version of “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?” where he won $32,000. He could have gone farther, but he didn’t know who the heck Charles Goren was.

Here is a great HeroesCon 2013 Guest List update to close out 2012 and a reminder that today is the last day to get your HeroesCon 3-day passes for $30.

Bob Almond has inked Stan Lee’s Guardian Project, Black Panther, Heroes For Hire, Warlock and too many other great comics to list here. He is also the founder and coordinator of the Inkwell Awards which recognizes excellence and acheivement in comic book inking.

We’re happy to welcome Peter Bagge back to HeroesCon this year! You love the iconic style that brought Hate’s Buddy Bradley to life and we’re sure you picked up Reset, his 4-issue mini series from Dark Horse Comics in 2012.

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Are you ready for some HeroesCon 2013 news? Let’s get to it! HeroesCon 2013 will be our biggest and best show yet. We’ve announced a few of our fantastic guests here.

3-Day Passes are on sale now. If you order before the end of 2012 you will save almost 50% off the regular price for daily admission at the door. So order today to make sure you get that sweet discount!

We’ve also made Artists Alley tables available, these are first-come-first-served and they usually go fast! Reserve your space today!

Sign up for the Heroes Hotline (our twice-a-week newsletter) and check our blog frequently for more announcements and details about HeroesCon 2013! Follow on Twitter and like us on Facebook and we will make sure you are in the loop!  Thanks!

If you attended HeroesCon last month you know it was both the 30th Anniversary of our show and Love and Rockets by Los Bros Hernandez. You also know that Jaime Hernandez was kind enough to provide art for our shirts and program covers to commemorate this special event! These shirts were so popular that  they sold out at the show but Jaime has granted us permission to go back to press on these for those that missed out and for anyone that was unable to attend the show but would like to have one! The shirts will be available for pre-order on our site for a limited time. We only printed the pink and gray shirts for the show but we are going to make teal shirts available for pre-order too. We’ll keep this up for about a month before we go to press so order your today! Place your order here!

Check out all the new items available in our online store! If you missed these things at HeroesCon 2012 now is your chance to get them!

Astonishing X-Men #51 :: HeroesCon 30th Anniversary Variant

Phil Noto was kind enough to create an image of Heroes owner Shelton Drum and his wife Linda for our very special Astonishing X-Men #51 variant cover. The image was professionally printed on label stock and placed on the blank area of the cover.

Available unsigned and signed by Shelton Drum and Linda d’Olivat

Adventure Time #5 HeroesCon Variant by Dave Cooper

Ultra-rare HeroesCon 2012 variant of Adventure Time #5!

This striking image of Finn and Jake went viral when it was posted online a few weeks before HeroesCon 2012. Now you can own it! Adventure Time #5 also features a guest story by Paul Pope!

Cover art by Dave Cooper

Only 500 on the planet!

New Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find Store T-shirt

Heroes logo 1 color (pale blue) screenprint on a dark grey heather, tri-blend t-shirt.

This shirt is so soft you won’t want to take it off!

Available in:

Unisex Fashion Fit: XS-XL

Standard Fit: 2XL-3XL

Spider-Men #1 :: HeroesCon 30th Anniversary Variant

SPIDER-MEN #1
Written by BRIAN MICHAEL BENDIS
Penciled by SARA PICHELLI
Variant Cover by MARK BAGLEY

It’s rare for us to go to conventions and not walk away with cool new items to bring back to the store.  HeroesCon was no exception, and here are a few of the awesome books we picked up in case you missed these in your own travels.

1) Pterodactyl Hunters

This oversized offering from Brendan Leach and Top Shelf is really something to see.  Beautiful art on newsprint and a story featuring – you guessed it – big flying dinosaurs.  This one’s rightly getting some high praise.  Give it a look for yourself and you’ll see why.

2) Scott C. Books!

Awesome cartoonist/super friendly guy Scott C. had some great books at his booth this year. We were fortunate to pick up copies of his picture books Zombie in Love and East Dragon, West Dragon, along with Double Fine Action Comics vol. 1 and Amazing Everything, his wonderful art book.

3) Encore by Eric Canete

You may have seen this on Kickstarter, you may have heard fans raving about it, and now we’re happy to make this book available to our customers.  At a staggering 350 pages, this may well be the art book to end all art books.  Not only do you get a huge amount of art from the insanely talented Eric Canete, but you get chapter intros from the likes of Becky Cloonan, Rick Remender, Mark Chiarello and Dave Johnson.

4) Becky Cloonan minis!

If you loved her recent work on Conan the Barbarian or remember her Demo collaboration with Brian Wood, you owe it to yourself to check out Becky’s excellent minis Wolves and The Mire.  She’s a unique artist, and these books only solidify that fact.

5) Notebook Drawings by Jim Rugg

Jim Rugg’s a fantastic cartoonist.  Just pick up Afrodisiac again if you need a reminder.  This new book features Jim’s art as he prdouced them in wide ruled notebooks.  In addition to that novel approach, Jim produced these pieces using only ballpoint ink pens.  Just wait ’til you see what kind of incredible pieces he was able to conjure with such simple, everyday instruments.

Other books galore:  We also picked up a bunch of books from talented folks like Jeffrey Brown, Lilli Carre, Maris Wicks, Joe Quinones, Grant Reynolds and more.  They’ll all be available in the store starting this week, so give them a try and support some fine Indie books and creators.

If you attended HeroesCon this past weekend you may have seen these folks around. They were small team of filmmakers going around gathering footage, interviews and insights about HeroesCon for their documentary about Shelton Drum and Heroes Convention. They’ve done a lot of work to make this film a reality and they need your help to finish it! They’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign with some great incentives and more to come. Check it out and please help spread the word! Thanks!

Thanks to everyone for making our 30th Anniversary HeroesCon so great! Here are some links to what others saw and did at the show. More memories and photos from HeroesCon 2012 to come! Please share your photos and links with us on our Facebook page! Thanks again and we’ll see you next year, June 7-9, 2013! If you miss your friends from HeroesCon please visit our store!

CREATOR RECAPS
Scott C.
Henry Eudy at Shannon Smith’s File Under Other
Cory Godbey
Josh Greathouse
Jason Latour
Brian Ralph
Christian Sager
Ben Towle & Part Two
Skottie Young

BLOGS & REPORTS & MORE
The Beat – HeroesCon proves Thirty is Fabulous
Bleeding Cool
CBR – When Words Collide
Charlotte Observer Interview with Karla Marsh
Chris Sims’ Jack Kirby themed sketchbook
CNN
Comics News Insider
Comics Reporter – Interview with Heroes Creative Director
The Comixverse
Good Girls Gone Geek
Life with Fandom
Patrick’s Tentative Ramblings
Staton, The Obvious

COMICBOOK.COM
Photo Parade
Fantasy Writing with Bill Wilingham, Scott Snyder and Adam Hughes
Coloring with Laura Martin
DC’s New 52
Wonder Woman

PHOTOS
Heather Peagler
Chris Pitzer/AdHouse
Patrick Sun

PODCASTS
Comic News Insider
Shut Up Nerds

VIDEO
Stack Exchange:
Joe Quinones & Maris Wicks
Kelly Sue DeConnick
Dean Trippe

Wow! HeroesCon 2012 is officially in the books. Aside from a few things in our warehouse that need to be shipped back to creators that attended the show, there are few signs left of the amazing weekend we just shared with everyone who attended our 30th Anniversary show. We’d like to say thank you to all of the guests of the show, all the talented folks promoting new projects in Artists Alley, every fan that attended, the well-stocked exhibitors, all the selfless volunteers, and our amazing staff for making last weekend’s show what it was. If you were here you know it was really something special. If you weren’t here we’ll see you in 2013, June 7-9, start planning! We were truly overwhelmed by the outpouring of love we witnessed at HeroesCon this year. The love for comics and art and for the people that make them was astounding. We’ll see you all next year, same deal as always, no movie companies, no video game companies, just comic books and the people that create and love them.

Phoenix by Mark Brooks