REQUIRED READING for anyone who is planning to purchase space in Artists Alley for this year’s Heroes Convention: we are about to sell totally out, an unprecedented 4 months before the convention itself. There are a teeny tiny few tables left, near the back corners and side walls of the convention center, but at the rate they’re selling, these will likely be gone by the weekend. So consider this an eleventh-hour warning of the sellout, just to give you a last-minute chance to get in on the biggest convention we’ve ever put together.

There is a contingency overflow plan being discussed, but nothing I can announce yet, and nothing you should depend upon actually coalescing. Smart money says buy now–no table space is reserved without FULL payment!

You can find all the pricing and forms at our Small Press page. The easiest way to get confirmed is to call us with a charge card at 704.375.7462; otherwise you can download the form and mail it in with a check.

We’ve been busy in the store for the couple of weeks with a big reorganization project, which I think Todd is going to say more about elsewhere–BUT the announcements have been backing up, so forgive me if I jam a bunch of blog posts into one many-headed mammoth monster post.

So, Heroes Convention continues to swell its already giant guest list, with a big addition of 7 names today. I’ll divide them into two groups; first the mainstream guests, and then the indie guys. On the mainstream side:

WILL ALLRED is the writer of the upcoming Diary of Night from Bloodfire Studios, with artist and fellow guest Gene Gonzales. This is his first HeroesCon, although he assures me he’s enjoyed the convention before as a fan.

RYAN BODENHEIM is the artist on the upcoming A Red Mass For Mars from Image, with writer and fellow guest Jonathan Hickman. You may have seen Ryan’s work elsewhere in Wolverine and Black Panther. This is also his first HeroesCon.

MICHAEL EURY, on the other hand, is no stranger to HeroesCon. As the editor of Back Issue Magazine, he’s a regular guest, buddy of ours, and North Carolina resident. Trifecta!

On the Indie Island side of things, today saw the addition of DEREK M. BALLARD, the super popular illustrator and designer behind a multitude of t-shirts for companies including Threadless and Royal Stock, sexy comics in magazines like Screw and Giant Robot, and his very own comic, BURN!

MIKE BERTINO is the L.A. based cartoonist behind the recent Pinwheel book, as well as a prolific painter and designer.

MIKE HUDDLESTON has been on the scene forever, but has somehow never been to HeroesCon before. Consider your Mike Huddleston drought ended: the artist behind The Coffin, Deep Sleeper, and Mnemovore will make his first Charlotte appearance this summer.

And lastly, new to the Indie Island list is TENDER LOVING EMPIRE, the Portland, Oregon based screenprinter, music maker, and comics publisher! Whew! That’s a lot of peeps! I’d say more, but I have to make another few posts right after this one, AND get that dad-blamed Heroes Hotline all done! See you in just a second!

Hooray! I am very excited to announce the first 2 of a series of 6 Indie Island promotional t-shirts, which we will be printing soon and selling in our store! This is something we’ve been planning and working on behind the scenes for months now, and it’s really awesome to see it nearing fruition.

The first two shirts feature art by Alec Longstreth and Jim Mahfood, two of the indie scene’s leading lights. The shirts will be printed on American Apparel t-shirts, for that hip fit that’s so “in” these days, and are part of a limited run. Each shirt will be $20 apiece from us; you can add $5 to have your shirt mailed to you within the continental US. Feel free to e-mail me directly at dharbin[at]heroesonline[dot]com to reserve your place in line–once they’re printed, they’ll be sure to sell out in a trice! Sizes will be limited to Medium, Large, and Girls Medium.

We’ll be announcing the next 2 of the series in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned!

Very exciting! Just up on our Event Schedule page, the first of numerous planned additions to our HeroesCon 08 schedule! This may be very exciting to you, but it’s got me ready to pee my pants with excitement–this is a really great side-effect of being so far ahead of the game this year (the schedule, not the peeing). Being able to list and talk about our schedule all year means a higher quality of panel and I hope much higher attendance for each panel, which is just more fun for everybody.

But enough about how excited I am–two big announcements today, first that once again this year we’re partnering with the Savannah College of Art and Design‘s Sequential Art department for a series of workshops free to HeroesCon attendees! There will be two each day, approximately two hours each, each focusing on a different facet of sequential art. These workshops were a big hit last year, and it looks like this year will be even bigger! More information to be announced on specific workshops.

Also new today is the addition of “Drawing Green Lantern Then & Now: A Back Issue Live Pro2Pro Interview“; as it says, this is a three-way interview between past and present Green Lantern artists including Alex Saviuk, Joe Staton, and Ethan Van Sciver, moderated by Back Issue editor Michael Eury. Even cooler is that this interview will run in the magazine in their November issue!

Stay tuned for more updates on the schedule–we’re putting together some pretty exciting panels this week, which we’ll be announcing as soon as we have all the details squared away!

That’s right, America! Harold Sipe and Hector Casanova, the creators of forthcoming Image book Screamland, will be appearing at this year’s Heroes Convention! The book is, from what I can tell, the story of some of the old Hollywood monsters and their declining fortunes in today’s world. AND it’s funny!

I’m pretty sure this is Harold’s first comics work, although he’s been instrumental developing comics for mobile phones with the Uclick/GoComics group of sites, AND is part of the enormous group of Kansas City comics creators, which includes fellow guests Matt Fraction and Tony Moore. Artist Hector Casanova has worked previously on The Lurkers with (another fellow guest–who isn’t coming?) Steve Niles. I’m personally excited to welcome these guys, as Harold is an old friend and used to shop in the store once in a while–while he’s been coming to the convention for years, this will be his first “official” appearance, which is really cool. Don’ forget to check out Screamland when it comes out next month (I think)!

Man, I know. It’s hard to keep up. This is a big one though: just added to our HeroesCon 2008 Guest List are 100 Bullets cover artist (and recent Charlotte MiniCon guest) Dave Johnson; Electric Tiki Design head Tracy Mark Lee, and super-illustrator Alberto Ruiz!

Dave must have enjoyed the Charlotte MiniCon, because I think Shelton and he agreed he had to come back this summer that very night! And I’m sure that those of you who got to meet him during our wintry MiniCon will be back in force in June, to get more of those sweet sketches of his! Joining Dave is Tracy Mark Lee, the man behind the Electric Tiki line of statues, including Underdog, Frankenstein, and this reporter’s favorites, the line of Harvey Comics characters, nearly all of which I own. Tracy has a new art book coming out, entitled Tiki, T-Dog, & Whatnot, which is published coincidentally by Alberto Ruiz! Alberto has been to the convention every year for the last several, and we’re super-excited to welcome this stud of illustration back to Charlotte. I still keep old copies of Draw! Magazine with his Adobe Illustrator columns in them, but he’s probably better known to you as the publisher of Brand Studio and originator of his very unique girly style.

Oh! This just in: returning guests Renae De Liz and Ray Dillon, who will be working together on the forthcoming Rogue Angel from IDW this year, have just confirmed for HeroesCon 2008! Talk about not being able to keep up! Next week we’ll announce some big Schedule additions, plus EVEN MORE guests! Have a great weekend!

Man, is this ever exciting for me! I’ve been too busy to get to this the last few days, but just added to the Indie Island Guest List are two cartoonists who I’m still fairly new to, but CRAZY about already. Kevin Huizenga is the one of the most talked-about “indie” creators in comics, slowly building up an ouevre of incredibly acclaimed comics. Curses, which reprints stories from Drawn & Quarterly Showcase, Sparkplug’s Orchid, Kramer’s Ergot, and his own Or Else, is one of the smartest comic books I’ve ever read, period. Don’t take my word for it, either–it was near the top of practically every critics’ list, and was featured as one of Time’s top 10 comics of the year in 2006. I was a little late in reading it, I guess. He’s also the author of the Fantagraphics series Ganges, part of the “Ignatz” line: #2 comes out in March. I’d say more, but I’ll be writing a more fleshed-out review later, so I’ll save all the breathless stuff for there. Let’s just say he’ll make a great addition to an already amazing Indie Island!

I’ve read less of Dan Zettwoch‘s comics, but the two strips of his I’ve enjoyed most were his “Spirit Duplicator” (see below) in the most recent Comic Art, and the “Cross Fader” strip in the last Kramer’s Ergot. Dan is one of those guys who make it look easy; although the more you look at this strips the more you realize how well-made they are. I look forward to more book length stuff from him, although I suspect his illustration work keeps him pretty busy. Dan also runs the USS Catastrophe minicomics website, although I believe it is closing/has closed its doors. But with any luck, he and Kevin will bring whatever they have left to the show!

As predicted, the season is beginning where the HeroesCon 08 Guest List is going to swell to a size never reached before IN ALL OF RECORDED HISTORY! Ahem. I only say this because in making this GIANT update (8 people), in addition to the 4 on Tuesday, I decided to go back and count how many people we’ve added since the beginning of the month. THIRTY-THREE! That’s an average of 1 1/3 persons every day! At this rate we’re going to have hundreds of thirds of persons hanging around the Charlotte Convention Center by June! So not to minimize any of these fine stalwarts, but there’s not the space to give them all the bio they deserve. Although I will point out that we’ve got, within this update, a big Marvel writer, 2 up-and-coming Dark Horse cartoonists, 4 illustrators known for their work with kids’ properties, and a tough colorist! With no further ado, and in alphabetical order:

JACOB CHABOT is the author of The Mighty Skullboy Army for Dark Horse Comics!

CHRISTOS GAGE is the writer behind Avengers: The Initiative, House of M: Avengers, World War Hulk: X-Men, and a bunch of others, besides his work for TV, film, etc.!

CHRIS GIARRUSSO is the cartoonist behind the Mini Marvels strips in Marvel Comics, plus the Comic Bits strip in Image Comics!

STEPHANIE GLADDEN has done about all the kids’ licensed titles you can imagine, including Powerpuff Girls, Looney Tunes, and The Simpsons!

CHRIS GRINE is the cartoonist behind Dark Horse’s Chickenhare books!

CHARLIE KIRCHOFF is the current colorist on Doctor Who and Doctor Who Classics, and the upcoming Aliens Vs. Predator: Civilized Beasts!

GREG SCHIGIEL has worked on the Spongebob Squarepants strip and others within the pages of Nickelodeon Magazine!

BRIAN SMITH is the former Character Art Manager at Nickelodeon, and the current illustrator of Penguin’s The Adventures of Loudboy, plus the Alfred strip in MAD KIDS!

Phew! That makes 33, not counting the 4 or 5 already waiting to be announced next week–I’ll give you a hint: if you love MICE or the occasional string of filthy-mouthed CURSES, you’re bound to be happy next week. How I kid! You can find links to all of these creators’ websites and more on our Guest List page!

Yes ma’am! Just added to the Indie Island Guest List, in alphabetical order, are:

JOSH COTTER! This curly-headed dreamboat likes to booze up and fight! His just-completed–and endlessly reviewed–series Skyscrapers of the Midwest should be out in a fancy-dan hardcover format in time for HeroesCon! Strong points include a low center of gravity; weak points include poor eyesight and bad knees.

DAVID MALKI! This maven of the ephemeral and digital world of web cartoons is the author of the Wondermark strip, which combines things like giant tricycles and corseted women with jokes about hot flashes and iPhones!

BRIAN RALPH! Honored eccentric uncle of the DIY scene, hilarious interviewee, and author of Daybreak and Cave-In; Brian also did this strip as guest blogger on the First Second site, which makes me giggle just linking to it.

AARON RENIER! Author of Spiral Bound from Top Shelf and the forthcoming The Unsinkable Walker Bean; also in my opinion comics’ best chance for another Jeff Smith-level talent. Mark my words–this guy is going to be huge one day!

Okay! Also another big confirmation on the way, plus look for a GIANT awesome announcement coming next week. I don’t want to say too much, but I will say: wouldn’t it be cool if there were an Indie Island t-shirt? Or two? Plus more regular Guest List updates this week! Holy moley!

Whoa! We talk a lot about how great this year’s Heroes Convention is going to be–and it is, believe me–and if you need proof, has anyone noticed that we’ve been posting on average two to three times a week with guest list updates? Maybe this isn’t very remarkable for the convention you work for, but this will be my THIRTEENTH HeroesCon as a member of the staff, and it’s pretty remarkable to me. And I say that looking at my calendar for next week, knowing that I still haven’t announced FOUR MORE people, which number will certainly grow over the weekend.

But enough about me: today I’m pleased to announce the addition of Jonathan Hickman, Tom Scioli, and Val Staples to the guest-list. Jonathan is the creator of The Nightly News and Pax Romana from Image, as well as the forthcoming Transhuman. Tom is the artist of the hit book Godland (with writer Joe Casey), as well as his own Myth of Opus-8. And Val Staples is, among many other things, the colorist of books including X-Men: First Class and Black Panther. I believe that all three are making their first official appearances at HeroesCon, although I believe Jonathan has been before unofficially. That guy! More big updates next week! Stay tuned!