Wizard Entertainment Inc., formerly known as Wizard World, was a producer of multi-genre fan conventions across North America.
The Alternative Press Expo (APE) was a comic book festival and alternative comics convention that operated from 1994 to 2017. Founded by Slave Labor Graphics publisher Dan Vado, APE focused on self-published, independent, and alternative cartoonists and comic publishers.
Alternative Comics was an American independent graphic novel and comic book publisher most recently based in Cupertino, California. In addition to publishing creator-owned titles, Alternative Comics was also a noted publisher of anthologies such as 9-11: Emergency Relief, Hi-Horse, Hickee, Rosetta, and True Porn.
Hope Raue Larson is an American illustrator and cartoonist. Her main field is comic books.
The International Comic Arts Forum (ICAF) is an academic conference and international comics convention. The mostly annual event has been described as one of the earliest academic initiatives in comics studies.
Newsarama is an American website that publishes news, interviews, and essays about the American comic book industry. It is owned by Future US. In June 2020, Newsarama was merged with the website GamesRadar+, also owned by Future US.
The New York Comic Con is an annual New York City fan convention dedicated to Western comics, graphic novels, anime, manga, video games, cosplay, toys, movies, and television. It was first held in 2006. With an attendance of 200,000 in 2022, it is North America's most attended fan convention. The New York Comic Con is a for-profit event produced and managed by ReedPop, a division of RX and Reed Elsevier, and is not affiliated with the long running non-profit San Diego Comic-Con, nor the Big Apple Convention, later known as the Big Apple Comic-Con, owned by Wizard Entertainment.
The Canadian Cartoonist Hall of Fame, formally known as Giants of the North: The Canadian Cartoonist Hall of Fame, honours significant lifelong contributions to the art of cartooning in Canada.
Heidi MacDonald is an American writer and editor of comic books based in New York City. She runs the comics industry news blog The Beat.
Valerie D'Orazio is an American comic book writer and editor. She is known as a vocal advocate for women in the comics industry, and for sharing stories of her own struggles with being bullied and harassed.
The Big Apple Comic Con is a New York City comic book convention, the longest-running comic book/speculative fiction/pop culture convention in New York City. It was started by retailer Michael "Mike Carbo" Carbonaro in March 1996 in the basement of the St. Paul the Apostle Church. During its heyday from 2001 to 2008, the Big Apple Comic Con often featured multiple shows per year, with a large three-day "national" convention held in November, usually held at the Penn Plaza Pavilion. The show was owned by Wizard Entertainment from 2009 to 2013, but was reacquired by Carbonaro in 2014.
Midtown Comics is a New York City comic book retailer with three shops in Manhattan and an e-commerce website. The largest comic book store in the United States, the company opened its first store in the Times Square area in 1997. Its second was opened on Lexington Avenue in 2004, and is known as the Grand Central store for its proximity to Grand Central Terminal. Its downtown store was opened on Fulton Street in the Financial District in November 2010, and its Astoria, Queens outlet store opened in March 2020. It also used to operate a boutique inside Manhattan's Times Square Toys R Us.
The MoCCA Arts Festival, or MoCCA Fest, is an independent comics showcase that typically includes artist booths, slide shows, and educational panels. It was created by the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in 2002 by bringing together over 2,000 artists, publishers, editors and enthusiasts. It was named "Best Small-Press Comics Nexus Anywhere" by The Village Voice.
Shelly Bond is an American comic book editor, known for her two decades at DC Comics' Vertigo imprint, for which she was executive editor from 2013 to 2016.
A comic book convention or comic con is a fan convention emphasizing comic books and comic book culture, in which comic book fans gather to meet creators, experts, and each other. Commonly, comic conventions are multi-day events hosted at convention centers, hotels, or college campuses. They feature a wide variety of activities and panels, with a larger number of attendees participating with cosplay than for most other types of fan conventions. Comic book conventions are also used as a method by which publishers, distributors, and retailers represent their comic-related releases. Comic book conventions may be considered derivatives of science-fiction conventions, which began during the late 1930s.
Double Take LLC, commonly referred to as Double Take Comics, was an American comic book publisher based in New York City. Founded by former Marvel Comics executive Bill Jemas as a subsidiary of Take-Two Interactive in October 2014, the company served as Take-Two Interactive's pilot project in comic book publishing. The company published five issues each from ten original comic book series, and was shut down in November 2016.
Comic Arts Los Angeles is a comic book festival held annually in Los Angeles, California. Inaugurated in 2014 at Think Tank Gallery, the festival showcases graphic novels, comic books, and zines created by independent artists and publishers. CALA includes an artist alley-style exhibition space that features roughly 100 vendors.
Desert Island is a comic shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York. The store focuses on underground and alternative comics, as well as independent and self-published comics sold through consignment. Desert Island also hosts the annual comic book festival Comic Arts Brooklyn, and publishes Smoke Signal, an independent comics anthology that has been nominated for an Eisner Award.
The Chicago Alternative Comics Expo is a comic book festival usually held each June in Chicago.
Bill Kartalopoulos is a New York-based comics critic, educator, curator and editor. From 2014 to 2019 he was the Series Editor for the Best American Comics series of annual comics anthologies published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. He was a co-founder of the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival and has also directed programming for the Small Press Expo and the MoCCA Festival. He teaches courses about comics at Parsons School of Design and the School of Visual Arts.
