♪ (heroic music) ♪ ♪ ♪ - Hello, and welcome to Comic Culture.

I'm Terence Dollard, a professor in the Department of Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

We are in Charlotte, North Carolina for Heroes Con 2025.

Comics are big business.

And if you're a collector, Heroes Con is the place to go.

With hundreds of vendors selling everything from golden age rarities, pristine copies of key issues, and even dollar bins stuffed with bargains, there's no doubt you'll find what you're looking for.

And it's no surprise that Heroes Con attracts the biggest names in comic buying, consigning, and grading.

I spoke with Alex Tiznado from My Comic Shop.

Alex, you are from My Comic Shop, which is-- well, you're right across the aisle from us here at Heroes Con.

What is My Comic Shop?

- So My Comic Shop is the largest online comic book retailer in the world.

We started with 11 stores in the DFW area.

That's Dallas, Fort Worth, or anywhere in the desert now.

And yeah, we slowly transitioned to strictly online basis.

Essentially, we sell books online.

We consign for our customers.

We purchase books as well.

My role is I am the lead of our seller services department.

So we're the buyers.

We're also the ones that come out to the shows, like Heroes, Baltimore, things like that.

We pick up books from our consigners, our customers, and then we just drive them on back.

- Is this a good show for you to come to?

I mean, obviously, it's all about comics.

But are people making appointments ahead of time?

Do they know that you're going to be here, and then they come with their comics that they want to consign?

How do you organize that part of it?

- We've been doing this show for four or five years now.

It's one of our best shows.

We look forward to it every year.

It's strictly comic based.

There's not a lot of fluff, so that's what we love.

For the most part, we try to stick to comic-oriented shows.

That's why Heroes and Baltimore are probably our best shows.

We do put out a weekly newsletter.

And essentially, we let people know that we're coming to these shows.

If you've got any consignment books that you want to drop by rather than ship, because it saves them on shipping costs, we're going to be here, so drop them off.

A lot of times, we do have individuals who do submit transactions online prior to the show.

But also, we have vendors that we talk to every year.

They just come drop by, give us a box or two or 10 of comics, and we take them back home.

- You said you do consignment.

Is this something where you are just going to give them a-- like, you take a commission, and they get the bulk of it?

Or is it something where you might even just buy it out right off the bat?

- Both can be true.

We do, for the most part, pick up consignment items.

But there are a few vendors who drop by with a stack of books that they want us to make an offer on.

Like, two days ago, we made an offer on probably 15 books.

So it just really depends.

- And is it something where you want the comics to be slabbed and graded?

Or is it something where someone can come in with a bunch of books that are just bagged up in a long box?

- For the longest time, our slogan was, we buy everything.

So pretty much anything.

If you want to come by with slabs or raw books, we're more than happy to appraise them, make an offer.

Now, right now, we're kind of strictly looking for a specific type of book that's going to be higher grade Silver Age or Golden Age books.

In terms of raw, we generally try to push them to consignment, because that's where they're going to make the bulk of the value for those books.

- Well, thank you so much.

- No, no, thank you.

I appreciate it.

- If you're a fan of Antiques Roadshow, you'll recognize pop culture collectibles expert Travis Landry, the owner of Landry Pop Auctions, making his Heroes Con debut.

Travis, you are here, I guess, facilitating comic collectors and helping them get the maximum value for their book by helping grade it.

- Correct, yeah.

- So you've got a comic in your hand.

What do you look for in a comic?

In this case, it's a Silver Age Marvel.

- So this is a Journey into Mystery 62 pre-hero book.

Journey into Mystery doesn't switch until you have Journey into Mystery 83, first appearance of Thor.

But for what we have here, this is like the prototype Hulk.

The first appearance of a character referred to as the Hulk, Zimu the Titan.

But when we look at condition, first thing I want to do is look at the overall-- like, how the eye appeal-- where is my eye first drawn to and what's going to detract?

So I'm playing pros and cons in my head, whittling down from the top to the bottom, and meeting in the middle at a number.

- So you're not talking about the design of the artwork itself.

You're talking about the physical condition of the cover?

- Correct, yeah.

When I'm saying eye appeal, I'm saying the physical look, the attractiveness of the condition of the book.

So a lot of early marvels like this are typically subject to chipping along the right-hand side.

This is pretty solid.

We have a small loss here.

There is a large crease coming down the spine, right?

I can imagine some kid back in the day, this was folded to some extent.

But overall, there's no major losses here, no real staining, slight tanning.

But the other thing with condition is a lot of it can be fixed today with pressing, cleaning, lightboxing.

There are all these techniques to remove dust shadow, remove slight foxing to paper.

You go inside, we look at the page quality of it.

Beautiful, what we consider maybe an off-white to white, maybe off-white at the very least.

This beautiful color here on the inside.

So when we factor, it's almost like an equation, right?

We take all these different pieces, and what do we get as an end result?

So when I look in here, I see a full crease down the spine, multiple tick marks that break coloring, small chip here, but overall, compared to regular-- I mean, overall, it presents really well for a book from the early 1960s.

As it sits, I would say this comic is going to be a 4.0 to 4.5, but looking through the dirt, looking through what we can do to put a little magic into it, once this is pressed clean and put into a holder, I'm going to guess it's a 5.0 to 5.5 any day of the week.

- And so when you come up with this valuation, this is something that then gets encapsulated?

- Correct.

So I'm giving my opinion here.

Well, we grade everything with CGC.

They're the third-party grader we choose to work with at LPA.

And so for our purposes here at Heroes Con, we're taking books like this on consignment to sell at auction.

We facilitate the grading.

We pay the expense up front, and then we deduct the cost of the proceeds afterwards.

- This is strictly a business venture for you.

I mean, you're- - Yeah.

- So I visited your workstation over there.

It's really cool.

How do you keep everything organized, knowing that you've got somebody else's book here so that you don't lose it?

Because there's a lot of hustle and a lot of the bustle.

- Basically, every night when we leave the show, we remove the property that we've taken in that day.

Everything gets written down on a consignment contract.

You get a copy of the inventory.

Once it's left in our possession, you're fully insured.

So yeah, it's our job to keep track of everything.

But luckily, that's what we're good at.

- Well, thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- Podcasting can be serious business, especially when you're Lisa and Brad Gullickson, the hosts of one of the best and most popular pods, the Comic Book Couples Counseling Podcast.

Brad and Lisa, you are world-famous podcasters with the Comic Book Couples Counseling Podcast.

And you're at your first Heroes Con.

So what do you think?

- You want me to go first?

- Sure.

- I am incredibly impressed.

I feel like I have gone to every kind of con, and I've seen it all, done it all.

And then I come here, and I go, oh, this could be the best comic con.

Everyone says it's the best comic con, but I was a little bit of a disbeliever.

But nope, five minutes in this hall here, and I was like, oh, yeah, this is the best comic con.

- We never want to leave.

We want this to be our existence now.

- Yeah.

- So you are podcasters.

Are you doing any networking, content creation this weekend?

- Yeah, we're trying to meet as many people as possibly.

A lot of our guests are here, and so we want to also say hi to them and thank you to them.

We want to find new guests for the show.

So we really just want to see and be seen.

- Yeah, a highlight of our trip was getting to see Dave Chisholm and Rick Quinn, who did Spectrum together, which is an amazing comic.

And we did an entire series with them, going issue by issue with that comic.

And so the opportunity to see those pages in person, and say thank you for being on the pod.

We love your book.

It was just really special.

- You are people who love comics.

You're people who have a podcast, but you're also people who have other lives.

So how do you balance the fact that being a podcaster, a successful podcaster, is a big commitment in time?

Having to pay your bills is a big commitment in time.

And having to do all of this as a couple, how do you balance all of these different demands while still having the enthusiasm that you clearly have?

- Us being a married couple and doing the podcast together is a strength, because there's no travel time.

We know each other's schedules.

We also have the flexibility where we are both freelancers.

So we do make our own schedules to a certain degree.

And yeah, we are pretty loosey-goosey with it.

- You're better at balance than I am.

I feel like I live the podcast now.

- Because he works from home.

- And I love living the podcast.

Maybe that's healthy.

Maybe it's not healthy.

Maybe I'll have to step away at some point and let Lisa carry more of the social media load or whatever.

But 24/7, I'm on my phone managing some aspect of the podcast.

- So you've got just a few hours here before you have to head home.

What's the goal?

Who's the person you want to talk to?

What's the thing you want to find?

What are you looking for in the few hours you have left at Heroes Con?

- Yeah, it's stressful.

Because there is still so much we want to see, so many people we want to hang out with.

We haven't really spent a lot of time in the bins buying comics.

I would like to do a little scrabbling.

I'd like to find Stephen Bissett's Tyrant.

We bought the third issue yesterday.

But now we need issues two and one.

So that's on my radar.

I don't know how much time we're going to get in the bins.

But we need at least a good hour or two hours.

- Oh, yeah.

- Yeah.

- You know.

- Yes.

Scrabbling.

- It's scrabbling.

- Well, thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- Breaking into comics is tough.

Finding an audience and getting a foothold is tougher, especially if you're an indie publisher.

I spoke with 2Land Comics publisher Jay The Teller about the opportunities and obstacles of exhibiting at Heroes Con.

- Jay, you are a publisher.

- Yes, sir.

- You are at Heroes Con.

So what is your line all about?

- So I've got something really unique.

In addition to creating this family-friendly superhero content, 2Land Comics, I'm also a motivational speaker.

So I go to schools all across the country, talk about social-emotional learning, character development, college and career readiness, et cetera.

COVID hit.

When COVID hit, I was like, yo, how do I still encourage young people if I can't pull up in person?

Thus was born 2Land Comics.

Our primary protagonist is a superhero named Drip.

That's D-R-I-P.

Drip is actually, you know what I'm saying, a little bit of a double entendre.

For the younger audience who are listening, they already know what the vibe is.

But we flipped it, and we turned it into an acronym in a sense for Do Right Inspire People.

So it's a very unique superhero.

Y'all ain't never seen nothing like this before.

It's a tiger.

He got a backwards fitted.

He got dreadlocks running around in J's, all that.

But he also is very positive.

We talk about things like anti-bullying in our graphic novel.

We talk about things like treating people the way that you want to be treated.

But it's not in that corny, you know what I'm saying, back in the day type of way.

It's going to be something that connect, that stick, that's very culturally relevant for today's young person.

- And I think comics are a great way to tell a story that connects a message to readers without being corny, without being so direct that you say, OK, I'm not listening to this.

So what was it about comics that made you think that this is the avenue to take?

- I grew up right outside of Washington, DC, a place called Capitol Heights, Maryland.

Where I grew up, Maryland.

But if you're from the area, then it's just Maryland.

It's more of a wizard than it is a happy place.

And so where I grew up, we didn't have a whole bunch of comic book stores.

And so all of my comic book knowledge, and education, and fascination came from watching cartoons, and like Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles, X-Men animated series, Batman animated series, all that.

So as a kid from the cartoons, I already just had a love and a fascination for the imagination of comics.

Then when I got older, I was like, man, I want to do something more with this.

But I really wasn't very aware of what I could do.

Because if-- not trying to make this overly social, but when you don't see yourself in certain positions, it's just not a cognitive reality for you.

Like, yeah, maybe in the back, back, back of your mind, you're like, yeah, I could do that.

But when you never see anybody who look like you own comics, create their own characters, publish, don't really think that you could cook like that.

It was a means to an end.

This turned into something I didn't think it was going to turn into.

Like what you saw at the table, toys, action figures, we got the video game that's finna drop, all that.

That was low key, never the intent of what we was doing.

It was always supposed to be something very seasonal and temporary to encourage people through the COVID situation.

But it transformed into something way bigger than it was intended to be.

- You're creating content.

And you're not connected to the audience the same way you are as a motivational speaker.

You don't get that feedback instantly.

So coming to a convention, not just a convention, basically the biggest and best comic book centric convention in the world, what sort of feedback are you getting?

- Heroes Con is a different con.

Heroes Con, like you have other cons that are really built around the pop culture experience of it all, TV shows and movie stars and sometimes even musicians.

And so it's really like the culture of pop runs that con.

Heroes Con is a comic book, comic con.

It is predominantly people who are like very potent.

They're very traditional.

And they don't want nobody messing with their type of comics.

New comics for this audience is not like a high priority.

It's still been very good.

We've still been tremendously blessed.

We've moved hundreds of books.

But you have to know every community that you're going to.

And this is a community that likes more traditional, streamlined, old school comics.

So when you come in with the real vibey, tiger with dreadlocks, et cetera, you know what I'm saying?

You really got to work.

You really got to get your pitch right.

You really got to work.

You really got to try to lure them in with the vision because it's not their normal cup of tea.

- I will admit, I am a comic reader who-- my sweet spot was from the 1980s to the 1990s.

What I love about coming here is that I'm exposed to new stuff.

I'm exposed to-- they've got Indie Alley.

And then there are publishers like yourself who are here trying to introduce yourself to new readers.

And what I get excited about is your energy and your love for your product.

- Your perspective is a very healthy perspective to have.

You like what you like.

Cool, dope, continue to feed yourself that content.

However, something that we are seeing right now in Western comics is we are seeing an evacuation, an exodus of young readers in this genre.

They are not gravitating to those older 30, 40 years ago superheroes.

It's just not happening.

We are not getting new content that's luring them in.

Now we look across the map, and we look over on the east, and we see anime, and we see manga, and we see a younger, younger fan base coming in.

It is vital.

It is critically important for this industry to be able to lure young people in.

We are seeing a community of suppliers die off.

And we're not seeing a replenishing of the fan base.

This is why stuff like this is super fire, because you get someone like you, who's more of a traditionist, who likes what they like, but they also see the value in a new superhero.

A mom today got one of her daughters, one of our comic books, she's seven years old.

You never know, 30 years from now, she may still be a fan of 2Land comics and a fan of Drip the Hero.

And that's how the industry as a whole maintains its position in the culture.

- If the folks watching wanted to find out more about you and 2Land Comics, where can they find you on the web?

- If you guys wanna check us out, you can check us out online at 2LandComics, plural, 2LandComics.com.

- Thank you so much.

- Yes sir, appreciate it.

- For comic creators, conventions are work, but they're also a chance to connect with other professionals, meet fans, and reconnect with friends.

I had the chance to meet cartoonist Brian Anderson face to face after we had connected for a Zoom interview, and I asked him about his Heroes Con experiences.

Brian, you were telling me that you were at some of the earlier Heroes Cons that weren't quite as expansive as the current iterations are.

So what's it like watching a convention grow so exponentially that it takes over an entire convention center?

- It's fun.

You know, 'cause when you're in this industry, you're always thinking, oh, maybe it's dying, maybe it's going away.

But then when you see shows like this that are, it's my favorite 'cause it's so pure, it focuses on the art and the comics.

There's no shows here, there's no actors, there's no, it's all about comics and just the industry and the people that love it.

And that's it, that's what it's always been.

And they've kept that pure, and to see that grow, which is the heart of everything, San Diego doesn't exist without this core heart, you know, people that love comics.

So when this show can do well, that's when you know everything's still good.

It's growing.

- You are here as a professional.

You have a table that you're, I guess, sharing some work with folks and also doing some sketches and whatnot.

So what do you do on a typical day at a convention like this?

- A lot of it's catching up with people you don't get to see very often, which that's, I love that.

But then it's just chatting with people.

Sometimes it's people that know your stuff, and other times it's people that's new to it, so it's fun.

But to me, I'm more interested in just hearing people's stories than just listening to different people from, you know, where are you from?

Where'd you come, you know, did you drive here?

Did you fly here?

That's always kind of the more fun part of it.

So yeah, I just like meeting people.

- And if you weren't a professional, and you were here just as a fan, what would be sort of the thing that you'd be looking to do?

- Well, I came as a fan last year, so I could bring my son, so we could just go to the show.

And it's, literally, we just wanna see everything.

For me, it's trying to find that new book that I haven't heard about or read, or that new artist that I haven't seen their stuff before, and discover them, so it's a new favorite artist.

That's what I'm always looking for.

Sometimes it's to get books that I've had forever get signed by the people that are here.

And then my son, too, he likes, there's certain little things he likes.

He loves Archer, things like that that are harder to find.

So it's fun to go around, try to dig, to see if you can find the really hard-to-find niche stuff.

It's usually easier to show like this, 'cause you've got, again, you're focused on the art more, and the culture of it, as opposed to the big media presence, which, yeah, I love.

So, yeah, I'd be wandering, just walking around.

- Well, thank you so much.

- Cool, thank you for having me.

- Indie Alley is a place to meet new talent, either looking to break into the mainstream, or introduce themselves to like-minded fans.

That's where I met artist Ryan Oakley.

Ryan, you're at Heroes Con, you are in Indie Alley.

Tell us a little bit about what you do.

- I am a illustrator by trade.

I recently started getting into comics.

So how I kinda got into it is I met Sanford Green, who is one of the creators of Bitter Root, and at my local comic shop, and I was just showing him some of my work.

And at the time, I was pre-med, and navigating that, and applying to medical schools, and they loved it, and so they kinda gave me this task to do some fan art of their character, Blink, and then they had this idea of doing a gallery of different fan art in the book, and so I made a piece, and I shared it with them, and shared it on Instagram, and they loved it, and they ended up putting it in the back of their issue number three.

From there, I've just kinda been rolling, and doing my own thing, and now I'm like, writing my own stories, and have been a part of a couple of anthologies, and so yeah, that is me in a nutshell.

- So you mentioned pre-med, going to medical school, so did you continue on that path, or did you decide that art was the better choice?

- I did not, I realized I was doing that for others, and not necessarily for myself.

I loved science and medicine, but I just realized that wasn't the path for me, and I love my art, and it was funny enough, after I kind of put that aside, and started focusing on the art, I started getting all these different jobs.

I applied to different art open calls.

One of them in particular was a bipartisan boat imagery open call, and they selected my piece out of thousands of submissions, and so it went on a national tour, and from there, I was getting more commissions from different non-profits to do posters, and then that's what led me into doing, what I loved was comics, and I had grown up watching these different cartoon shows, like the Marvel animated series, and stuff like that, like the X-Men and Spider-Man, and so I just dove right in, and I've been teaching myself, and I did major in studio art when I was an undergrad, so I was definitely using those skills as well.

- And how did that interesting path to get into comics lead you to Heroes Con and Bootspace?

- So 2019, I attended, so I wanted to check it out.

I had been hearing about the con, and how it's a really great networking event, but just a great con for comics and original art, and so after COVID, it ended, and then cons were coming back.

I, well, not to say that it's ended, but (laughs) I applied, and the organizers, they saw my work, and they loved it, and I was put in Indy Island.

At the time, I was making zines as well, so that was kinda like my entrance into comics, and writing my own stuff, and that's when I got to meet the organizers, and now we're like friends, so.

(laughs) - If the folks at home wanted to find out more about you, where can they find you on the web?

- The best place to find me is on Instagram, and it's my name, Ryan Oakley Art, and yeah, you'll find all my different links in my bio, and yeah.

- Well, thank you so much.

- Yeah, thank you for having me.

- At the end of the final day of Heroes Con, I had the chance to talk with one of my favorite creators, June Brigman.

June, it is the third day of Heroes Con.

It's just about time to go home.

I'm wondering, first off, how did your convention go, and two, how tired are you?

- I am tired but happy.

It was a great show.

This is our favorite comic book convention.

We come almost every year now, and I mean, people are great, it's very relaxed, and it's still focused on comic books, so we really appreciate that.

- And one of the things about conventions is that you get to meet fans, and fans who ask for commissions are probably your favorite.

I'm just wondering, you are the cartoonist working on Mary Worth.

You're also the co-creator of Power Pack at Marvel.

I'm sure a lot of people want commissions of Marvel characters, DC characters.

Has anyone come up to you and asked for a Wilbur or a Mary?

- Funny you should ask.

We take pre-con commissions, work that we do before we come to the show, and I got this commission.

I said to my husband, Roy, I said, you will never guess in a million years what we've just been commissioned to do, and it was a Wilbur from Mary Worth, a shot of Wilbur sitting back in his chair reading a Wilbur Mann comic book, with Wilbur Mann drawn as a superhero on the cover.

So, but I haven't gotten any commissions for Mary Worth.

However, we've had some people buy some of the Mary Worth originals from us, and it's been fun to talk to people and hear their take on some of the crazy storylines we've been doing.

So, yeah, there's the comic book crowd, but then there's a little comic strip crowd here, too.

- And the last question is, you know, it is sort of a crazy three days, and I'm just wondering, you know, are you able to get everything done, or do you have to tell people no because you know you don't have enough hours in the day?

- No, it works out pretty well.

I don't really get inundated with requests for commissions.

I usually just get a nice number that I can get done.

I don't wanna have to go back to the hotel room and work, or, you know, I try to get everything done so I don't have to take it home with me, 'cause when I get back home, I usually have to draw Mary Worth.

So, no, I can pretty much take care of everybody who wants to get a sketch from me.

It's worked out really well.

- That's all the time we have for this episode of Comic Culture.

Thank you so much for watching.

Until next time, we'll see you soon.

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