[dramatic music] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - In June 2022, after a two-year break, HeroesCon returned to the Charlotte Convention Center.

For the first time since the pandemic began, comic fans could connect with artists and writers, dive into the long boxes, and meet with old friends and make new ones.

2022 also marked 40 years of HeroesCon, making the return an even bigger celebration.

The Comic Culture team decided to set up a booth so we could meet and talk with people during the three Days of HeroesCon.

I wondered what everyone thought about coming back, what they missed during the two-year blip, and why a con like this is so special to the culture of comics.

On this episode, I'll speak to fans and comic professionals and hopefully share what it's like to be at a comic convention and part of this welcoming community.

Planning a comic convention is a difficult job.

Planning your 40th anniversary celebration, well, that's even tougher.

Planning the first HeroesCon since the pandemic and making it bigger than ever?

Well, that's nearly impossible.

So how did they do it?

To find out, I traveled to the comic shop Heroes Aren't Hard To Find to talk to the convention's organizers.

- Well, you know, they now practically run themselves.

- [Terence] Owner Shelton Drum organized the first HeroesCon in 1982.

- It was really hard to plan this one because it takes pretty much a whole year to line up the guest, and sell the booth space, and make all the arrangements.

And we really didn't have a whole 12 months ever to know that we could do that during the pandemic years.

We were kinda on hold for '20 and '21.

And finally, we just made the decision we're gonna go for '22 and just make it happen, so.

- And you also had to book a number of guests to come in, writers, artists who come in.

So is there any reluctance on their part to get back into the convention circuit?

- Oh, absolutely, yeah.

I mean, we had so many people on hold.

It's like, "Yeah, we really would like to come, but we're gonna wait and see how the world looks."

And we did book some people who actually got COVID before they got here or had other health problems.

The people we most love to see are the old pros and they're a little more fragile.

And you gotta kinda take what you can get when you can get it 'cause things come up.

- [Terence] Despite the uncertainty, more than 225 invited comic professionals attended.

In addition, other writers and artists rented booths for the weekend, making artists and indie alleys packed with creators.

There's 280,000 square feet of exhibitor space at the Charlotte Convention Center.

In 2022, HeroesCon used every last square inch to give attendees, vendors, artists, and guests the best possible experience, all while maintaining easy access and wide aisles.

The behind the scenes logistics and planning for the convention floor is handled by event and creative coordinator for HeroesCon, Karla Southern.

- The big part of my job is HeroesCon.

And I don't know exactly how to describe what I do because if it has anything to do with HeroesCon, I did it.

[Karla and Terence laugh] - Well, I know you and I have emailed back and forth.

You've helped me get press passes in previous years.

This year, you helped me get a booth for Comic Culture.

So it seems like that's a lot of different things that you're doing.

- Yeah.

I mean, if it's HeroesCon, I had my fingers in it at some point.

- You mentioned that you have to get travel arrangements for all the guests.

So this year you had- - Not all of them, thank god.

- Not all of them, okay.

So how many flights are you booking?

How many hotel rooms are you setting up?

I mean, it seems like that's a lot of work.

- I mean, we filled almost three hotels at uptown this year.

We don't fly everybody in, but there are a few people that we do.

I'm gonna say maybe about 10 flights, 15 flights.

- Now let's talk about exhibitors.

It's a big show.

There are a lot of exhibitors there.

They're setting up and they need more than just 10 by 10.

So how do you sort of figure that all out?

- A lot of them have been with us for 30, some of them have been with us for 40 years.

- I've been to some shows where the aisles between booths and artists and everything is really tight.

- [Karla] Yeah.

- Especially if you have some folks with cosplayers, cosplay.

Like, I remember once someone walking around with a Doc Oc costume and their arms were about eight feet out.

- Yep.

- And to get by, everyone's climbing on tables and knocking books over 'cause this person's walking through.

So as you're making sure that Heroes has enough space between, and that's the great thing about Heroes is that it's just such a wide open space that people can pass by.

You can interact with the guests.

You can interact with vendors.

Is there ever that temptation to maybe let's see if we can squeeze it down a little bit to get more?

- Nah, no.

I mean, as someone who has gone to a lot of shows, that's personally one of my favorite things about our show is that somebody can have their baby in a stroller, or they're carrying their rolling cart with their short boxes of vintage comics.

I mean, it's hard to carry armful of comics around a convention all day.

It kinda makes sense to bring a trolley of sorts.

- And I know that for me, I was looking for our booth to see where it was and see who my neighbors were.

And I know at one point, the Joe Kubert School was going to be my next door neighbor.

And then within a few days before the convention happened, it seemed like they had a reason to cancel.

So when you have a last minute cancellation, especially someone in a premium spot like that, how do you kinda decide who to move into it?

- Well, a lot of times if people have asked to be upgraded, and they've been patient, and they've been waiting, and if I can move them into a good spot for that year, I will.

Now, there's kind of an understanding that I may not be able to get you back in that same spot next year 'cause Joe Kubert School is coming back next year and they're gonna want their spot back.

- Working with all these exhibitors, this is not like a regular nine to five sort of thing, especially closer to Heroes.

- Never, yeah.

- So are you able to ever get a break leading up to?

- No.

- No.

- No.

[laughs] No.

From pretty much the beginning of March until the Monday after the show, you're on call 24/7.

And I've been doing this show for, as a member of like full time, for a decade, but I've been coming to the show for 40 years.

- Wow.

With all the planning and prep work completed, vendors and guests had just one day to load in before the start of HeroesCon.

The loading dock was chaotic, and the convention floor was a flurry of activity.

Shelton and Karla's team did an amazing job of marking out the floor and using clear signage showing everyone where to go.

On Friday morning at 11, ready or not, the doors opened and HeroesCon 2022 came to life.

In my experience, Fridays aren't as busy as Saturdays or Sundays, maybe because it's a workday, but there were still thousands of attendees.

It's a great day for the serious fan to spend time talking with an artist at their table or scouting out some original art before someone else buys it.

With the Comic Culture booth set up as a mini TV studio, I met and spoke with attendees and guests who love comics and were excited to be back at HeroesCon.

But would two years of the pandemic temper their enthusiasm?

I asked attendee and comic book fan Brian Yesowitch about the elephant in the room.

So let's just talk a little bit about COVID again.

- Oh, sure.

- I mean, it's a depressing subject but- - Yeah.

- As we're back, is there any sort of reservation going back to the crowds, going back to the cons?

- I mean, we took our masks off- - Yes.

- To do this interview, but we've both been masked up all day.

- I am fully vaccinated.

So I don't believe that I'm immune, but I am comfortable being in crowds.

However, I also travel for a living and I'm respectful to those people, particularly at an indoor convention where a lot of people may not have my superhuman immunity, so I do wear a mask to protect others.

I bought into that.

The mask is not for me.

It's to stop the spread.

And we're six feet apart, and I respect that.

So I'm gonna try to follow those rules while I'm here.

I'm not intimidated by the COVID in a group like this.

I also brought the sanitary wipes, so I feel protected.

I feel safe.

- Brian, we're here at HeroesCon.

It's the first time they're doing it since 2019.

What's it like being back at a con?

- It's my annual Father's Day tradition, although this year, it unfortunately wasn't on Father's Day.

So I am here without my children, which is even a bigger Father's Day gift, if you could imagine that.

[Terence laughs] So it's been wonderful.

As many people did during the pandemic, a lot of us returned to reading.

And so I read and explored more comic books than I'd ever had time to do since I was a teenager.

So to come to a show like this and actually see the authors and illustrators of the books that I've enjoyed the last three years is a real treat.

- You are not a comics professional.

You are in television production, kinda like I am.

So what is it about comics that gives you that break from going to work every day.

- It's silent.

I love the fact that it is a silent medium, and that I can put on a record if I wish.

I have certain songs I like to play for certain genres of comic books.

I have certain playlists that I'll play when I'm reading.

But to me, I love that silence.

I'm also a full-time father in addition to being a full-time employee and that sort of thing, so I just love the silence.

I love being able to focus visually on an image and words and read the words on the page.

- The people I spoke with, be it in an interview, one of the panels I moderated, or just talking on the convention floor, all took precautions to minimize the risk of COVID.

So I decided to focus on the convention experience.

What did people miss the most?

And what were they looking forward to at HeroesCon?

Next up is cartoonist John Rose.

John, you are the cartoonist behind Snuffy Smith, and every year, you would come to HeroesCon in Charlotte.

- [John] Right.

- But the last three years, we haven't been able to do that because of the pandemic.

- [John] Right.

- So what has the loss of the convention every year meant to you?

- It really meant a lot to me.

I love, as a cartoonist, I'm in my studio by myself a lot, so it's great to get out and meet the public, and this is a great way that I do that.

So having that disappear for years was kinda sad.

I'm really happy to be back.

I'm really happy that they're having it again this year.

- You talk about you're in the studio alone.

And I know that there are other syndicated cartoonists here.

And that's what makes HeroesCon so special, is that they are including the newspaper scripts in their- - Right, right.

HeroesCon is, I think, one of the few comic cons that includes so many comic strip cartoonists.

So it's good to be back with everybody.

It's just great to get feedback.

We have had a new character in the last couple years, Li'l Sparky, and that character has generated, he's a little horse, a little pony, and that character has generated a lot of feedback.

- The great thing about Li'l Sparky is that that's a character that you created with your daughter.

- [John] Right.

- So can you talk a little bit about how the two of you collaborated and came up with the character?

- Sure.

We decided we wanted to work on something together.

I thought it'd be fun to bring her in.

And she loves the coloring aspect, the digital side of everything.

So basically, I came up with the character.

I write the comic and draw the comic.

She colors it, and we bounce ideas off each other, and that's how we work.

And Li'l Sparky usually appears in like week-long stints 'cause it's a special feature.

He's the grandson of Barney Google's famous racehorse, Spark Plug.

- The first day of any convention is a learning experience as organizers must quickly identify and solve problems so the rest of the weekend will run as smoothly as possible.

Seth Peagler shared how the HeroesCon team plans for the unexpected.

What is it that you do that helps make sure that everyone who's at the show can enjoy the panels or can enjoy maybe the art contest or anything like that?

- Right.

We're lucky to have some great, as we call them, lieutenants who kind of help oversee certain areas.

So a lot of it, for me at least, at the convention is checking in with them, putting out fires they may have, or helping to facilitate that.

- Walt Simonson this year had a booth in a great spot.

- [Seth] Right.

- [Terence] And his line seemed to go pretty much everywhere.

- [Seth] Yeah.

[Terrence laughs] - And you ended up having to move him.

Is that something that you're gonna handle logistically?

- It's something that Karla and Shelton and I all probably talk about at different points.

But you learn, especially on a Friday, the thoughtfulness of this year's floor plan was that a lot of extra space was left in that new Hall C part that we hadn't used before.

So we knew that had we, should we have to move somebody that that would be an ideal place.

- Now, you said you take care of different things on the program.

So is this something like you're helping to coordinate the panels?

Or is that something that's left to others?

- Andy Mansell, who's been doing the coordination, he's always the man up on the level.

But he and I start as early, I think this year, as March, where we'll start kicking ideas around, and we get lots of people suggesting ideas or pitching us ideas.

We're gonna have some large panels, but we're gonna have some other smaller boutique craft-focused panels, so having a good mixture.

So it's an ever-evolving process, but really, in March, we kinda start.

- Panels are a big part of HeroesCon.

Panels can feature popular writers and artists talking about their favorite comics, or can be FYI sessions like the podcasting 101 panel I organized.

Andy Mansell was my contact person and kept all the panels on schedule.

So Andy, you are in charge of setting up the panels here at HeroesCon.

On a weekend like this, you have, I mean, I don't know how many panels, but you've got them going on three days straight.

- Yeah.

- How do you kinda organize the chaos?

- It comes down to this, a lot of preparation.

We have figured out that 60 is too many, 30 isn't enough.

We've got about 50 this year.

It looks like it's really turning out well.

We just wanted to make sure that since people are coming out here for the first time in a couple years, I wanna give everybody something to stop being on the floor and come upstairs to enjoy.

- What sort of plans do you put in place knowing that there's still the pandemic going on but life has to sorta get back to normal?

- We literally went into this, and I'm sure you've, you probably had this experience.

Somewhere around March or April, it's just kinda like crossing your fingers and saying, let's just go for it.

If it all ends up for naught, okay, we gave it a shot.

We currently right now have a Marvel editors panel going on right now.

It was originally designed to be set up for one editor who was ill. Then two of the other editors got ill.

So we actually have, instead of it originally being these four people, we've got two up there now.

If you just stick with it long enough, things hopefully turn out for the best.

- What does it mean to you?

You've been involved for a long time.

And seeing the convention come back after the three-year break, what's it like?

- It's insane.

I'm a volunteer.

I work about 70 hours a week throughout the course of the month of June.

And why?

For Karla, Seth, and especially Shelton Drum, the man who owns it.

He has created such a great comic culture or helped create it, and he's the one that keeps it going.

I love walking into this comic convention knowing it's art and reading comics first, and you don't find that anymore.

That's what gets me going.

That's what we knew was at the end of the rainbow after three years.

- The culture of comics extends beyond creators, publishers, and vendors.

There were dozens of podcasters live streaming from HeroesCon.

I spoke with Pat Sampson of the Longbox Crusade podcast about coming back to Charlotte for this year's convention.

We're back at HeroesCon.

It's been three years since the last convention.

What about that gap?

What did that mean to you, the fact that we couldn't go to conventions during the pandemic?

- It meant a lot, especially, you wouldn't know how much you miss it from not doing it all the time.

But then having it gone for a good period of time, then it was, it just felt like good to be back here today.

And doing the podcast that I do, we built it around having friends and all that in the podcast community and the comic community with everybody out there.

And just it's so nice to be around that group of people again and just see some, the creators and all that too.

I've gotten to know some of the creators here as well too and being able to see them and talk to them and- - It's this sense of community that you find here, I mean, the fact that everyone has a shared interest.

You see kids loving comics.

You see adults loving comics.

It just really makes that sense of community come to life, and it is a great place to be.

So what are your goals?

What do you hope to get out of the expense of getting a booth here?

And is it worth the money?

- The booth that I have is, it's my friend's booth.

He's the artist.

I'm here just for the podcasting side of it.

But the other thing too is just meeting people and getting that, those connections going for podcasting.

It's getting the word out there, using that as another form of media, getting the word about the podcast out there.

- I know for us, it was a big decision for us to get a corner booth here- - Sure.

- To try and get people to acknowledge what we do.

So have you had that moment yet, someone come over and say, "I listen to the podcast."?

- We've had that happen several different times, which is kinda humbling and and honored to feel that somebody who wants to come and see you.

And coming back to some of the in jokes that we have going on is very interesting to see.

And some of the people that support us out there have traveled to come and meet us here.

It's just interesting and very humbling, I think.

- Delvin Williams is one of Pat's Longbox Crusade partners.

What did missing the convention all those years, what did that do to you personally?

- It definitely affected me because when I moved to Charlotte a little less than five years ago, start of, or excuse me, summer '17, my friend Jared, one of my best friends, known him 25-plus years, he calls himself a yard sale artist.

He has a table here at the convention.

And he's like, "Yeah, I'm gonna have a table so I have a place to stay now."

And then right around that time, I was starting on a podcast called the Longbox Crusade.

And so my buddy Pat and Jared's brother, Jason was like, "Well, can we come too?"

And I'm like sweating bullets, like, ugh, okay.

They all came up, and then people from podcast land started descending and they said, "Well, Delvin, you live in Charlotte, and find us somewhere to go."

And so I found a place for food and we all sat down and it was just a really awesome communion.

And so that's what I missed.

We got that in '18.

We got that in '19.

And so 2020 was gonna be the best year ever, right?

And well, not so much.

[Terence chuckles] So that's what I miss.

I miss having that podcast family and friends that we've made all together, like getting to meet.

So it's awesome to have that again.

- And so let's talk a little bit about this weekend.

You're here.

You're with your friends.

Beyond just walking around and looking at some of the artists, maybe talking to somebody, buying some books, what is it that you're hoping to get out of this weekend beyond just being on this floor here?

- I think it's more than enough to really just be here and have this again.

Like that, like even just coming down the stairs, I kinda just exhaled a little bit.

Like, so I'm, like, for me, if the event goes off without a hitch, and everything goes well, and everyone just has a space and a community where they're accepting and happy, and everyone had as good of a time as they had, that, honestly, is more than enough for me, personally.

- Like Delvin said, there was an uplifting energy buzzing through the crowd.

Maybe it was a sense of relief that things were finally getting back to normal.

People felt comfortable enough to be in a crowd, and for Leiji Harlock, to travel thousands of miles to attend HeroesCon.

You are from Hawaii.

- Yes.

- You're in North Carolina for HeroesCon.

- Yes.

- So what made you make the trip?

- To Heroes?

- To Heroes.

I mean, it's gotta be more than a day, I guess, to travel across country- - [Leiji] Um- - Across the ocean and across country.

[Leiji laughs] - Well, actually, I wanted to come to Heroes back, I would say, in 2019, and I was kinda planning it for 2020.

Of course, COVID happened.

That was gone.

2021, nothing.

Finally glad Heroes is now happening on their 40th anniversary.

It's great.

- Conventions, for me, are great because you get to be around people who have similar interests.

Everyone here loves comics.

- [Leiji] Right.

- So when you come to a con, what sort of experience do you like to get out of it?

- Well, when I first started going to cons, this was like let's say maybe back in 2004, at that time, it's like any typical fan.

You're excited, like I'm gonna meet my favorite artist or writer and so forth, and just soaking up all that culture, soaking up all that excitement from people dressing up in costumes, doing their arts, or whatever and so forth.

As the years progressed, when I started interacting with the comic guests, for some odd reason, it just came out of the blue naturally that I somehow got along with the comic guests.

And then all of a sudden, I became this person who had this natural ability of like, "Hey, are you interested in doing a show here in Hawaii?

I can maybe find contacts with you.

Maybe if you're interested, I'll mention it."

So now, back then from when I started going to the cons where you were just a fan, now it's kinda like a combination, still a fan, but it's more like networking.

It's really hard to say, but that's the excitement of cons.

You get things that that are planned that happens, and then there are unexpected things like this, which are great surprises as well.

That's the excitement of cons.

- As day one of HeroesCon drew to a close, everyone seemed to be back in the swing of life at a major comic convention.

Vendors and guests could relax a little, confident that they could handle what was sure to be a crazy second day.

It's day two at HeroesCon.

As attendees wait for the doors to open, vendors and guests make sure their booths are ready for the rush.

As predicted, Saturday was the busiest day with tens of thousands of attendees packing the convention floor, local restaurants, and the streets of uptown Charlotte.

For me, Saturday was a bit crazy.

In addition to interviewing people at the Comic Culture booth, I moderated two panels, and our team recorded a third.

It was hectic, but it was a chance to meet a surprising number of Comic Culture fans, like Matthew Roberto, who traveled from San Francisco to attend.

It's been a long break since 2019, the last HeroesCon, and then, obviously, the pandemic.

So what's it mean to you to come back to a convention after all this time?

- It's absolutely exciting.

It's so much fun.

It's a relief, in a way, to see a lot of people come together again for such a great, great hobby and a great passion.

So it's been exciting.

It's been really exciting, and also kind of a relief to say, oh, it's nice to get outta the house and be around this community again.

- That's the one thing.

I've talked to a lot of people about their experiences and they talk about the community.

What is it about being around your fellow fans that makes you feel like you belong?

- They're into the same things.

And often they have a real strong passion for the characters, the literature of comic books, the stories, and we can all relate at different points in our lives to when we picked up this hobby.

That's been so much fun.

In a lot of ways, it's been inspiring, and it's just a great hobby to be a part of.

And fans are very, very friendly, and they've been very, very helpful in this convention with trying to get things signed.

It's been fun.

And of course, they're just sharing what stories are our favorite, what it means to us.

It's really neat to see the different ideas that fans have and the passions they have.

- What do you do after you leave the convention, after the long day?

- That's a great question.

I actually go back home, and I'm gonna meet up with a bunch of friends, and we're gonna have a little get together.

We're gonna look at all the stuff that I got.

I'm here for a lot of friends to get things signed that couldn't make it across country that are really excited.

And we're going back and forth and text, and we have a little celebration 'cause we're all fans.

And we get together at my friend's house in San Francisco with all our stuff, and then I talk about all the people I met and stories I have.

- On Saturday, the Comic Culture crew included two of my students from the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

Zel and Victor are mass communication majors and worked on our regular Comic Culture studio tapings during the academic year.

At HeroesCon, they recorded interviews and panels, as well as footage from the convention floor.

It was sort of a UNC Pembroke homecoming as I had a chance to reconnect with UNCP alumni and former faculty.

First up is my former student, Joshua Long.

This is the first convention that we've had since 2019.

I'm wondering what it means to you to come back to a convention after the two-year, three-year pandemic break.

- It means a lot in the sense that you take stuff for granted so much and you just don't realize how important small stuff like, I mean, even though this is a bigger con, how much it's important to you.

Just being able to come out and see people, especially just the fellowship of it, and meet old friends, it's, it just is, words are hard to describe it, to be honest with you.

- A lot of people have talked about that camaraderie, that community that comes from being among other people who share a similar interest.

So what are your goals at the con today?

- Well, I'm trying to find some different Spawn books.

I have some holes to plug.

[Terence laughs] Spawn's not necessarily the most popular, but he's up there, so trying to plug some holes.

- Is there any creator that you're looking forward to meeting?

- Gonna be honest, not really.

[Terence laughs] I came for Spawn comics.

That's what I'm here for.

I'm a man on a mission.

But then I heard you're here, so I said I gotta stop by and I gotta make sure he still remembers this face [Terence laughs] so it could haunt your dreams or nightmares, whichever one.

- We'll go with dream-mares.

- Dream-mares, yeah.

That sounds like it's like a "My Little Pony" thing now.

- I guess so.

When you put it that way, it sounds creepy.

We're at the convention.

What do you do after a long day digging through the long boxes?

What do you do?

Are you spending time with friends?

Are you coming back tomorrow?

What are your plans?

- Oh, coming back tomorrow.

I got a different friend, [laughs] I got a different friend group to come with tomorrow, so I'm gonna hit it again.

Afterwards, I'll probably pass out 'cause I got here way too early.

[Terence laughs] But it's what you gotta do to try to get a decent spot in line.

Yeah, no, after here, probably taking a nap.

- [Terence] Next time on Comic Culture, it's part two of our special, HeroesCon at 40.

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