Calling all comic book aficionados! You are to report to the Quad Cities Comic Con this weekend! That’s right, Quad Cities Comic Con is happening this Saturday Mar 31 from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. at the Hampton Inn and Suites QC International Airport (2450 65th Avenue Moline). This FREE family-friendly show’s purpose is to spread the gospel of geekdom! They welcome any and all that may have an interest in comic books, sci fi, toys, video games, costumes and other nerdy stuff. In other words, there is something for everyone! Cosplay/costumes are welcome! If you have some cool stuff laying around... Read More

Last month I read an article up on io9 titled “There’s Never Going to Be a ‘Right Time’ for The Punisher TV Series” (https://io9.gizmodo.com/theres-never-going-to-be-a-right-time-for-the-punisher-1819326835) and I wanted to address some issues I had. The core idea of the article I agree with; which is that given the level of gun violence in the United States there isn’t a week that goes by that would make a good week to release their show about a lone wolf mass shooter. Even if we only talk about real life mass shootings, between the Las Vegas shooting that closed the... Read More

It is officially time for the 8th Annual Quad Cities Planet Comic and Arts Convention! Are you ready? This Saturday July 29 from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. you are invited to the QC Planet Con at the Holiday Inn Hotel & Conference Center (226 17th Street Rock Island). Admission is only $5 for adults and kids 12 and under are free! Regional artists, writers and vendors will be available for your viewing, purchasing and conversing needs. There will also be plenty of Q&A panels, costume/cosplay contests for kids and adults and even some surprises! The Quad City Rollers will be in attendance (on wheels,... Read More

It’s been a slow couple of weeks in the comic book industry, but that should be about to turn around. Summer is finally upon us, so convention season will start in earnest soon. San Diego Comic Con is a little more than a month away and with it all the major comic book news. Here in the Quad Cities though we kicked off the summer convention season with Mighty Con. Mighty Con started last year in the summer of 2016. It’s a two day show for comic fans and collectors. They had the first con at the Davenport Fair Grounds, to an amazing turnout from what I heard at the time. I wouldn’t know as... Read More

Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) is traditionally held on the first Saturday in May, but various comics shops have mixed things up to get new readers into the fold. Regardless, it’s been a great idea. FCBD has its start with Joe Field, comic book retailer and columnist for the Comic Buyer’s Guide, a now defunct comic industry magazine. He recommended the practice of comic book stores giving away to increase the readership of comics since people were going to the theatre to see comic book movies. His suggestion was very popular among his readers. Jim Valentino, one of the co-founders of Image Comics,... Read More

Calling all comic book and anime fans! It’s officially time for Quad Cities Comic Con! With more vendors, artists and guests than ever, Quad Cities Comic Con will be happening at the RiverCenter (136 E 3rd Street Davenport) on June 3 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and June 4 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission for adults is only $10 for a single day or $15 for a weekend pass. Kids 12 and under are FREE! If you order your passes online in advance, you will be able to get in at 9:30 a.m. (a half hour before everyone else). In-advance passes can be purchased at: http://geekinccomics.com/event?content_id=24. In... Read More

After two weeks talking about explosions, comic books and community action, I think it’s time to get back to what this series is best at: complaining about the comic book industry. This week while going through the stack of Marvel comics at Mellow Blue Planet, I was looking at Champions #4. I was just examining the cover, front and back, and after a minute or so I noticed near the bottom left corner of the comic, just above the top right corner of the UPC bar, was printed in smallish white letters “Second Printing”. This really hacked me off. Why, you may ask? That’s because printings are... Read More

On Tuesdays when the shop gets their new comics in to process so that they’re ready for the shelf on Wednesday, we divvy up things up in several stacks. This usually leaves us with a stack for all the big five publishers, Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, IDW and Image, as well as a stack for Dynamite to keep the small publisher stack from getting too tall. A few weeks ago a friend of mine and I noticed that Dark Horse had a vastly smaller stack compared to all of the others. This got me thinking about how Dark Horse stays in business when we seem to get only a few titles a week. Looking at comichron.com,... Read More

If you clicked on today’s article hoping to hear about Vampirella, Baron Blood, Morbius or Andrew Bennett then I’ve afraid I’m going to disappoint you. No, today’s article is about how the comic book industry is trying to bleed us dry of every penny they can get. First I want to talk about an indy publisher called Big City Comics. They publish two titles: Tesla and Hyde: Scary Fails and Killing Mars. Killing Mars is the book that appealed to me a few months ago when I first saw it in Previews. It’s about a criminal with a bounty on his head, who hires a team of female mercenaries to protect... Read More

Given that the holiday season is upon us I want to talk about what we as fans can do to give back to our favorite hobby. I have three suggestions that will help your local comic shop serve you better and help them stay in business. First and most important: the Previews catalog is your best friend. The biggest challenge your shop owner has is trying to find out how many issues of any given comic they need to order. If they order too few issues then people who come in asking for a copy they’ve sold out of could go to another store or Diamond Comics Distributors, North America’s only comic distributor,... Read More