Hartford Comic-Con

Always good advice

I attended the first (and hopefully first annual) Hartford Comic Con for a few hours on Saturday, May 31.  The Con was held at the XL Center (Hartford's large sports and concert venue)  in downtown Hartford. Right from when I got to the arena, there was a nice buzz for the convention, as it was about half hour before the convention opened. There was a line snaking its way through the first floor of the arena and all the way outside and around the corner of the building. Folks were out in full force with cosplay on display, and a lot of families were there and a nice diversity of people (age, ethnicity, type of fandom).

Once the event started we made our way quickly through the ground floor and down the stairs into the event hall where the Con was taking place. The convention floor had a strong contingent of independent comics creators along with some creators working on "Big 2" titles such as Ron Marz (Silver Surfer, Green Lantern, Witchblade), Kaare Andrews (Spider-Man: Reign, Iron Fist: The Living Weapon), Mark Morales (Secret Invasion, Infinity) and Jim Cheung (Young Avengers, Infinity). I had the chance to meet a number of very nice creators, including Joey Esposito (Footprints, Captain Ultimate), Drew Zucker (Skybreaker), Ransom Getty (Evil Empire), Shelli Paroline and Braden Lamb (The Midas Flesh, Adventure Time), and Matthew Dow Smith (Doctor Who).


As with many conventions, there were a number of TV and movie celebrities present, stars of shows like The Walking Dead and Spartacus (along with Larry Thomas, better known as the "Soup Nazi" from Seinfeld). There was also some terrific, varied cosplay.

From my time there, the event seemed to run efficiently and lines moved pretty quickly.  I expect this event to continue to grow. According to the event organizers, they expected about 8,000 people during the course of the weekend. If you live or will be in the area next year, the show is definitely recommended. Plus, these guys say you should go:

I pity the fool who messes with this team