Charlotte
Talking Comics with Tim: Dustin Harbin
HeroesCon
HeroesCon is one of my favorite comic book conventions. This year the convention will be held from June 19-21 (Father’s Day Weekend), in Charlotte, N.C. With the date fast approaching I caught up with Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find’s Creative Director, Dustin Harbin, to find out what’s planned for this year. I have to agree with Harbin, who described “the straight up 100% comics vibe, without all the actors and movie stuff and all that” as being part of what makes the con appeal to folks like myself.
Tim O’Shea: A few years back, Wizard tried to create a con to compete with HeroesCon–but that’s far from what happened. Ultimately how much do you think the industry rally to support HeroesCon (as opposed to Wizard) helped bolster the reputation of HeroesCon?
Dustin Harbin: Ha ha, welllll we have made a point of not really making a big deal out of that whole kerfuffle. Just in terms of being classy, I guess. But to comment directly to the second part of your question, I think we had a pretty great reputation with most of our guests and exhibitors, and that whole thing just ended up advertising to the larger industry how well-liked we seem to be.
That’s maybe a distortion though–obviously I’m predisposed toward thinking that HeroesCon is very well-liked–but it was really the very public efforts of a lot of creators that really got people riled up. Cully Hamner and Tony Harris and some others immediately came out with pretty direct responses, and then a lot of pros that had never attended the show before threw their hats in the ring, like Greg Rucka and J. Michael Straczynski.
- May 25, 2009 @ 01:38 PM by Tim O'Shea