Comic Book Resources

Wizard World Nashville now exists

In theory, at least -- as of the writing of this post, there's nothing up about it on Wizard's convention website yet. But Rich Johnston had the news even before Wizard's official Twitter feed: "Garev [sic] Shamus has bought the ten year old Nashville Comic & Horror Festival and has renamed it Nashville Comic Con Wizard World Convention for later this year."

This latest rebranding of a small local show with the Wizard/"Comic Con" name is part of a now-established pattern; interestingly, Johnston describes it as one in which "no money actually chang[es] hands," but rather an existing con infrastructure is essentially bartered for Wizard's name recognition. I hadn't heard that before, but it may be the only way such rapid expansion makes sense for a company with fewer employees than it's had since its very earliest years.

In other recent Con War news, Johnston reported last week that Wizard has now sandwiched Reed Exhibition's New York Comic Con with nearby shows of its own the weekend before (New England Comic Con, Oct. 1-3), the weekend after (New Jersey Comic Con, Oct. 15-17), and of course the very same weekend in the very same city (Big Apple Comic Con, Oct. 7-10). Johnston sees this as an attempt to crowd NYCC out; piggybacking off the press of the larger and more established show could also be a motivation.

For their part, Reed continues its M.O. of adding guests, rather than shows: Recently announced additions to Chicago Comics & Entertainment Expo -- a competitor of Wizard's Chicago Comic Con that runs head-to-head against Wizard's Anaheim Comic Con the same weekend -- include Dan DiDio, Paul Levitz, Mark Bagley, Peter David, Mark Waid, Dash Shaw, Chip Kidd, Art Baltazar, Bob Layton, Jonathan Hickman, Peter Tomasi, James Robinson, Greg Pak, Jim Valentino and, in all likelihood, probably quite a few I'm missing. The presence of DiDio, Levitz and Geoff Johns seems to be a pretty clear vote of confidence from DC, by the by. Meanwhile, reports that the city of Anaheim is strongly trying to woo Comic-Con International away from San Diego indicate that Wizard's show isn't quite what the city is looking for.

Gareb Shamus buys New England Comic Con

Looks like the Con War has opened a new front: Wizard Entertainment CEO Gareb Shamus has purchased the New England Comic Con to add to his ever-growing slate of comics and pop-culture shows. According to a press release posted on the Wizard site, the Con's previous owners, Larry Harrison and Jerry Tournasm of retailer Harrison's Comics & Collectibles, will continue to work for the show.

The latest addition to a roster of Shamus/Wizard shows that includes Anaheim Comic Con, Toronto Comic Con, Big Apple Comic Con, and Wizard World Philadelphia, the Wizard World New England Comic Con, as it will apparently be called, is not to be confused with either the Boston Comic Con -- whose guests for its April 10-11 show next year include Jim Lee, Mike Mignola, Eric Powell, and Bill Sienkiewicz at the top of a pretty impressive roster -- nor the previous Wizard World Boston show, held once (in 2005) before being canceled. Whether Shamus's latest attempt at a Boston event will engender the same sort of rivalry as his other cons have with such shows as Heroes Con, the Long Beach Comic Con, Fan Expo Canada, and Reed Exhibition's New York Comic Con and C2E2 remains to be seen.

More, undoubtedly, as it develops.