Crabcakes and comics: Celebrating the milestone years of SPX and Baltimore Comic-Con

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Jason Bergman | October 8, 2024

This year marked the 30th anniversary of Small Press Expo, the annual convention of independent comics in Bethesda, Maryland. Just a few days later, on more or less the opposite side of this oddly shaped state, was the 25th annual Baltimore Comic-Con. These two shows frequently occur close to each other (last year they even landed on the same weekend) but with each celebrating a milestone, it seemed this was the time to cover both. Grab your Old Bay and slap on a Ravens cap, we’re diving head first into the Maryland comics scene.

Small Press Expo (Sept. 14-15)

30 years on, SPX is an institution, but these days there’s an entire indie comics circuit of similar shows, like MoCCA in New York, MICE in Massachusetts, CAKE in Chicago, and TCAF in Toronto.

Warren Bernard (Executive Director, Small Press Expo): This is our 30th anniversary, so that makes it special. There used to be APE [the Alternative Press Expo, in San Francisco]. They were the same year as SPX in ‘94.We're now the longest running indie comics festival in the United States. What happened was, people came. People would come to SPX. People came down from New York, people came from Toronto, [and said] “We need one of these.” We were the genesis point for all of this. And 30 years on, if you look at the spread of what we started, it's actually really amazing. So, if there's anything special about this year, it’s what has happened over the last 30 years that SPX started and was an influence on.

Anders Nilsen (Tongues, self-published, Pantheon): I think the first time I was here was 1999? A friend took some of my books and gave them out. And I got postcards from people, which was super cool. But the first one I actually attended I think was 2000. I tabled with a couple of friends. It was like three tiny little ballrooms in a little hotel in downtown Bethesda. The cool kids were like Highwater Books, there were like some For Thunder people, but it was sort of before anybody knew what that was. To me it was like, mind opening.

That sense of discovery is what brings people back to SPX year after year. It would be fairly easy for a show like SPX to put all its focus on creators who are already big names. But they don’t do that.

Bernard: There are two very different things that we do. When we go after special guests or they're offered to us, like for instance, Lawrence Lindell. We were like, let's take one of our special guest slots and give it to somebody who's just coming up. So that we could give him a big stage. And Lawrence Lindell has [a publishing deal with] Drawn & Quarterly now and he's done all this stuff. But the other part of it is, we have the lottery. And the lottery, I perceive as a strategic advantage. Because we don't know these people. We don't bring any artistic bias. And so whoever gets in, as long as they have comics, we will give them the table. And so about half the room every year is given over to the lottery. And that presents its own series of opportunities.

Greg Burnham (Tuskegee Heirs, self-published): This is my first year doing [SPX] and they reached out so we went through the process. We got approved. And while I say we, I'm here by myself this weekend. I've heard so many good things. I'm a writer, and I write several things. I've also done some DC Comics, a few stories with them. But this is very much a space that I want to get into. I love working for publishers, but I also love creating my own ideas so I just like the value of a show like this. I was just happy to, you know, set foot in here.

Carla Speed McNeil has been to every single SPX.

Carla Speed McNeil (Finder, Dark Horse Comics): It's hard to compare year one to year thirty in any meaningful way, because of course, the space was different, the people that turned up were different. From where I sit, I don't think SPX has ever failed to have its grassroots, “as long as there's a copy machine, there can be comics” feeling, which is the thing that has always made it so amazing. But at the same time, it has become a lot easier to walk out of here with your money made. I think the people on the ground have always been ready to see what's new from people they've never seen before, and what's new from people they know well, so for me, it's a perfect convention.

The room might stay the same size, but SPX is absolutely subject to change. The crowd over the years has gotten more diverse, more queer, and at the same time, lost much of its family-friendly vibe.

Bernard: There was no conscious decision on our part, that was evolution not revolution. It wasn’t like we woke up one day and said, “We had too many kids last year.” In fact, up until you pointed out, I didn't know.

Brown (Kids Are Still Weird, NBM): I do feel like there was a period of years where there was like a kids day or things. There's nothing wrong with being a show that doesn't have space for that. Because there are lots of children's book festivals and lots of opportunities, especially for graphic novels in those festivals.

Those who might be considered “the old guard” at SPX told me they find the new crop of talent inspiring.

R. Sikoryak (Constitution Illustrated, Drawn & Quarterly): It's really heartwarming, honestly, to see the change over. I remember, gosh, I think it was about 10 years ago now, it was the first time I was like, "Oh, I'm really the old guard here." That was at least ten years ago, where I really felt like a generational shift and that was sort of startling. And now I guess I'm used to it. But there is always this new influx of people. And it's great. Kriota [Wilberg, their spouse] is next to me. We both teach art at Parsons and so we're seeing a lot of young people coming up there, and also both of us taught at the Center for Cartoon Studies ten years ago. We're used to seeing the sea of talent wash by us, or over us. I'm not sure whether we're being covered by it or we're admiring the view, like under the tsunami. But in any case, it's just really exciting. There's just a lot of great energy and some of my other students from Parsons are here too, and it's really swell to see everybody growing up and making comics.

Brown: Like most things in life these days, it makes me feel old. It also makes me feel like a child, if that makes sense? There's cartoonists who are so young, but are so much more sophisticated and accomplished then I feel like I was at their age. I'm blown away sometimes by the quality of work. One of the reasons I teach is to have that energy present and to expose myself to it so that I don't get stale. Not that I take advantage of it as much as I could in terms of how I work. It's hard to change. But it's inspiring seeing young students. I've been teaching for over a decade, and the first year I was teaching, one of the students in my class was really into comics and the rest were, you know, painting and drawing or vizcom, or whatever. Now it's like, I'll have 15 students, and all 15 are really into comics and they've grown up in comics and their familiarity with the language of comics and their technical skills are so much higher than it was ten years ago. So it's pretty amazing to see that. And yeah, I feel like I do benefit from seeing how they approach work and I'll hear about work that I wouldn't catch otherwise.

Evan Dahm (Vattu, self-published, The Last Delivery, Iron Circus Comics): A lot of my experience of shows generally, after the COVID break, is that suddenly, I'm older than the mean and I feel a little culturally out of touch or something. How has it changed though? I mean the attention to craft and production value has enormously increased just across the board, even among the most independent, self-publishing people. Aesthetically, it's all developed in some interesting ways. I feel like there's more people doing this stuff, in a really focused and self-directed way than there used to be.

R. Sikoryak was back again with Carousel, an annual live reading of comics stories.

R. Sikoryak: I do this comics performance series where people read their work, present their work in different ways. And we had Shing Yin Khor, and we had Jeffrey Brown, and we had Joel Christian Gill and Amy Kurzweil and Stan Mack. And I mentioned everybody's names because it was a wide range of people from different generations in an hour show, and it was just fantastic to see them all together. I think Stan Mack felt like maybe it was going to be unusual for him to be in this scene but people really responded to his work. He's a different generation for sure. But I feel like the crowd has been inviting and warm to everybody here and it's been great.

Caroline Cash might be an Ignatz and Eisner award winning creator (and recently completed a fill-in run for Olivia Jaimes on Nancy), but she kept to her SPX roots this year with a hastily printed zine of her own.

Caroline Cash (Pee Pee Poo Poo, Silver Sprocket): Yesterday I printed on my riso like a hundred copies of a Nancy zine. At home yesterday in Philly. And then I had them all drying in the car on the way here, and this morning I woke up and I stapled a bunch of them together and then I went to the con. It was something that I thought would be fun to do yesterday when I was packing. It was completely unplanned. A spur of the moment, “could be fun if my risograph turns on” sort of idea. I brought like a hundred. I only managed to staple like 50. You know, if I staple some more tonight or tomorrow then there will be more [for Sunday]. Hopefully I'll have a little stack tomorrow.

While the SPX focus is universally on comics, some booths weren’t opposed to gimmicks to pull in customers.

Maddie Sackett (Wren is Alright, self-published): Our whole thing is cat versus dog. We're doing a vote where if you spend ten dollars at the table, you get to vote for cat versus dog. I think cats are winning right now. [in a post-show follow-up email, Sackett confirmed that “cat” was indeed the clear winner].

Ask anyone who attends SPX, and they’ll tell you, it’s comics camp. Every exhibitor raves about the feeling of community.

Sackett: I am so happy. I'm having such a great time. Shannon [Spence, her booth-mate], kept describing it to me as like, comics camp, and it has been. We hung out all night. It's just been nice talking to older cartoonists and hanging out with the big community of everybody here. I've loved it. What I noticed the most is just how welcoming everybody is and how excited everybody is to be here. We were talking about it earlier. Everybody's just so passionate and that's kind of all I want to see when I go somewhere like this. I just want to see people being really excited about whatever they do and that's everywhere here for sure.

Corinne Halbert (Acid Nun, Silver Sprocket): Oh my god, the community is absolutely incredible. I've seen so many incredible people, met new people, seen some old friends. I’m just having the time of my life.

Amy Kurzweil (Artificial, Catapult): This is the first time I've been to SPX. I was nominated for an Ignatz two years ago for an online comic I did with The Believer magazine, and I didn't actually experience any of it in person, but I kind of from afar got to experience it. But this is my first time here in person. It's really less overwhelming than I thought it would be. It's very personable. People actually want to buy books. I've sold all of my books and I'm really surprised. That's not usually how these spaces are, so it's like a more literary crowd, I think. I also did the Non-Fiction Comics Festival in Vermont which was also really nice. But this one feels bigger and kind of more of an established community. So it feels really nice to just see that spirit, that everybody knows each other and is open.

Andi Santagata (Yennefer’s Body, self-published): I just really, really love seeing everyone's work come out. SPX is kind of like the cartoonist convention for other cartoonists.

Alex Washburn (Clan Zargs, self-published): I wasn't sure what to expect because this was my first time tabling in general. But I am so happy to be here and being able to just engage with people in general. Everyone here is just so wonderful. Like they are all expressing themselves in a way like no one else can. And I'm like, “Oh, what do you make like, what do you have here?” And it's like exploring so many worlds here. I love the diversity of it all.

Kat Klockow (Cincinnati Cabinet of Curiosities, self-published): Everybody is really here to support creators, which is a wonderful vibe to have. I flew all the way out here from Seattle, Washington. So this is a really big event for me personally, to go to, and I am excited to be a part of it. We've had a steady group of people coming by and being interested in what we do and asking us all sorts of really good questions, not just about what we're making, but how we're making it and as a creator, I love answering all those questions. Like, “What kind of brushes did you use?” “This looks like risograph, did you use that kind of printing process?”

Joel Christian Gill (Stamped: From the Beginning, Ten Speed Graphic): This is my first time back in almost 11 years. Other than like the pimped out library, like the upgrade and the hotel, everything else is pretty much the same. The vibe is the same. The people are the same. The exhibitors are the same. I've seen people that I haven't seen in a long time. You know, I like the idea that there are people who just show up here every single year, just like attendees. And so I saw some attendees that always come back to my table every year, like, hey, I hadn't seen you in 10 years. It's been really great.

Jess Fink (We Can Fix It!, Top Shelf): I was talking to somebody yesterday, and we were saying that it was like a party, but the kind of party where you could like, read a book or, you know, share a story, not a party where like someone's chugging or taping 40s to their hands or something. A chill party. And I think that's like that's where I want to be.

For many years now, SPX has been a very diverse, and specifically very queer, show. Which continues to be appreciated by the community.

Fink: As usual it's just like the most queer friendly space that I've ever been in. Like the most queer friendly comic convention I've ever been in. Maybe TCAF feels that way too. But I just feel like SPX is for some reason above and beyond the most queer friendly space. I love it.

Gill: There's a lot more queer and bipoc stuff and I think that's important because those people have not had people like me, a person of color. Queer people have not had the access and the opportunity to do these things. But comics has traditionally been a safe space for those things. I don't like “safe space.” I like the idea of brave spaces. Spaces where you can just say whatever you want and you know people around you will support you or correct you in a loving way. That's actually really dope. Like, just really great stories.

Dylan Edwards (Valley of the Sky, self-published and TCJ contributor): I've been doing queer comics since 2000, so about 24 years now, and the proportion of both attendees and other creators who identify as queer or trans has skyrocketed. Every year that I do shows there are more and more queer creators, there are more and more queer attendees and fans, and it's been really great to see because it used to be like you would be the one queer table at the whole show and now there's just tons of people around. So it's really, really nice. I have definitely found that the indie shows like the small press shows like this and zine fests have been a haven for queer and trans people both as creators and attendees. It's been very welcoming and very supportive.

Edwards notes that shows like SPX follow the content, and representation is still lagging in mainstream media.

Edwards: It started with like, queer comics kind of being shunted off to the side out of the mainstream. So if you wanted to do, queer comics at all, or to find them as a reader, [it was] shows like this that you would have to go to. And so that just built over the years and the bigger shows, the mainstream shows that are focusing on the movies and the video games and stuff, those big media properties are still lagging behind. Like they'll be like, okay, well, we'll think about including maybe one queer character, maybe one trans character, maybe we'll let your character in the video game choose pronouns or something like that. But it's way lagging behind on what the indie creators have been doing.

Let it never be said that SPX doesn’t help people find their people, no matter how specific the community.

Annabel Driussi (Do Mice Daydream of Cheese?, self-published): I keep meeting people who are really into Lightning McQueen in like, a weird way. Like grown adults who have a weird fixation on Lightning McQueen, like I do. SPX is right. You find your people [laughs].

With so much diversity on display throughout the show, it was hard to really pinpoint any specific trends, but horror was definitely in this year at SPX.

Halbert: I really think horror is having a moment right now. It’s my favorite genre, and I make horror art, so I couldn't be happier. I hope that trend continues.

Ashanti Fortson (The Broken Heart at the Center of Comics, self-published): It's full of variety. There's the subgenres of horror. You've got your slasher, you've got psychological, you've got relationship, you've got, you know, classic monster horror, But there's also, increasingly different perspectives and horror not just from the artistic point of view. But also, from what experiences are we pulling from? In terms of film, you can look at Jordan Peele’s Get Out as a pivotal moment. People, both filmmakers and fans of horror seeing [that] horror can be so expansive. And in particular, black fans of horror are seeing their experiences represented, and I think that extends to the comics medium as well. There are so many different moments in the real world that we can pull from to explore in these stories. And there are so many that haven't been tapped into at all. I'm in particular very fond of experimental abstract horror and I love to see more of that. I love to see as much of that as possible

One thing that was very clear from walking around the floor is that Silver Sprocket was the table this year. The Sprocket booth was constantly packed, and they debuted Yasmeen Abedifard’s When to Pick a Pomegranate and Leo Fox’s Boy Island at the show.

Bernard: They've really come along and we had to put them in their own area. The same way, D&Q has their own area. We had to do the same thing with Silver Sprocket now because they have gotten that big.

Dahm: I got a couple things from Silver Sprocket. I got Putty Pygmalian [by Lonnie Garcia], have you seen this book? Purple foil, it's a beautiful weird looking book. The backgrounds are all photographs of a dollhouse and stuff. It's so cool looking.

Fink: I just stopped by Silver Sprocket because I love Silver Sprocket. Chromatic Fantasy is a great book they put out. I love that book. They just have good taste. I always find something there that I’m gonna like.

Comics workshops are a regular occurrence at SPX. This year Annabel Driussi led one with Coco Fox called, “Jokes with a Twist!”

Driussi: It’s the secret to storytelling, which is that, if your character wants something, they can either get it or not get it, and if they do get it, something bad has to happen. And if they don't get it, something good has to happen. It's a nice easy formula for getting started with telling stories, and we taught people how to do it in just four panels.

30 years on, one might wonder if SPX would be expanding any time soon, maybe to let in more exhibitors. Bernard says that’s definitely not happening.

Bernard: The limit is the limit. We physically can't get any bigger. There's no way to do it. Pre-pandemic some people were like, maybe we should move to a bigger facility, and I went around and looked at other facilities, and the bottom line is in the DC area and actually, any of the major cities, to get bigger than where we are now, we would have to go to the big downtown hotels. And that is not going to happen. The cost structures are totally different, which means that our pricing structure for the tables and for the rooms go totally out the door. The amount we have to charge to get in goes totally out the door of where we are now. Then also there's two other things that most people wouldn't think about. One of them is watering down the room. One thing you don't want to do is over expand the number of exhibitors, so that the money is spread out amongst more people. We've been very conscious about that and we didn't expand into the whole ballroom until we felt comfortable that there wasn't going to be the watering down of people buying stuff in the room. The people coming here, they've got to make some money. So no one has to worry about us leaving and we're not going to get any bigger. The second reason is just logistics, it's just a big pain in the butt. You know, we add another 50 or 75 tables, that’s probably 100 more creators come in…all the boxes. No, we're big enough. Got no reason. No reason whatsoever to get any bigger.

Baltimore Comic-Con (Sept. 20-22)

Just a few days later, I found myself in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, walking into a very different show. One with actual retailers and cosplayers and all those other comics industry things!

But while it is a mainstream show, Baltimore Comic-Con has done its best to maintain a comics focus. And though there were some media guests, they felt almost perfunctory, with fairly small autograph lines. Truth be told, you probably had a longer wait to meet major mainstream creators like Tom King and Mitch Gerads than any of the celebrity guests, but even they were approachable. 25 years in, it’s clear Baltimore hasn’t become a mega show like the New York or San Diego Comic-Cons.

Alex Segura (Alter Ego, Macmillan): There are other things, but it's still a great place to meet the talent that inspires you and that you follow. You just walk through Artist’s Alley, and it's a who's who of not just people from 20 years ago, but today. Like a lot of great creators like Steph Williams, and I just saw Willow Wilson. Dan Parent’s there. The Simonsons, everybody's there. So it still feels pretty vibrant in terms of comics, but I think on a business side you have to create some variety. San Diego and New York are entertainment events, pop culture events, where you're going to experience movies. There's installations that are like little playgrounds for adults to walk through.

Donald Simpson (X-Amount of Comics, Fantagraphics): I haven't done San Diego since the ‘90s. There's a lot of shows that call themselves comic cons, even think that they’re comic book shows, but you're still the tail wagging the dog. Whatever. Shows where you can really concentrate on the creators and people drawing on paper and cartooning is increasingly rare.

Jacob Ledoux (manager, Third Eye Comics): I absolutely love being in Baltimore and I think we probably make a bit [more than other shows] oddly enough. Probably just because it's different. This is comics centric, and we can push a lot of books. Awesome Con (in Washington, DC) is larger, but we make about the same because Awesome Con is more about manga and fandom and cosplay and stuff than it is necessarily comics.

Tom King (Strange Adventures, DC): My whole career started here. This is the first con I ever went to just to see what a con was like when I was like 30 years old. Just a little baby writer. And it’s the first con I ever tabled at, the first con I ever sold out at, when I sold my first Grayson was here. My whole career started with Baltimore Comic-Con.

Mark Buckingham (Miracleman, Marvel): It's definitely one of my favorite conventions to do. I love that it is a really strong show for comic creators and a lot of emphasis on art and on people getting a chance to meet and spend time with creators. I love that aspect of it. I feel like I make a lot of friends when I come to this show because I see familiar faces every year who want to hang out and chat. I get to see lots of my peers, but lots of friends. Lots of people in the business. And it has a very relaxed social feel, the evenings are always lovely because we all tend to congregate in the same places to hang out.

Mark Buckingham is a Baltimore Comic-Con regular, traveling across the ocean from the UK every year for most of the past decade.

Buckingham: I fly from London every time, but thankfully there are direct flights from London to here. I think there's a few of us [international regulars]. I mean, there's myself, and Barry Kitson, who make the trip quite regularly. In fact, it was Barry that told me I should come here. As is often the case with me, I kind of put my head down [and said], “I’m too busy! I don't know if I want to add another show to my list.” And then I come here and it's like you can't keep me away. I remember being here at the show last year on Sunday night and saying, “Well, I'm definitely coming back next year” and then immediately making plans for it. I just love it.

Even though Baltimore’s focus is still on comics, this year’s featured media guests included actors from Aliens and The Flash. Mandy Santiago of the con staff told me this is to meet audience expectations.

Mandy Santiago (Baltimore Comic-Con): At this point unfortunately they do [expect media guests]. Because just scrolling through social media and some of the PR announcements that went out on Facebook, people in the comments will be like “When are you announcing media guests?” or “What media guests are coming?” So at this point, I think because of now defunct Wizard [World] shows or your Fan Expos, or your Galaxy Cons that it's almost expected that you have some media guests at a show.

Having a larger focus than SPX allowed for some interesting exhibitors, including the Frazetta Art Museum from Pennsylvania, and Baltimore’s own Edgar Allan Poe House.

Frank Frazetta (Frazetta Art Museum): We're here to spread the word, the gospel of Frazetta, to get the art out there and really, to help support the museum. All the sales that we make today are going to go back towards preserving the artwork, and even reacquiring some. It's always fun when people come up and ask me questions about my grandfather, or they just kind of tell me their stories about what he's done for them. That means a lot to me, because as a kid, I grew up as his neighbor for 18 years, he was one of my best friends. I remember hanging out with him almost every day. So hearing that about your best friend and that he was like this awesome guy for everybody, it makes me so proud to have known the guy.

Enrica Jang (Edgar Allan Poe House & Museum): Baltimore loves Poe. That is just true. This is a city that really embraces this author, you will not find another city in the United States who loves Poe the way Baltimore loves Poe. Even our football team, the Ravens, the only NFL team named for a poem. You'll see Poe all over this show, but this crowd really loves iconic figures and, you know, it's almost Halloween. So you've got that crossover with the horror and spooky season and all that kind of stuff. So many really great combinations of things in the fandom.

The Poe House did have a “Poe in Comics” exhibit in 2023 featuring artists like Richard Corben, but alas, they didn’t bring it to the show.

There aren’t many artists who are regulars at both cons, but Carla Speed McNeil can claim to have been to every single SPX as well as many, many Baltimore shows. And they appreciate both.

McNeil: It's still mostly comics. A few TV people, that kind of thing, but I can be laid back at this show. I can move around, you know. I can get to know people that I might not otherwise have time to break away and talk to. Traffic for me is not the unending swarm that I usually have at SPX, but I'm okay with that because it does give me an opportunity to make connections. And that's a lot of what shows are good for. Most of the collaborative work that I've done has been through people that I meet at shows.

Although I missed him at SPX, Sonny Sponder was at both shows as well. I found his booth in the Artist’s Alley, surrounded by booths selling keychains and other pop culture merch.

Sonny Sponder (Flish Flesh Flush, self-published): It's hard to sell your own thing. So we're kind of mixed in between a lot of other artists that aren't necessarily doing comics. I think the way that it's organized in the front, there's some more veteran artists that are further up near the entrances. And then there's another section of more celebrity comics that are probably experiencing a different kind of traffic. It's hard. I'm hustling myself, just trying to get my books out there because it's something that I feel very passionately about. I think that a lot of these shows it's the only avenue for a lot of us to get the physical books out there as opposed to selling them online which is very hard in and of itself.

It does seem like hustle is the key word for independent creators at Baltimore Comic-Con. Aside from his self-published comics, Sponder sells Pokemon and other pop culture pins. Tim Aichele has found selling pop culture prints is the best way to draw people in.

Tim Aichele (Stars on the Ceiling, self-published): People always stop and say, “That's funny!” when they see my original prints, but they usually stop and look at my Star-Lord print. I give them a flier [for Stars on the Ceiling] or something like that, but mostly, yeah, they're really interested in the prints.

Nico Rodriguez (The World is a Funny Page, self-published): I know that there’s baseball game stuff going on. So maybe that brought some of the crowd out. I know that SPX was last weekend. So maybe they all kind of did SPX, so now they're kind of taking it easy this week. I don't know, there's all these psychological things that could be [causing a lack of traffic]. But the people who have come by and are into it, have been great.

As con regular Tom King confirmed on Saturday, the crowd does ebb and flow with the sports schedule.

Tom King: The secret of Baltimore is if there's a Ravens game on Sunday, then it's a little quieter here. There's a Ravens game tomorrow, so I think it's gonna be a little quieter.

One thing you’ll see a lot of at Baltimore? Kids and families.

Mandy Santiago (Baltimore Comic-Con): Yeah, that's very conscious. Because the staff, they all have kids. Mark [Nathan, the owner of Baltimore Comic-Con] has kids and we all started as kids in this, right? And so you want to keep it kid friendly and make sure that the whole family can appreciate what's going on. And that is definitely very conscious when considering the guests, the media guests, even the retailers. The people in Artist’s Alley are scrutinized to make sure that you're not getting highly inappropriate things that you don't want kids to see. We have artists who do adult stuff, but they kind of put it towards the back, or mark it as not safe for kids. But I think a lot of people who come to this show know the atmosphere, and that the target is a family friendly show. So I think a lot of people police themselves.

Jamal Igle (Dudley Datson and the Forever Machine, Dark Horse): The focus on kids has always been really, really good. I think that's important especially in a day and age where a lot of parents want to feel comfortable with the entertainment that their kids are enjoying and learning about. A show like this which allows parents to share in their kids' interests, and expose them to stuff that they may not already know about in an atmosphere that's welcoming. And I think with like, the bigger shows that can be very, very hard just from the size of the crowds, and the stuff that's going on during the show.

Chandler Boarman (First Class Five, self-published): Well, the age range I have in mind for my comic book is typically 13 to 30. If someone who's a little younger comes by and they're with their parents, I'm going to say very plainly, be careful because there will be some mild swearing and a little graphic imagery.

Tommy Jenkins (Drawing the Vote, Abrams Comicarts): I think it's a great thing [that there are so many kids here]. Overall, it just shows that there's a growing comics community, and that comics are for all ages, there's comics for everybody. For me personally, I mean, I'll be honest with you, most teenagers aren't stopping to buy a book about the history of voting [laughs]. Now, their parents might. A lot of times, their parents bring them by to do it. But still, I love seeing young people getting into comics. I'm somebody who grew up in a small town in the south loving comics, I didn't have conventions. I didn't have anything like that so I didn't have this kind of community. I love it.

I’ll let Tom King sum it all up with his love for the show.

Tom King: When I first came into comics I did the Maryland con circuit with all the guys and women trying to break into the business. You know, Annapolis, little little shows and fire stations and stuff like that. I think I did 20 cons a year. Just hand selling my book and you get a little community of people who are all doing that and they're still here and we're all, you know, grayer and balder. And I’m fatter. But we're still a community. We still support each other. We're still, you know, working now. I haven't noticed a huge change. It seems like the same nerdy stuff it's always been. It's a wonderful con. It's focused on creators.

Thanks for all the love, Maryland. See you next year!