The nation’s second-longest running comic convention, ITHACON,  is coming up this weekend! I can’t wait. I do have a bit of a history with this fabled event:

• As a young kid I went to ITHACON #2 (although it might have been ITHACON #1 – I’m not 100% sure) by nagging my mom to take me after I spotted a poster in Fay’s Department Store.
• Then in college, I was part of the Comic Book Club of Ithaca, and I helped organize the convention. To be honest, I wasn’t one of the major contributors back then.
• About fifteen years I was invited as a guest, and that was really fun! We were doing a lot of conventions back then (NYCC, SDCC, etc.) but ITHACON was still really special for me.
• And now, I work with folks like Bill Turner, Carmela Merlo, Bailey Day and TA’s Addy Wells and Teddy Pribulick to help run ITHACON. And the not-so-secret-sauce is that I teach a class of students all about tradeshows, conventions, creativity, and entrepreneurism.  And they will do all the heaving lifting, figuratively and literally, for ITHACON 49.

ITHACON has a long history of cool traditions—the Cosplay Runway, the Coloring Contest, Cosplay Live Model Sketching—and always has a lot of great guests. This year’s no different. Some of our “new” (and returning after a long-time guests include:

Randy Elliot, Bart Sears, Jim Beard, Howard Simpson, Larry Malson, Nick Sagan, Chris Sotomayor, Howard Simpson, D.A. Xoalin Spires, Bill Schanes, Chris Condon, Matt Bors, Don Simpson, Dean Haspiel, Mike Gold, Bob Harrison, Tom Peyer, Hart Seeley, Frank Cammuso, Glenn Whitmore, Ken Wheaton, Tyler Jennes, Nick Parisi, Keith Haugen, Bill Anderson, …and so many more

For 2026, we’ve added some wrinkles to it all including:

• The Supergirl Showcase – Collector Wade Hosth has lent his impressive Supergirl collection to ITHACON -and we’ll it on display. Comics, figures, dolls, merch and more!  Tom King, writer of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, zoomed in to speak team ITHACON recently, so we are all pretty Supergirl focused this time around.
• Truth, Just Ice, and the American Way  One of our favorite entrepreneurial start-ups, Just Ice Tea, is supporting the show and we’re just thrilled. We loved Honest Tea, and especially co-founder Seth Goldman’s GN, Mission in a Bottle. Just Ice Tea is the phoenix that rose from the ashes after Coca Cola acquired the brand and then discontinued it.
• Broadway Comics – is a new panel that Larry Maslon will be hosting, and we think this will be a lot of fun.

This one outta be a lot of fun! Hope to see you there!

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By the way, the good folks at Atomic Toybox have a cool Mars Attacks Kickstarter going on right now. Check it out here.