Special treat: follow along at home with the pictures to your left! Arranged in (roughly) chronological order, these will give a little visual flavor to one of the coolest success stories in comics! Click thumbnails for larger versions!

Join us in June for the country's most fun, friendly comic book convention: Heroes Convention 2006! This will be HeroesCon's 25th year, and all signs are pointing to it being our best ever, with an absolutely huge guest list already!

But that's the marketing line--to get the real scoop on one of comics' coolest success stories, you've got to hop in your time machine and zoom all the way back to 1982, when the very first HeroesCon was held here in Charlotte, NC!

Back then show organizer Shelton Drum, still in his tender twenties, was running the Charlotte Mini-Con, a one-day show taking place in a local mall. Shelton had only two years earlier opened Heroes Aren't Hard To Find, and the mini-con was a chance to provide area comics fans with exposure to local comics industry professionals as well as other area dealers--at that time mainly consisting of individual comics fans selling portions of their own collections.

But by June of 1982, the Charlotte Mini-Con had grown to a size that dictated more official expansion, and the fans were clamoring for more national guests--and so Heroes Convention was born, and today is the oldest independently-owned comics convention in the country. And we came out of the box hard--that first year, our guest list included the brand-new creative team on one of the year's hottest books, Teen Titans: George Perez, Marv Wolfman, and Romeo Tanghal--not to mention pros like Mike Zeck, Butch Guice, and more. The show was deemed a huge success by all who attended, including Perez, who has over the years become a member of the HeroesCon "family".

After that we were off and running, getting bigger and better with every year. In 1984 we had as our guest of honor comics great Stan Lee, which was a thrill for everyone involved--especially Shelton, who had been reading and collecting Stan's work from childhood on (Shelton's childhood, not Stan's). That's always been one of the coolest perks in this business: meeting the people whose work you've admired since you started reading comics. It's an opportunity you don't always get in life--not to mention the nice folks you meet along the way, professionals whose work you've never been exposed to, but discover through the convention, making yet another potentially life-long connection. In 1986, Shelton decided not to hold that year's HeroesCon after a death in the family. "HeroesCon literally takes the whole year to plan and organize," says Shelton, "and that year I just couldn't. I didn't have it in me."

But the next year we came back stronger than ever. In 1987, we held our first Art Auction, to help defray the medical expenses of the late great Sam Grainger, widely held to be one of the greatest inkers of all time, who at the time was struggling with diabetes. In later years the auction turned into a HeroesCon tradition, benefitting at different times the Charlotte Firefighters Burned Children Fund, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Harlan Ellison's KICK Internet Piracy fund, and John Romita Jr's Saving Baby Jordan fund, among others. In recent years, the rising costs of organizing and promoting an independently owned, comics-centric show like ours have forced us stop donating the proceeds of our Annual Art Auction to charity; using it instead to help with the enormous travel expenses incurred in putting together the sort of guest list we've become famous for. Of course, we'd prefer to continue to help charities, but building a show of this size has made difficult decisions like these necessary. Having said that, we're looking at several options for doing more to benefit charities like ACTOR and others in 2006.

1992 saw the first HeroesCon appearance of a hot young artist, then pencilling The Ray: Joe Quesada. Joe, of course, went on to make a little something of himself, but he has found the time nearly every year since to make an appearance at HeroesCon: the only difference is now it's as the Editor-In-Chief of Marvel Comics. Joe, along with some of the biggest names in comics, have become members of the HeroesCon family; it's difficult to say whether they're now stars because of HeroesCon, but the possibility is certainly there, don't you think? You heard it here first: Heroes is a star-making convention! You're welcome!

HeroesCon 94 was one of our biggest years yet, with stars like Jim Lee, J O'Barr, and Gil Kane; and another budding star: then-teenaged penciller Joe Madureira. This was during the height of O'Barr's popularity; "The Crow" movie debuted that year, and O'Barr was swamped with fans all weekend. Speaking of popular guests, Jeff Smith, creator of Bone, was another guest that year who had no time to himself. And how could we not mention the father/son team of John Romita Sr. and Jr.--very fitting, considering that that year's show was held on Father's Day Weekend. The next year, our first in the then brand new Charlotte Convention Center, was another whopper, with Image co-founder Todd McFarlane signing over 2,000 autographs that Sunday alone!

2003 was one of our most well-received shows ever, with accolades from all over the comic book industry. Returning guest Lou Ferrigno was a huge hit with all the hubbub surrounding the then upcoming "Incredible Hulk" movie. Sal Buscema was overworked at his booth, signing for ridiculous lines all weekend. And the show wrapped up with a private party which turned into a karaoke slugfest, featuring the on-stage HeroesCon debut of secret virtuoso Adam Hughes! Then, in 2004, guests like Brandon Peterson, Ed McGuinness, and John Cassaday kept us right on top as the most fun, friendly, laid-back show in the country!

Perhaps we're just proud, but the 2005 show was one of our best ever. Not only for the rougly 25% jump in attendance over the previous year, or the great reports from fans, dealers, and pros; more for the overall feel of the show, which was incredible. While we (the staff) were wildly busy for the entire three days, fans and pros were walking around beaming. We debuted our brand new Indie Island section in Artists Alley, a 5600 square foot area right in the very middle of the convention, showcasing indie creators and publishers like AdHouse Books, Paul Hornschemeier, James Jean, James Kochalka, Scott Kurtz, the Luna Brothers, Jim Mahfood, James O'Barr, Paul Pope, Andy Runton, and Top Shelf Productions. Plus we had a ton of first time guests like Gene Colan, Howard Chaykin, Cliff Chiang, Greg Horn, Mike Ploog, and Ethan Van Sciver--and Marv Wolfman made a return trip to HeroesCon, for the first time since the original HeroesCon in 82! Talk about bringing it back full circle! This year we held our Annual Art Auction off the convention floor for the first time, opting instead for the ritzy Westin Charlotte hotel--apparently a good move, as this year was our biggest Art Auction ever, with fans--and professionals--coming out in droves to support their favorite convention!

2006 will mark our 25th Heroes Convention (June 30th to July 2nd), and it looks like a shoo-in to be our biggest HeroesCon ever! The guest list is already huge--as of late July! With first time guests like J. Michael Straczynski and Bryan Hitch, plus an absolutely dizzying number of early confirmees, it promises to be a mammoth show! Thanks to everyone who's supported us throughout the many years since our first convention--without the incredible support of the fans, professionals, and dealers who've made HeroesCon their home each summer, we could never put on a show with the unique quality of HeroesCon! Make sure and check our Updates and Guest List pages frequently, as we're making big announcements all the time! Tickets are available now, as well as Artists Alley spaces and Exhibitor Booths! See you next June!