Amber Love 26-JUNE-2012 Over the weekend, Ashley and I appeared at the St. Barnabas Hospice corporate offices for the Superheroes for Hospice fundraiser which brought in over $5,000. According to Spiro Ballas the organizer behind the entire event, approximately 9,000 comics were sold!
Other than an artist who dresses like Elvis with a Superman cape, we were the only costumers to appear. Organizer Spiro Ballas keeps events up to date on Facebook so if you have the chance, please Like their page and then join the events when they are created. You can also donate your old comics and graphic novels like I did by contacting Spiro. The official St. Barnabas site has information about donating, volunteering or attending the future shows.
The SFH event was the biggest single vendor show I’ve ever seen. The boxes filled one huge conference room and wrapped through more than one hallway. I attend the Wild Pig Cons in NJ every chance I get, and SFH had easily two to three times as many white boxes. It’s a tiny “artists’ alley” with local independent creators and a couple veterans of Archie, DC and Dark Horse Comics. There were four lectures during the day of which I attended one by Christian Rubiano espousing how comic fans and creators absolutely need to embrace digital technology and lower those prices if we stand any chance of keeping “American” comics from disappearing (emphasis was placed on how manga is thriving). Rubiano runs a small press publishing house of online comics and limited print comics and trades.
It was fantastic to run into “con friends,” those friendly folks I only see at comic related activities. New Jersey has an odd assortment of comics community networks. There are the Philly ‘burb people, the NYC ‘burb people, and the rest like me who are right in the twixt of them. Something that seems to hurt NJ comic events if our state’s lack of mass transit. I keep inviting friends and as city people, they don’t drive and they can’t get out to western or central NJ. It seems you’re screwed unless you set up a comic event in Jersey City or some other place with a PATH stop.
After the hospice fundraiser, Ashley and I got back into the hot car and drove an hour south to downtown Flemington for one of the car shows. The Flemington Business Improvement District has requested to have costumed guests at the car shows. I have been posting in Facebook and on Twitter and sad to say, no one seems interested. The folks that attend the car shows and the locals absolutely love when costumers are walking around Main Street. There are four shows left – the 2nd and 4th Saturday evenings from 6-8pm. If you’re interested in dressing up, just send me a message at amberlovescomics at gmail dot com.
Other comic events that you might want to consider are the Superman Sam Photo Project and the Somerset Patriots hero nights. The NJ baseball team, the Patriots have scheduled a Batman night for July 25, 2012 and a Spider-Man night for August 11. In Lancaster, PA there’s a Superhero Picnic for the residents of a group home. If you need information on please message me. I’ll be doing a podcast about it in July. And of course, we’re already working really hard on Superhero Weekend plans for October 6-7 at Comic Fusion to raise money for SAFE in Hunterdon.
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of AmberUnmasked.com and Vodka O'Clock Podcast. Author of The Farrah Wethers Mysteries, comic book short stories, prose, and non-fiction. Cosplayer and figure model.