For one day only at the Middletown Arts Center in New Jersey, the Middletown Comic Show hosted dozens of vendors specializing in comic books, toys, trading cards, and more!
From 10am to 4pm, the show’s owners Stan Kalucki & AJ Blair packed the day with hourly door prizes (ranging from tickets to Garden State Comic Fest to even autographed comic books), triple comic packs to the first 100 guests, and best of all: free admission all day!
What was great about this show was that it was geared towards every kind of comic book fan. While the lifelong collector can appreciate the rare wall books on display, even the youngest fan can still find ways to get themselves plugged in, whether it’s being introduced to some of the classics in the 50 cent bins or finding a fun toy to add to their collections.
There was a variety of merchandise for sale like vintage vinyl records, Lego Minifigures, Funko Pops, handmade pop culture bookmarks by Ingenious Edge, and even magic tricks by Wanderland!
But as you go through the two show rooms & hallways filled with booths, you’ll see that there were creator guests at this show as well! Present were Marvel colorist Bob Sharen, Kubert School grad Christian Espiritusanto, as well as local creators Criss Madd, James E. Roche, Jay Taylor, and Studio MA-EN‘s Enrique Lopez & Marimar Lopez.
They were all hard at work, fulfilling commission requests, which is when artists will complete a custom piece to your personal preferences.
Some also had completed works for sale, whether it be prints, stickers, or originals like sketch covers & comic pages.
You could even snag unique works of art like pillows or themed bird houses by Littleblokes!
Everywhere you looked, comic book art was represented:
But don’t move too quickly because if you’re eagle-eyed, you may be able to find some of those sought-after books on your wishlist. I know I did!
There was a plethora of graded books, autographed books, first appearances, key issues, and extremely rare variant covers:
On top of a Wonder Woman print (penciled by Jim Lee & inked by Enrique), I also picked up one of Ingenious Edge’s bookmarks, a Spider-Man sticker by Marimar, and a stack of great comic books including Spawn #1, Marvel Comics Presents #72 (“Before Wolverine There Was Weapon X”), and tons more!
Check out some more of the show in the video below! For more information on the next Middletown Comic Show, visit their website or Facebook page.
LesDudis 