ReedPop, the Reed Exhibitions unit that produces New York Comic Con, C2E2 and other pop culture conventions, is launching a new and smaller comics show to be held at the Javits Center on June 14 and 15. The new show will be called Special Edition and will be held at Javits North, a smaller hall that holds “Artists Alley” during New York Comic Con, and is projected to attract 10,000 to 15,000 fans.
ReedPop also announced that it has signed on to become a corporate member of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit organization devoted to protecting the First Amendment rights of comics artists, publishers, retailers, librarians, and fans. Other corporate members of CBLDF include Random House, Diamond Comics Distributors, Comixology and DC Entrtainment among others.
While the launch of the show was first reported by the comics news site Comic Book Resources, rumors of the launch of the new comics show have been circulating via a number of comics news blogs for a couple of weeks. ReedPop global v-p Lance Fensterman confirmed the new show during a phone interview with PW.
“New York Comic con started as a pure comics show,” Fensterman said, “but these show grow and begin to attract every over pop culture category. Right now there’s a huge, unending desire for shows offering better fan/creator interactions.” Fensterman said ReedPop has taken note of the growth in smaller, “medium-sized” comics shows around the country—from the long running SPX in Bethesda to the fast growing TCAF in Toronto—and had originally planned for Special Edition to take place during the next BookExpo America.
However, he said they couldn’t make the scheduling happen. ReedPop is also behind the planning of BookCon, BEA’s new Comic-Con-like effort to produce a consumer day at BEA this year. The new show that will take advantage of the enthusiasm generated during the last New York Comic con around the “Artists Alley,” venue at New York Comic con, a smaller 80,000 square foot venue at the North End of the Javits Center with natural light.
New York Comic Con has become wildly popular and in a short while has grown into a “mega con,” much like the San Diego Comic-Con. NYCC attracted more than 130,000 fans to latest show and like the San Diego show, NYCC has become as much about movies, TV shows, and videogames—not to mention the overwhelming crush of massive numbers of fans—as it is about comics.
Fensterman said the new show will provide a standalone event platform strictly for comics, comics artists and publishers. “Basically, there’s a comic-con every week during the year. We looked at the growth of medium sized shows and said let’s build something special.”
