The 10th Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo, better known as C2E2, returned to McCormick Place March 22-24, attracting tens of thousands of fans to a lineup of major publishers, a robust Artists Alley, a strong gaming contingent and a notable selection of Chicago-based comics stars.
The comics footprint on the exhibit floor felt smaller this year than 2018, although Marvel and DC both had booths, as did independent comics publishers Action Lab, Aftershock, Source Point Press, and Zenescope. A number of previous exhibitors, including Dark Horse, Image, Valiant, Oni Press, and BOOM! Studios, were absent, however, and St. Louis-based Lion Forge had a smaller, less centrally placed booth than it has had in previous years. Some of the fall-off may have been due to timing; C2E2 takes place immediately following Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle and just prior to WonderCon in Anaheim, which opens this weekend.
On the other hand, Chicago-based graphic novel publisher Iron Circus (and its publisher Spike Trotman) had a prominently placed booth and was doing a brisk business. Another graphic novel publisher, First Second, also was busy in its booth, and next to that, HarperCollins had an impressive array of prose fiction and middle-grade graphic novels.
Also on the floor was graphic novel publisher Anomaly Productions, which got some attention a few years ago with Anomaly, a mammoth sci-fi graphic novel by artist/cowriter Brian Haberlin that incorporated augmented reality via an app that made elements of the page appear to pop up and move when viewed with a smartphone or tablet. Haberlin is back with Creature Catcher, a new children’s book that uses the same technology.
Marvel announced that writer Tini Howard has signed an exclusive contract with them and will launch a new Death’s Head series. Howard’s first comic was published in 2014, and since then her rise has been meteoric, with credits that range from licensed comics such as Power Rangers and Rick and Morty to the series Assassinistas (with artist Gilbert Hernandez), which is part of former Vertigo editor Shelley Bond’s Black Crown imprint at IDW. Her most recent Marvel series, Age of Conan: Belit, Queen of the Black Coast, launched earlier this month.
Lion Forge had two announcements: Army of One, a sci-fi comics series by British novelist and comics writer Tony Lee and artist Yishan Li, and a collection of the webcomic Witchy, by Ariel Slamet Ries.
The American Library Association had a pop-up library on the exhibit floor, and they also kicked off the show with a keynote panel featuring former Chicagoan Lucy Knisley. Knisley is the author of the graphic memoirs Relish, Something New, and the recently published Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos. She is currently working on a fictional middle-grade graphic novel. C2E2 has a professional track for teachers and librarians, and the teacher panels (for which attendees could get professional development credits) were well attended; at least one was so full that some people were turned away.
C2E2 is known for having a particularly good Artists’ Alley, and despite the proximity to Emerald City (which a number of the artists had attended the week before), this year was no exception. The alley lineup included Fox Trot creator Bill Amend, World of Wakanda and RUN artist Afua Richardson, and Chicago resident Jill Thompson (Wonder Woman: The True Amazon), who has won multiple Eisner Awards for her work on the Vertigo series The Sandman and her original children’s graphic novels Scary Godmother and Magic Trixie.
