HeroesCon at 40: NC comic book convention soars back for a big anniversary show
The return of the popular HeroesCon comic book convention in Charlotte has special meaning this year for the event’s founder, Shelton Drum.
It’s the 40th anniversary of Heroes Convention, a show that grew out of Drum’s days selling comic books at a flea market.
It’s the first time back in the sprawling Charlotte Convention Center since COVID began in 2020. And the June 24-26 show is the first since two comic book legends and good friends of Drum died.
For Drum, the annual gathering also provides a chance to catch up with friends he’s made over the years. The show even has a new name for this year — the Fantastic 40th Heroes Convention.
Comic books have exploded in popularity with the creation of far more diverse super heroes and the advent of non-hero stories about all aspects of life, he said.
“Parents and teachers appreciate comics that kids take an interest in and that get them to read,” Drum added. “Comics were disparaged for a long time as throw-away or bad literature, and now comic books are regarded as a gateway for readers.”
Faster than The Flash, Drum’s show mushroomed into the largest independently owned comic book convention in the U.S.
Some 50,000 people attend the event, roughly 10,000 to 20,000 a day, he said. They travel from across the country, Europe, Asia and South America to buy comic books and meet their favorite writers, artists, creators and animators.
About 500 industry pros will greet fans at the show, which has featured the likes of such legendary comic book writers as the late Stan Lee. The show will consume all 280,000 square feet of the convention center exhibit hall.
This year’s event will feature appearances by some big names in the comic book world, including Marvel Comics former editor-in-chief Roy Thomas, who co-created Wolverine, Ultron and Vision, among other characters; Marvel Comics X-Men series writer Chris Claremont; Spider-Man artist John Romita Jr.; Marvel and DC Comics writer and artist Walt Simonson (Fantastic 4, Thor) and Marvel Comics artist Skottie Young (Cable & Deadpool, Spider-Man, Iron Man).
“I missed all the friends and colleagues and acquaintances I’ve made over the past 40-plus years, and I’ve been selling comics in Charlotte for over 50 years,” Drum told The Charlotte Observer. He spoke during a recent interview at his Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find comic book store on Pecan Avenue in the Elizabeth neighborhood.
“So I see those people and their kids and now their grand kids,” he said.
“But also the (comic book) creators,” he said. “I met a lot of these guys in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s. And we’ve been friends ever since.
“A lot of these people I haven’t seen in a long time, and I’m looking forward to that.”
Collecting comic books since boyhood
The 68-year-old Drum was 9 or 10 when he first fell for comic books and their superheroes. At the time, the only place he could find the books in his small Catawba County hometown of Newton was at City Pharmacy.
So what hooked him? “It was the art. It was the dialogue. It was the character interaction. It wasn’t just the fighting, but it was like who Peter Parker was and his relationships with the supporting cast. And the way they developed over the years was just amazing to me.”
His devotion to finding his favorite comic book issues intensified as a 10-year-old in the mid-1960s. He said he’d noticed how Amazing Spider-Man No. 1 was selling for a then-astonishing $10.
By 1968, he bought out City Pharmacy’s entire monthly comic stock. In the early 1970s, he sold comic books once a month at Metrolina Flea Market and, in 1977, hosted Charlotte’s first comic book convention, Charlotte Mini-Con, at Eastland Mall.
In 1982, he debuted his full-scale Heroes Convention. Fans and industry pros have flocked to the shows ever since.
‘Comics are like a giant tower’
Like many fans, Bruce Littlefield fell in love with comics at an early age.
The 19-year-old from Charlotte enjoys meeting industry pros at HeroesCon, which he has attended since age 11 or 12. He also has volunteered at the convention’s help desk.
While perusing titles at Drum’s store, Littlefield told the Observer he is pursuing a fine arts degree at Central Piedmont Community College and intends to work in the industry as an illustrator and animator.
“Comics are like a giant tower,” Littlefield said. “You’re always building on what the previous guy left behind.”
Comics fan Edwin Baker, a 44-year-old Charlotte man, said the upcoming HeroesCon will be his first. He loved collecting comics when he was younger and resumed his hobby last year.
Baker credits his wife, Marvel and DC Comics movie fan Marquitta Gosha, with coaxing him back into the comics world. “She’d seen the excitement it brought me,” Baker said while shopping at Drum’s store.
Losing two heroes and friends
As Drum and legions of other fans celebrate the convention’s return, the show also will be “bittersweet.” That’s how Drum described the recent deaths, writing in a Facebook post last month, of the deaths of two cherished friends , artists and writers George Perez and Neal Adams.
“We have lost a couple of luminaries, giants of the industry, since the last show,” Drum told the Observer.
“George Perez was a very good friend of mine,” he said of the man who penciled The Avengers for Marvel Comics and later co-created and penciled The New Teen Titans, a top seller for DC. He also played a key role in helping reinvigorate Wonder Woman in the 1980s.
Perez died of pancreatic cancer on May 6 at his Florida home. He was 67. “He was our premiere guest at the very first show in 1982,” Drum said.
Perez let him and other friends know he had the cancer and would not be treated for it. “He was just going to ride it out,” Drum said. “He was just so strong about it. So we knew it was coming, but it still hurt.”
Drum described Adams, who died on April 28 at age 80, as “one of the greatest artists ever to draw a comic book.”
Adams revitalized Batman and co-created such characters as Ra’s al Ghul, Man-Bat and one of DC’s first Black superheroes, Green Lantern John Stewart.
“Both of these guys have been to the (Charlotte) show numerous times,” Drum said. “There’ll be a lot of tears shed reminiscing about those guys” at HeroesCon.
Looking back — and ahead
Comics have lasted for nearly a century, and Drum sees a bright future for the industry.
“It was once predicted that comics would all go online, and there would be no more paper,” he said. “Not true. There’s more stuff coming out now than ever before.”
The appeal?
“People enjoy owning and holding the piece of art,” Drum said. “That is a comic book. And the majority of people who buy comic books keep them and take care of them and put them in order and revisit them from time to time. And maybe they trade something for something else that they want.”
As for HeroesCon: “We’re ready to rock and roll and get back to business,” he said. “If you like comic books or art, come see us.”
Want to go?
What, when, where: HeroesCon, June 24-26,the Charlotte Convention Center, 501 S. College St. in uptown.
Cost: One-day pass, $25 per person Friday and Saturday and $20 Sunday. Three-day pass is $50 per person. Admission is free to ages 18 and under.
Hours: 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Friday, June 24; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, June 25; and 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday, June 26.
Tickets and other details: Heroesonline.com.
Fundraiser: The convention’s 10th anniversary Drink and Draw benefit for Parkinson’s research is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 24, at the Westin hotel, 601 S. College St., across from the convention center. Details: MichaelJFox.org.
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This story was originally published June 14, 2022 at 10:08 AM with the headline "HeroesCon at 40: NC comic book convention soars back for a big anniversary show."