This one of a kind event is THIS Saturday 22 November 2025.
Destination Dealers Con! "And what’s that?” you may very well ask. Well, it’s a one-of-a-kind event the likes of which haven’t been seen in Pittsburgh since… maybe ever! It’s the brainchild of Frank Santoro, who wanted to revive the old school vibe of back issues and longboxes, of talking shop and geeking out, and hanging with some of your favorite comics creators (see below). It is being held at a unique space located at 799 Barclay Avenue in Forest Hills, 15221 (that has plenty of free parking, just FYI.) Also: FREE ADMISSION
In addition to Santoro himself, the currently scheduled guests are:
Sammy Harkham
Dan Nadel
Kevin Huizenga
Jim Rugg
Tom Scioli
Chris Pitzer
Nate McDonough
Cameron Arthur
Audra Stang
Matthew Dowdy
+ Brian "Bubbles" Baynes
& John "Dummy" Kelly
On the dealer side:
Doomed Planet Comics
Mind Cure Records
And, of course, Copacetic Comics will be there, as well!
To be honest, I debated writing about this one at all. But, I figured, why not? It’s fandom-related, after all.
This event was the same weekend as the Sixty-Six Games Expo/BN Video Game Convention. Instead of going back to that on Sunday, we did this Sunday afternoon instead.
So, the first thing to put out there is that this is more of a comics show than a convention as I usually write about. @lechevaliermalfet and I went once before, in 2018.
These events are all over the Midwest area, and all are free. Also, if you sign up for their mailing list, you will get a reminder postcard when the show comes back to your area.
If you bring the postcard to the show, you get a free comic!
Yeah, they’re likely to be leftovers from either Free Comic Book Day or Halloween ComicFest, but if you missed those events, at least you can snag one of the titles on offer this way.
And then, you are free to shop. There are boxes upon boxes of comics laid out, from different vendors. Some of those boxes had funny sayings.
FYI, the dealers we interacted with requested purchases be in cash.
If you aren’t a traditional comics fan, there are still things to read you may be interested in. There were graphic novels and manga on hand. We even found a volume in Japanese, which was a surprise to see at an event like this. (It was sorta tempting, but I can’t read the language and we have it in English).
There are also usually old action figures / promotional items / some fan-made merch for sale.
We probably would have had more interest in the Transformers if they had been labelled as to who they were - unlike @shbumi, who probably could do it, @lechevaliermalfet and I can’t name all the bots on sight.
Now, I did burn out on browsing faster than @lechevaliermalfet did, so I also played Pokemon Go. I know, I know, what a shocker!
We did find a couple items to buy, though. @lechevaliermalfet got reading material, and we both went for custom Lego figures. And seriously, I love these.
As I said, this was the same weekend as the BN Video Game Con. So in the end, we squeezed two nerd events into one weekend, and left both with some cool swag.
There will be more comics shows in our area through the year. I don’t know that we’ll go to all of them when they come around, but it’s definitely worth checking out at least once a year.
There's a small, free comic show going on today (10/21/18) from 10a-4p at the main Holiday Inn in East Peoria (close to Target).
There isn't signage, so be warned. It's in one of the banquet/conference rooms.
See? No sign, just open door.
The room was decently sized for the handful of vendors present.
Most of what was on hand were single issues. There were some trades (@lechevaliermalfet bought 3, though none were Transformers, which is what we were originally looking for).
They had a wide variety of those singles, though. Standard DC and Marvel, but also other options.
There were also trading cards, some board and PC games, dvds, and general merch.
Our event on Saturday was FANTASTIC! And our first time doing panels was a really informative success! And who doesn’t love a comic book library and aggressively themed X-Men drinks? Come join us f...
had a blast this weekend at bmoreintocomics: did a panel about self-publishing & Kickstarter with a bunch of my Bmore buds!
