It’d been two years since I had been to Baltimore for the Comic-Con, and I was looking forward to going back. I have a number of fans that travel for the show, and I’ve always really enjoyed doing it. There’s a unique atmosphere at the show, as it’s large enough to be considered a large convention yet there’s a sense familiarity usually found only at smaller shows. It’s always been one of my favourites, and it holds the distinction of being both the first show I ever travelled for (beyond the New York-New Jersey area) and the show where I met my publisher, Bill Campbell (Rosarium Publishing), two years ago. That said, it’s also now the first show I ever missed a year of attending and then returned to, and for that reason, I was a bit nervous as to how the show would go for me.

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As a child growing up in New Jersey, the Mennen Arena was this vaguely referred to place where the WWE (then the WWF) would occasionally hold a house show. I never went there as a kid, but somehow I never forgot the name. So when the opportunity came up to attend an event there this past weekend, the little kid in me got just a little curious again. However, it wasn’t Bret Hart or Shawn Michaels headlining the event but rather names like Greg Hildebrant, Neal Adams, Mark McKenna and yours truly, J. M. DeSantis (well, maybe I’m not a headliner yet, but I’m hoping my time will come). Read more… ›

As much as I love exhibiting at conventions and meeting new and old fans and industry professionals, conventions are exhausting. Loading everything in and out of the show, the hustle of promoting and selling, giving one Chadhiyana pitch after another so that I feel like a broken record, even though the person in front of me is hearing it for the first time. It takes its toll after a few days have passed, and I always feel ready to sleep for days at the close of the show. (Again, don’t mistake me, I love doing conventions.) However, this past weekend I got to experience something a little different than the typical mix of stress and exhilaration of a large comic convention: the Crazy 8 Cartoon Festival. Read more… ›

J. M. DeSantis will be appearing at the Secret Adventures of Houdini release event at Forbidden Planet next Wednesday. J. M. will be there around 2(ish) and available to sign copies of the graphic novel (along with creators Todd Hunt and Sean Von Gorman), which features J. M.’s Houdini vs Mummies pin-up in the back of the book. See you all there!