Detroit FanFare 2011 Comic Book ConventionWeekend pass: $15, $5 ages 5-12 (kids admitted free Sunday only). There are additional charges for VIP autograph sessions and photographs. Details at detroit fanfare .com
Event creator Dennis Barger Jr., owner of Wonderworld Comics in Taylor, says this year's FanFare could draw nearly 10,000 people, more than twice the number of "unique attendees" who showed up for the inaugural event last Halloween at the Hyatt Regency Dearborn.
Barger says he and event organizers hope to create something like the old Detroit Triple Fan Fair, which was the world's first regularly held comic book convention. It was launched in 1965 by the late Sheldon Dorf, a Detroiter who went on to found the San Diego Comic-Con International in 1970. That event has grown into the world's largest pop culture happening.
"The original Triple Fan Fair was built around three parts: comics, fantasy and sci-fi books, and movies," Barger says. "There's been a lot of parallel thinking that events like San Diego Comic-Con, which Dorf walked away from in 1986, have become this unbelievably huge mecca -- which is great in its own way, but it also has moved away from what it was meant to be about: comics."
With celebrities like "RoboCop" star Peter Weller expected to appear, pop culture will have a prominent role, but comics will be king, says Barger. He created FanFare with Gary Reed of Canton (creator of Transfuzion Publishing, former publisher of Caliber Comics and vice president of McFarlane Toys) and Tony Miello of Wyandotte (creator of the "GAPO the Clown" comic who is currently illustrating comics for the pop-punk band Bowling for Soup).
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