ComicsPRO ’26 Day 1: Meetings and Greetings

The annual ComicsPRO meeting is being held in Glendale, CA, and The Beat is there! This has grown into a full four days of meetings, meet-ups, presentations, parties and burger trucks, with most participants arriving Tuesday – including the Beat. 

Wednesday was given over to meet-ups, panels and intense, high-level premium grade meetings. This is where the elite come to pact and partner. 

That includes offsites – I lyfted over to The Pointe to visit the Legendary Comics folks. And yes, there still are Legendary Comics folks. The in-house comics line that publishes Movie Kong, Movie Godzilla, Pacific Rim and many other properties. I’ll have more on that in a future report. 

A few notes and observations:

• Print is back, baby! Several retailers expressed enthusiasm about the upcoming Comics! The Magazine, with the idea of an elevated Wizard magazine highly appealing to retailers and customers who like to hold things in their hands. Atom Freeman’s  upcoming magazine has 100K orders of its first issue. Tiffany Babb was also on hand talking about her own print venture, The Comics Staple, that it project is also gaining steam. 
• Speaking of press, the number attending has gone from 2 to 6 or more depending on who you count as what. ComicsPRO is the biggest business meeting of the year for comics, and I expect coverage to only grow, which is a good thing. 
• A bunch of folks also walked over to Legacy Comics and Cards in Glendale, a large beautiful organized shop that has all your comics and gaming needs covered. 
• PRH, Lunar, Universal and Alliance are all attending, so we’ll have a lot more on Diamond; A Year Later from the retailer perspective. For an update on the players, check out our Toy Fair report. 
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• Also speaking of press, Alex Zalben of Comic Book Club was here but in his NEW ROLE working for Rocketship Entertainment! Here he is trying to avoid being seen. 
• Nighttime activities including a local creator showcase that was for all the LA based creatives who wanted to get their work in front of ComicsPRO retailers. IN effect this was a “Ted Talk” of indie comics fests, with a mere 90s minutes to circle the room, get your giveaways and make your pitch. No time to schmooze!  Everyone loved the concept and maybe this is how all indie comics shows should be done! patrick Horvath of Beneath the Trees fame 
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• Ignition Press provided an In-n-Out burger truck and everyone was seen munching these local delicacies. I don’t eat red meat aside from a burger once or twice a year, and had already had a hearty dinner so I had to pass on having my very first ever In-n-Out burger. I want my first time to be special. 
• This was followed by the opening night reception which featured blue drinks and a bingo card for attendees that was really hard! Mow the schmoozing could get going in earnest.

We’ll having more breaking news from ComicsPRO for the next three days so keep it locked to the Beat!