Comic Art Convention - Successors

Successors

Following Sueling's death in 1984, promoter Fred Greenberg began hosting two "Great Eastern" conventions annually at venues including the New York Coliseum. Other companies, including Creation Cons and Dynamic Forces, held New York City conventions but all were on a smaller scale than the Seuling shows. Changes in the industry, popular culture, and the resurgent city itself since the troubled 1960s and '70s made large-scale comic-book conventions difficult to hold profitably. Jonah Weiland of ComicBookResources.com also noted that "...dealing with the various convention unions made it difficult for most groups to get a show off the ground."

In 1996, Greenberg, at a very late point, cancelled what had been advertised as a larger-than-usual Great Eastern show, which the fan press had suggested might herald a successor to the Comic Art Con. As a substitute event, promoter Michael Carbonaro and others on the spur of the moment mounted the first Big Apple Convention in a church basement. These small shows nonetheless attracted many comics creators and pop-culture figures, and by 2000 the convention had moved to the Metropolitan Pavilion on West 18th Street in Manhattan, and by the mid-2000s were taking place at the Penn Plaza Pavilion at the Hotel Pennsylvania.

In 2002, the first MoCCA Art Festival, focused on alternative comics and the small press, was held at New York City’s Puck Building; it has been held annually since. In 2006, the first New York Comic Con was held in the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center; it also has been held annually since.