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Champion City Comic Con returns Saturday for a third year

Springfield comic fans find a home and a convention thanks to Scott Riley’s efforts

BARBARA J. PERENIC Scott Riley is owner of Main Street Comics & Games and organizer of the annual Champion City Con.

Marvel Writer Marc Sumerak, whose credits include Marvel Comics' "Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius," will be at the Champion City Comic Con.

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By Andrew McGinn, Staff Writer 4:49 PM Thursday, September 8, 2011

SPRINGFIELD — This time last year, the sight of 30 people inside Main Street Comics and Games would’ve looked like the Hulk trying to use a gas station bathroom already occupied by the Thing.

“If we had more than four people in the old shop, it started getting hot and cramped,” said store owner Scott Riley, one of the chief organizers of this weekend’s annual Champion City Comic Con.

Earlier this year, Riley moved the city’s lone comic shop within the same East Main Street shopping center from a 500-square-foot space to one with 4,800 square feet of romping room.

Word got around.

On a recent Sunday — the day the shop hosts games of HeroClix and Yu-Gi-Oh! — no fewer than 30 people were in the store at one time from open to close.

“For a lot of these guys, the comic shop has become an important part of their lives,” Riley, 40, explained. “They feel a general sense of acceptance here. We’re giving these guys a place to make friends.”

Too bad the store that day, Riley noted, only made $150.

“You can never have too much good karma on your side,” he said, pausing to think for a second.

“But I need to pay the bills, too.”

Going into its third year Saturday at Wittenberg University’s Shouvlin Center, Riley’s comic book convention is a lot like his comic book shop — he’s still not sure if it’s supposed to be a money-making venture, a community service or both.

“Fortunately,” he confessed, “I don’t have enough free time to realize how much money I don’t have.”

As a comics fan who dreamed of being his own boss, the lifelong Springfielder seized the opportunity in 2009.

He averages two days off a month.

By 2009, though, Springfield had been without a dedicated comic shop for a decade.

“Springfield needed something like this,” Riley said.

When Stan “The Man” Lee himself spoke at Kuss Auditorium in 2006, there wasn’t a single place in town where he could’ve picked up that month’s issue of “Amazing Spider-Man.”

So when Riley opened Main Street Comics three years later, there were undoubtedly those who saw the shop as just another new business — a welcome addition to the community, no doubt, but one whose comics, role-playing games and action figures make it seem like nothing more than a weird cross between a Waldenbooks and Spencer Gifts.

To others, however, it’s more than just a place of business.

“Wal-Mart and Target sell these things,” Riley said, citing Magic: The Gathering cards in particular, “but they don’t give people a place to go.”

If anything, the shop is a cross between “Cheers” and “The Big Bang Theory.”

“I’m constantly talking to people. All day, every day,” Riley said. “There are days my throat hurts.”

Before filmmaker and comic book writer Kevin Smith visited Springfield in March to screen his new movie, “Red State,” Smith’s management called on Riley and his shop to help get the word out.

While both Super-Fly Comics in Yellow Springs and Bookery Fantasy in Fairborn have astonishingly wider selections, the shop serves a community within this community.

That was Riley’s thinking when he decided to start up a convention as well.

“We’ve got to have something special in town for this crowd of people,” he said.

With help from a few others, he pulled off the first Champion City Con in 90 days.

That first one drew 300 people; last year’s drew little more than 400.

Even with small crowds, the show has so far been financially healthy to operate.

“That’s because Wittenberg is so generous with their pricing,” Riley said.

While the con’s guest list is still heavy on regional artists and writers, two nationally known creators will be on hand this year.

Writer and former Marvel editor Marc Sumerak, a Cleveland resident, is one of them.

In addition to serving as the assistant editor on such flagship titles as “Fantastic Four” and “Avengers,” Sumerak wrote Marvel’s “Power Pack” and “Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius.”

The latter was Marvel’s adorable series a few years ago about the mischievous lil’ progeny of the Fantastic Four’s Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman, racking up nominations for Eisner and Harvey awards along the way.

Sumerak now is about to release an all-ages graphic novel, “All-Ghouls School,” for IDW Publishing, and is more than happy to make the drive down this weekend.

“I’ve done a lot of big shows over the years. In fact, I just got back from San Diego a few weeks ago,” Sumerak said in an email. “But there’s something special about smaller, regional conventions.

“Some of the first comic-related events I attended when I was younger were little local shows, and I’ll never forget them. There’s something magical about having the chance to meet actual comic book writers and artists without having to drive for hours, wait in long lines or fight through heavy crowds.”

Sumerak described Champion City’s organizers as having “an amazing amount of enthusiasm for the comic book industry.”

“It’s that kind of passion,” he said, “that can help turn a ‘little’ convention into something truly epic.”

Tim Seeley, series creator of Image Comics’ “Hack/Slash,” is once again among this year’s guests as well.

Seeley, who also wrote and drew the recent “Ant-Man & Wasp” miniseries for Marvel, had such a good time at last year’s Champion City Con that he decided to make a return appearance.

“We ended up at the strip club,” Riley explained.

As Stan Lee would say, ’nuff said.

Contact this reporter at amcginn@coxohio.com.

How to go

What: Champion City Comic Con, featuring comic book creators, vendors, gaming and more

When: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 10

Where: Shouvlin Center at Wittenberg University, 737 N. Fountain Ave.

Admission: $4; kids younger than 12 are free

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