Superstar Artists to Kick Off a New, High-End Comic Book Art Festival in L.A. (Exclusive)

The world of comic art is being elevated to new heights thanks to the medium’s prominence in the new Lucas Museum of Narrative Arts.

Now, two comic art representatives are launching a two-day fete that seeks to keep the art form’s momentum away from the days of hunched-over collectors thumbing through unprotected pages in Tupperware crates in the basements of bargain hotels.

Taking place Nov. 7 and Nov 8 at Los Angeles’ gilded and storied Biltmore Hotel, the inaugural ICON Festival of Comic & Narrative Art will be a two-day celebration of original art by some of the most popular and influential contemporary comic book artists working in the medium.

Superstar artists Nick Dragotta, who currently pencils the industry’s top-selling Absolute Batman for DC, Daniel Warren Johnson, the Eisner-winner behind last year’s Absolute Batman Annual no. 1 and the recent Transformers for Image, and Invincible artist Ryan Ottley will be among those on hand to take part of the show, as will Alex Ross, the celebrated comic painter who will be the focus of a significant exhibition showcasing more than 100 of his original works.

“This thing that used to be our ‘club’ of comic art, as some would call it, just exploded into something that has cultural relevance,” said Sal Abbinanti, one of the festival’s co-founders. “I believe that the comics artists of today are what Basquiat and Andy Warshol and Jasper Johns were to the art movement of the ’60s. I believe we are in the middle of this renaissance right now.”

Abbinanti, a comics arts dealer who represents Ross and longtime illustrator Bill Sienkiewicz, and his partner Steve Morger are bringing the show to L.A. after several years of throwing a similar festival in Italy. In Europe, he “found that there was a reverence for comics artists. They weren’t seen as comic artists, they were just seen as artists.”

Concurrently, the duo was seeing a growth of comic conventions, but a disquieting sidelining of artists at the same time.

“The shows were leaning into cosplay and celebrities, selling autographs and photographs. The place for an artist to show or even sell his originals was becoming part of the in-between,” he says. “I wanted a show that was specific to artists and original art and where you could meet the artist one-to-one and not be surrounded by thousands of people in a huge hall of commercialism and advertising, like you’re in Las Vegas or something.”

In keeping with the personal nature of the proceedings, the event will sell only a limited amount of tickets. No crowds here, please. And there will be an opening night VIP reception which will allow guests to mingle with the artists. The venue of Biltmore is meant to denote the lofty aspirations of the weekend.

“We wanted to put it into an amazing setting and go, ‘No, this is real art and this should be taken seriously,’” Abbinanti said.

The roster of artists so far includes Eric Basaldua (Withchblade), Jim Cheung (Young Avengers), Frank Cho (Skybourne), Ace Continuado (Robyn Hood), Sanford Greene (Bitter Root), Megan Huang (Star Wars), Dave Johnson (Superman: Red Son), David Mack (Jessica Jones), Dustin Nguyễn (Robin & Batman), Alex Niño (Creepy), Jason Palmer (Firefly), Dan Panosian (Wolverine Paradise), Sienkiewicz (Elektra Assassin), Cat Staggs (John Carpenter’s Tales for a Halloween Night), William Stout (Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth), and Dean Yeagle (Mandy). Select art dealers will also be on hand.

Tickets – VIP, two-day, and one-day passes – go on sale today. The VIP package will include a signed giclee of a new Ross painting of an angel representing the Biltmore Hotel and meant to channel Old Hollywood. Ross is the artist whose seminal work Marvels and Kingdom Come opened doors for painted comics. His latest work, the ambitious graphic novel Marvel Dimensions (Abrams Comics Arts), hit stores last week.

“This is not your usual comic book event,” he said in a statement. “This is a luxury event, being held where the Academy Awards were first conceived.”