Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett talks about a comic convention of a different sort, and goes 'round the horn on the WonderCon news.

I didn’t make it to WonderCon this year, but then as much as I had enjoyed C2E2 I really wasn’t in the mood for another con, especially a gigantic multi-media driven one.  So I had no plans to go to the Gem City Con in Dayton last Sunday either, but I found myself with nothing to do on a unexpectedly pleasant April afternoon and before I knew it was in my car and on my way there.  It was just a one day comic book convention being held in the student union of Wright State University and while it didn’t generate the kind of online headlines that WonderCon did it turned out to be everything a comic book convention ideally should be; fun, friendly and almost exclusively about comic books.

'Small' and 'old fashioned' are usually considered pejoratives these days but it was just the kind of con I was in the mood for and given the strong turnout (especially given the current economic conditions in Ohio) clearly I wasn’t the only one.  The retailer room was busy but not so overcrowded that navigating the isles was difficult, I got reacquainted with some old friends and even briefly got to meet Steve Engelhart, one of my favorite comic writers, for the first time.

But I was probably most impressed by the fact that not only was there a large contingent of people who still wanted to sell their self published comics in print form in attendance (when online and digital are increasingly popular and inexpensive options), there were plenty of people who wanted to buy them.

I’ve admittedly not been much of a convention goer for the last decade or so, but clearly I need to start going to them more often because I’ve rediscovered there’s nothing quite like being totally immersed in comics culture to rekindle my passion for them.  As with C2E2 I went away from Gem City perfectly content and feeling encouraged about the future of comics.

A lot of news came out of WonderCon, but one story that caught my attention was that this summer we'll be seeing Retro-Active, a series of comics that will try to capture the feel of DC comics from the 70's, 80's and 90's.  It's hard to argue against something that puts people like Len Wein, Mike W. Barr, William Messner-Loebs, Denny O'Neil, Cary Bates, Martin Pasko and Roy Thomas back writing some of the DC characters they’re most associated with.  But given that they’ve yet to announce the line-up of artists at this stage it's kind of hard to gauge what kind of appeal the project will have for rank and file readers.

Because given the format, $4.99 for 46 pages, about half of which will be reprints, I'm afraid these titles are going to be kind of a hard sell beyond the old fogey demographic (in which I unfortunately have to place myself).  For a long time I’ve been advocating that Marvel and DC should deliberately skew at least some of the titles towards the ever graying segment of their readership and so far it looks like DC will be doing just that.

After four years we’ll be seeing the return of Steve Rogers as Captain America and a new Captain America #1 and to argue these moves are being made to give the character another jolt of free publicity prior to the release of the Captain America movie is to state the obvious.  And while there are too many Captain America comics coming out now I won’t be complaining about one called Captain America & Bucky that’s set during WWII.

I have to admit I was a taken aback by the sheer amount of publicity generated by the announcement of The Governator (see "Here Comes 'The Governator'"); I mean, the cover of Entertainment Weekly, seriously?  But then to me it just seemed like another Stan Lee-related celebrity superhero project, none of which to date have ever seen the light of day (the list includes Ringo Starr, Paris Hilton, Hugh Hefner and David and Victoria Beckham). But the existence of the animated trailer is evidence that at least some movement has been made on the project.  And it actually makes sense that the comic version will be coming out from Archie, considering they already have a deal in place with Stan Lee for a line of comics (though none of them have yet to be solicited).

And finally, considering how many times I've mentioned here how I wanted to see a Phineas and Ferb comic I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the announcement that there was going to be a Phineas and Feb bi-monthly magazine (see "Disney Plans Marvel, TV Magazines").  Dreams do come true.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely  those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.