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NEWS
A NEW MODEL FOR A COMIC CONVENTION
Premium Cost, Limited Tix, Artist-Focused
Posted by Milton Griepp on September 15, 2026 @ 1:20 am CT
Artist representatives Sal Abbinanti and Steve Morder, who represent Alex Ross and Bill Sienkiewicz, are launching a comic festival with a new model for the United States: premium cost, limited number of tickets, and a promise of the ability to interact with and buy art from superstar comic artists. This new model takes artist-focused comic conventions to a new premium level, reflecting the elevated market for comic art and the fan communities around the most popular artists in the field.
The ICON Festival of Comic & Narrative Art, planned for the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles on November 7-8, will feature Ross, Sienkiewicz, Nick Dragotta, Daniel Warren Johnson, Ryan Ottley, Frank Cho, Alex Nino, David Mack, William Stout, and a raft of others, along with select art dealers.
Only an unspecified limited number of tickets will be sold, priced at $75 for a Sunday-only pass, $225 for a Saturday and Sunday pass that also includes a festival poster and swag bag, and $375 for a VIP pass with admission to a Friday opening reception and a Special Event Saturday night, and a signed giclee lithograph of the illustration created by Ross for the event along with the regular weekend pass elements.
The Ross piece promoting the event is of the Angel, the symbol of the Biltmore Hotel, famous as the birthplace of the Academy Awards.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Milton Griepp
Editor-in-Chief. Milton Griepp’s multi-decade career in the business of geek culture includes distribution CEO, e-commerce retailer CEO, board member of digital comics company, and for the past 25 years, as founder and Editor-in-Chief of ICv2.
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