By Brian M. Rafferty
Please, don’t ask Michael Carbonaro about comics.
That is, don’t ask him unless you want to spend a few hours discussing the complexities of the X-Men, the history of comic stores in Queens or the upcoming National Comic Book, Art, Toy and Sci-Fi Expo to be held Nov. 8-10 in Manhattan.
After all, Carbonaro is as much of an expert on comics as you can be without having ink in your veins and vaulted copies of your favorite reads in plastic bags with acid-free boards.
The Queens native starting buying and selling comics at age 12, and today is one of the premier comic dealers on the Internet at www.neatstuff.net, the online presence of Neat Stuff Collectibles.
The upcoming expo, to be held at the Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 W. 18th St., is the latest in a line of comic conventions Carbonaro has run in the city.
It all started for him when he owned a couple of comic shops (including Continental Comics in Forest Hills and others in Jackson Heights and Ozone Park) and was preparing to attend a convention at the New York Coliseum in 1996.
By this time Carbonaro had already had a taste for promoting, having re-opened Roseland Ballroom for a doo-wop show (the first concert to be held there since the Swing Era) and hustling his way through smaller conventions.
But the ComicCon, as it was known at the time, was the granddaddy of them all — and was being shut down by the fire department.
“The dealers were all there to set up at noon on Thursday, but it turns out that some basic papers hadn’t been signed,” he said. “The fire department was shutting down the show, so me and two friends scrambled. We found St. Paul’s church on 59th Street and Columbus Avenue, laid out the $2,000 or $3,000 it was to rent, and moved the convention.”
But moving the site when people were coming from all over the country to attend didn’t equal success in his mind. “We didn’t know what to expect,” Carbonaro said. “We went on line, we handed out flyers, we called everybody we knew, but we just had no idea what would happen.”
Setting up all night Friday, a weary Carbonaro peeked his head out the door Saturday morning to find a line around the block.
“That was the beginning,” he said. “Everybody started calling it the ChurchCon, and that’s how Big Apple Conventions was born.”
Big Apple Conventions hosts the largest comic show in New York every year at the Metropolitan Pavilion, a building with an open floor plan and a giant glass entryway leading to 40,000 square feet of convention space.
For somebody involved in working hand-in-hand with creative comic artists, Carbonaro feels a bit out of place.
“I actually can’t draw at all,” he boasted. “I can barely draw a stick figure. My creativity works in other directions, like producing. The idea of creating something from nothing is exhilarating for me. To have a fan come up to me at a convention and tell me they’re having a good time _ that makes me really happy, because I now that as soon as it’s over, it’s gone.”
Carbonaro describes the conventions mostly as a means to an end. The idea is to promote the industry, whether it is comic books or other forms of fantasy, such as science fiction. The crossover fan base exists, and the trick is to put out an event that is going to reach as many people as possible to keep the industry alive.
“The whole industry runs in cycles,” Carbonaro said. “In the early ‘90s comics got up there in price, there were some bad business policies implemented, and comics were overproduced. The whole industry started to fall backwards, and it took a few years to get back to the status it had been.”
In recent years, such comic-to-film hits as “X-Men,” “Blade,” “Men in Black,” “The Mask” and “Spider-Man” have brought comics into the mainstream once again. Movies currently in production include those based on such characters as Daredevil, The Incredible Hulk, Silver Surfer and more.
“I think the next three to five years will be very good for the industry,” he said. “It will continue to grow, but then it will probably drop back down as it always does.”
This year the list of artists and special guests at the expo is highlighted by such figures as Sergio Aragones of Mad Magazine, Sal Buscema of Marvel Comics fame, Nichelle Nichols, “Star Trek’s” Lt. Uhura, and Robert Vaughn, “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”
The expo will be open from 1-8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 8, 10 a.m. -7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 9 and from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 10.
For more information, a list of participants and to buy tickets, go to www.bigapplecon.com.
