Garden State Comic Fest Review

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On July 7 and 8th 2018 the Garden State Comic Fest was held at the Mennen Arena in Morristown, NJ. This convention was started over 3 years ago by two men who love comics, Dave O’Hare and Sal Zurzolo. As stated on the website, this convention had someone for everyone.

The first thing we took notice of as we pulled into the parking lot was that Kit and the A-Team van was there to great us. The car and van looked exactly as they did in their respective shows as if they were plucked right off of the screen. Kit even talked every once in a while and was unexpected and exciting.

Across from Kit in a small grassy knoll the Jedi light saber classes took place with the Saber Guild Corellia on hand to help young kids (padawans) wield a light saber and fight off the dark side. During this time kids got to use light sabers and learn simple defense and attacks and after they were ready, they used their new training to battle some sith.

Once in the lobby we found a table selling some Garden State Comic Fest shirts, bags and other swag with some cosplay panels including a life size looking Predator. The Cosplay tables were filled with fans and onlookers taking pictures with all of them and caused a bit of congestion to get to the food, but thats a good thing showing a great turn out!

Past the cosplay tables and into the main room there were endless rows of vendors, writers, comic book stands, artists, voice actors and more. We saw everything from Father Evil to Keone Young, the voice of Shadow Strom from GI Joe.

The best thing about this convention was that it felt more personal then any other convention we visited. All of the people running booths were eager to talk to us and shre their stories on how they got started in their respective fields. This is something that really doesn’t happen at a lot of other big conventions and it felt good to get that personal touch.

At the Source Point Press booth (probably our favorite booth) we met up with a writer named Ben. He told us the story on how he transitioned from making music to writing comics and gave us a run down on every story/comic the booth was selling. After buying one of everything, we have to say the breakout stories for us were Seance (written by Ben himself) and The Family Graves. If you haven’t read them, check them out.

In the end the convention was done very well, the isles of booths were easy to navigate, and finding everything in the venue was pretty easy. The amount of varied types of entertainment, comic booths, artists, writers, publishers, and just other general creative people here was well worth the visit. If you are a first timer at a convention, this one isis the most welcoming, and if you are a convention veteran, you will appreciate the relaxed atmosphere. This is definitely a convention that we will be attending every year and hope to visit the other conventions they hold in Six Flags Great Adventure and Atlantic City.