East Side Mags is proud to be working with Brigid Allanson - Kubert School graduate, freelance artist and graphic designer - to bring comic drawing classes right here in store every Saturday morning!  

Price of admission includes everything you need, all the supplies, a blank comic book and all 4 weeks of classes!  Each class takes place during the 4 Saturdays within each month.  

Just print out, complete and send us the form below and you're all set!  Or you can complete the form to the right and click "SUBMIT" and we'll get your registration info right away!

Pricing for the class works like this: $45 for the first week (includes all supplies needed) and $35 per week after that. OR buy out all 4 classes in the month and pay $120 for all 4 classes!

You can even keep taking the classes week after week, month after month! The best part about Brigid's teaching style is that she shows you how to draw, not how to draw specific characters.  The method she teaches can be applied to any character or object you are trying to draw!

For dates and space availability, you can reach out to us through out Contact page, jeff@eastsidemags.com or call us at 862-333-4961 and we'll be happy to answer any and all questions.  

Ed Catto -  columnist for ComicMix and Founding Partner for Bonfire Agency - was kind enough to reach out and interview Jeff about East Side Mags and our origins!  You can check out the interview here!

Ed was kind enough to ask Jeff to be a part of a panel at NYCC 2015 about the 7 Archetypes of comic shops with Atom! Freeman of Valiant Comics, Marc Hammond of Aw Yeah! Comics and Gerry Gladston of Midtown Comics!  Everyone had a blast and the turnout was so good that, as Ed put it, they're putting the band back together for another round at NJ Comic Expo on November 21st!

HCF2015 was a BLAST!  We had a ton of people turn out for an amazing event and gave out hundreds of FREE comics to kids, adults - anyone who showed up really!

We also had a costume contest and took LOTS of pictures!  You can see all the different costumes below:

We could only have ONE winner - FINN BUTLER and his Flying Jetpack Boy costume!  

Congrats Finn!

 

 

 

We also had a raffle for (4) Munsters POP Vinyl figures and the winner is...

Mike K.!

Congrats!!!

 

Well, we're rested and relaxed after an AMAZING weekend at GSCF!

We had a wonderful time and would like to start by thanking Dave, Sal and Evan for putting together a stellar event and for inviting us to be a part of it!

We can't even begin to tell you about all the amazing things we saw, the wonderful people we met and the great friends we got to see - ALL IN ONE PLACE!

Our booth was more than just a way to sell product - we had some out-of-this-world talent at our table this weekend!  Brian Smith (Stuff of Legend, Intrepid EscapeGoat, Voltron Force, Spongebob Squarepants) was with us on Saturday along with Stephen Coughlin (Sanctuary) who were "WOW"-ing customers with their friendly, down-to-earth personalities and rockstar art skills - sketching for customers whether it was one of the characters they work on or Hulk, Batman, whoever!

We also had the pleasure of sharing space with Katie Coe - a cosplayer from Delaware - gorgeous and talented, she debuted her brand new Dr. Strange cosplay and had prints of all her previous cosplay characters available for purchase!  If you missed seeing her this weekend, you really missed out!

We got to hang out with a TON of "old" friends like:

Erica Schultz (Swords of Sorrow, Vertigo Pop SFX #1)

Fernando Ruiz (Archie, Archie vs Predator)

Anthony Marques (Shadow, Action Comics, Superman)

Joe Caramagna (Avengers Assemble, Ultimate Spider-Man Web Warriors)

John Paul (NJComicBookShows.Com)

Big Kev and Matt Cipoletti (Big Kev's Geek Stuff Podcast)

Vincent DelVecchio Jr (local Artist)

Mike Grassia (indie all-ages artist/writer)

Howard Levy (GSCF Official Photographer, HSL Photography)

Our friends at Dog Walk of the Dead

And a TON of new friends:

Sean Von Gorman (Toe Tag Riot, Pawn Shop, Houdini)

Charles Paul Wilson III (Stuff of Legend)

Neal Adams (yes, we said Neal Adams)

Ethan Van Sciver (again, yes, we said Ethan Van Sciver)

Chris Campana (firstworldcomic.com)

Mark McKenna (Boonana Tales, Combat Jacks)

...and SO MANY MORE we can't get through it all!

The turnout was great at the Con.  We saw a bunch of really great cosplayers (including a great Clayface cosplayer, complete with Batman stuck inside) and met a plethora of new collectors and comic fans!  We also saw a bunch of our regular customers at the show who came out to show some love!

We had an amazing time overall and cannot wait to do it all again next year!

Special shout-out to Evan Conwell for getting up at the crack of dawn to help load in on a Saturday morning, Anthony Gaglione for spending his Sunday day-off helping out at the booth and assisting with load out and Marie Beck for her Mary-Jane Loves East Side Mags mash-up cosplay, helping out at the booth and being the rock she always is!  :)

Last, but never least, Susan Bittman, Dave Toussas and Steph Vargas for holding down the fort and keeping the store running smooth so we could take advantage of this amazing opportunity!

And on that note, we leave you with a short clip of the hardest working man in comics, the James Brown of comic books if you will endulge us, SEAN VON GORMAN fighting to get out of a straight-jacket to promote his book - Houdini!  This guy is hilarious and has a ton of great stories.  Enjoy!

-East Side Mags

...and we've got the BEST FRIENDS in the whole wide world!

On Saturday, July 18th, we celebrated our one year anniversary in STYLE!

To honor the occasion, we brought out some pretty heavy hitters to celebrate along with us!

Archie artist extraordinaire, Fernando Ruiz was here to wow the crowd with his stellar drawing skills for Archie fans and comic fans alike!  As the artist on various Archie titles including the new Archie vs Predator series, it was a complete honor hosting him for a second time.  A nicer guy there never was, Fernando came here right after teaching his class at the amazing Kubert School to "wow" our customers with his talent! Here is an example - a sketch cover he did for us on our Spider-Gwen #1 blank cover.

New to the scene, Isaac Goodhart was on-board as well.  He draws a new comic called "Postal" for Top Cow and currently resides in Astoria.  He and his lovely girlfriend were nice enough to come check out our little slice of heaven here in Montclair, sign copies of the first trade paperback for Postal that just came out and sketch for our customers!  Here's a little something he whipped up for us.

Joe Caramagna, the AMAZING Marvel writer, joined in the party too!  He signed copies of his work that include Avengers Vs, Marvel Universe Avengers Assemble, Ultimate Spider-Man Web Warriors and SO MUCH MORE!  Joe is a Jersey-guy unlike any other and, although he doesn't draw much anymore, even he got in the action by sketching us this amazing piece:

Last but NEVER least, our good friend and neighbor Brian Smith - artist and writer for books such as Spongebob Squarepants, Stuff of Legend, Voltron Force, the Intrepid EscapeGoat and MORE - came by his LCS (local comic shop for those wondering) and hung out with fans, customers and friends while sketching, signing and even ran home to grab some original art he'd been working on in his free time to show some fans including US!

NOTE:  Special shout-out to Greg Schigiel (artist/writer for Pix) and Stephen Coughlin (artist/writer for Sanctuary) for stopping by and hanging out with us!  We really do have the best friends!

If you thought all that wasn't amazing enough, we held an all day raffle called PACK WARS.  See - you buy a pack of baseball cards and when raffle time came, we would see who had the best stat for the prize - most home runs, fewest strike outs, most innings pitched, best on base percentage, etc.  Check out some photos below of all our amazing winners!

The day ended with a STELLAR, AMAZING, OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD performance by a local band comprised of some of Montclair's most talented high-schoolers - Tula Vera!  They performed in the store and ROCKED IT!  You can check out the videos but it doesn't do them justice.  They are destined for greatness and it was an honor having them in the store.  The future of rock looks bright indeed!!!

To top it all off, in style, we received this from Mr. Stan Lee himself!  BIG THANK YOU to Chuck Robertson for making the connection and being an all-around awesome guy with great sons!

Needless to say, we had a blast!  We have met some amazing people who work in comics and some even more amazing customers who truly love comics, art, stories, reading and fun over the last year and it looks like we'll be here for a long time to come!  We swell with great anticipation about who we'll meet in the next year and the years to come!

Thank you so much to all the artists, writers and - most of all - the customers and fans of comics for keeping the medium (and us) alive and thriving!  We couldn't have done this without all of you and your support and our greatest pleasure is paying that back to you by hosting fun, exciting and entertaining events for you to attend and enjoy!

Keep it coming cuz we're not done yet...

Much love,

Everyone involved at East Side Mags

Thank you to NJ-12 News for stopping by East Side Mags this past Free Comic Book Day 2015!  

We received a number of calls from customers, friends and family telling us that we were on TV and finally have a copy to share with all of you!  

ENJOY!

East Side Mags had the pleasure of hosting two AMAZING and SUPER TALENTED comic creators yesterday - Erica Schultz and Claire Connelly!

Both ladies worked together on their book called The Unauthorized Biography of Winston Churchill: A Documentary which basically finds Winston Churchill traveling through time and dinosaurs!  Yes, I said Churchill and dinosaurs!  If that doesn't make this comic a must-read, then I have no idea what does!

Erica is hilarious!  She got some great stories from working in comics and a real pleasure to hang out with!  She's worked on a ton of stuff like M3 - about a female assassin on the run and has also worked on both issues or Rise:  Comics Against Bullying by either writing the stories, editing them or both!  Most recently, she's worked on the Swords of Sorrow one-shot featuring Masquerade and Kato.  She will also be lettering all of the upcoming Swords of Sorrow issues by Gail Simone!  You can check out Erica's work, especially M3 right here.

Claire Connelly is one of the nicest people in this industry.  She a super talented artist and has a ton of indie books out now!  You can check out some her art and writing at her website - claireconnellycomics.com.  If you're looking for a place to start, The Hunter's Moon, Looking Up and Animals are some of my personal favorites!!!

Both ladies were super nice, fielded tons of questions from customers and were great company on a Saturday afternoon!  They even took the time to draw on some sketch covers for display in the store!

Here's the cover Claire drew:

and here's the cover that Erica drew:

Overall, we had a great turnout and it was so much fun to have the chance to hang out with Erica and Claire!  They have some really fresh perspectives on the comics industry, they definitely know their comics trivia and are a blast to hang out with!

Oh yeah - Adrian "the" King stopped by to hang out and record some sound bites for his podcast - Adrian Has Issues!  He also snapped all the great photos on this page!!!  You can check out his site here.

East Side Mags would like to thank Erica, her husband A.J. and Claire for coming out to the shop, hanging out with us and signing/sketching for all our customers!  I know everyone had a blast and we look forward to hosting them again in the near future.

If you are looking for amazing and amazingly talented women in the comics industry, you need look no further than Claire and Erica!!!

DK Publishing and LEGO sponsored a kids costume contest at East Side Mags on Free Comic Book Day - May 2nd 2015!

Ladies and Gentlemen, your FCBD 2015 Costume Contest Winner is:

Thank you to all the great kids who came out in costume!  You can see all the runners-up below:

Check out an amazing Free Comic Book Day Video as produced by our good friend - Binh Nguyen from Montclair State University!

For details on Free Comic Book Day, go to www.freecomicbookday.com or click here!

We're sitting on Cloud 9 right now and had the best day with Ron Marz and Tom Raney!

Ron Marz is a personal favorite of mine as I basically went through my teenage years of discovery at the same time Kyle Rayner was figuring out what to do with that Lantern ring of his.  When East Side Mags opened, one of the things I knew I had to do was meet Ron in person, thank him for the amazing stories he wrote (and continues to write - see John Carter Warlord of Mars, Skylanders, etc.) and find out if he'd be interested in coming to the shop for a signing.  Needless to say:

Picture courtesy of Steph Vargas

Tom Raney is AMAZING!  His art is fantastic, detailed and so crisp!  He breezed through at least a dozen sketches for customers today and he made it look effortless!  Check out the Facebook or Twitter feeds for some customer-posted pics but here's one of our Zombies Vs Robots sketch cover that we was gracious enough to do for us!

Great new friends and getting to host a legendary comic book writer 20 years in the making - like Ice Cube said - it was a good day...

Picture courtesy of Steph Vargas

Last Saturday, East Side Mags exploded with delicious baked goodness!

Einhorn's Epic Cookies came out from NYC and the only word to describe the day is EPIC!

Writer Brian Smith (Stuff of Legend, Spongebob Squarepants), Artist Jacob Chabot (Mighty Skullboy Army, Hello Kitty) and Colorist/Letterer Steve Wands (Batman, Attack on Titan) were here in force to help promote these amazing cookies (with epic Unicorn comics inside) and sketch for their fans and newbies to the epic cookie community!  And they didn't just draw unicorns either!  Check out this awesome sketch cover by Jacob Chabot:

It was a packed house with all three guys and we had additional guests like co-creators Heather Einhorn and Adam Staffaroni and Mr. Einhorn (Heather's dad) HIMSELF!

Cookies were eaten and comics were signed.  Sketches provided on the spot for kids and adult fans alike!  Everyone even tried to sign a cookie with icing!

We all had a great time and a special THANK YOU to Simit House in Montclair for providing FREE hot chocolate to go with the cookies!

Cookies.  Comics.  Hot chocolate.  Unicorns.  Family and friends.  I don't think there is any better way to spend a Saturday afternoon in Montclair!

East Side Mags will be carrying a variety of cookie flavors from Einhorn's Epic Cookies moving forward and look out for more ESM/EEC announcements coming SOON!

*Photos provided courtesy of HSL Photography!  Thanks, Howie!  :)

Let's face it.  The real weekend storm happened right here!  East Side Mags experienced a TALENT-STORM inside our store!

We had the pleasure of spending a chilly, snowy Saturday with the amazing Frank Barbiere (Five Ghosts), Anthony Marques (The Shadow 2014 One-Shot) and Matt Rosenberg (12 Reasons to Die) and it was great!

We saw Anthony draw some amazing art.  Frank and Matt had us laughing and sharing stories of their time in the comics industry and personal stories about collecting, what comics they love and the stuff they collect now that they are making comics!

In case you missed them, come see us because they were totally cool about signing stuff to leave here for their fans to pick up like copies of Five Ghosts TPBs and The Shadow 2014 One Shot!

You couldn't put together a nicer group of guys and it was our pleasure to have them.  I'm sure we'll be seeing them again VERY soon (wink, wink) so stay tuned.  Us Jersey guys gotta stick together!

Here is a sketch Anthony Marques was kind enough to do on our blank Shaft #1 cover!

So here we are, almost 1 month into 2015 and we couldn't be happier!  The community turnout for events and comics has been SO massive that we've actually neglected to update our "universe" so here we go:

Signings:

We had Reilly Brown in house and Deadpool fans came out in waves!  Reilly had no shortage of fans asking questions about their favorite character, learning more about his Lobo run for DC Comics and getting some amazing sketches done by the man himself!

We had Allie Biondi - writer/artist for Ella's Electric - and we had a blast!  She had a great turnout and brought all kinds of cool swag with her including Ella's Electric guitar picks!

Eric Davies - creator of Hero Machine #1 and #2 was here.  A local living legend, Eric debuted the all-new Hero Machine sketchbook (which flew off shelves within the first week) and the Hero Machine app for smartphones!  Hero Machine is a GREAT all-ages book that gets kids excited about reading and creating their own heroes to use in the comics!  And the kids had a BLAST!

Jared Barel of Loaded Barrell Studios was here too!  He brought both graphic novels - Brielle and the Horror and Grey - written and drawn by him and his brother Jordan and they were a HIT!  He brought some prints with him of familiar faces and sketches for his fans - including a totally sweet Maxx cover that you can see below!

Music:

We had Ambary Lake in our store - rocking out some solid jams for comic fans and music fans alike!  Their set was amazing and they even had 2 encores!  We just couldn't get enough of these guys!

Movies:

Our movie nights keep getting better and better!  We showed movies like Goonies, Home Alone and Guardians of the Galaxy!  These movie nights are turning into standing room only events so make sure you get here early and don't forget - we NEVER charge admission but do request a food donation of healthy canned food that we bring to Toni's Kitchen food pantry in Montclair!

Last but not least - STAR WARS #1 came out!  We had a great time watching the excitement on people's faces - from classic Star Wars fans to new one, giving out cool swag like Scottie Young lithographs and Star Wars buttons, watching the original trilogy on the TVs and just talking about the movies with all the fans that came out to show support!

Now that we're into 2015, our new year's resolution is to get you more frequent updates on all the cool things East Side Mags is doing so you can get excited and get down here to see what all the buzz is about for yourself!

East Side Mags was proud to host Paul Castiglia and Fernando Ruiz today in-store.  Writer and artist for Archie Comics, Paul and Fernando were amazing guests.  We stocked up on all things Archie, Paul brought some of his own work like Midnight Marquee Actors Studios:  Vincent Price (in which he wrote a chapter) among others and Fernando provided free sketches for our customers and signed copies of his work from Life with Archie, Archie's Weird Mysteries (of which he worked with Paul), Death of Archie, Archie's Favorite Christmas Comics and so much more!

Two nicer guys - you will NEVER meet.  Happy to talk to their fans about Archie or comics in general, they came, they saw, they drew and they laughed!  It was a true pleasure to have these guys with us today and extend the Halloween celebration for one more day!

Thank you to Paul and Fernando on behalf of Montclair and East Side Mags!  We had an amazing time!

East Side Mags is proud to present our 2nd winner in our Halloween Costume Contest!  Here is Isadora as ZOMBIE ANNA from Frozen.  

Great costume and she thought of it HERSELF - which is the best part!  Zombie Anna will get a free t-shirt and $10 store credit.

More costume contest winners coming soon...

East Side Mags would like to give a BIG thank you to all our trick-or-treaters and Halloween friends for coming out last night, sharing their costumes, partaking in free comic give-a-ways and just having an all-around blast for the festivities!

East Side Mags would like to give a HUGE shout-out and congrats to Faye and her amazing costume (Avatar Kyoshi) for the big "W" in the Fantasy/Sci-Fi Category!  (And thanks to Dad for a super-rad Guy Fawkes costume too!)

Faye won a free t-shirt and $10 in store credit!  

More costume contest winners coming soon...

Hey everyone! Check out this AMAZING podcast I was a part of last night. Some really awesome guys, great talks about music and some really funny bits. **Please note that some strong language does occur (that's for you kids)**

Thank you SO much to Brian John Burdzy and Ronnie for having me on the show. I had a blast and I hope to be a part of this again soon!

Z is a customer of ours and there was an immediate connection.  Like most of our customers, Z collects.  He collects lots of things but not just comics or toys or statues or action figures.  Z collects anything related to Black Pop Culture!  His collection is expansive and includes - but is NOT limited to - comics, toys, tapes, vinyl records, CDs, posters, you name it!  He even has cassette recordings from throw-back hip hop radio programs from the 1980's!!!  His collection is VAST and spans the entire third floor of a house - floor to ceiling!

Here are some SMALL samples of his collection:

Z comes in regularly, looking for new things to add to his ever-expanding collection and always has something cool to share with us or turn us on to.  One thing in particular is this video featuring classic images from the Fantastic Four cartoon of the late 1960's:

From the album "GG DOOM! BUT HOW?" -- Grip Grand remixes MF DOOM. Music & sound collage by Grip Grand. Rap by MF DOOM, from the song "Ghostwhirl feat. MF DOOM (Acapella)" by Jonathan Toth from Hoth. Video by Grip Grand.

Amazing, right?  You can also check out Z's internet contributions below.  Collections like his bring it to another level entirely!

egoggles

NOSTALGIC LUV 4 YA

Last night we hosted a Standard Draft for the new block - Khans of Tarkir.  It was a rousing success and TONS of fun!

East Side Mags is proud to present our winners of the Magic the Gathering - Khans of Tarkir Standard Draft - Marco and Eshaan!

Congrats, guys!  Hope to see you both again for our next MTG event!