OrlandoCon, also known as O'Con, was a long-running comic book and comic strip fan convention which was held annually between 1974 and 1994 in Orlando, Florida. The first comics convention held in the Orlando area, OrlandoCon billed itself as the "Central Florida comic art convention and early TV/film festival."[2][3] Captain Marvel-creator C. C. Beck was a regular guest of the show; as were many other Golden Age comics creators who lived in the Orlando area.
The founders of OrlandoCon were regional chairman of the National Cartoonists Society Jim Ivey[4][5] (1925–2022)[6][7][8] and local enthusiasts Charlie Roberts, Rob Word,[9] Richard Kravitz, and Neil Austin.[10][7][11][12] Most OrlandoCons took place over a September weekend.
Each year's show featured a banquet for attending cartoonists and the presentation to the guest of honor of a gold brick called the Ignatz Award[4] named in honor of George Herriman's Krazy Kat.[13] Recipients of the Ignatz included Don Martin,[14] Ralph Kent, Joe Kubert, Martin Nodell, Don Addis,[15] Burne Hogarth, and Dik Browne.[13] (The OrlandoCon Ignatz Award is not connected to the current award of the same name presented annually at the Bethesda, Maryland-based Small Press Expo.)[13]
Each show featured a charity auction to benefit the Milt Gross Fund of the National Cartoonists Society.[11] The OrlandoCon often featured screenings of early TV shows, as well as panels, seminars, and workshops with comics professionals. In addition, there was a floorspace for exhibitors, including comic book and comic strip dealers, and collectibles merchants. The show included an autograph area, as well as an Artists' Alley where comics artists signed autographs and sold or produced free sketches.
The first OrlandoCon was held in September 1974 at the Orlando Howard Johnson's Convention Center — guests included C. C. Beck, Roy Crane, Hal Foster,[10] Ron Goulart, Mel Graff, Les Turner, Ralph Dunagin, Bill Crooks, Harold McCauley, Scorchy Smith artist Edmond Good, and Disney artist Ralph Kent.
In 1976 OrlandoCon moved venues from the Howard Johnson Convention Center to the International Inn, where the convention stayed for most of the rest of its existence.
Even though he moved to Pennsylvania in 1974, Charlie Roberts stayed with the OrlandoCon as co-organizer with Jim Ivey until 1979,[16] at which point small press publisher Bill Black became involved with the convention.
With the collapse of the comic book speculating market in 1993, the show petered out. One of the final OrlandoCons was produced by local retailer Mike Kott on September 10–11, 1994, at the Clarion Towers; guests include show founder Jim Ivey and Martin Nodell.[17]
The huge Orlando-based multi-genre convention MegaCon was inaugurated in 1993 and is the spiritual successor of OrlandoCon;[27] it continues to this day.
...the Ignatz Award was originated in the '70s at the Orlando Con, a pioneering comic convention staged mainly by Jim Ivey.
In the 1970s he started the annual Orlandocon convention.
He was the original founder of our beloved OrlandoCon which ran over 20 years.
Jim was omnipresent in those places – and subsequently at OrlandoCon, the legendary annual comics fest he started with Charlie Roberts and Rob Word.
In 1973 I moved to Orlando, Florida and became a co-founder of 'OrlandoCon' with Jim Ivey, Richard Kravitz, Rob Word, and Neil Austin.
Orlandoco ... sponsored by Ivey and four fellow collectors from the Orlando area.