Wes Smoot 2/5/24 Wes Smoot 2/5/24

Flame Con, the World’s Largest Queer Comic Convention, Announces Tenth Annual Expo

Tenth Anniversary Expo to Take Place in New York City at The Sheraton Times Square Hotel on August 17-18, 2024

New York, New York – February 5, 2024 – Flame Con, created and produced by the LGBTQ+ non-profit Geeks OUT, celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. The tenth annual Flame Con expo will take place on August 17 - 18at the Sheraton Times Square Hotel in New York City. Featuring a comics, arts and entertainment expo and showcasing creators and special guests from all corners of the LGBTQ+ community of fans, the two-day venture will include thoughtful discussions, exclusive performances, cosplay and more.

Tickets for the con are now available HERE.

“For years, the constant refrain we’d hear attending other conventions was ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if..?,’ says Nic Gitau, President of Geeks OUT. “‘Wouldn’t it be cool if… there was a safe space for LGBTQ+ fans to connect?’ or ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if… there was a show that proved audiences were hungry for unapologetically queer storytelling?’ Over the last ten years Flame Con has become a home for queer fans, championed queer stories, and celebrated queer creators as their careers have sparked and exploded. We're grateful for a community that's grown exponentially each year and we're excited to gather the best of LGBTQ+ comics and pop culture once more, in what will be a standout 10th anniversary show."

Flame Con is excited to announce Molly Knox Ostertag as the first of its special guests for this year’s expo. Molly Knox Ostertag is the acclaimed ABA Indies and New York Times bestselling graphic novel author-illustrator of The Deep Dark, The Girl from the Sea, and the Witch Boy trilogy: The Witch Boy, The Hidden Witch, and The Midwinter Witch, as well as a writer for animation. An animated musical adaptation of The Witch Boy has been announced by Netflix.

To celebrate the expo and its special anniversary, Fireball: The Official Flame Con After Party will be held on Saturday, August 17 at Hell’s Kitchen’s Industry bar. The event will be hosted by Megami, cast member in the current season 16 of RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Get tickets for the tenth annual Flame Con and the Fireball After Party HERE.

Last year’s con featured many queer-oriented vendors, creators, and special guests including Maia Kobabe (Gender Queer: A Memoir), Terry Blas (Rick and Morty, Steven Universe), Alyssa Wong (Star Wars: Doctor Aphra, Batman: Urban Legends), and Stephanie Williams (Nubia and the Amazons). Among the panels and presentations held last year were “Demystifying Game Design,” “How to Make Your Independent Queer Comic,” and “What A DRAG!: A Panel on Drag and Cosplay.” The expo also featured a live edition of host Connor Goldsmith’s CEREBRO podcast and a special LGBTQ+ comedy showcase with a lineup that included Calvin Cato (Netflix) and Veronica Garza (MTV, NPR).

“Flame Con is always my favorite convention of the year!,” says Josh Trujillo (Blue Beetle, Hulkling& Wiccan), Flame Con guest and comics writer and designer. “It’s a unique opportunity to meet with friends, peers, and fans in a more intimate setting. The stories we share as queer people can be so personal, and it means the world to know that readers connect with it.”

GLAAD Award-winning author and film programmer Anthony Oliveira (Steven Universe) shares, “Flame Con is easily my favorite comic convention. Nowhere else feels so much like home. It feels like someone took all the best parts of a con and just kept those, like if you made a whole con out of the weird queer section of every other expo’s Artist Alley!”

Tickets to Flame Con are available through Eventbrite and will feature daily and weekend passes, as well as passes to the official 2024 Flame Con party. Tickets can be purchased at flamecon2024.eventbrite.com.

Exhibitor table sales dates will launch later this month. Stay tuned for announcements.

For more information on Flame Con, please visit www.flamecon.org and for more information on Geeks OUT, please visit www.geeksout.org

Wes Smoot 5/12/22 Wes Smoot 5/12/22

They Slash Them! Peacock and Blumhouse Welcome You to Whistler's Camp August 5

THEY/THEM -- Pictured: (l-r) Darwin del Fabro as Gabriel, Austin Crute as Toby, Cooper Koch as Stu -- (Photo by: Josh Stringer/Blumhouse)

Peacock announced today its new original film THEY/THEM, pronounced “They-slash-Them,” from Blumhouse will premiere Friday, August 5. The LGBTQIA+ horror film, formerly known as ‘Whistler Camp,’ is a queer empowerment story set at a gay conversion camp.

“THEY/THEM has been germinating within me my whole life. I've loved horror movies as long as I can remember, I think because monsters represent 'the other' and as gay kid I felt a powerful sense of kinship with those characters who were different, outlawed, or forbidden,” said writer and director, John Logan. “I wanted to make a movie that celebrates queerness, with characters that I never saw when I was growing up. When people walk away from the movie, I hope they're going to remember the incredible love that these kids have for each other and how that love needs to be protected and celebrated.”

THEY/THEM -- Pictured: (l-r) Carrie Preston as Cora Whistler, Anna Chlumsky as Molly, Boone Platt as Zane, Kevin Bacon as Owen Whistler -- (Photo by: Josh Stringer/Blumhouse)

“Original films will be an integral component of Peacock’s content offering, and we are thrilled to partner with Blumhouse on THEY/THEM streaming exclusively this summer,” said Val Boreland, Executive Vice President, Content Acquisition, NBCUniversal Entertainment, Television and Streaming. “The film is not only entertaining and thrilling, but also empowers its audience with its message of acceptance in a way that only a creator like John Logan could imagine and then bring to life.”

THEY/THEM -- Pictured: (l-r) Theo Germaine as Jordan, Austin Crute as Toby -- (Photo by: Josh Stringer/Blumhouse)

THEY/THEM is produced by Blumhouse. The film is created, written, and directed by three-time Oscar nominated screenwriter John Logan (Skyfall, Gladiator, The Aviator), marking his directorial debut and serving as an executive producer on the film. Kevin Bacon (You Should Have Left, City On a Hill), Scott Turner Schofield (Euphoria; The Craft: Legacy), Howie Young (Mission: Impossible III, Hit and Run), and Jon Romano (Firestarter (2022), Vengeance) also serve as executive producers. Jason Blum (Get Out, The Invisible Man) and Michael Aguilar (Penny Dreadful, Kidding) are producers.