ComicArtFans.com (CAF), the global hub for everything related to collecting comic book and narrative art, announced today the launch of ticket sales and hotel room reservations for its 2nd Annual Original Art Expo (OAX), which will take place January 24-26, 2025 in Orlando, Florida at the DoubleTree by Hilton at the Entrance to Universal Studios. Year one of OAX sold out, and the venue sold out of hotel rooms two months before the show.
OAX 2025 will exclusively showcase original comic, illustration, collector card, comic strip, and other narrative art and will be the biggest gathering of this genre’s art collectors in the world. For year two, OAX has expanded to cover the venue’s entire 60,000+ square foot convention center, and attendance is expected to nearly double.
“Year one of OAX was a huge success thanks largely to the brilliance and generosity of our exhibiting artists, as well as the comic and narrative art collecting community taking a chance on us and showing up and having a great time,” said Kasra Ghanbari, CEO of CAF and co-Showrunner of OAX. “We won’t let you down in year two. Our goal is to make OAX the best collector meet-up in the world along with the most anticipated new art drop event of the year.”
OAX 2025 will see the return of some year one artists with a strong focus on bringing in new artists to the show. OAX 2025 is expected to have no less than 60 artists and 30 exhibitors, which will include prominent art reps, art dealers, and auction houses. There will be dozens of OAX exclusive offerings and special artist experiences announced in the coming months. And attendees may again expect no less than five museum-level gallery presentations of private comic art, illustration, and card art collections. Sign up to receive OAX news alerts HERE.
New artists for OAX 2025 already include Josh Middleton (Japan), Nir Levie (Israel), Jae Lee, and sculptor Carlos Soca. Some of the returning OAX artists include Matthew Allison, Simone Bianchi (Italy), Amanda Conner, Simone DiMeo (Italy), Gerhard (Canada), Adam Hughes, Adam Kubert, James Martin, Kevin Nowlan, Jimmy Palmiotti, George Pratt, Allison Sohn, Jonathan Wayshak, and Myles Wohl. A second wave of OAX artists will be announced at the end of May.
“OAX has given us the opportunity to develop new ideas across all of CAF’s activities, most especially with our upcoming Comic Art Live (CAL) virtual art convention and the Mystery Sketch event run as part of CAL, as well as the programming on our CAL YouTube channel ,” said Bill Cox, Chief Creative Officer of CAF and co-Showrunner of OAX. “Our CAL YouTube channel will be the primary place where we first make announcements for OAX artist and exhibitor additions plus exclusive pre-OAX art commission and special event opportunities.”
About ComicArtFans.com (CAF)
CAF is the premiere website in the world serving comic book and narrative art collectors, artists, auction houses, art dealers, and artist representatives.
Every month, CAF has 15,000+ active users and 400,000+ visits from nearly 200,000 visitors that generate nearly 3,000,000+ page views. Collectors may easily set up either free or premium galleries on CAF, where they’ll find well over 1,000,000 pieces of art posted by collectors in their galleries and personal classifieds, which is additionally supplemented by 100,000s of art pieces from art dealers and representative websites. CAF is proud to be a truly global hub, with more than half of our traffic coming from outside the United States, most notably from France, Canada, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Spain.
CAF operates interconnected divisions including Comic Art Live (CAL), the premiere virtual comic art convention in the world, which is held twice annually, as well as its Original Art Expo (OAX), whose inaugural show was held in Orlando, FL on January 26-28, 2024. OAX is being developed as an annual platform to exclusively showcase the narrative arts, most especially comic book, comic strip, illustration, and Marvel/other card art and has immediately established itself as the premiere visual storytelling art event in the United States, if not the world. Watch the OAX 2024 Intro Footage video HERE.
CAF also operates the highly active CAL YouTube channel, a community resource that produces a regular slate of weekly content including interviews with prominent creators and art collectors; previews of major auction house events; the popular Dueling Dealers of Comic Art program pitting both professional and amateur comic art dealers against one another; and art sale shows directly conducted with artists, artist reps, non-profits, and other fundraising groups.
Between the CAF web site, twice annual Comic Art Live virtual convention, Comic Art Live YouTube channel, and now the annual OAX show, CAF has in place the central 24/7 hub, networking tools, educational materials, and events to assist and enable everyone from the first-time art collector to the most seasoned professional art dealer.
