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Asbury Park received attention in the Sunday New York Times this morning, with a write-up about the upcoming Asbury Park Comic Con convention organized by Red Bank’s Rob Bruce and his partner Cliff Galbraith.

The event is in Convention Hall on March 30, which gets it in under the wire — no events are scheduled after May 1 because of a an issue over the installation of fire sprinklers in the historic building.

Times writer Tammy La Gorge summed up the offerings at the convention, which represent well-known figures in the world of comic books:

At the coming event, Michael E. Uslan, producer of “Batman,” will be the keynote speaker. Michael Zapcic and Ming Chen, of the AMC television show “Comic Book Men,” will judge a costume contest. Al Jaffee, a longtime Mad Magazine cartoonist, will be among the panelists, and so will Herb Trimpe, the Marvel Comics artist who was the first to draw the character Wolverine for publication.

The legendary Trimpe had high praise for the convention organizers, La Gorge reported:

Mr. Trimpe, reached by phone at his home in Hurley, N.Y., said he had accepted Mr. Galbraith’s invitation to Asbury Park because “the big shows are run by promoters and they don’t seem to care much about comics anymore.”

The Asbury Park show is being done “on a personal level,” Mr. Trimpe, 73, said, adding, “There’s a genuineness.”

“Whatever money they make by holding the show, they’ll probably spend taking everybody out to dinner afterward.”

Click here for the full Times story. Click here for the Asbury Park Comic Con website.

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