Martha Donato, the director of the inaugural Long Beach Comic-Con, may not be a household name to the average comic book fan, but for more than a decade, she’s established herself as a formidable presence in the industry. In 1997, she helped launch Wizard World Chicago, which is now one of the biggest comic book conventions in the U.S., after the San Diego Comic-Con and played a big role in the launch of Wizard World Los Angeles - which for its first two years, was held at the Long Beach Convention Center before moving to downtown L.A.

During the second day of the three-day LB Comic-Con, she spoke with reporter Mark Edward Nero about how she managed to go from being a laid-off worker to being a self-employed entrepreneur - in less than a year - who’s the guiding force behind an event attracting thousands of people.

LBPOST.com: One of the things I was wondering is how you were able to pull this convention off in today’s economic climate. Obviously, it’s not easy to start up a new comic book convention, so how were you able to do it?

DONATO: Jeph Loeb (the comic writer and television producer), Jeph’s a friend of mine. I contacted him when I was thinking about doing it and said ‘Hey Jeph, I have this idea that I’m thinking about, what do you think,’ and he said ‘I think it’s awesome.’ And when I called him back and said ‘hey I’m going to do it,’ he said ‘I’ll help you get a couple of guests.’ He ended up calling everybody. I started getting some really high level guests, just on relationships. They were like ‘Hey, if nothing else, we’ll have a good time.’ And then a couple of exhibitors signed on and that lends a little more credibility to the fact that this is a real show and we’re not just sittin’ in my garage talking about the old days. Then a couple more exhibitors started signing on, a couple of dealers signed on, Artists Alley started to fill up, there was word of mouth, that’s how it happened, word of mouth. And part of it has to do with reputation. People know that I know what I’ve been doing, I’ve been doing it a long time, I’m not an amateur. And it started to happen from there. The hard part is getting people to walk through the door. I can get the guest and exhibitors, but I can’t call up 10,000 people in Los Angeles and say ‘hey, would you like to come to a Long Beach show.’ So that’s when I hired a local marketing person and we started with comic shops, Pulp Fiction, Amazing Comics, Golden Apple, we went in and asked if we could hang some posters. ‘We have some post cards, will you hand them out, you wanna sell some tickets for us.’ We ended up with 13 local retailers selling tickets and that is how we started to build the interest. I called all my friends at DC and Marvel and Top Cow and Aspen and Boom! (Studios) and IDW (Publishing) and called everybody, and it just started to happen through word of mouth. And let’s not discount the Internet: Facebook and a MySpace page and Twittering, and took out some ads on (the comic-focused websites) CBR (Comic Book Resources) and Newsarama. We went to San Diego (to the Comic-Con) and handed out flyers. They were gracious enough to let us put our flyers on the freebie table.

LBP: Did you grow up reading comic books or watching animation? How did you get involved in this industry?

MD: I started working for a magazine company a long time ago that published a bunch of titles and one of them was (the comic industry publication) Wizard. So when I took that job, I didn’t know anything about anything. In 1997, I helped rebrand Wizard World Chicago (the renamed Chicago Comic-Con, which now is one of the biggest comic book conventions in the U.S., attracting over 50,000 people each year).

LBP: Were you involved with Wizard World Los Angeles? The first one was in Long Beach, right?

MD: The first two, in 2004-2005. 2006-07, 08 were in Los Angeles. There wasn’t one in ’09, they cancelled that one, but I wasn’t there, I was gone by then. I wasn’t there in ’08 either; I didn’t go to that one.

LBP: How long ago did you come up with the idea, the original germ of the idea of putting on your on ‘Con?

MD: I’d go back to I’d say last fall. I was working in a job in New York City, got laid off in October, and I said ‘what am I going to do?’ Now it’s November, I did a little even in New York City called Saw Mania, had all the “Saw” (horror movie) guests come and I said ‘This was fun, I like doing this.’ So in mid-November, I had some friends who were getting laid off and we began putting this together. We walked into the New York Comic-Con in mid-February and started telling people about the show here. That was our first time out in public saying ‘hey. We’re going to do this.’ So we started officially in February.

LBP: Why Long Beach, as opposed to Los Angeles or one of the other cities in the area?

MD: A couple of factors: one, the building is really easy to work with. I already have relationships with a couple of people here. And it’s not a union building. In a union building, it’s really hard for small businesses, and me being an independent business, it’s very hard to do business in that environment. This is a lot easier. There’s also the atmosphere: as they say ‘location, location, location.’ It’s easy to get here, there’s public transportation, you’ve got a lot of things to do at night. It reminds me of San Diego; you go to the show during the day, you love the show, but then at night it extends because you’re out at night, and you’re running into everybody from the show. It’s just an extension of the show at night and I think that it’s like that here too. It will be in the future.

LBP: That brings me to my next question: the future. If the ‘Con is a success this year, is it something you plan on having annually?

MD: I have a date on hold for next year, another October date. We didn’t go to contract on it; hopefully it will work out where we will.

LBP: So what would be the barometer of success for the show; what would the factor or factors that go into the decision of whether or not you hold another ‘Con in 2010.

MD: Well, we have some financial parameters, of course. I have a partner in the show and if we hit break even, then we’ll do it again. If we lose a little money, we’ll do it again to make back the money we lost. So I think in any scenario except a complete failure – if only a hundred people showed up, we wouldn’t do it again. I don’t think there’s any question about doing it again.

LBP: How people were you expecting? Did you have any projections?

MD: Yeah, we did. We projected it at 5,000 (attendees throughout the three day convention), then at 7,000. Clearly, we’d prefer seven. (Laughs.)

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