When I tell people what I do," said Marvel Comics pencil artist Ron Frenz from his Bellevue studio, "the most common reaction is: 'They still make those?' And, I'm like, yeah ..."

He had to finish with a chuckle, wondering how someone would question the existence of something that has been providing him work for 22 years.

		Pittsburgh ComiCon Where: Pittsburgh ExpoMart and Radisson Hotel, Monroe-ville. When: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Admission: $17 (one-day pass); $34 (two-day pass); $45 (three-day pass); free for children under 8 with paid adult admission.

Given that two of the top 10 domestic box-office performers in film are "Spider-Man" movies, and with the highly anticipated "Superman Returns" on the horizon, that sort of obliviousness seems something of a stretch. But Frenz said the notion of comics being a lost, childish or old-fashioned medium is alive and well.

Still, for at least this weekend, the Pittsburgh ComiCon -- short for Comics Convention -- will showcase a contrasting vision of the medium. The convention welcomes aspirants and professionals from nearly every facet of the entertainment industry.

If you've ever wondered what all the hubbub is about, whether it's your kids' obsession with the Justice League and Teen Titans cartoons or Oscar winners Sean Connery and Rachel Weisz's turns in the comics-based movies "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" and "Constantine," Pittsburgh ComiCon is the perfect opportunity to flesh out your understanding of the world of graphic novels, comic books, comic strips and all things written and illustrated and packaged in frames.

Hollywood and TV celebs, such as Ray Park of "Star Wars" fame (he played Darth Maul in two of the films) and local celebrity and past WWF wrestling champ Bruno Sammartino, will appear along with well-known Western Pennsylvania artists and writers such as Ed Piskor, who worked with Harvey Pekar on "American Splendor." Also on hand will be Patrick and Shelly Block of the "Donald Duck" series.

They'll gather under Monroeville's ExpoMart roof with a production designer from major motion pictures such as "ConAir" and "The Matrix" and prolific journeymen writers such as Mark Waid, who has worked for no less than seven comics publishers on a host of characters, including Captain America and the Fantastic Four.

There will be representatives from major publishing houses like DC and Marvel alongside many who are just starting out in the business.

The goal is to provide a celebratory environment for even the most casual of comic book readers.

But no matter how you look at it, compared to the glory days of the 1960s, when comic books were displayed at most supermarkets and drugstores, today's genre mags are practically underground.

"Now, people don't even know where to tell you to go to find [comics], because they're no longer ubiquitous," said Frenz, "and then people think of it as a dead art form."

'A LIFELONG DREAM'

The '60s were starkly different for comic book aficionados like Frenz, who grew up in Ross.

"In the mid-'60s, even a middle-ground book like [Marvel's] 'Daredevil' sold 300,000 copies per month," Frenz recalled. "Nowadays, 100,000 is a huge number."

As so many who work in the comic book business, Frenz was a huge fan of comics from childhood on.

"I had a brother three years older, so actually I don't even remember a time when there weren't any comics around. If feels like we discovered them together, but it almost had to be his idea to begin with."

In 1967, if you had asked little Ron Frenz what he wanted to do when he grew up, he would have said, "Draw comic books.' "

Even with such early interest, following that first comic given him by his big brother at age 8 (it was a Thor comic), it took Frenz 16 years to be employed as a comic book artist.

"God love my parents, I was very fortunate. There are so many other artists who got no support. ... I'd bring these books home, and [my mom] would look through them and read them. She obviously had the presence of mind to look at them and say, 'Well, somebody's drawing these things, and they're sure not doing them for free.' "

Frenz knows he's lucky to be living a lifelong dream -- especially through such a direct route. He went through a commercial art program at North Hills High School, won a scholarship to the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and was working for Marvel by the time he was 24.

Less direct routes are much more common.

'I'LL PROVE HIM WRONG'

"I moved to New York with $500 in my pocket. I was basically on the street," said Charles Dixon, publisher of "Internal Fury" and founder of upstart Vexed Comics.

"I had no food, no money, no nothing. But I just kept that goal."

That goal was to get involved in the comics business, and through odd jobs -- working at a hotel, acting classes, spotty modeling gigs -- he kept coming back to comic books.

Dixon grew up in Bridgeville and got comics from his uncles. He was captivated by the late-1970s "Spider-Man" cartoon series on TV.

"It was the whole package that got me into Spider-Man -- the look, the action, the powers."

Years later, while attending Community College of Allegheny County, a combination of his love of writing and his practice of running down to the college bookstore to read comics between classes fueled his interest in a comics career.

"I was taking college prep classes for writing, and I finished this essay," he recalled. "I thought it was probably one of the best written things in the class. [But my teacher] said, 'Charles, you will never become a writer, writing like this.'

"I said to myself, 'I'll prove him wrong.' "

After that, Dixon went "full speed ahead" with his comic book ideas -- "everything I had, good or bad, I just wrote it down."

"I would just sit and think. ... If they had powers what would they do? Would they take the easy way out and just be corrupt?"

That was around the fall of 1990, but it took him until 2005, working with Jason Ross and his cousin, Charles "Ooge" Ugas, another Art Institute alumnus, that he put out his first issues of "Internal Fury."

The book follows the travails of a wrongly convicted man who discovers his superpowers during a prison break and uses his Christian faith and sense of protecting others faced with institutional, racial and criminal injustice as motivation for his crime-fighting sojourn.

Dixon visited the New York ComiCon in February and is enthusiastic about his chances of taking "Internal Fury" to the next step of national distribution.

"We are getting a lot of great reviews. It's just something different. I've always been surprised that a lot of other black comics haven't made it. After I put out my first issue, [people thought] I wouldn't come out with issues two, three and four. But I got into it to succeed."

'VERY TENACIOUS'

Passion and hard work alone are no guarantee for success in the comics biz.

Ted Riddle has put out 11 of his "C.O.M.P.U.Mech" graphic novels and storyboarded another baker's dozen. Yet he still hasn't received the kind of recognition you'd expect for someone who's been in love with comics since grade school, has attended the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art, and has made at one time $6,000 a month from drawing comics.

From the beginning, Riddle had to resort to smaller showcases, drawing insert comics such as "The Grand Dragon Master" comic for Black Belt magazine and "Riggers" for Four Wheeler magazine.

But he was drawing professionally and loving it.

Then came a kind of comics crisis in the mid-1990s, spurred by a glut of titles being produced by the major publishers and exacerbated by numerous upstart companies and the migration of comics from grocery-store checkout aisles and convenience stores to specialty comic book shops. The industry was crippled. Marvel declared bankruptcy.

"About three months later, I lost all my comic book jobs," Riddle said.

He has since found his calling as a comic artist teacher working through libraries and running workshops around Hackettstown, N.J., where he lives with his wife.

"Joe Kubert used to always tell me: 'This is going to be hard.' But then he also always called me 'very tenacious.' "

'THIS IS WHAT I ENJOY'

Other artists didn't have to sacrifice and struggle quite as much to forge a life around comic art.

Wayne Faucher, a Johnstown resident and inker for DC Comics titles such as "Shadow of the Bat," "Robin" and "Catwoman," pretty much fell into the business.

"It wasn't like I had this ache to be a comic book artist," Faucher said. "I had a decade as a professional artist. I just started applying it to comics.

The Rhode Island native and Rhode Island School of Design alumnus had lived in New York and Boston for years before deciding to move to Pittsburgh. While living in Whitehall, he switched from his job as a marketing design director to a job as an artist at Parity Press.

Deciding to raise their kids in a calmer environment, the couple relocated to Johnstown, where Faucher worked for Marvel and now DC in his home-based studio.

"I know other people can't believe it, but I went to one convention in Philadelphia and DC hired me on the spot."

Unlike Frenz who, as a penciller, does the first treatment of a comic, it's Faucher's job as an inker to give color and depth -- basically everything not outlined by the penciller

"Pencilling is the glory job ... [but] I don't want to pencil. This is what I enjoy."

Faucher does have some freedom -- especially when working with looser pencillers, who might leave some of the drawing for him to fill in. But on the other hand, he said, "I've had jobs from pencillers who were so tight it was basically a tracing job."

Most importantly for Faucher, the job fits his disposition and gives him time with his two girls, who, he confessed, "didn't really know my job was different from other dads'. It only hit them in the reaction of their friends."

Shying away from bigger conventions, Faucher said he always looks forward to the manageable size of Pittsburgh ComiCon, which allows him to take time to meet people.

"Especially the kids who are so genuinely interested. That's the best."

'CAN YOU IMAGINE?'

Even with something of a rebound in sales over the past decade, the effects of the mid-'90s comics crisis are still noticeable.

"All these years," said Frenz, "you weren't breeding your next generation of comics readers. And if they weren't there at the five and dime, how would you grow to love them the way I did? I mean, my dad would drive me to Cranberry to get a [comic] book. Who does that now?"

Still, there is reason for some optimism.

"Hollywood, which has been running out of ideas, has been tapping comics," said James Toroczy, the buyer and manager for Eide's media and collectible store in the Strip.

But the move toward Hollywood, while putting money into the industry, also distances people from the comics, making it possible to forget where the ideas, moral themes, plot lines and intricate characters were first developed.

"We see kids now who know all the characters inside and out, and we ask them, 'So you read the book?' And they say, 'No, I watch the cartoon," said Frenz.

"It's maddening to me. Comics are the root of all of this and not recognized as such. ... Take the popularity of Spider-Man, then factor that kids are reading again, like 'Harry Potter.' If we were really out there again, can you imagine? We just need that widespread availability again."