Early HR+ Disease SABCS 2025 Practice Changing/Informing Highlights: ALTTO, lidERA, NATALEE

(upbeat music) - Hello, welcome to TurtleTrek's Podcast, the Joes by Ben Hooker. And I am here with Chris Peru, one of the owners, founders of GraniteCon. And yeah, we're here to talk about what's coming up in 2026 at GraniteCon. Thanks so much for being here Chris, I appreciate it. - Hey, thanks again for having me. It's great to be here. So if any fan listening to this is unaware, I mean, you know, GraniteCon for TurtleTrek, that's the closest thing we have to a TurtleCon. Like, because so much of the Mirage was based in the Northeast, a lot of the guys from what were Mirage Studios make it out for this con of every year, but especially every even year, is when it's a lot more TurtleBase, which is one of those years. And I can tell you, it's my favorite con, I go to it every year. And yeah, so tell me about what's going on this year for GraniteCon. - Okay, yeah, so like you said, like every other year thing, so we have, you know, there's always like a Turtle basis, you know, but every other year, it gets like crazy because, you know, the man is coming back, coming Eastman is coming back, so it's always nice to have him back. And whenever Kevin comes to town, it's like the circus gets even crazier. So it's always a good time. So. How many, I mean, how many, what year is this for GraniteCon now? - So this will be the 24th. So in the next year will be the big 25th. So. - She's how, I mean, and you guys have been doing this the whole time. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. Yeah, start it off in just a small section of the hotel and kind of grew organically to the part where like, hey, got big enough where we go, okay, let's do two days. And then, you know, we take on a bigger room and then that fills up and then we take another room and then we just filled the hotel. And then a couple of years ago, we, you know, hit mask capacity at the double tree hotel and decided to add a second venue across the street, the SNH arena. It's just so we can keep growing 'cause there's no big convention center in New Hampshire. So we had to get creative on how to keep, you know, keep expanding. So. And like, it's, I mean, it's all really connected. It's just across the street. So it's all the same space. It's easy to walk from one to the other. Like, it's all, it really is. 'Cause it's the, I mean, I even, I think I first went in 2019 and it's grown a lot since then, even. - Yes. - Yeah, it's just, you know, picking up steam and getting wild there. And, you know, we're looking at, you know, eventually, the arena is gonna be full. How do we keep going from there? We've got some money, yes. And it's a lot of cool stuff percolating right now. So we're very excited to keep, you know, keep growing. But also keeping it the same time, you know, our vibe, you know, which is, you know, a little bit of pop culture, a little bit of, you know, like, stay true to the comics 'cause we're comics guys, you know. So I'm just making sure that the fan experience is great. Not just, you know, hey, let's, heard the cattle through the door, you know. Tell me who you've got Ninja Turtle-wise. I guess starting with some of the, the Mirage guys. I know, obviously Kevin's coming. But who else from that era is, is gonna make it? Steve Rubin is back, you know, is a staple. Oh, yeah. Love, love Steven Denise. We've got, let's see, Eric Talbot is coming. Jim Lawson from the Mirage crew might have some more. Stay tuned on that for it. But, you know, like you said, it's new England. So those guys are still here, you know, working and doing stuff. So, but we've got, we can come, almost hit like something of like everybody's favorite iteration of the turtles, like Sierra, you know, Lee is coming back. We're a fan of the 2012 turtles animated, you know, he's coming back, he's the big designer on that. You've got the running. Steve made it once a few years ago, but I hadn't seen him since. That's super exciting that he's coming again. Yes, yeah. Yeah, and then we've got the the Ronin crew. The scores are coming back, which is awesome. You know, Tom Waltz, Ben Bishop and we still goto. Are all gonna be here. Oh great. Yeah. We've got Sarah Meyer who works on Saturday morning adventures. Sarah's great. So there's just, you know, an amazing lineup of turtle related guests. I saw the reason, I think the most recent announcement, I saw that I got very excited about was Ken Matroni and Beth Matroni are gonna be there. They Ken was the one of the main artists on Archie Comics, Turtles Adventures and Beth wrote a couple of issues. I'm so glad they're coming. Oh yeah, Ken is fantastic. He's just, you know, he's just a fun guy. Well, let's see in him every year and you know, he asked me, he's like, you know, he's like, you know, that's wrote a few issues that I can, you know, can she come to you? I'm like, yeah, let's do it, you know. Oh, no, he's very cool. Mm-hmm. So like, there's something like all the different iterations, you know, the turtles. I think we haven't announced them yet, but the current artists on Ninja Turtles, Freddie Williams, the second is coming back. So, oh great, fantastic. Yeah. And then he's sharing art duties I think right now on the turtles 'cause last year he was supposed to come, but then got the assignment on the turtles was also working on the, he manbook at the same time. So he's been playing catch up on that, but Farrow Pay is also doing some art on the main line series but also did turtles Godzilla, which is really cool. Yeah. Yeah. When I was there, that was when they were just kind of, I think just developing Godzilla and we did a little interview about that and man, that book looks so cool. I, what they've done with, Farrow's art is really amazing. I mean, it's such a talented guy. Yes. And let's see here. I mean, what else, so is it gonna be two days or is it the three days? Yes. So it's technically the kind of kicks off on Saturday, Saturday Sunday, so two day, but then we do like a premium night on Friday night, which is just like, when we expanded into the second venue, we kind of were like, well, I don't know if we can do three days and two venues, let's just scale it back just a little bit and everybody's like, no, we love Friday. We love hanging out with the artists, getting the lining up our commissions and getting signatures before things get really crazy. You know, and that's where the turtle fans are great. They'll turn out for this event. And it's very like, it's very chill before it gets blick, not it's so like, you know, Kevin just does Saturday, Sunday. That room's gonna be, you know, this year the, the army room for those of you don't know, it's one of the rooms in the hotel. It's got, you know, nice high ceilings, brick walls, wood floors, you know, these antique wood floors. It's a really nice vibe. It's all comic book artists. So like, it's not, you know, crafters or anybody that's working on, you know, we love all that stuff, but like it's just, you know, you've got to work on comic books to be in that room. And that room is just jam packed this year. We're trying to figure out how to fit more people on. We'll see. - That's like, I mean, that Friday, and especially in the armory, like that, and it feels like the, I don't know, that's the part I get the most excited about every year, is the turtle as a turtle fan. Like that's, you can't show up late in my mind as a turtle fan to this thing. - Mm-hmm. - Oh yeah, that was the point I think is like, we had an announce the arena yet, but we're like, it's just gonna be two days and everybody got like so mad at us. And we're like, well, there's a reason, but we can't say it because we haven't signed the contract yet, because with the arena, so we can't make that happen. So we're like, we're just like, okay, where can we compromise, make everybody happy? We're like, just, you know, the artist and the armory is open on Friday in the game spaces a few other things that are open, but it's just like a soft opening for the convention. - You know, the, it's also the, like it's the cool things too, like the hotel does like turtle theme drinks. I don't know if it's doing again this year, but like that's always been like, there's so many little things about this con that I just really is a treat for turtle fans. - Yeah, there'll be more stuff you coming out. I think I don't know if we've announced it yet, but the folks from Play-D-M are coming back. - Oh, nice. - And so this, I think this will be like the official, like this will be the first time since, like the world-climbing and have, you know, hit everybody, you know, like the Kickstarter. So like their books are out now, and I believe we're gonna try and get them to do like a mini campaign. And so you can just do like a, you know, a one-shot quick campaign and just, you know, play, you know, in the, the TMNT RPG realm. Some, - Those books are great. I got my copy, it's not long ago. And man, they're, like I've been waiting for those for a while. And then just even, and like they're beautiful book of books. And getting that signed by Kevin. I mean, that's like the first piece of turtle outside of the comics, like that's the first thing. So it's a pretty cool thing to get, to celebrate that. That's cool. - Yeah. - The outside of the turtle realm, who are you most, like tell me some people, you're excited about to have this year. - You know, so like I said, the artist room is just jam-packed, excited for Destiny Noen, who works for, he's done a lot of like Batman related titles. - Okay. - Fib Batman-Fib Batman titles. He's good. a few books that he's done with Jeff Limerro over at an image. We've got Becky Clinton coming back. So Becky was a guest like, I don't know, 12, 13, 15 years ago in the show was very small. So we finally were able to get her back. She's got, no, she's originally from New Hampshire. Well, we've got Steve Lieber who works, recently there's some Jimmy Ols and stuff over at DC. So there's a lot of new faces this year. So it's, it's, that we're going to be stacked with talent. So I'm very excited for folks to come and see what's, what's happened in there. So too much to do. What's great about like, like, it's so, like, it's for me, it's a haul. It's like, it's like five hours. But like, man, I so look forward to it because like, there's not just the con, which is amazing. But you guys, usually, usually there's a screening of some kind. Also, it's not that far from like the birthplace, the turtle. So you can check out the monument, like the sewer, manhole cover thing. That's where the house was at Peter and Larry. Peter and Kevin created the turtles. There's a lot to see there, which is cool. Oh, yes. Yeah. So, you know, we're like not that far from Boston and the Seacos. And, you know, like, they said, "Dover's like a short little trip, you know, east to here." So it's definitely worth going to see that the marker and the historical marker that the state put up, marker the birthplace. And I think the Woodman Museum, I haven't checked recently, but they've had like, they've, it's a museum in Dover and they've got some historical stuff in there to relate it to the turtles. So. Yeah, I spoke, I think I interviewed them last year, the year before, and they have like, some cells, some stuff from Kevin and Peter's collections. Like, lots of like, we're, they have a really good, they have a whole room dedicated to turtles last time was there. And then some people stuff. Okay. Sure. You know, Chris, tell us, I just want to get people, you know, excited about this. I, you know, and make sure they have enough time to sign up. When is the, where are the dates for this year? So the dates are September 19th and 20th, with that special kickoff night Friday, the 18th. Cool. Yep. And it takes place at the double tree by Hilton Downtown Manchester. It's a long name, but also the SNH Urina, which is both in Downtown Manchester and like said, they're literally right across the street from each other. So if you think like, oh, there's two buildings, they got across the street. It's literally, it really is. I get obsessed with it. It's just crossing the street. There's nothing to it. Yeah. And I, and I'll be remiss not to mention, over at the Urina, that's where we have like, a lot of our celebrity guests. And then this year, two guys that have been requested, like many, many times for us to get, we have Kevin Clash, who did the Splinter Puppet. So if he's yeah, Splinter in the original movie. And then James Sido, who was shredder in the original movie. So we got Splinter and shredder. They'll be doing a little do photo op. And then I believe Kevin is bringing Splinter with him. So you're going to get a photo op with the three of those, with three, just a guy, but it's the two guys in Splinter. So that's going to be really cool. Oh, that's awesome. Well, I'll be there. And I'm excited to check it out in this year. I just, you know, I encourage you to rate, get the tickets now to it. But they follow more guest announcements and stuff on Instagram and Facebook. Is that the best places to follow? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Is it just at Grand Economo? I always forget to look at that before. To this. Yeah. So it's Grandestay Comic Con on, on Facebook. And then our, our Instagram is GraniteState Comic Con. I'll spell that out. So we just call it GraniteCon for short. So yeah. And we have those tickets are on sale now at graniccon.com. You know, we'll be posting all of our, you know, panels and whatnot during the summer. So they'll definitely be a few, parallel related panels as they're always are. And, you know, the sketch off is always a good time as well. So Chris, thanks so much for doing this. And thanks for putting this kind of together of you. It really means a lot to a lot of people. Oh, I know. We love it. And we love the Turtle fans. It was like the first, the first time, you know, Kevin came to the show as a 2019, I think it was. And, you know, seeing people go in and then, you know, people don't like, oh, yeah, I traveled from Europe. I came from South America. It was like, oh, this is, you know, and everybody's just the nicest, you know, as far as the fans go, you know, there's never any, like, you know, issues of, you know, the everybody's just great. Just glad to be there and having a good time. So I love it. All right. Thank you so much, Chris. I'll be there and I'll, I'll see you then. All right. Very good. Thanks, Brian. See you here. All right. See you. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)