Chicago's C2E2 2025 was three days of comics, community, celebrities, and pizza (Pequod's, if you want to know). Read our full recap of the weekend, watch all of the Main Stage panel videos, see all the best cosplay photos, and more. And if you want to do it all again next year, we've got the dates for C2E2 2026, too.

Adam "Atom" Freeman's Prana: Direct Market Solutions made waves at last October's New York Comic Con, sharing plans for an ambitious and new data tracking system to measure comic sales and even fan enthusiasm. Prana's Fan Confidence Rating is a particularly eye-catching metric, combining readers' pre-orders and subscriptions to gauge how various marketing initiatives and creator announcements are impacting sales of direct market comic book issues. Freeman shared even more data at C2E2 2025, highlighting a surprising trend of significant average growth for comic shops in the first quarter of 2025.

From their data, and talking with retailers in Prana's systems, Freeman shared that "increased interest in single issues" is driving real sales growth across a variety of shops. According to Prana's Fan Confidence Rating, overall enthusiasm has increased, with average comics sell-through increasing 20% year-on-year since January 2023. (Additionally, pre-order and subscription numbers are up 38% in that same timeframe.) According to Prana's data filtered by publisher performance, Marvel is the clear market leader, but DC Comics is overindexing compared to recent historical trends, while Image Comics is underindexing.

What's driving the average growth? Freeman pointed to Image's Skybound initiatives (Transformers, G.I. Joe, etc) and DC's Absolute line, in addition to semi-recent relaunches like IDW's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. On top of the sales growth, Freeman stated that multiple retailers were reporting an increase in younger, teenage readers starting pull lists for DC's Absolute Comics. Freeman speculated that much like Marvel's Ultimate Universe, the likes of Absolute Batman allows for teens new to shops to begin following a version of the character that feels like "their own Batman". 

The positive performance updates come amid an American market in major economic turmoil, and a comics industry wondering how exactly the proposed tariffs of President Donald Trump will impact the costs of publishing. (The answer to that last question appears to be, 'perhaps they won't'... yet.) For now, at least, some interesting and hopeful signs about the way major publishing initiatives are resonating with comic fans. 

Did you miss a C2E2 Main Stage panel? Don't worry, we're filming it all thanks to our partners at CGC x JSA -  our official authenticator & grading partner. Here is the C2E2 2025 panel list and release schedule.