Poe, Ouija, and Cosplayers: Visitations goes to Baltimore Comic-Con 2019!

This year was Baltimore Comic-Con's 20th Anniversary. It is also my second time to the convention. However, it was the first time I was able to personally explore the famous and spooky legends of the city.

The first stop was the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum. Famous Victorian-Era author Edgar Allan Poe lived and died in Baltimore. Built in 1830 and saved from demolition in 1941,  the current incarnation of the house where Poe lived became a museum in 2013 ( after the original 1949 version closed in 2011). Poe lived there from 1833 to 1835. He wrote many stores and poems within it's walls including MS. Found in a Bottle, Lionizing: A Tale, Shadow-A Parable, Berenice, Morella, and The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall.

The Edgar Allan Poe House 
203 N Amity St Baltimore, MD

The next stop after visiting the house was Westminster Presbyterian Church where Poe is buried. The site is an old graveyard and the church was built on top of it. It has been reported that spirits walk the catacombs beneath the building.

Graves seen under the building near Poe's monument.
This has the potential to be a haunted story!

Poe has 2 separate burial sites in the cemetery. The first is where he was buried after he died, under mysterious circumstances, in 1849.

In 1875 Poe's body was moved to a more prominent memorial at the front gate of the cemetery.

In addition to Edgar Allan Poe, Elija Bond is also buried in Baltimore. Bond is the creator of the Ouija Board. The Ouija was not the only "spirit board" in existence when it first saw the light of day in 1890. Occultists had long used different props to talk to the dead. The Ouija itself was seen as only a parlor game unrelated to the paranormal until World War 1, when it gained popularity. When Bond died he was buried in Baltimore's Green Mount Cemetery ( John Wilkes Booth is also buried here) with no headstone. There the grave sat empty until Robert Murch, the founder of the Talking Board Historical Society, raised donations to give him one. In 2007 Elija Bond's grave was given an appropriate memorial...

         

Front of Elija Bond's grave

Back of Elija Bond's grave

The Baltimore Comic-Con itself was a fun experience with lots of great activities and wonderful cosplayers. The following are the cosplayers who stopped by my Artist's Alley table at the convention and won the raffle to have their names on a tombstone in Visitations issue 5:

Eliza Evry

Ashley Alexander

Elizabeth Detzel

Olivia Peterson

Jamal Sealey

Pilar Morfin

Becca Harney

Josh Ryan

Timmy Billand

Tiffany Honig

Cosplayer Eliza Evry won the raffle to have
her name of a tombstone in Visitations 5. Check
out her other costumes HERE

Please be sure to check out these Cosplay winners and  many others on my Facebook page HERE

Order a free PDF of Visitations 1 by emailing us here: visitationscomicbook@gmail.com