Steve Geppi, President and Chief Executive Officer of Diamond Comic
Distributors, today announced the appointment of Wendy Kelman, Manager of Sales
and Marketing for the State of Maryland’s Office of Tourism, as the Executive
Director of Geppi’s Entertainment Museum at Camden Yards (“GEM”).
Ms. Kelman will be joining GEM early next month.

Commenting on Ms.
Kelman’s selection Mr. Geppi stated, “I am pleased that Wendy has agreed
to be GEM’s Executive Director. With her almost two decades of experience in the
travel and tourism industries, people from all over the world will learn about
GEM and know exactly where to come to enjoy our museum’s very unique pop culture
experience.”

Geppi’s Entertainment Museum at Camden Yards will
spotlight the role of entertainment in the mainstream culture over the past 130
years. The new 16,000-square-foot museum will be situated on the second and
third floors of Baltimore’s historic Camden Station, located adjacent to Oriole
Park at Camden Yards and just upstairs from the newly-opened Sports Legends at
Camden Yards museum. The new facility is expected to open in about a year. Ms.
Kelman will be reporting to Mr. Geppi’s long time friend and Diamond
International Galleries President, managing executive and pop culture historian,
John K. Snyder, Jr.

Ms. Kelman said, “For the past nineteen years
I have been in the business of connecting visitors with places to visit. I am
looking forward to the challenge of creating another reason for people from all
over the world to want to come and visit Baltimore, Maryland. This very
distinctive museum will offer a fantastic collection of artifacts that relate to
virtually everyone. This is the super museum that just happens to include
superheroes.”

National Tour Association President Hank Phillips
said, “Wendy Kelman is a highly accomplished travel industry veteran. Her
successful tenure with the Maryland Office of Tourism has been marked by a
strong intellect, exceptional marketing abilities, and broad knowledge and
ever-increasing contacts throughout the global travel industry. Acknowledgement
by one’s peers is arguably the highest form of commendation one can receive. In
2004 Wendy received that acknowledgement when the Destination Marketing
Organization membership of the National Tour Association elected her to NTA’s
Board of Directors. In that role Wendy has demonstrated keen insights and strong
leadership that have greatly benefited the board and NTA overall.”

The Museum will focus on the impact of popular culture on society as a
whole by showcasing the important developments in the various fields of
entertainment, particularly how they have impacted children.

Beginning
with Puck, Judge, and St. Nicholas magazine, among the
earliest American magazines to regularly use comic illustrations, and developing
through the Roaring Twenties and birth of radio, the growth of movies, and then
eventually television, as well as the influences of advertising and
transportation, our new facility will take participants on a guided tour through
a focused tour of history with a special nod to the role of the comic
character.

Covering each segment in its purview with a special room or
exhibit, the museum will detail the momentous impact of comic characters on the
children who connected with them. Chronicling the earliest comic characters
through the highly recognized creations of recent years, the facility’s
different segments will immerse visitors in its unique American
experience.

The development and use of licensed characters, the
connection with the products on which those characters appeared, and the ways in
which they have been marketed will be showcased by the new museum as well.

Mr. Geppi concluded, “For years I’ve dreamed about being able to do
something like this. Not only for the people of the city of Baltimore, which I
love, and the industry that’s been so good to me, but for the incredible forms
of entertainment, which I also adore. I think it’s important that this material
not only be preserved for future generations, but that it should be highlighted
for them.”

The museum will be developed from Geppi’s extensive private
collection, which spans the range of vintage collectibles. It includes rare
toys, comic books, animation cels, movie posters, oil paintings, and many other
pop culture artifacts.