Dear Liza,
Besides family, friends, and artist tables at the Books with Pictures Comic Con, there were all sorts of activities. The Garden Stage (in the beautiful garden Katie has been nurturing for a few years) was home to a cosplay contest for kids and adults.
Elias, a very young Jedi, won the kid’s division. He had forgotten his light saber at home, so Katie gave him one of hers, made for Free Comic Book Day from a pool noodle. He was delighted!
There was a cartooning duel, with pairs of artists trying to out-think and out-draw each other. The first contest had a random doodle as the prompt, which led to these awesome drawings….
A windsurfing puffin and a coffee drinking moose.
Douglas Wolk hosted a Trivia contest with really hard questions! Besides being an author of books about comics (“All the Marvels” is his latest), he also teaches classes about them. These were really interesting questions, like “Which American comic strip has run since 1914 and only had three artists?” I’ll let you look up the answer, if you like.
There were also discussions and interviews, featuring Kelly Sue Deconnick, Leela Cormac, and Carl Sciacchitano.
The last act of the day was Lizzy Kirby, who plays guitar and sings lovely songs about love and cats. She sang my favorite, with the catchy chorus of “Meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow.”
To make sure we had ann exciting day, between all the art, contests, and interviews, we had a few spats of strong winds that blew in rain and hail and tried to carry away the inventory!
Tents rattled, comics went flying, and folks scrambled to hang onto their banners. Each storm lasted about ten minutes, then we would have sparkling sun for an hour or so.
It was very …. Let’s say entertaining. More tomorrow!
Love,
Grandma Judy
Dear Liza 