Tag: Douglas Wolk

Books with Pictures Comic Con Part 2

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

Books with Pictures ComicCon, 2023 Part 2

Dear Liza,

During the Books with Pictures Comic Con, the garden saw a lot of action!

Two lovely people with the unlikely names of Bugchampciri and 2broke4cosplay (these are their Instagram handles) organized and judged the costume contest. Kids from about eight years old to adults in their thirties came to strut their cosplay stuff.

Everyone looked incredible and got lots of compliments on their outfits. What was even more amazing was the dozen or so folks in costumes who weren’t in the contest, but just walking around shopping and chatting.

Later in the day, the garden hosted an Art Battle, with cartoonists in competition to draw the best improvised ‘toon. I watched Ron Chan and Kate Faris drawing “Creepy Farting Tacos” and it was delightful.

After lunch, Douglas Wolk ran a trivia contest. I didn’t get to see it, but was told by several contestants that they had “arrived with confidence” and had been “quickly humbled” by the difficulty of the questions. Douglas is an Eisner Award-winning comics expert. He doesn’t mess around.

The last panel of the day was Nola Pfau, Laura Hudson and Douglas Wolk discussing comics criticism… that is, how to think about, talk about, or write about comics as a genre of literature and art.

For the closing act in the garden, Lizzy Kirby sang delightful, original songs, my favorite having “Meow, meow, meow meow, meow meow” as its chorus. We all joined in, of course.

For part of the day, Kestrel had her art table set up near the garden, as well, doing small sketches for folks for tips. She did very well and retired early.

Here are just a few of the folks on clean up duty…me, Katie, Kenny and his daughter Vanessa, and Mads. Kenny’s wife Jessica took the picture, and was working, too. Katie’s staff member Elizabeth was down the street folding and lifting tents into the garage. The whole day was an amazing tour de force of teamwork.

Something as complicated as a ComicCon takes dozens of people who are good at their jobs working really hard. I am very proud of Auntie Katie and her companions for the work they did.

Love,

Grandma Judy

Finding the Silly at BwiP Con

Dear Liza,

When I was growing up, a “Convention” didn’t sound like very much fun. A big room full of businessmen talking about business. Ugh.

Comic Conventions helped change that. The Stumptown Comics Festival, in 2004, included a Comic Art Battle which was described as a “combination of Pictionary and wrestling”.


BwiPCon at Books with Pictures had lots of silly, as well.

Since it was an outside event, there were bubbles. Really big bubbles. Seeing a hundred people through the lens of a giant bubble is something I never even knew I was missing!

There were dogs.

Since it was comics, there were costumes.

There were trees, and a garden.

And sometimes there were bubbles and dogs and trees all at once!

I look forward to BwiP 2!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Comic con at Books with Pictures

Dear Liza,

This weekend, Auntie Katie’s Books with Pictures was not only full of people, but surrounded by people! Hundreds of them! It was amazing.

It was the First Annual BwP (say it BWIP) Comic Con. There were thirty artist vendors (including Auntie Bridgett).

There was a book signing by comic artist Steve Lieber and a comics trivia game run by Douglas Wolk.

And finally, a wonderful talk, Q and A and book signing by comic artists Kelley Sue DeConnick, David F. Walker, and Brian Michael Bendis.

Hundreds of people shopped, played, listened, talked, and had a wonderful time.

Adding to the fun were Rob Courage, who played music on his guitar to start the day; April, who makes giant bubbles,

Paulette, who runs a digital photo booth,

Maia doing face painting, and Cousin Kestrel giving people temporary tattooes.

The vendor tables were set up around the three sides of the shop. There were all sorts of things for sale. Books, clothes, jewelry, stickers, and original art.
I will tell you more about BwiP Con in tomorrow’s blog.

What a day!


Love,

Grandma Judy