Tag: Lizzy Kirby

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