(Chelsea Update would like to thank Patty Roberts for the information in this story.)
Chelsea District Library, in collaboration with Kids Read Comics, will host a free, all-day festival of comic book fun on Saturday, Oct. 21.
The event will feature over a dozen comics creators, hands-on workshops, interactive games and activities, and a kids’ costume parade. Throughout the day, artists will participate in creating round-robin comics, and the results will be posted on walls for all to see.
Artists in attendance—displaying comics, books and original art at their artists alley tables—will include Apooka creator Mike Roll; Wonder Woman, Flash and Journey writer-artist William Messner-Loebs; children’s book author and illustrator Ruth McNally Barshaw; master of mini-comics Matt (Cynicalman) Feazell; math teacher and math comic creator Jim (Solution Squad) McClain; Highlights Magazine illustrator Merrill Rainey; and Scratch 9 artist Josh Buchanan. They will be eager to talk about the comics they make, the comics kids love, and the comics kids love to make.
In addition to meeting artists at the library, kids and families will have a chance to join them at a special free lunch at Jet’s Pizza (advance registration required).
The day’s events also include a downtown Chelsea scavenger hunt; and kids will receive free comics provided by Green Brain Comics of Dearborn.
“A great thing about comics is the way kids are enlivened by them,” said Chelsea youth and teen librarian and Kids Read Comics co-founder Edith Donnell, who is leading the event. “They become storytellers, they want to talk about what they’re seeing. They want to draw and write and create after being exposed to comics.”
Donnell believes that Kids Read Comics Chelsea will kickstart that creative process. “Kids meet comics book artists and watch them at work, and get to explore some of those skills themselves. By the end of a KRC event, we hear stories about kids who are already drawing their own comics, inspired by what they’ve experienced.”
Kids Read Comics Chelsea runs from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 21. More information is available at www.kidsreadcomics.org.
About Kids Read Comics: Kids Read Comics is a nonprofit organized in 2008 by four Michigan residents dedicated to putting comics, and the tools to make comics, in the hands of young people. In addition to librarian Donnell, they are artist and cartooning teacher Jerzy Drozd, Green Brain co-owner Dan Merritt, and comic book writer Dan Mishkin. Kids Read Comics puts on the annual Ann Arbor Comic Arts Festival.
