Every year, Spokane hosts the Get Lit! literature festival, which usually includes lots of writing workshops and speakings by authors. This year they also branched out into graphic novels, with a panel on comics and comic creation. Manny Trembley and Eric Anderson, the two local creators of Panda Xpress and Sam Noir, both published by Image Comics, hosted an hour long discussion about the comic industry.
I was pleasantly surprised by the fairly large turn out and, considering comic books' reputation for having a predominantly young adult male readership, it was encouraging to see that more than half of those that showed up for the panel were female, of all ages. There were a few teachers present as well, who were interested in using comics in their classrooms, which was also nice to see.
The discussion was really interesting, and I learned quite a bit, especially about the publishing aspect. It was also great to meet and talk with Manny and Eric after the panel.
The monthly Spokane Comic Artists Meet-Up (S.C.A.M. ? Hm, maybe not the best acronym... ) is tomorrow at local comic & game shop Merlyns at 3 pm. It's not anything especially organized, mostly just an excuse for artists and writers to get out of the house and get together and chat about comics or whatever, but it's been a great opportunity to meet some fellow local creators and comic fans.
One thing we do have planned is for the upcoming annual Free Comic Book Day. FCBD is a great opportunity to introduce comics to new readers, and especially to get kids interested, so a few of us will be hanging out at Merlyns and drawing sketches for kids 10 and under for free. Should be fun. :)
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