11th Annual Kids’ Comic Con!
Registration Opens February 8th!
Create New Worlds @ Lake Erie Ink’s 11th Annual Kids’ Comic-Con!
What’s Happening at Comic Con?
Saturday, March 4, 2023, All Day @Lake Erie Ink: Workshops, Speakers & Artist Alley for Kids Ages 8-18
Friday, March 3, 5:30-7:30pm @ the B-Side Lounge on Coventry: Teen Cosplay and Trivia Party sponsored by the Cleveland Institute of Art
Featuring a cosplay fashion show, comic trivia, and more! Hosted by CandiBee Cosplay.
Friday Afternoon March 3: Virtual Drawing Workshop with a Nickelodeon Artist
Friday, February 24th, 7-8pm @ Visible Voice Bookstore: Artist Panel for Adults and Teens
Comics and Community: Building New Worlds
Featuring Juan Jose Fernandez, Lynnesha Hamilton, Dawn Arrington, Jaromir Stoll, Bryn Adams, and moderated by Valentino Zullo
Scholarships available for all Comic Con events. Sign language interpretation available for all events.
Who’s coming to Comic Con?
Bryn Adams
| Bryn is a writer and cartoonist based in Cleveland, Ohio. Much of Bryn’s work is focused on the natural world and explores how humans interact with and impact their environment. Bryn’s comics have appeared in Seven Days, Cleveland Scene Magazine, and the Ohio City-Tremont Observer. |
Dawn Arrington
| Dawn Arrington started Comics at the Corner in 2018 as way to connect with her neighbors around reading. Dawn distributes comics featuring BIPOC characters in order to provide readers with experiences that they can relate to. |
Kate Atherton
| Kate Atherton is a comics artist and illustrator living and working in Cleveland, Ohio. She attended the Rhode Island School of Design and has BFA in Illustration. Kate creates lavish, detailed ink paintings and drawings as well as pen and ink comics based on literature, pop culture, and her day-to-day life working at the library, the bakery, and out and about in Cleveland. She works part-time at the University Heights Public library as a Youth Services Associate and is currently pursuing her Master of Library and Information Science degree at Kent State University. |
Joe Biel
| A Cleveland native, Joe Biel is a self-made autistic publisher and filmmaker who draws origins, inspiration, and methods from punk rock. Biel is the founder and CEO of Microcosm Publishing, Publishers Weekly’s #1 fastest growing publisher of 2022. Biel is the author of dozens of books, including Make a Zine and A People’s Guide to Publishing and has been featured in Time Magazine, NPR, Art of Autism, Reading Glasses, PBS, Bulletproof Radio, Spectator (Japan), G33K (Korea), and Maximum Rocknroll. |
Sequoia Bostick of Vagabond Comics
| Instagram: @sequoiabostickillustration
Sequoia Bostick is an illustrator, comic creator and designer living in Cleveland. After earning her BFA in Illustration from the Cleveland Institute of Art, Sequoia pursued a career as a resident teaching artist working with local youth. |
John Boucher
| John Boucher is a teaching artist at Lake Erie Ink. He has been teaching about stories for six years, and had been reading them for considerably longer than that. |
Juan Fernandez
| Poet, cartoonist and comics scientist. Juan works as an educator to create spaces for those who love comics who don’t identify as cartoonists. Graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and MFA Recipient of the Center for Cartoon Studies. |
Sam Green
| Sam Green (she/her) is a big fan of play. Her art and comics focus on exploring new ways of making things, putting faces to her feelings, and diving into things that make her curious. When not making things, you’ll find her playing with her cats, Tofu and Scribbles, going on long walks, and sweeping her apartment… for fun! |
Matt Haberbusch
| I consider myself to be an indie/alternative comics maker local to Cleveland Heights. I enjoy the nervous creative energy of timed group drawing exercises, and in 2020 I co-organized a local public comics making group for adults, Comics in the Circle! I love making personal comics in my composition notebook. Recently I’ve been publishing more: I’ve made one-off zines to give to strangers at events, and I’m compiling those into my multi-issue personal zine, “CIMZANY”. |
Lynnesha “Nesha Mars” Hamilton
| Forty year old Cleveland Heights native and alumni. Currently I’m the Chief operating officer, co-owner and character creator for 50*Fifty Comix Publishing LLC which was established Fall of 2020. We worked hard to build a collaborative art progressive company and now have artists in 2 other countries and 6 US States. My goals when not working on comics and art is to give and engage in outreach and community as much as possible. |
Miguel C Hernandez
| Miguel C Hernandez is DC Comics/Milestone Initiative-Comic artist, Illustrator, Muralist, Teacher & Martial Artist. |
Jay B. Kalagayan
| Jay B. Kalagayan is the creator, writer and publisher of MeSseD Comics. MeSseD, the nickname for the Metropolitan Sewer District, brings sewer management to science fiction. Tough sewer worker Lilliput is our guide to the wet, weird and wild world under our feet. Jay is an annoyingly consistent entrepreneur and arts advocate in Cincinnati for more than twenty five years. A Xavier University graduate from Erie, PA, Jay is founder of Know Theatre of Cincinnati and a co-founder of the Cincinnati Fringe Festival. He is a writer of plays, cartoon strips, reviews, articles, marketing collateral, fundraising appeals, and geeky event calendars. Jay is a director for Cincinnati Cabinet of Curiosities anthology. Jay also is the executive director of Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC), a FREE comics, art & animation festival in Columbus, Ohio! |
Terri Libenson
| Terri Libenson is the New York Times bestselling author of the Emmie & Friends middle grade series and cartoonist of the Reuben Award-winning, nationally syndicated comic strip, The Pajama Diaries (2006-2020). Previously, she was an award-winning humorous card writer and illustrator for American Greetings. Terri lives in Cleveland, Ohio, with her husband, Mike. She is the proud mom of two grown daughters and an almost-grown poodle, Rosie. |
Michelle Littlejohn
| Instagram: @starrelish
I’m a full time freelance illustrator and baker. I make miniatures out of polymer clay, draw cute illustrations, fanarts, and sew. I enjoy visiting local coffee shops. I share my creative lifestyle with my husband and 5 children… together we are a hoot! |
Sevita Lochan
| I’m a comic artist and writer who has been self publishing my work since 2017. I can usually be found working on my comic series, “Four Corners” which started out as a webcomic in 2014. My major inspirations are Japanese manga and anime, and I love to combine different influences to my characters while still holding true to my art style’s Eastern roots. |
Angela Oster
| Angela Oster is a multi-media artist whose work explores narrative, humor and character driven visions. After graduating from the Cleveland Institute of Art, she began organizing numerous exhibitions featuring comic artists and has helped curate the annual DayGlo Show in Cleveland for many years. Her long career in the arts has allowed her to exhibit at galleries across the country and connect to other comic artists and collaborators. |
Brad Ricca
| Brad Ricca is the author of six books, including the graphic novel adaptation of “Ten Days in a Mad-House” with artist Courtney Sieh and “Super Boys,” the biography of the Cleveland creators of Superman. |
Od Perry Richardson
| Instagram: @odcomix
Od Perry-Richardson is a Creative Arts Teacher and Illustrator who hails from the frozen northern lands of Cleveland, Ohio. |
Gilberto Rivera
| Gilberto is a artist, educator, director and producer with over 15 years of work in the industry. He has produced for Cuyahoga Community College, T-mobile, Crime Stoppers, NBC, MTV and Bandai. Gilberto taught art at the Ohio Valley Arts Center his superhero workshop. He now teaches a vast curriculum of art and media classes for Narrative Boom. His “Superhero in you” workshops have been in many Cleveland area schools, Cleveland Public Library and Julia De Burgos Cultural Arts Center. He also is leader and instructor in the Ifilm216 program with Williams&Co. |
Joe Schorgl
| I illustrate and screen print posters, t-shirts, comics and album art. I lived in Chicago for 11 years and got my BFA at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago. Shortly after I graduated, I worked as an in-house artist/designer for The Empty Bottle, a music venue in Chicago. I moved back to my hometown Cleveland in 2020 and started to self-release records through Cleveland’s own Gotta Groove Records pressing plant. I am constantly inspired by the cross over between visual art and music. |
Joseph Sieracki
| Joseph Sieracki was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. He is the writer of A LETTER TO JO published by TOP SHELF, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF THE BRAVE CAPTAIN SUAVE from SCOUT COMICS, and GHOSTS OF SCIENCE PAST from HUMANOIDS. Joseph is currently teaching in a suburb of Cleveland, where he resides with his wife and kids. |
Katie Starr
| Katie Starr is a cybersecurity analyst and budding comics writer and artist. She is the co-founder of Comics in the Circle, a local comics creating group for adults, and she hopes to continue fostering the growing Cleveland comics-making scene. Katie has recently started self-publishing her work, including personal zines, poetry comics, and art based on her work in cybersecurity. |
Jaromir Stoll
| Jaromir Stoll is a queer comics creator and researcher who publishes on comics culture internationally and in India. Their most recent work has been mostly autobiographical, including self-published mini comics and contributions to anthologies like Rainbow Reflections: Body Image Comics for Queer Men. They are currently working on Hike in the Heartwood, a comic about grieving through walking, and Turn the Page! Illustrating India’s Comics Scenes, with Shreyas Krishnan, Vidyun Sabhaney, and Mara Thacker. |
Marc Sumerak
| Marc Sumerak has spent over two decades crafting story content for some of the most celebrated brands in entertainment, including Marvel, Star Wars, and more. His work has appeared in countless books, comics, and video games. His most recent works include MARVEL ANATOMY: A SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF THE SUPERHUMAN and STAR WARS: THE SECRETS OF THE BOUNTY HUNTERS. |
T. Van Hager
| Hello, I’m T. Van Hager! I’m an lgbt+ comic creator and editor. As well as publishing my own comic Navishroom, I’ve edited for the successful kickstarter graphic novel series Fox and Wolfie and Legend of the Erased. You can find me (and Katie!) in the Comics in the Circle discord, which is an adult-oriented group of comic artists in northeast Ohio! |
David Wilson & Misty Wilson
| David Wilson assumes many roles—illustrator, designer, writer, and filmmaker. When he’s not working, you can find him exploring nature, skateboarding, or playing drums. He lives in Ohio with his wife and two daughters.
Misty Wilson is the author of Play Like a Girl, her debut middle-grade graphic memoir, which earned a starred review from Booklist and was a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection. Misty teaches by day and writes by night. She’s a voracious reader who also loves binge-watching television shows. She lives in Northeast Ohio with her husband, David Wilson, illustrator of Play Like a Girl, and their two daughters. |
Valentino L. Zullo
| Valentino L. Zullo is the Anisfield-Wolf Postdoctoral Fellow in English and Public Humanities at Ursuline College. He is the former Ohio Center for the Book Scholar-in-Residence where he continues to co-lead the Get Graphic program as well as American editor of the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. |
Stay Tuned…
More Information and Registration Details Coming Soon!!!
Thank you to our event sponsors!
