MCPL celebrates comic book art

Staying focused on one thing for a whole day can be hard. But what if it’s a comic book?

Local teens got a chance to craft their own graphic tales June 27 at the Monroe County Public Library in the sixth annual 12-hour workshop called Comic Day.

“The work that some of them come up with can surprise you,” said Chris Hosler, an Adult and Teen Services assistant at MCPL. “Twelve hours is a long time to be working on something.”

Dozens of books, ranging from classic comics such as “Spiderman” to how-to-draw instructionals, lay spread out over several tables where groups of people could either collaborate or work solo on their own comic spreads.

Pizza boxes were stacked to the side of the room, and empty paper plates were pushed aside as panels and speech bubbles were filled in on paper.

Nearly 100 people participated, and while some of them stayed for an hour or a few, others arrived at 9 a.m. and stayed until 9 p.m.

“The ones that stay the entire time are usually pretty talented and work hard,” Hosler said. “We’ll see some great stuff by the end of the night.”

Hosler said comics are the most checked-out item the library circulates followed by DVDs at a close second.

With a readership of mostly 15- to 25-year-olds, Hosler said, college-aged people account for a large portion of the library’s comic book checkouts.

Pictures are his theory for why comics attract an older audience.

“I don’t care how old you are, we all like looking at pictures,” he said. “They can explain things words can’t, and are more entertaining to look at.”

Summer Ray, a 19-year-old who rode the city bus from Ellettsville, Ind., and stayed for the whole 12 hours to practice her drawing skills, said she plans to take her love for comics to the next level in college.

“It’s basically all I do,” Ray said. “I want to make a living out of creating and drawing characters.”
 
Having no formal education on how to draw, she learned everything she knows from tutorials on YouTube and how-to-draw books.

She had a notebook filled from cover to cover with sketches of cartoon characters, roses and even some abstract art made from markers she received last Christmas.

Her comic, created with the help of three friends, was an adventure story spanning almost 10 pages.

Attendees received a badge for every three hours they spent at the event, and a free comic for every page they completed, provided by local comics store Vintage Phoenix Comics.

Hosler said that many attendees have come to the event more than once, and that attendance in general has gone up in the last three years.

“I think we’ve got this thing down to a science now,” he said. “Although this year we broke the record, I hope we see even more people next year.”