Whatcha doing this weekend? How about going downtown to check out the Boise Comic Arts Festival! Today's story is all about how the festival got started, how it's grown, and some highlights you can look forward to at this year's event. Enjoy!

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The 12th annual Boise Comic Arts Festival is coming up this weekend on August 24-25, 2024. The annual event is a place where comic book and pop culture fans come together for presentations, performances, panel discussions, workshops, cosplay, gaming, and more. And the best part? It's all free!

Back in 2012, one of the librarians at the Hillcrest Branch held a mini comic-con. Boise had no formal gathering for comic book lovers at the time, and it was really well attended. That same year, the Boise Art Museum had an exhibit called Comics at the Crossroads that showcased work from 40 Pacific Northwest artists addressing a wide array of serious literary, social, cultural and political issues.

Josh Shapel, events coordinator for the Boise Public Library and main organizer of Boise Comic Arts Festival, attended both of these events and they got his wheels turning. Why didn’t Boise have a comic con? Josh is a fan of comics and was working as a processor in acquisitions and technical services (ATS) at the Boise Public Library at the time. He went to the Library Director and asked if he could create a Library Comic Con.

Josh got the green light and got right to work.

The inaugural Boise Comic Arts Festival was held in 2013 at the Main Boise Library in downtown Boise. (Back then it was called the Boise Public Library Comic Con.) They had over 1,000 people show up in attendance and had 4 guest creators.

The festival has grown considerably. This weekend, 12th annual Boise Comic Arts Festival will be held in its largest venue yet, the Boise Centre, and will welcome over 5,000 comic loving community members and over 30 guest creators.

From hands-on activities to panel discussions to portfolio reviews, there are all kinds of events packed into the two day Boise Comic Arts Festival schedule. Here’s a few things you can look forward to.

Artists’ Alley

Artists' Alley features around 100 local-ish exhibitors. There will be comics creators, artists who do fan art or related art, people who like costuming, and some authors. This year, the festival also opened the opportunity for local nonprofits to have a booth and share more about the work they do.

There will also be booths for some of our local cosplay groups, like the Treasure Valley Ghostbusters and the local Star Wars cosplay groups. (Did you know we have 5 local Star Wars cosplay groups? I didn’t either!)

Hands-on activities

Josh says the Library organized two days of hand-on activities curated for teens and kids. They wanted to have options that were engaging and active for younger audiences.

In the Teen Room there’s a handful of drop-in events including DIY Pokemon cards, button making, creating canvas totes with a t-shirt press, a guided zine making tutorial, Instax photos, and a manga swap. Also on Sunday at 2pm there’s a Super Smash Bros and Mario Kart competition.

In the Kids Room, there will be superhero music and movement, a drop-in art lab, superhero mask making, a stop-motion animation workshop, Lego club, and two sessions where kids can learn how to draw specific characters from guest creators. Andy Runton will teach kids to draw his character Owly, and Norman Shurtliff will teach how to draw a handful of his characters, including the characters of Skull Cat and Dragon Chaser.

Workshops

If you are wondering what the age limit is on some of those activities, don’t worry – there’s plenty of hand-on activities for adults too.

On Saturday, there’s workshops covering inking with traditional materials, a life modeling drawing session led by local artist Vannoates, role playing games for beginners, a drawing session with Muriel Fahrion (the creator of Strawberry Shortcake and Care Bears), zine making, stop motion animation, and more.

On Sunday, there’s two workshops: an intro to cosplay and tools of the trade, which covers tools used to create comics and the pros/cons of each.

Meetups & gaming

Meetups start at 11am on Saturday and 1pm on Sunday. This is a great place to make new friends or discover a game. There’s an anime and manga meet-up and swap, a comic swap, a video game swap, Middle Earth Trivia led by Gandalf, a Baldur’s Gate meetup, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles meetup, a Star Wars meetup, and more.

Also if you want to do some gaming, there’s multiple sessions of Role Playing Games happening from 11am-5pm on Saturday and 12-5pm on Sunday.

Panels & discussions

Both Saturday and Sunday have a full schedule of panel discussions. These are where guest creators, locals, and comic fans from the Pacific Northwest come together to talk about the inner world of comics and pop culture. The panels cover a huge array of topics.

On Saturday, there’s panels about autobiographical comics, folklore and fairytales, writing comics, the history of Idaho comics, pop-culture podcasting, character design & creation, comics for kids, and more.

On Sunday, there’s panels about video game development, the intersection of AI & art, collaboration while creating comics, publishing, video game development, and more.

There’s also “creator spotlight” discussions each day that feature one or two guest creators. You can hear all about their journey to becoming a professional comic or video game creator, things they’ve learned, and have a chance to ask questions.

Contests

Boise Comic Arts Festival has two different contests: a Comic Creation Contest and Cosplay Contests.

The Comic Creation Contest technically begins in June. Folks create a one-page comic and have from June 1 through July 31 to complete it and submit it for review. A panel of judges from the Library review all the submissions and choose first, second, and third place winners. There’s three winners in three categories: adult, teen, and kids. All participants have their comics displayed during the Boise Comic Arts Festival.

Cosplay Contests take place during the Boise Comic Arts Festival. It’s your chance to show off costume making skills and creativity. There’s categories for this contest too: kids, groups, teens, and adults. Contests will happen on Saturday, August 24 in Boise Centre’s Junior Ballroom (Room 130) from 11am-3:30pm. If you plan on participating, make sure you register in advance and review the rules. You can also come and watch for free!

Also they used to do a pet costume contest, but its on hold this year because Boise Centre (understandably) doesn't allow pets. Fingers/paws crossed it returns in the future!

Portfolio reviews & mentorship

One of the coolest events that happens during the Boise Comic Arts Festival is portfolio reviews. If you are a local artist, even if you don’t do comics, you can submit your artwork to be reviewed and get feedback from professional comic creators that are attending the festival. Artists sit down with professionals on Sunday morning, before doors open to the public, and get personalized feedback on their work. Professionals also offer insights on breaking into the comics industry. Participating professionals include Aaron McConnell, Adrian Ropp, Andrew (Drew) Kafoury, Andy Runton, Cassie Anderson, Eric Shanower, Jamie S. Rich, Jorge Corona, Laura Knetzger, Lee Moyer, Morgan Beem, Muriel Fahrion, Rye Hickman, Soo Lee, Tadd Galusha, and Taki Soma.

This is another event that you need to register in advance for. Walk-ins will be accepted as space allows.

2024 Boise Comic Arts Festival

The 12th annual Boise Comic Arts Festival is Saturday, August 24 from 10am-5pm and Sunday, August 25 from 12-5pm at Boise Centre. Here's the overall schedule and map, a detailed Saturday schedule, and a detailed Sunday schedule. All events are free and open to the public!

You can find more information about the 2024 Boise Comic Arts Festival here.

Thanks for reading!

With love from Boise,

Marissa

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