The Moorestown Library will host its first annual Comic Fest on Saturday, April 27, with a superhero parade to kick things off at 10 a.m.
“If you have a superhero costume, please come join us,” said Ashley Hoffman, youth services librarian. “We’re going to parade around in our best superhero attire.”
Vendor tables will open at 10:30 a.m. Among sellers will be Tony DiGerolamo, Dokudel, Rachel Perciphone, Angeli Rafer, Secret Origins Comic Shop, Tarot with Laura Eppinger and Veronica Tolentino.
“Our anime club is going to have a table with origami and some drawings,” Hoffman said. “We’re also going to be having a raffle for adults … And then kind of what is going to be the bones of the whole event is our workshop schedule, which we’re super excited about.”
Workshops are expected to include making a comic book and publishing. Rafer’s workshop will be at 10:30 a.m.; Trivia’s at noon; a history of anime with Dokudel will begin at 1:30 p.m.; and DiGerolamo’s How to Hunt the Jersey Devil session will start at 3 p.m.
“Kind of like at other fests or conventions, there are stages of panels, talks and workshops, so we’re going to have a mini version of that,” Hoffman explained.
The idea for the Comic Fest started with the library’s teen advisory board.
“They have started this anime club where they meet once a month and they love it,” Hoffman noted. “They’ve been super into anime. Our comic book collection has been super popular … And we knew some people who would be a great fit to come in, and then as we were looking more and more.
“Caitlin (Hawe-Ndrio, head of adult services) found the history of anime with Dokudel, which is just so spot on,” she added. “It just kind of seemed natural … We all wanted to try it.”
“Very similar to (our) Authors Fest, we have a lot of different stations, so we know there’s an interest for it within the community as well,” Hawe-Ndrio said, “so it’s a good combination of all these aspects.”
According to comic-con.org, Comic Fest will feel like Comic-Con, the premier event for all things comics and related popular art, including movies, television, gaming and interactive multimedia.
“With the panels and different talks and then having lots of vendors there and different interests within this kind of genre … I think it will be very much modeled after one (Comic-Con),” Hawe-Ndrio pointed out.
“There will be multiple things going-on at the same time,” Hoffman said. “There’s still going to be people dressed in costumes walking around. The tables will be up the whole time, and just the moving flow of it we’ll be excited for.”
Something else Hawe-Ndrio is excited for? The different workshops and vendors.
“I think the workshops will be really interesting, because we get to focus a little bit more on some of our vendors,” she related. “They get to show their different expertise … and then they get to present on their specific topic, which is really neat.”
For more information on Comic Fest, visit www.moorestownlibrary.org.
