VLA had a presence at Vermont’s first ComicCon. We had a good time, made a good impression and helped sponsor one of their special guests. We tabled for two days. Our table had a few things
– Mr. McFeeley from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood (aka David Newell) who did a story time with puppets and his book twice daily. He was a wonderfully gracious man and the kids loved him.
– A Banned Graphic Novels exhibit. We brought graphic novels from our own libraries and put them up on book stands along with a printout of why each graphic novel was banned or challenged.
– Handouts of good “If you liked…” suggestions for graphic novels to read. We have copies of them in PDF or Word format if anyone would like them for their libraries.
– Stickers! We used these as a model and printed out a bunch of them. Very popular.
– Minicomics! One of the publishers had a stack of these and let us use them as giveaways at the booth, also very popular.
– Our Comic Reader’s License (seen above). This was a frame like a driver’s license with a whiteboard area where people could write their names. It hung on a movie screen stand and we had a chair behind it. We took people’s photos, uploaded them (with permission) to the VLA Instagram account and then later edited them and put them on our facebook account in a VLA ComicCon album so people could tag and share them.
It was really fun seeing so many people all dressed up and having a good time celebrating reading (among other things) and we’re sure to do it again next year.