Kids Read Comics 2015

This weekend I had the privilege of attending the Kids Read Comics convention at the Ann Arbor District Library and every year this event just gets better and better. It's hard to believe that the first year I attended, I did so with trepidation. I hadn't fully embraced graphic novels into my classroom library yet. Now thanks to people like Raina Telgemeier, Dave Roman, Cece Bell, Jennifer Holm and Matthew Holm, I am a full-fledged comics geek!

With great events like Comics Quickfire and Iron Cartoonist, these comics artists showed just how talented they are, not only with their artistic skills, but their improvisational skills.

Comics Quickfire with Dave Roman, Raina Telgemeier, and Zac Gorman

Rachel Polk draws an epic llama doing shot put during Iron Cartoonist

The weekend was capped off with the Kids' Comics Revolution Awards, which were pretty awesome if I do say so myself. That has nothing to do with the fact that I got to be a presenter at the awards this year. ;) Laura Given and I presented the favorite graphic novel in 3 different genres: nonfiction/memoir, adventure, and humor. Dave Roman and Chris Duffy were the hosts, and you'd think they'd been hosting award ceremonies their entire lives with how entertaining they were. I haven't laughed so much and so hard in a long time. But the best part of the awards ceremony for me was to hear Raina Telgemeier say in her award acceptance for favorite cartoonist that Kids Read Comics is her favorite comics event to come to. Proving once again that Ann Arbor is a great place to be.

Kids' Comics Revolution Awards

Dave Roman gets to see one of his characters fully realized -- in muppet form! It's Blue from Starbunny!

Hanging out with friends, kids, authors, and artists: Could this weekend get any better?