It's true! During a recent visit to NYC for the really cool Kids Comic Con (more about that in a minute) I spotted 'ol Eli Whitney himself...well, sort of. Kids Comic Con was being held on the campus of Bronx Community College, home of this country's first Hall of Fame, The Hall of Fame for Great Americans- which includes a bust of Eli Whitney himself. He is right next to Alexander Graham Bell in this unique display of bronze busts mounted inside beautiful arches. Visit this site for more info about the Hall of Fame: http://www.bcc.cuny.edu/hallofFame/
I snapped some pictures as you can see here; but had to hurry in to set up my table for the 3rd annual Kids Comic Con- http://kidscomiccon.com/
The day-long event featured a host of All-Ages comics creators, publishers, and lots of kids! It is nice to see an event that focuses on comics for KIDS. The only people wearing spandex at this event were...KIDS! I met many great folks who became instant fans of Hamster Sam, and I handed out lots of free "Hamster Samplers", a 2-page preview of the book. Kudos to event organizer Alex Simmons, Archie comics writer/playwrite/man of many talents. Check out their website to see what you missed. I also enjoyed meeting other creators, writers and artists; and traded books with them. Among them were Marc Tauss, who created "Superhero", a beautifully designed book from Scholastic featuring photographic image treatments composited with miniature models, and coincidentally featured- Time Travel! He and I compared notes on how our time traveling machines were powered. Isn't it fun when science and comics collide? Then there was Mark Mariano, creator of "Happyloo", a collection of cute stories featuring colorful characters who communicate through "icons", similar to Andy Runton's 'Owly'. His book also features educational pages after each story. Fiona Robinson was a pleasure to meet as well; her book "The 3-2-3 Detective Agency" from Amulet Books is a cleverly written tale about a group of animals who meet on a train and form a detective agency. Great characters, whimsical illustration style and funny dialogue...and she and I share something in common as well...we both have a rodent character who does good deeds in our stories! Writing and creating comics is often times a solitary affair; and to suddenly be put in a room full of so many talented people who share the common goal of making readers out of kids through comics- was such a thrill!
