More than 3,000 people attended the second annual Lumacon—the Bay Area’s own local comic book convention Jan. 30.
Conceived by librarians and high school teachers collaborating together and funded by local companies such as Copperfield’s Books, the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Outer Planes Comics and Games, the convention opened with a new venue at the Petaluma Community Center at Lucchesi Park. Compared to last year, the event had more activities for participants of all ages and a bigger space for local artists and writers like Maia Kobabe and Paige Braddock to mingle with fans, promote literacy and libraries and share their mutual love of the comic industry. Attendance was free, but organizers encouraged donations to support local public schools.
Just like the earlier event, there was live-action role playing outside for kids to enjoy, cosplay contests divided by age, panels where professional comic writers and artists could talk about their experiences, a bake sale and an artist alley featuring both professionals and amateur artists hoping to break into the field, some of whom were still in middle school. Local stores such as Outer Planes, Ryan’s Comics and Copperfield’s Books also returned with booths full of comics and graphic novels.
New events included a fanfiction story contest, a stand for T-shirts, a cosplay parade for kids age 8 and under, a separate room where the Brick Hut in Santa Rosa provided Legos for kids to play with, and an area where people could play and buy new cards for Magic: the Gathering.
“We were so surprised at the number of people that came last year that we wanted to try it again,” said Connie Williams, librarian-teacher at Petaluma High School and one of the event’s founders. “And anything that, you know, we kinda messed up last time we wanted to correct.”
Part of that was finding a bigger site; the last ‘con took place at Herzog Hall in the Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds, a small building that mostly consists of a single room. Diana Spaulding, teen librarian at the Petaluma Regional Library and core organizer of the event, said “We knew we needed one of the biggest venues in town, because we had outgrown Herzog Hall, and there are only three or four to choose from.” Spauldin and the other organizers picked the Community Center because of its central location and separate rooms for different events. Spauldin said they picked Jan. 30 as the date because “there’s no professional football being played today; it’s an off week before the Superbowl.”
Special guests at the panels included Nick Draggota, artist and co-creator of the comic “East of West,” Bryan Crane, creator of the newspaper strip “Pickles,” Alexis E. Fajardo, creator of “Kid Beowulf” and Tom Beland, whose long history of working in comics includes writing the Marvel comic “Fantastic Four: Isla De La Muerte!,” the first comic published by Marvel simultaneously released in multiple languages. Subjects covered by the panels included the regular life of a professional artist, comics’ usefulness as a literary device and the comic book community as a whole.
Most of the attendees were kids and young adults, many of them dressed as their favorite heroes, from Spider-Man to Doctor Who.
“It’s very cool,” said Armand Baltazar, a visual development artist at Pixar that visited the con. “This is great for Petaluma. This is great for Northern California.”
According to the organizers, next year’s Lumacon has already been scheduled for Jan. 28. They will meet at a later date to decide if it will be at the Community Center again.
