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By Adrian Alvarez for BCN #134
April 3, 2021
As our biggest comic event focused on stories by and about people of color, the Boston Comics in Color Festival’s absence was sharply felt amongst the 2020 cancellations. The BCICF team kept busy, however, attending and studying the last year of online events. The resulting 2021 festival shares the virtues of virtual content with an expanded audience, while never forgetting the community that made it.
Headliners John Christian Gill and Ben Passmore, fresh off their respective 2020 hits Fights and Sports Is Hell, commence two days of online panels and workshops covering animation, works by women creators, crowdfunding, and live drawing with a slate of local greats—LJ Baptiste, Tak Toyoshima, Calyn Pickens Rich—and hard-to-get talent—Black Kirby, Tuskegee Heirs, and more.
But a festival is more than talented guests sharing expertise. Co-founder Cagen Luse reflects,
“I have participated in several virtual comics festivals and they were amazing but it felt like something was missing without the in-person component.”
Luse and the BCICF find their missing component in an open-air, COVID-conscious art market beneath the shade of the solar cells at Roxbury Community College. Masked and distanced attendees will interact with the local panel guests with cosplaying and photography highly encouraged.
“Roxbury Community College was always the place we wanted…it is right in the community, easily accessible to public transportation and has a rich history of activism in the creation of this urban campus.”
The Boston Comics in Color Festival runs virtual panels from April 22nd to 23rd and the Art Market on April 24th. Visit comicsincolor.org and follow @comicsncolor for details.
—Adrian Alvarez