Comics Week in Boston

We have decided to dub this week Comics Week in Boston: Craig Thompson is in town today on his Habibi book tour via the hospitality of the Harvard Bookstore. Harvard Bookstore is throwing a release party tomorrow evening for its first comics anthology, Minimum Paige. MIT is hosting its “Release your inner Superhero” Comic Book Fair on Friday. And the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University and the Boston Comics Roundtable are hosting the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo (MICE 2011) this Saturday. Quite the Comics Week in Boston if there ever was one.

Many thanks to BCR members Leann Leake and Cathy Leamy for giving us the heads up early on that Craig Thompson would be in town tonight. He’ll be at the Brattle Theater at 6pm talking about his Arabian Nights-like love story, Habibi. Previews show that Thompson’s lush style rises to the occasion in taking on the vast artistic heritage that is Islamic art. Being that Boston College and MIT/Harvard house world centers of scholarship in Islamic art and architecture, it will be especially nice to receive him here. He’s just come from the Center of Cartooning Studies, and our own Laurel Leake reports that BCR friend Jen Vaughn has written a perfect post about CCS’s perfect night with Thompson on Comics Beat here. And click here for more info on tonight’s event.  Tickets are $5.00. Come see the artist responsible for Goodbye, Chunky Rice, one of the treasures in the canon of graphic novels.

Many BCR members will be included in Minimum Paige, Harvard Bookstore’s first ever comics anthology. One of the editors is our own Ryan Mita. Contributors include Laurel Leake, Aya Rothwell, Cathy Leamy, Cherry Ogata, Dave Kender and Dan Mazur. Others will be announced at the party. Should be quite the local comics event. 🙂 For more information, click here.

Our own Aya Rothwell and Cherry Ogata will be featured at MIT’s “Release your inner Superhero” Comic Book Fair. It promises to be great celebration of pop culture art and helping others, featuring Archie Comics, Geppi’s Entertainment Museum, local web-artist Michael “Mookie” Terracciano (Dominic-Deegan.com), and featuring original art by MIT students, alumna and staff.  More information here.

And last but not least, MICE 2011.  Organized by the tireless Dan Mazur and the MICE Crew, the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo will be 100+ local comics artists under one roof at our new venue in Porter Square, University Hall at Lesley University on the second floor of the Porter Exchange building.  Come for a day of panel discussions, workshops and demonstrations, and the opportunity to stop at tables upon tables of local cartoonists, independent comics vendors, small publishers, and webcomics and ‘zine creators.  If that’s not enough for you, you can stare at the walls to see the art in our ongoing Comic Art New England art show, hung in the same space as the conference.  Read all about it here.

There you have it, dear readers.  If you love comics and are in Boston this week, the time is now and the place is here: Comics Week in Boston.

Craig Thompson and Habibi
Wednesday, September 21
6:00 pm
Brattle Theater
http://www.harvard.com/event/craig_thompson/

Minimum Paige Release Party
Thursday, September 22
7:00 pm
Harvard Bookstore
http://www.harvard.com/event/minimum_paige_release_party/

“Release your inner Superhero” Comic Book Fair
Friday, September 23
9:00am – 4:00pm
MIT, Bush Room (10-105)
http://web.mit.edu/community-giving/events.html

MICE 2011
Saturday, September 24
10:00am – 6:00pm
Lesley University in Porter Square
http://masscomics.com/