Young artists strut their stuff at Petaluma’s LumaCon

Annual showcase of comic art lets kids mingle with pros|

PLANNING TO GO?

What: LumaCon 2019

When: Saturday, Jan. 25, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Where: Petaluma Community Center, Lucchesi Park, 320 N. McDowell Blvd.

Admission: Free

Information: Lumacon.net

For many comic book fans, the single most awesome superpower in the universe is the power to create. For proof of that, look no further than Petaluma’s outrageous and eccentric LumaCon, a massive gathering of artists and fans taking place every January at the Petaluma Community Center in Lucchesi Park. Annually luring thousands of aficionados of comics, cosplay, larping (live action role-playing), crafts, critters, fantasy, science-fiction, classic cartoons and superheroes of all kinds, the gloriously weird LumaCon – unfolding for its sixth year this Saturday, Jan. 25, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. – also reveals something else about people with, you know, superpowers.

They usually have a hideout, a home base, a refuge, a batcave, a secret lair, a power spot. And for many of Petaluma’s young up-and-coming, comic-loving, art-powered future superheroes, that power spot is the local library.

“Turning kids on to the local library is a big part of why we started LumaCon to begin with,” says Joseph Cochrane, branch manager of the Petaluma Regional Library. “We noticed, at one point several years ago, that we were seeing fewer and fewer teens and tweens at the library. We were looking for ways to engage them better, to serve their needs better.”

What Library staff soon discovered was that a key to reaching young people was to first win the trust of what Cochrane calls “the nerds.”

“Look around, it’s the Decade of the Nerd,” he says with a laugh. “The nerds are no longer the shy, reserved kids keeping to themselves in some hidden back room. The nerds are now cool. The nerds are celebrated for being into all the coolest stuff.”

And what’s nerdier and cooler than comic books?

Envisioned as a vibrant blend of a comic convention, a craft fair, a costume party and a professional mixer, LumaCon was the joint brainchild of a total of three Petaluma librarians: Cochrane at the regional branch, Connie Williams at the Petaluma High School Library and Nathan Libecap at the Casa Grande High School Library. Many young comic fans were part of the initial development of LumaCon.

“It was very important, we decided, that we needed to bring in students to be involved in the planning of LumaCon, being a significant part of it in every way,” says Cochrane.

LumaCon has had a teen advisory committee from the start, and according to Cochrane, they have been instrumental in coming up with ideas of what LumaCon should be. For example, instead of merely inviting famous comic book authors and illustrators to LumaCon for youthful fans to meet, it was decided early on that LumaCon would also invite high school and Junior High School artists to showcase their artistry. The students have table where they sell their wares right alongside the veterans, many of whom have achieved international acclaim within the world of comics and beyond.

Just some of the veteran artists and authors expected to appear this year are Paige Braddock (“Jane’s World”), Alexis Fajardo (“Kid Beowulf”), Andrew Farago (Cartoon Art Museum curator), Shaenon K. Garrity (“Narbonic”), Matt Gaser (“The Fantastical Art of Matt Gaser”) and Maia Kobabe (“Gender Queer: A Memoir”). The list goes on to include Crissi Langwell (author of “Numbered,” “Loving the Wind”), Alberto Melendez (“Ant Farm”), Mary Shyne and Bryan Stone of the Charles Schulz Museum, Shawn Thorsson (acclaimed maker of props and costumes), Jason Whiton (“Mort Walker Conversations”) and Thomas Yeates (“Prince Valiant,” “Zorro”).

One of the unique ways the annual event celebrates and encourages rising artists is through its annual Logo Contest, challenging teenage Petalumans to devise a fresh new logo for each year of LunaCon. This year’s winner is Ruben C., whose dynamic image shows Petaluma’s iconic downtown clock tower bursting out of a cracking eggshell, with exuberantly expressive lettering proclaiming “LumaCon 2020.”

This year, Libecap says, there will be 43 young artists out on the display floor or elsewhere throughout the multi-room event.

Ariana Mendez, a senior at Casa Grande High School, will be participating at LumaCon this year for her third time. Her art is traditionally drawn, then scanned and transformed into stickers, pins, buttons and prints.

“But this year, I’ll be focusing mainly on digital artwork, as I have access to some new technology,” says Mendez. “I started off making a lot of flower crowns, which is the majority of where my profits come from. I started making them a few years ago, and they’re still going strong.”

The crowns are imaginative and colorful headwear made from synthetic flowers and other craft items.

“I get most of my parts from the Dollar Store,” states Mendez. “They have good material for a reasonable price. I usually sell out of the flower crowns every year. People really like them.”

The illustration work that Mendez creates tend toward pictures of monsters and other “Cryptids.”

“Monsters are interesting,” she says. “To learn about the monsters from different cultures, and figure out how to draw them is really fun and challenging.”

For Brooke O’Flaherty, also a senior at Casa Grande, this will mark her fourth LumaCon.

“I mostly do a lot of digital art,” says O’Flaherty, who specializes in “fan art,” putting an original spin on favorite characters from comics and other pop cultural sources, in particular Nintendo characters. “I’m a big fan of Nintendo,” she says. “I draw a lot of Nintendo stuff, usually starting out on paper. Anatomy practice and things like that, I do in a sketchbook, but then I complete them, with the shading and everything, digitally.”

O’Flaherty notes that, over the last three years at LumaCon, she’s developed a bit of a following.

“There’s one girl in particular who comes to my table every year and gets really excited to see my new work,” she says. “There are a lot of people who frequent LumaCon, who I see every year, who come up and might have questions for me about a particular piece of art. That’s one of the great things about it. You meet a lot of people.”

O’Flaherty adds that some of the professional artists she’s met at LumaCon have given her valuable advice.

“It’s great to get to talk to some of these people who’ve had these amazing careers,” she says. “One year I was sitting next to this one comic book artist who’d been published a lot. Just watching him working, and telling stories about his comics was really inspiring.”

She adds that another artist she met last year suggested she make stickers from some of her drawings.

“He’s the whole reason I’ll have stickers this time,” O’Flaherty says. “Sometimes, when you are a fan of comic art, you can disassociate the art from the artist. But to go and see the faces of the people who create these characters and these stories, to hear their voices, it’s a great reminder that art comes from real people, people who work really hard.”

After graduation, O’Flaherty plans to continue doing art, but is still undecided about what form that art will take.

“For a while I considered doing storyboard art, for animated films, so that’s a possibility,” she says. “I’m not sure yet. But I know I’ll never stop doing art.”

Cochrane says that, for all of its success as a gathering spot for “nerds” and others, LumaCon has actually accomplished what it was created to accomplish. By supporting the interests of young people in town through its presentation of the event each year, the Library has seen a gradual return of teenagers and other young adults to the library.

“It’s created such a buzz throughout the town,” says Cochrane of LumaCon. “The word ‘library’ is now on the lips of kids through all over Petaluma.” Because of this, the local branch is taking suggestions from its younger patrons as to how they cen be served even better. “It’s what I call ‘a good problem,’” says Cochrane. “You should come here early Wednesday after school. It gets pretty lively. We now have so many teens in the place that some older, quieter persons are not sure what to think.”

Referring to the upcoming remodel of the library scheduled for later in 2020, Cochrane confirms that the requirement of teen library fans are definitely being considered in plans for the redesign.

“If you don’t engage the next generation,” he says, “you really will lose institutions like this. That’s what something like LumaCon is all about. Engaging the next generation of artists, booklovers – and library users.”

PLANNING TO GO?

What: LumaCon 2019

When: Saturday, Jan. 25, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Where: Petaluma Community Center, Lucchesi Park, 320 N. McDowell Blvd.

Admission: Free

Information: Lumacon.net

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