Our annual Harvey Pekar Comic Fest is BACK! This year, we are pulling out all the stops to make this year's festival unforgettable. Last year our annual arts celebration was canceled due to COVID-19. Pekar Comic Book Fest is named for Cleveland-native Harvey Pekar, who wrote the autobiographical "American Splendor" series. Every year we get a chance to celebrate our community’s love for art, storytelling, and creativity by showcasing and uplifting the Coventry Village arts community. 

This year we are so excited to be hosting a local vendor market, exclusive panels from accomplished artists, cosplay, zine-making, illustration workshops, sidewalk art, and so much more! Our full schedule of events will include: 

12-7:30pm

Vendor Market
Free Face Painting
Kid's Carnival/Bounce House Games 
Cosplay / Character Costumes - Free Tommy's Milkshake Voucher for those who come in costume!

1:00-4:30pm: Free Takeaway Crafts

2:00-3:00pm: Comix Today- A Panel Discussion with Artists, Writers and Editors Panel 

2:00-4:00pm: Zine-Making / Illustration Crafts with Lake Erie Ink 

3pm-5pm: Sidewalk Chalk Art Competition 

7:30pm: Big Hero 6- FREE Movie in the Park 

We’re so excited to be featuring a panel of incredibly talented and accomplished artists for our artist discussion panel: Comix Today Discussion Panel. We’ll be joined by Eileen Sabrina Herman, Jake Kelly, and Rachel Miller. 

Eileen Sabrina Herman is the managing editor of Hermes Press, one of a handful of publishers that exclusively produces books and comic strip reprints focusing on the art and artists of the comics, cartoons, comic strips, and pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s. 

Jake Kelly is a Cleveland-based artist, illustrator, and writer who has produced concert flyers, zines, and comic books, including Lake Erie Monster with John G. He has also been incredibly generous with his talents during the pandemic, raising money for venues with his art. His latest project is a series of comic books, Death, Destruction, Vice & Sleaze about true (seamy) episodes from Cleveland's past. The latest is In the New Era about a burlesque vaudeville club. 

Rachel Miller, managing editor of The Comics Journal. She also co-curated Ladies First: A Century of Women’s Innovations in Comics and Cartoon Art at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum in Columbus and is working on a textbook, Introduction to Comics. Bryan Christopher Moss is an artist and illustrator. His book Eightfold Path will be published by Abrams in 2022. He is also an educator and recently curated The Black Panther: Celebrating 50+ Years of Black Superheroes at the King Arts Complex in Columbus. 

Our vendor market this year will feature troves of talented artists, creators, merchants, and more. The 2021 Comic Fest Vendor Market will feature: 

This festival is the perfect opportunity to break out your costumes and cosplay because we are giving away coupons for a FREE milkshake from Tommy’s to anyone who comes in costume. We’ll also be hosting a Sidewalk Chalk Art competition from 3-5pm. Prizes will be awarded to winners in a variety of creative categories. We’ll provide the chalk so you can blow us all away with your incredible art!

At the end of the day we’ll be showing “Big Hero 6” at P.E.A.C.E Park! This FREE movie will start at 7:30pm. Join us on an adventure through the world of San Fransokyo with an unlikely group of heroes. Plus, you can never get enough of Baymax! We recommend families bring blankets and chairs in case the ground is wet. 

For more information, check out our Facebook event by clicking here. This year we have two years of comic festivities to make up for, and we plan to deliver! We cannot wait to see your costumes, smiling faces, and artistic creations on September 18th in Coventry Village. 

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