Hubris Comics

I was a guest at this ‘fest a couple of years ago.  It’s a really good time.  It’s not a convention (or a Con, depending on your bent) and it’s not an academic conference like the Ohio State Festival of Cartoon Art.  It’s much more fun and friendly.  Kenosha isn’t a huge bustling metropolis, it’s a real town where you (if “you” are the amazing Anne Hambrock) can set up a thing like this and everyone gets to relax and enjoy it.  Some people drive in from the area.  Some people drive in from Chicago and its environs… I’ll be flying in, as the drive is a looooong one from Tennessee.  If you can get yourself there, and you love ‘the newspaper comics’ and cartooning in general, then you really should go.  If you can’t get yourself there, then support the Fest on this Indiegogo campaign and get some autographed stuff for being so cool about it.

Here’s the official info:

The Kenosha Festival of Cartooning is a 3 day festival, in Kenosha Wisconsin, from September 25th through September 27th of 2014. There will be live presentations, workshops, a gallery show, panel discussions, and community outreach by some of the nation’s top cartoonists. We are asking for a total of $10,000 – this amount will allow us to mount two spectacular gallery shows of original comic art, cover the expenses of the artists, pay for publicity materials and shipping of art for gallery shows, cover backer reward fulfillment, and provide catering for receptions whilst not having to charge admission.

Our AWESOME guest speakers for 2014 are: Jeff Keane of Family Circus, Denis Kitchen ofKitchen Sink Press, Lincoln Peirce of Big Nate, Rick Stromoski of Soup to Nutz, Todd Clark ofLola, Scott Stantis of Prickly City (also staff editorial cartoonist at The Chicago Tribune), Terri Libenson of The Pajama Diaries, Michael Schumacher author of Al Capp: A Life To The Contrary and Will Eisner: A Dreamer’s Life In Comics, and Paul Buhle comic historian and author of Comics In Wisconsin. And our panel moderator will be the amazing Tom Racine of Tall Tale Radio.

Don’t worry if you cannot attend the festival in person – we still have some VERY cool premiums for our backers in the way of original art and autographed posters and programs from the guest artists. New this year is a specially designed, limited edition, challenge coin – see image below. There will only be 100 of these available and when they’re gone they’re gone. So don’t dawdle if you want one 🙂 All rewards will be signed and therefore delivered after the conclusion of the festival.

We believe cartooning is a wicked cool artform and have dedicated this festival to providing opportunities for the comic reading public of all ages to meet the artists behind the laughter. But the festival can only remain free if we reach our fundraising goal!

With the festival in its fourth year, we are seeking Indiegogo funding because, while we have some stalwart donors and supporters, those donations don’t come close to funding our whole budget.

One of the wonderful things about crowd funding is how affordable it can be. If we can get 500 people to donate $20 – we are there! So never think that small contributions don’t matter! And we have some exciting stretch goals if we are lucky enough to exceed our $10,000 mark.

NOTE ABOUT REWARDS: Indiegogo will only allow 20 reward levels at a time – we have a few more than that available and will post them when a particular reward level is “sold out”. Also, you can donate more than once if you are interested in multiple rewards – you can mix and match and can also increase your donation at any time during the campaign.

And don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter!!