EVENT: Chromacon 2013

Above: The Chromacon poster, as created by event organiser Allan Xia.

This Sunday, the Aotea Centre in Auckland will be hosting the first (hopefully annual) Chromacon - an arts festival showcase the best of New Zealand illustrators and cartoonists. Featuring over 65 artists, showcasing their work and selling comics, art prints and more. Best of all, the event is completely FREE of charge!

Above: Art from some of the cartoonists in attendance: Top Row: Dylan Horrocks, Ben Stenbeck, Karl Wills. Second Row: Tim Gibson, Ant Sang, James Davidson. Third Row: Toby Morris, Chris Slane and the Sheehan Bros.

The event features a stellar line-up of New Zealand's finest cartoonists including: Dylan Horrocks, Ant Sang, Toby Morris, Karl Wills, Chris Slane, Tim Gibson, the Sheehan Bros, James Davidson, Ben Stenbeck, Richard Fairgray, Czepta Gold, Marc Streeter, Michel Mulipola, Sophie Oiseau, Cory Mathis, Sarah Laing, Matt Emery and Pikitia Press, Gregor Czaykowski, Faction Comics and myself.

Above: Art from some of the illustrators in attendance: Top Row: Allan Xia, Ema Frost, Henry Christian Slane. Second Row: Nick Keller, Stacey Robson, Sanjana Baijnath. Third Row: Rebecca ter Borg, Watermark and White Cloud Worlds.

There will also be an eye-poping range of illustrators at the event, including: Allan Xia, Rachel Smythe, Ema Frost, Stacey Robson, Rebecca ter Borg, Henry Christian Slane, Sanjana Baijnath, Paul Shipper, Nick Keller, Paul Tobin, Svet Mateev, Tom Robinson, White Cloud Worlds, Watermark and many more!

There will also be live art demonstrations and discussion panels throughout the day.

Starting at 9am, Jason Hong will kick-off the first hour of live art demos, followed by Ben Stenbeck (Hellboy, Baltimore), Czepta Gold, Rachel Smythe, Tom Robinson and Sloane Kim.

Above: From Earth's End: The Best of New Zealand Comics announcement image.

I'll be hosting the first panel discussion at 10am on Level 4, with my publishing announcement for From Earth's End: The Best of New Zealand Comics, which promises exactly what it says in the title! This will be an exclusive look inside the first major book to be published on New Zealand Comics - the creators, the unrevealed history, the comics. Its all here waiting to be discovered. With special guests: Sarah Laing, James Davidson and Toby Morris!

This will be followed at 11.15am by Crowd-funding Your Dreams, a discussion on crowd-funding your creative projects, with Faction Comics founders Damon Keen, Anna Guenther and Allan Xia.

After lunch at 1pm the panels will continue with The Art of Visual Storytelling, with White Cloud Worlds editor Paul Tobin, Jim Auckland, and Watermark founder Simon Shaw.

And the final panel of the day, Webcomics and the Future of Publishing. This will feature Tim Gibson, creator of the webcomic Moth City, Dylan Horrocks (Hicksville, Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen), Gregor Czaykowski (Loading Artist) and Li Chen (Extra Ordinary Comics).

Its rare that these kind of events take place for free - other similar event charge huge amounts for panel guests and demos like this ((cough, Semi-Permanent, cough!)). So if you have an interest in illustration or cartooning, come along and meet the creators and purchase some fantastic artwork!

Chromacon takes place this Sunday 12th May, from 9am-5pm at the Air NZ Foyer, Aotea Centre, Auckland. For more details, visit the official website HERE. See below for the event map to find your way around.

-AK!