Name: Bay Area Comics and Comix Kickoff Event
Start: 2026-06-06T13:00:00-07:00
End: 2026-06-06T15:00:00-07:00
Location: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library

The San Francisco Bay Area has been a hotbed for comics for 150 years, from the publication of political humor magazine in 1876 to the rise of self-published 'zines and webcomics in recent decades.
Join Cartoon Art Museum Curator Andrew Farago as he explores the rich comics history of the Bay Area along with guest panelists writer and publisher Dan Vado and artist Norman Felchle. The program will conclude with a free drawing for books and comics. There will be welcoming remarks by City Librarian Jill Bourne.
Stay after the event to enjoy the California Room's exhibit "Bay Area Comics and Comix." The exhibit displays comic books and materials illustrating our journey from 1842’s The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck to the arrival of the modern comic book in the 1930s, and from there to a backlash against comics in the 1950s which resulted in comic book regulation. Continuing into the 1960’s, the exhibit presents the explosion of “underground” comics which were largely a Bay Area phenomenon that opened the door to the emergence of the modern graphic novel and alternative comics.
Learn more about the speakers at sjpl.org/Comix