On Saturday, May 11, Creative Writing faculty Rick Dakan, Illustration faculty Gary Barker, and Liberal Arts faculty Glenn Schudel, will host a table at SiestaCon, a brand-new comic book convention in Sarasota. The event will take place at Robarts Arena, where the Class of 2024 Commencement ceremony took place last week. The group will be giving away copies of the Illustration department’s annual graphic novel, Meanwhile.
Dakan will host a panel discussion Creating as a Human in the Age of AI, where he will speculate about creativity in the new AI era. Shannon Live, co-founder and president of Bat City Comic Professionals, will give a TEDx Talk: Your Voice as a Superpower. Tampa Bay Area Cosplayers and Costumers will give a workshop on costume and prop construction.
The convention will host Illustration faculty George Pratt, comic artist Sam de la Rosa, who has finished art, inked, and drawn for Marvel, DC, Disney, and Dark Horse Comics, and comic author Dan Conner, whose graphic book, Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Battle for Pumpkin King, was ranked #14 on The New York Times Best Sellers List for Graphic Books and Manga.
