Comic Book Mania

While some libraries are just now jumping on board with comic cons, this year will be the ninth "comic book mania" convention at Elgin's Gail Borden Public Library.   

Bob Cassinelli, the man behind all nine years of Comic Book Mania, has long maintained a Facebook page dedicated just to promoting the convention, separate from the library's Facebook presence. The page has 374 friends and reaches a much larger audience than that from posts being shared.  Quoted from a recent post:

"I put together my first library comic book convention in 1998. It was known as 'BordenCon' (since it was held at Gail Borden Public Library). It was held at our old library location, which was a much smaller, outdated building that used to be situated across the street from the library 's current location before it was razed. The event was held downstairs in what served as a programming room. At that time, the library (like most libraries at that time) had no real graphic novel collection to speak of, and social media was not nearly what it is today. We ran the show for three consecutive years, but few people could find it, and I could not get the word out sufficiently, so I tabled the idea as something that I considered a sound idea, but did not have to proper means to pull off.

" Fast forward ten years to 2010. Gail Borden is now in a new, state-of-the-art building and is bringing in a 'history of comic books' exhibit titled 'Comic Book Mania' (to coordinate with our summer reading program) that I have been tasked to curate. Now was the time to resurrect BordenCon!

"The first Comic Book Mania Convention pulled in something in the neighborhood of 300 customers. That was enough to encourage us to keep it around after the comic book exhibit left the building. The show has steadily grown over the ensuing years, with each year's attendance numbers eclipsing the previous year. Over the years, we have added panels, prizes for every cosplayer (no judging!), trivia wheel games, and no matter how many people show up, we have always given a free comic book to every attendee...

This year "...[w]e will be taking over both floors of the entire library, making this event the biggest ever! A library-wide artists alley, panels, prizes and much, much more! Over 45 artists, writers and vendors are already aboard..."

It has certainly grown.  From this article in the Daily Herald:

"On Saturday, the Elgin library hosts the first Comic Book Mania! Convention from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., featuring 10 artists, nine of them from Illinois, sketching new works right before readers."


You can follow the Facebook page here:  https://www.facebook.com/comicbookmania.convention

You might even see some pics of me!