Community is important for health and wellness. When COVID restricted how we could interact, we got creative. Our panelists will share their diverse experiences in fostering connections during COVID--as cartoonists, gamers, writers, and more. How do you continue to connect without face-to-face interaction with the members of your community? What are some of the challenges of community in these uncertain times? How can you help your existing community to support each other and the world around you? Our panelists will offer approaches to finding an online community, establishing one, and ways to have fun together virtually.

An exploration of comics made out of unconventional materials--- such as paper cutting, clay, embroidery, etc. We will show and talk about examples from various artists as well as some of our own unconventional material comics projects. We will also discuss best practices/approaches and possible complications that come with creating your own unconventional material comic! This is an all-ages panel.

This panel explores how immigrants are portrayed and perceived, in their own words as well as others'. From struggling for and against assimilation, forming and abandoning identities, and maintaining or casting aside their heritage, immigrant stories and triumphs have shaped the foundation of human experience and are as powerful and relevant as ever. Let's take a look at immigrant narratives in pop culture from superheroes and indie comics to movies, shows, and books. Our panelists include immigrants and children of immigrants; also, our panelists include people of color, women, LGBTQ persons, and two Boston-area cartoonists.

How do you turn personal experience into a game for others to play and enjoy? Meg Stivison and Harold Sipe have explored this question for the last two years at Small Monster Games. In Takeout, they turned Meg’s expat experiences of Chinese language, culture and food into a casual card game. Harold has loved horror stories since he read his first Stephen King paperback. Can game mechanics express that love and share the experience of scary stories? How can personal experiences translate into accessible, inclusive game play? How do social games share a story?

We are playing online comics games! All ages. We will play "Pokemon drawing from descriptions" and Skribbl.io. Come watch us flail and draw cartoons LIVE!

Graphic medicine is a field, a sub-genre, and a way of thinking about health through the medium of comics. Ranging from memoirs to educational comics and beyond, works of graphic medicine aim to convey the humanity often lost in the practice of healthcare by giving visual voice to the unspoken. Join us for a short introduction to graphic medicine, followed by insights from comics creators working in the field: Liz Bolduc Sux, B. Erin Cole, Tatiana Gill, and Lilly Taing. Moderated by Cathy Leamy (with thanks to Matthew Noe for behind-the-scenes organization).

Have you ever wondered how to make historical-themed comics and stories? Join comic creators Sierra Barnes, Ned Barnett, and Meggie Ramm as they talk about their experiences with using history as a basis for their comic works, from educational comics to historical fantasy to memoir. This panel will talk about aspects of doing research for comics set in historical time periods, as well as using history as a jumping-off point for other genres. Whether educational or entertaining, history is a great place to look for making your comics!

While barely a blip on the ratings screen at the time, Joss Whedon's short-lived television series Dollhouse (FOX 2009-2010) has cast a surprisingly long shadow since. When you look at today's television landscape, recent series Westworld (HBO), Altered Carbon (Netflix), and Homecoming (Amazon) among others, all seem to pick up and explore Dollhouse's themes, aesthetics, dense narrative style, and even borrow the occasional cast member for a guest spot. We'll explore the specifics of those influences and propose other examples, discussing why these themes and style of storytelling seem to have found their moment now, a decade on.

Sherlock Holmes once boasted he had only been defeated three times: twice by men and once by a woman, but his chronicles actually contain several instances of women who surprised, outsmarted, or duped him. This presentation provides some tips on how to outsmart the great detective using examples from women who have successfully done so.

Join the Steampunks of New England for a live discussion of steampunk heroines, steampunk tropes for femmes, and the tropebreakers that defy them! This discussion will be for everyone, whether you are new to steampunk or if you have a solid background in the culture.

Four Indigenerds from across Turtle Island join forces to discuss Indigenous representation within Geek Culture and their personal experiences of being Native women in an industry where they were and are severely underrepresented and misrepresented. They will discuss their favorite fandoms and love of all things geek.