By Trina Tsinnie
This year, the book club wanted to have all Haskell students enjoy all forms of books. One way to get everyone to enjoy books is to start with comics. The book club invited Haskell students to the Kansas City Planet Comic Con 2024. Though it was right before spring break, 20 students were able to make it. The book club tries to enjoy all kinds of books, hoping to inspire Haskell’s native community to read, and at the Comic Con, there were various artists and authors– from comics to novels.
On Saturday morning, the line to the convention center wrapped around the building, and parking was hard to find, but we finally made it into the convention building to receive our wristbands. Once I received our wristbands, I headed to the vendor market. Rows of artists and sellers related to comics, anime, collectibles, and video games. There were photo booths for cosplayers, and there were even booth R2D2 droids.
Small Star Wars studio setups had cosplayers set up in character. Another thing that many people show up for is to meet famous actors in films, voice actors in cartoons and anime, and authors and artists. A few who were present to meet their fans are Kevin Eastman- comic book writer of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; Hanna Nicole Maehrer – author of “Assistant to the Villain,” Dante Basco, the voice actor for Zuko from Avatar the Last Airbender; and Paul Bettany, the actor for WandaVision and Avengers. There was also a panel discussion on different topics related to your interest and on certain actors or books, as well as learning various skills in the artist or the acting field related to comics and anime. I attended a panel called Hollywood Animation Academy: careers in Animation and Painting and Texture Techniques. Comic con this year was busy but I had fun seeing cosplayers of my favorite characters, seeing different artists, and seeing famous people. I want to say thank you to the Haskell Indian Nations University for this opportunity.
