Pure Comix Fest: Breaking comic ground

The first Pure Comix Festival for graphic literature has happened after years of planning and working towards its creation

Wallace Ryan is teaching a workshop on how to make comics with his 10-year-old granddaughter, Sophia. 

She is his assistant and his helping him teach the class. Melissa Wong/My Online Journalism Blog

By Melissa Wong
My Online Journalism Blog

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it is a new festival all about graphic literature that flew into St. John's for a four day weekend.

According to Wallace Ryan, the Pure Comix Festival of Graphic Literature occurred during June 27-30 at the Anna Templeton Centre, so it would happen when children were getting out of school on a weekend with good weather. As the creator of the event, Ryan said that this was the first festival dedicated solely to comics book literature.

The road to creating the festival was not an easy one.

"I actually tried to do a comics festival back in 2005," Ryan said. He returned to the idea last summer when he began to talk about it again and based his current layout on his old schedule.

"It's kind of good we had a lot of time passing between then and now," Ryan added. "In the past 14 years, we had people... enter their own (in the Newfoundland comics industry)."

Many of the new and upcoming artists in the industry, appeared at the Festival. Comic book vendors and enthusiasts also made a few appearances to buy and sell comic books.

For those who could not make it to the festival, you can still experience the Pure Comix Festival activities that happened on each of the three floors in the Anna Templeton Centre. Each one of the three videos reports on festival, from the perspective a person taking the elevator to each floor during the event.



The first floor the Pure Comix Festival of Graphic Literature opened for the first time after years of planning. The entry fee was $2 for the marketplace and $25 for a workshop, unless someone had bought the whole package.

The second floor Ryan is teaching one of his workshops about how to make comics to one of his classes. Ryan has plenty of experience teaching comic courses. He has taught people how to make comics for 20 years at the Anna Templeton Centre.




The Third floor is artists alley. The Newfoundland and Labrador's comics industry is growing and these artists are working to make a name for themselves in it.

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