“It’s silly that there’s a stigma about girls coming into a comic shop. We want to make that not a thing.”
That’s Emma Munger, an employee at Comix Experience who helped plan the first official “Ladies Night” at the comic shop that celebrated its 25th anniversary earlier this year. According to her, the event is actually the brainchild of coworker Julie Fiveash, and the two worked together with Jay Sarmiento (also an employee) and Karisa Koo to organize the evening, which started at 8pm this past Wednesday night and ran about two hours.
(Emma Munger of Comix Experience) “Me, Emma, and Jay all agreed this would be a fun thing to get going as a regular event since there were now three women working at the stores,“Julie told us. “We wanted to create an event that was a safe and inviting space for our female-identifying customers, basically letting them know how awesome they are.”
Julie hopes to do small crafts projects for each meetup. For example, Wednesday’s event featured mini zine making and the construction of tiny paper-box figurines called Capture Creatures, which are connected to a new Pokemon-esque comic book. The event also provided free pizza, donated by Ragazza and—of course—beer.
In addition to crafting, the group also brainstormed ideas for future events, including starting a (comic) book club, a movie night, trivia, and a form of speed “dating” designed to help fellow enthusiasts collaborate with one another.
Small gift bags were also made by the four hosts, which included food-shaped mini erasers, pens, sticky notes and a zine made by Julie herself, which included her six favorite female comic book characters.
(photo: Julie Fiveash)
As far as the event goes, Julie was quite pleased. “Wednesday exceeded all our expectations, from the amount of attendees to just the plain cheeriness of everyone. Everyone who came seemed really jazzed about meeting fellow comic readers, writers, artists and appreciators. So yeah, can't wait for the next one!”
The group hopes to have the event every other month moving forward, with the next one slated for January 2015. The best way to keep up with them is to join their Facebook group. Meetups will generally happen at 8pm, and always at Comix Experience.
“It was totally a success,” Emma told us. “Everyone just clicked, new friendships were formed, titles were shared, and everyone found something they liked to leave with.”
