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Today and tomorrow it’s a virtual Diversity Comic Con, and the panels are LIVE so you can still catch a few of today’s.

This show is run by Ramon Gil at FIT in the actual world, but like everything, has gone virtual. However, that enabled the event to level up with support from many publishers, and even an appearance by Christian Cooper, birdwatcher and comics editor, now returning to the world of comics.

Cooper will appear tomorrow at 2:30 on this panel:

DC Presents “Represent!: It’s A Bird”
Christian Cooper and Alitha E. Martinez’s story “It’s a Bird”, the first chapter in DC’s Represent! anthology series of comics, turns a pair of binoculars in the hands of a teenage boy into an examination of racial profiling and police brutality. Through the magic and power of graphic storytelling, “It’s a Bird” is both a conversation starter and a thoughtful response to the events that have played out in the public eye over the last few decades. Christian Cooper and Alitha E. Martinez are joined by Alitha’s son Michael Briar Polson to moderate the audience Q & A.

Here’s the rest of the line-up — panels are live on Facebook or you can watch them afterwards — including Shawn Martinbrough’s keynote.

I’ll be appearing at 1 pm tomorrow on a panel about the impact of COVID-19 on the industry with John Siuntres, Gina Gagliano, Andy Schmidt and Stanford Carpenter — that’s an incredibly smart panel, and I’m eager to hear their thoughts.

ALSO check out the virtual exhibitors hall here. 

Diversity Comic Con has become a fun day for comics readers, but it’s also a more important message than ever, so please check out some of the event.

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Friday, October 16

2:30 PANEL: Breaking into Hollywood – Alex Segura, Vivek Tiwary, Robert Scull, Gamal Hennessy (Moderator)

4:00 KEYNOTE & Q & A: Shawn Martinbrough, (Moderator TBD) Intro and Q & A moderation by Ramon Gil

5:00 PANEL: Scholastic – Phil Falco, Megan Peace, Jonah Newman, Carli Spina (Moderator)

6:30 Q & A: First Second – Kiku Hughes, Kyunghee Pyun (Moderator)

8:00 Online Speed Networking

 

Saturday, October 17

10:00 Q & A: Random House – Mika Song, Ed Murr (Moderator)

11:30 PANEL: Using Current Events as Inspiration – Kiku Hughes, LL McKinney, Alex Sanchez, Andrea Colvin (Moderator)

1:00 PANEL: Impact of Covid on the Comics Industry- John Siuntres, Gina Gagliano, Andy Schmidt, Standford Carpenter, Heidi MacDonald (Moderator) 

2:30 PANEL: DC Black Lives Matter – Christian Cooper, Alitha Martinez, Ben Martinez (Moderator) Intro by Ramon Gil

4:00 PANEL On Being Marginalized in Comics – Amy Chu, Omar Mirza, Regine Sawyer, Fabrice Sapolsky (Moderator)

5:30 Drawing Contest – John Jay Cabuay

8:00 Online Speed Networking