…And with the arrival of the new year, we’re starting to get busy on the details of our huge Ann Arbor weekend. We think we ate just enough at our holiday festivities to gain the energy we’ll need to chase deadlines, but not the weight that might keep us from catching them.

One of the most important things for us to know as we begin to organize programs and activities and the physical layout of our artists’ alley is who will be joining us as guests. We would really like that to include you.

Many of you were sent our fall announcement about the July 7 & 8 Kids Read Comics Celebration, along with an invitation to attend. But if our response rate and the stats from the email campaigns manager we used are any indication, the message may have been lost in a lot of spam filters. I’m reprinting the earlier email below, with fingers crossed that this one from my personal account will fare better.

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Whether you received the fall invitation or are seeing it now for the first time, I hope you’ll let us know your status on participating in KRCC…even if that status is still unsure. (If you did respond to our initial email, there’s no need to reply again at this time.)

And if you would, please “like” us on Facebook. Whether or not you can make it to Ann Arbor this year, your like will help spread the word to your contacts, colleagues and fans.

I look forward to hearing from many of you soon; and please don’t hesitate to ask any questions you might have.

Hoping you’re primed for joy and success in the new year, we are your Kids Read Comics organizers,

Dan Mishkin, with
Edith Burney
Jerzy Drozd
Dan Merritt

Kids Read Comics Announces 2012 Dates

I’m writing you as a past or (hopefully) future guest at the annual Kids Read Comics Celebration, because we’ve just set our dates for the 2012 event in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The Celebration will be held Saturday and Sunday, July 7 & 8.

If you’ve been to a previous KRCC, you know what we’re about, and how exciting it is to get kids and teens turned on to the wonder of comics. If you’ve never attended, here’s the rundown: it’s two days of workshops, presentations, panels, demonstrations, and one-on-one interactions that bring comics creators together with kids, teens, parents, teachers, and librarians. Each year we’re hosted by a public library, and join with local businesses and kid-friendly organizations to put on activities that are fun, festive, and informative…

And free: we don’t charge a fee for admission or for guest table space. And since there will be no retail vendors, the only people selling at our show are artists and writers themselves. What we ask of our guests is that they also act as ambassadors for the medium of comics, keeping in mind the positive impact they can have on young lives — on kids and teens as readers, as imaginative thinkers, and as budding artists.

At the most recent KRC Celebration in Chelsea, Michigan, we had 1100 attendees over two days, and Ann Arbor promises to be even bigger. The Ann Arbor District Library has 50,000 active borrowers from a population of 150,000, and had 5000 young people take part in 2011’s web- and smartphone-integrated summer activities program. Our dates coincide with the end of the weeklong Ann Arbor Summer Festival, which will bring even more people to town. The 2012 Celebration will be a great venue for meeting readers and fans, and especially for making new ones.

We recognize that scheduling KRCC the weekend before Comic-Con in San Diego may mean tough choices for creators who want to attend both — though if you ask us, the choice is clear! But whatever your current plans for 2012, we hope you’ll consider joining us in Ann Arbor next July — maybe on your way to San Diego. Please contact us with any questions you might have, and when you’ve had a chance to think it over, let us know if you’re interested in coming.

We’re on a mission to make comics a part of kids’ lives, and we’d love to have you take part!