Posted in: Comics, san diego comic con | Tagged: comic con, craft art, entertainment, san diego, san diego comic con, sdcc

San Diego Comic Con CRAFT/art Event Raises Over A Grand For The Kids

By Cameron Hatheway

Photos by Tim Stahl

Last week before Comic-Con got into full swing, an event went down at the Stone Brewing Tap Room a few blocks away from the convention center to raise money for tomorrow's artists. With the sweet combination of comic books, beer, and a good cause, the CRAFT/art event was definitely the perfect getaway after Comic-Con's Preview Night.

CRAFT/art was an event designed to celebrate San Diego's visual arts and craft beer communities while raising funds and awareness for Media Arts Center San Diego. It was put on by Vince Vasquez, Senior Policy Analyst with the National University System Institute for Policy Research, Sarah Gaydos, editor at IDW Publishing, Jeromy Cox, longtime comics artist and illustrator, and David Lizerbram, attorney at David Lizerbram & Associates. What brought this diverse crew together on July 23^rd? Simple; the children.

"This is the first year we're doing it. We wanted to find a way to combine our passions of comic books, Media Arts, and craft beer, and Comic-Con seemed like the perfect opportunity to do it and we could sort of use it to raise a few bucks for the Media Arts Center San Diego which is the charity this is for," said Lizerbram. "They put on a youth media and tech camp for first through eighth graders to teach them how to express themselves through art, communicate, make videos and all kinds of positive stuff. We want to send as many kids to camp as we can tonight."

The event started at 7 p.m. and went until 10 p.m., before continuing the party next door at the Rare Form until midnight and beyond. While the first hour was calm, the event definitely got packed as the convention center emptied out for the night.

"I grew up with this. I first went to Comic-Con in 1988, I grew up in San Diego, so I was 11 years old, and I always loved that kind of stuff. I was making films when I was a kid, I went to USC film school for my undergrad, I'm an attorney now, but I work with a lot of artists and creative people and finding ways to support that community was important to me and to the cohosts of the event as well," Lizerbram explained on how he first got involved. "As far as [MACSD], I knew of them because their facility called the Digital Gym is on El Cajon Blvd in North Park where I live. When we kicking around the idea of the event, it seemed like an obvious fit and we went and met Ethan [Van Thillo] who is the Executive Director/Founder there and it was perfect. They really wanted to do something with Comic-Con, they wanted to tell their story, and we said 'great, let's put on an event and make it happen.'"

Eric Johnson and Cox were the first live artists on the scene, sketching away with some nice tasty beers close by. Johnson sketched a Batman while Cox worked on Batgirl and her new outfit. Along the wall across from them was a silent auction with several exquisite pieces and books up for grabs. I was fortunate enough to bid on and win an Artist's Edition of Gabriel Rodriguez's Locke & Key portfolio.

Shortly after the event started to really pick up, more live artists appeared and got busy sketching away for the attendees. Jen Vaughn, Theo Lee, Rafael Navarro, and Ray Friesen were welcomed additions to the dynamic duo of Cox and Johnson. Moritat (Justin Norman) was originally scheduled to appear, but unfortunately couldn't make it. Perhaps next year?

"One of our co-founders Sarah Gaydos is an editor at IDW Publishing, which is one of the biggest comics publishers, and they nicely agreed to be a co-sponsor of the event. They donated some great pieces. Another one of our co-hosts Jeremy Cox is a comics illustrator, artist, colorist of some 20 years, really well-known and respected in the industry and a great guy. He's local in San Diego as well. He brought some of his own pieces that he's worked on, he's also drawing as we speak. And then my other cohost—there's four of us—Vince Vasquez is really connected in the craft beer world. He's connected with CraftBeard, which is an organization that does merchandise-related craft beer and it's all sort of graphic and fun, and it kind of fits in the theme, and we got them to donate, so it was really everybody kind of contributing which was great," said Lizerbram.

At the end of the day, CRAFT/art raised over $1,000 through donations and the silent auction and are close to reaching their goal of helping 30 kids attend camps this year. People can still donate here.

"I hope we do this every year and continue to have an involvement with the Media Arts Center, because they do great work," said Lizerbram.

Special thanks to David Lizerbram and Tim Stahl.

Cameron Hatheway is the host of Cammy's Comic Corner, an audio podcast. You can reminisce how amazing that w00tstout 2.0 was with him on Twitter @CamComicCorner.

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