Last Saturday, June 15, the WeHo Pride Arts Festival hosted Q Con, Southern California’s only LGBTQ+ comic convention. A celebration of queer representation in media, Q Con featured informational panels including one with voice actors from “X-Men ‘97,” a costume contest, and a film screening of “Surge of Power: Where There’s Smoke.”

Another notable moment from the festival included comments introducing the costume contest by West Hollywood’s Mayor John Erickson and Vice Mayor Chelsea Byers. And, unfortunately, the presence of a few protesters at the beginning of the event. I spoke with an organizer from Prism Comics, Q Con’s main sponsor, regarding the interruption. I also got a chance to interview a representative from LosCon as well as a couple of comic book authors and artists. 

Krystal Rains was there tabling for LosCon, Los Angeles’ premiere sci-fi convention which takes place Thanksgiving weekend. She came to Q Con as part of LosCon’s marketing team in the hope of reaching a wider demographic of attendees for the convention. Her favorite part of Q Con is getting to meet new people and promote LosCon. 

“As a cis straight woman with lots of friends and family in the LGBT community, I am here to normalize events as well as respectful pronoun usage,” Rains said. “I’m also a member of Stand in Pride West, a group of allies that step up for the LGBT community for major life events, such as walking people down the aisle, being at graduation, and generally cheering them on.” 

She says we need PRIDE because there are still people in the world who wake up every day and feel they don’t belong. 

Jeff Schuetze was there to sell his two books, promote a collection of his web comics, showcase his artwork, and participate in PRIDE. “Talking to attendees is my favorite part of the event. It’s fun getting to talk to other queer artists as well as people who admire art, animation, and comics,” Schuetze said. “We need PRIDE to show the world that we exist and to express ourselves in a safe environment.” 

His favorite part of PRIDE is the community and getting to go to safe places with like-minded people. 

Knave Murdok is also a big fan of the event. “I’ve been here since the first one,” Murdok said. “Prism helped me pick up my career as a cartoonist, so when they asked if I wanted to be involved, of course I said yes.” Murdok’s favorite part of Q Con is the audience, the aspect of being seen, and the fact that everyone is so nice and cute and dressed to the nines in cool clothes. 

“PRIDE is important because you go through life most of the time and people aren’t shy about saying how much they dislike you. So it’s not bad to be in a place where people are nice and supportive,” Murdok said. “We need PRIDE because it’s a mean world and it’s good to have a time of year and a place in time where you can just be happy about the type of person you are.” 

Tara Madison Avery, an organizer of Q Con, was able to speak to all sorts of aspects about it as a longstanding board member of Prism Comics. 

“I’m one of the organizers of the event. I’m involved in exhibitor and creator relations, and I am a Prism Comics Board Member,” Avery said. “We’re very pleased to be able to put on Q Con.” Avery’s favorite part of Q Con is the panel discussions. 

“Listening to people who are creative and informed about comics, television, and movies helps you learn something and deepen your appreciation of the kinds of media you love,” Avery said. Q Con is of course Avery’s main PRIDE project.  

“We need PRIDE because it is still dangerous in some places for trans people to be out and living their best lives,” Avery said. “Some people just need to be reminded we are here, we’ve been here, and they can’t pray or legislate us out of existence. Our lives are a celebration and everybody is invited.” 

Avery had a strong message for the protesters in attendance.

“These protesters were not only anti-queer, but also against broad swaths of popular culture. They seemed to think that we actually believe superheroes are real and will come to save us in a crisis. This is similar to rhetoric from groups like the Westboro Baptist Church. It’s projection on their part from their belief in a godly messiah. This is the sort of strange nonsense that a lot of Christian conservative protesters often bring up. They see popular science-fiction, fantasy, and superhero media as something that’s in direct competition with their messianic beliefs. I think it’s less of a comparison between apples and oranges than one between apples and trout. Given their fanatical dogma, I’m not sure that anything we can do could reach them,” said Avery.

“We’re fortunate to be able to hold Q Con in a city like West Hollywood where the LGBTQ+ community is celebrated and embraced. Their financial and moral support is essential to our show’s success, and we can’t thank them enough. If we feel that anti-queer protests become a threat to anyone’s safety at the show for any reason, I expect that they will be able to provide us with the support we need to meet that challenge.”

Overall, Q Con was a blast and provided me with a great sense of community celebration. I will be back next year.

Photo of Knave Murdok by the author.