The annual Prairie Comics Festival is set to take place from Sept. 5 to 6 at the Manitoba Museum, marking its 10th anniversary this year.

According to artistic director Sam Beiko, visitors can expect to see comics by 115 artists from across Canada and the U.S. There will also be industry-led panels on topics such as comics and social change, Indigenous comics and queering comics.

“We are about promoting and supporting independent creators of comics, zines, graphic novels, anything that is sequential art,” the director explained.

The festival is entirely run by volunteers, she also stated. It began in 2016 at the Millenium Library with 23 artists, which drew a crowd of about 400.

“After the festival wrapped, we just kept hearing from people that we really need something like this in Winnipeg that supports the independent comic and zine and graphic novel community here, because there is a rather big one,” she said.

However, because Winnipeg does not have a dedicated post-secondary program explicitly for comic illustration, the festival provides budding artists with opportunities to connect with those already working in the industry. Apart from the festival, the organization also hosts Comic Coven, an open comic studio night every Wednesday.

As the comic artist behind the series Krampus is My Boyfriend! Beiko enjoys the medium because it can deliver cinematic storytelling without the patience needed for hand-drawn animation.

“You are the artist and the storyteller, and you’re also the director, and you’re also having to think about the facial expressions and everything of every single character in every moment,” Beiko commented.

“There’s just so many possibilities with style and playing with form, and you can see the story be alive on the page.”

Beiko hopes the festival will give visitors the chance to appreciate and support art created by real people, especially local artists, as opposed to things generated by artificial intelligence.

“What I really hope people get when they walk through the door is that [they know] there are still so many people in the world who create art with their hands and their brains, and not with a water-guzzling prompter,” said the director.

“Supporting independent creators is really, really important right now because a lot of their work is being stolen and being profited off of without their permission. It was already a career with thin margins.”

She also stated that sequence art has been around since time immemorial, and it will continue to persist.

“Art is not dead. It is never going to die. Human beings have told stories with words or with just pictures since we figured that we could [paint] on a cave wall in sequence, and we’re going to keep doing it.”

The Prairie Comics Festival is free to attend. Comic Coven takes place every Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m. at 611-70 Arthur Street. Visit prairiecomics.com for more information.