Cheddar News correspondent Shannon LaNier visits the 11th Black Comic Book Festival in Harlem. 

Cheddar News correspondent Shannon LaNier visits the 11th Black Comic Book Festival in Harlem.&nbsp;

Wake Up With Cheddar

Black Comic Book Festival Celebrate 11 Years in NYC 

Welcome back to Cheddar News. You know, I recently checked out the Black Comic Book Festival in Harlem and I got to say, you know, there were some of the amazing characters there. It was just a lot of fun. I just wish that a lot of these characters were around when I was a kid. It would have inspired me. Didn't look like us when we were a kid. I know. Check it out. You may have heard of Comic Con but have you heard of Black Comic Con or Sham Com? Well, it's a revolution, a decade old taking over the Schomburg Center in New York City. The goal was ultimately to increase the amount of literacy, how much people are reading, but also even more so seeing people represented in literacy. If you're reading, are you seeing black superheroes? Right. Are you seeing black characters? Are you seeing black women characters? And are you seeing them in different diverse situations? And comics has the power to do that and that's what we created here and this is the 11th year. So it's been going on, it has some longevity there, right? Ok. So how has it changed? Since the beginning really started with a small community of exhibitors, independent comic book writers, people who were just a part of this community, it was a little bit underground. And today we balloon to more than 100 exhibitors who are part of our community, independent. Also with publishing companies who are certainly like about this space and about black comics. We see about 10,000 people in one weekend. What opportunity does this, you know, open up for not only the people reading it, a lot of the entrepreneurs and creators behind it, but one, it's just a huge networking opportunity, right? There are some great people in this building who are already established. You know, folks like John Jennings, who's also have the table downstairs who've been in the industry for years, right? They get to mingle with people who just started folks who are just publishing their work and being in the same space saying like you deserve to be in communication with each other and the community with each other. I got to clear up one thing like a lot of people may think that, oh, this is just for kids, but I don't see a lot of kids running around. These are adults, they are in it, they are taking it in and loving it. Although this event was initially started to serve young people, it's become a community for everyone. And so it's just powerful to be able to bring them all in one space and to celebrate this for our 11th year. Well, we're gonna keep celebrating this. We're gonna stay out here a little longer. We come back in about a half an hour. We're gonna be with one of the comic book creators and learn the story behind their creation. So stay tuned for that.