Brian Baynes likens Bubbles Con to a piece of music. “You listen to the album, you gotta see the band live. You read the fanzine, you gotta go to Bubbles Con. It’s like the live version of the ‘zine. We’re just making the whole thing in front of you.”
Since 2019, Baynes’ independently published, black-and-white ‘zine, “Bubbles,” has spotlighted and reviewed a wide variety of independent cartoonists, exploring obscure and regional comic history all the while. Last year’s inaugural one-day Bubbles Con at the Richmond Public Library’s Main Branch was originally planned as a fifth birthday party for the fanzine, known in the comics world for its near obsessive focus and exhaustive 80-plus page coverage.

Returning to the Library this weekend from June 6-7, Bubbles Con is blossoming into its own thing. A $3,100 grant from CultureWorks, and positive momentum from the first edition, has helped to expand the proceedings from one to two days, and into the Institute For Contemporary Art (ICA) at VCU, where Baynes works as an art handler.
“It’s the first time I’ve thrown an event there,” he says of the special screening that concludes this year’s affair (full schedule listed below), a program of vintage 8mm films shown by acclaimed underground cartoonist and author Charles Burns, who Baynes calls a master. “Since the 1980s, he’s never lost his relevancy, and his art continues to strike chords in new generations,” he says.
Baynes says that the film screening ties in with Burns’ new book, “Final Cut” (Pantheon) which is about the making of an 8mm film. “I went to his studio and he had a stack of these 8mm movies. He watches them in his studio and kind of gains inspiration by their cheesiness. That’s something he’s so good at, he can take an old romance comic or a bad horror movie like ‘I Was a Teenage Werewolf’ and ‘I Was a Teenage Frankenstein,’ and he can find a real sincerity in the cheesiness.” [Burns will be interviewed on Saturday afternoon by Dan Nadel, author of the acclaimed new biography of Robert Crumb, “Crumb: A Cartoonist’s Life.”]

Curated by Baynes, Bubbles Con is, like its parent magazine, wild about comics of all kinds and styles — from historical graphic novels to New Yorker cartoons to Japanese manga. This year’s event will also include two affiliated art exhibits opening on the Library’s first floor, one from Bronx, New York artist John Vasquez Mejias and the other from Richmond’s own Dash Shaw. Mejias will also perform a puppet show on Friday night based on his woodcut comic, “The Puerto Rican War.”
“It’s about the attempted assassination of President Truman that happened in 1950,” Baynes says of Mejias’ self-published graphic novel. “He’s been doing the puppet show for years and I’m super excited we get to present it. His woodcuts will be up in the library for two months, along with work by Dash Shaw. I can’t wait for people to walk into the library and see this art.”
While Burns and Shaw are known quantities in the comic world, other featured artists like Mejias, are more obscure “but are doing awesome work,” says Baynes, a 2024 Top 40 Under 40 recipient who also helps organize the Richmond Zine Fest. Another standout, he says, is Philadelphia artist Tara Booth, who he will interview at Bubbles Con on Saturday. “She does these great painting comics, very personal. They are very bold with personal topics like her sexual life. She says things aloud you wish you could.” Timed with the convention, Booth will also have an exhibit, “Stories,” opening at Pamplemousse Gallery on June 6.

Baynes is similarly excited by the appearance of Caitlin McGurk, who will give a talk about the late Barbara Shermund, a feminist cartoonist for The New Yorker who faded into obscurity despite a formidable, trail-blazing body of work. “She’s very contemporary, and hilarious, and the stuff that Caitlin uncovered about her life is its own story,” he says.
On Saturday, there will be a talk on “horror manga” by Japanese translator Ryan Holmberg, and interviews with artists Juliette Collet and Kevin Hulzenga. Collet is an “amazing” young artist from New York City, Baynes says. “One of the things I didn’t do last year was bring in a newer, younger cartoonist,” he notes. Hulzenga, by contrast, is a veteran illustrator who is known for his character, Glenn Ganges, who has appeared in much of his stylized work over the past few decades.
“It’s like last year,” says Baynes, who is a busy guy these days — he’s opening a used bookstore, Brian’s Books, in Church Hill on June 16 [stay tuned for more on that from Style Weekly]. “I knew not everyone would know who all these people were. I just kind of hoped that people knew who I was, and trusted that I would bring in cool people.”
For more on Bubbles Con 2025, go to https://www.bubblescon.com/. All events are free but tickets must be reserved for Saturday’s event at the ICA at https://icavcu.org/events/bubbles-con/
Bubbles Con 2025 schedule
Friday, June 6 at Main Branch of the Richmond Public Library
6 p.m. Opening for Art shows for John Vasquez Mejias and Dash Shaw on the First Floor of the Main Branch of the Richmond Public Library
7 p.m. – 8 p.m. John Vasquez Mejias will perform a puppet show based on his woodcut comic “The Puerto Rican War,” followed by an on stage interview with Mejias.
Saturday, June 7 at Main Branch of the Richmond Public Library
9 a.m. – 9:50 a.m. Doors Open, free donuts and coffee from Morr Donuts & Cat Nap Coffee
10 a.m. – 10:50 a.m. Ryan Holmberg talk on Manga: Horror, Me, and My Basement
11 a.m. – 11:50 a.m. Caitlin McGurk talk, Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins: The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund
Noon – 12:50 p.m. Juliette Collet interview conducted by cartoonist Rae Whitlock
12:50 p.m. – 1:30 p.m. Lunch Break
1:30 p.m. – 2:20 p.m. Kevin Huizenga interview conducted by Thomas Campbell of Comics Blogger
2:30 p.m. – 3:20 p.m. Tara Booth interview conducted by Brian Baynes of Bubbles Fanzine
3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. Charles Burns interview conducted by Dan Nadel author of “Crumb: A Cartoonist’s Life.”
AFTER PARTY:
Saturday June 7 at the ICA at VCU (601 W. Broad St)
7 p.m. – 9 p.m. Charles Burns Presents “I Was A Teenage…” An 8mm film screening.