By admin 
If you see people in stormtrooper armor and superhero costumes in the galleries of the Crocker Art Museum next weekend, don’t be startled.
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The 12th annual CrockerCon, the museum’s pop-culture celebration, returns Sunday, Sept. 20. The family-friendly event is free to attend and lasts from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
This year focuses on showing the wide range of comic art, from editorial work to animation. Special panels include a conversation with cartoonist Mimi Pond and a live animated comedy show with “Adventure Time” creator Pendleton Ward.
“I pitched it as a bridge between the comic book fan and the art museum, so that comic book fans could engage with the museum and the incredible art at the Crocker, and vice versa, that art lovers could see comic books as a medium and an art movement,” said Eben Burgoon, the public program supervisor at the Crocker Museum who helped found the event.
Other guests include Pulitzer-prize winning editorial cartoonist Jack Ohman, who will host a live drawing presentation, and “Bojack Horseman” Director of Animation Mike Hollingsworth, who will join Ward in the “Picture This!” comedy show. Stand-up comedians James Adomian, Rick Wood and Brandie Posey will round out the “Picture This!” cast.
The festival is also hosting a special panel commemorating the late Sacramento-based comic artist Sam Kieth, who died in March, and will have a gallery on display featuring reproductions of Kieth’s work and line art.
“Sam Kieth was a native Sacramentan, and also probably one of the most intellectual artists of the 1990s through Image Comics and Marvel and DC,” said Burgoon. “It’s a unique and special exhibit, and a really special way to celebrate a very accomplished comic creator who is no longer with us.”
Throughout the day, festival attendees will be able to wander through the museum’s regular galleries and art exhibits. Attendees will also have the chance to help build a Lego recreation of Charles Christian Nahl’s “Sunday Morning in the Mines” — a painting in the museum’s permanent collection — and test video games under development from the Sacramento Developers Collective.
CrockerCon started as an after-hours Thursday night affair before becoming an all-day convention two years ago. Around 70 exhibitors will show off their art and sell their work this year, up from 20 in the event’s first year.
The museum is an unconventional venue for such an event, but has proven incredibly popular. Around 5,000 people attended last year, according to Burgoon.
“I don’t think any other comic convention has a museum giving it a warm hug,” said Burgoon.
In comic convention fashion, guests are invited to attend in costume as their favorite pop culture character. But given the delicate nature of the items in the museum’s collection, cosplayers are asked to leave fake weapons and possibly dangerous props at home.
“We love to support people coming in costume, but CrockerCon happens in a museum with very precious works of art. If you’re coming as Batman, you can leave your Batarang at home,” Burgoon says. And in case a lightsaber or blaster gets through, Burgoon says there will be a ‘cape check’ at the entrance of the galleries.
A full schedule of events and information on reserving tickets can be found on the Crocker Art Museum’s website.