Debut party
Star Line Books is located at 1467 Market St. #106. For a full list of Mainx24 activities, visit mainx24.com.
Chattanooga’s creative community has significantly grown over the past decade – which is especially evident in the local comic book community.
This past April, a group of aspiring and professional comic artists and writers formed the Chatt Comix Co-op. The goal is to connect creatives interested in supporting one another’s work and collaborate to produce locally made comics, said member Meaghan Frey.
The group’s first major collaborative project is an anthology of Chattanooga-based comics, which goes on sale at local Star Line Books Dec. 3, during Mainx24, a 24-hour block party that takes over the Southside each year. Topics range from a tale involving rival tourist attractions Rock City and Ruby Falls (“Thou are about to see the seven statesof agony!” reads one line), to a story about the mer-people who have lived in the Tennessee River since the Chickamauga Dam was constructed. There’s even a comic featuring female pitcher for the Lookouts Jackie Mitchell, who struck out Babe Ruth at Engel Stadium.
Founder Tara Hamilton says that around the time she came up with the idea for the group, she was going to a lot of comic conventions, and loved the sense of community she felt being around a bunch of creative people. She wanted to form that sort of community here in town, and created the Chatt Comix Co-op Facebook group to give local creatives a platform to criticize one another’s work.