Children in the Elizabethton/Carter County Public Library’s Summer Reading Program learned about comic book heroes Tuesday and got a special visit from one such character — Spider Gwen.
This year’s theme for the Summer Reading Program is heroes. Events have included heroic professions such as law enforcement officers and firefighters. On Tuesday, the children learned about a group of people who fight crime in popular comic books.
As a special guest for the program, Madalyn Caulder, 10, of Bristol, showed up in her superhero outfit to read to the children.
Dressed as Spider Gwen, Madalyn read a book to the children about another superhero known for his web-slinging abilities — Spider-Man. She also showed off some of her favorite comic books from her collection, including the first run of the Spider Gwen comics.
The children got the chance to show of their own comic book knowledge as Madalyn held up drawings of famous comic book characters and asked the kids to guess who they were.
After checking out the comic books and drawings, the children got the chance to color their own superheroes.
Madalyn is a big comic book fan and hopes to share that love with others just as it was shared with her.
“My dad found his old comic books and thought I would be interested in them,” Madalyn said. “We started reading them and going to Comic Cons.”
Comic Cons, or Comic Conventions, are held throughout the country as a way for comic book and other pop culture fans to get together to share their love for comic books, buy merchandise or even dress up as their favorite characters — an activity known as cosplaying.
Last month, Madalyn attended a convention in Charlotte, N.C., called HeroCon. That was her first time cosplaying as Spider Gwen. It was also at HeroCon that Madalyn got an incredible opportunity — the chance to meet artist Robbi Rodriguez, one of the illustrators of Spider Gwen.
“He gave me three of his posters free because I had my costume on,” Madalyn said. “He asked if he could take my picture, so I asked if I could have a picture with him. He put my picture up on his Instragram.”
Madalyn enjoys reading many different comics and said while it is hard to pick a favorite character Spider Gwen is definitely one of her favorites, along with Supergirl and Spider-Girl.
“I like the female characters,” she said.
When it comes to comic books, there are two main universes the characters are divided into – Marvel and DC comics.
“I really do like Marvel, it is more kid friendly than DC at times,” Madalyn said. “DC can freak me out sometime and some of the stuff is not appropriate for my age.”