IN THE BEGINNING…

Back in the fall of 2020, Evan Bishop was an English Language Arts substitute teacher in Yonkers Public School. It was the era of post-COVID hybrid learning where some of the kids were in-person and masked up while other kids were logged in via computer. He stood in front of a fifth-grade class with no clue as to what he was going to teach.

In comes the school principal with a large stack of testing papers. She demanded that he use the class time testing the students. In that moment he witnessed the energy get sucked out of the room. When she left the room, he did the unfathomable, he tossed the papers into the trash and in that moment he asked the student, “Who wants to create a comic book?” He immediately captured the attention of all his students. That was the birth of I AM A HERO: Comic Book Creation Workshops.

He replicated this formula with other classes in the school. Eventually the principal caught wind of what Evan was doing in her school. He was sure that he was getting transferred to another school, but to his surprise, she loved the idea and encouraged him to use a bulletin board to showcase the students’ completed comic books.

Since then, Evan formulated curricula and has facilitated dozens of workshops in throughout Westchester County and New York City to empower people to select a social issue that matters to them, identify superpowers needed to protect others and create a superhero in their own likeness.

The time was ripe last year to take this formula to the next level. The Yonkers Comic & Cosplay Convention or YC3, but best known as “Yonkers Comic Con” was a 2022-23 ArtsWestchester grant winning community art project.

Evan has a proven track record of producing fun and engaging events in Yonkers. He knows the power of celebrating communities. YC3 will prove to be his greatest project to date.