If the history of the Olympia Comics Festival were told in funny book form, this year would be its splash panel.

Whether you know what that sentence meant or not, the folks at Danger Room Comics think this it's time you dropped by. "This is our 10th year," says Executive Director Chelsea Baker. "The stage show costs five dollars, and everything else is free." And if you think all those spandexed crime fighters are just a bit, well, immature, don't let that dissuade you. "We definitely gear our festival more toward alternative comics, not the superhero stuff." This year's festival is Saturday, May 21, in various locations in downtown Oly including Danger Room, Capitol Theater, the Olympia Center and Northern. It celebrates comic artists both locally and nationally. Previous guests include Peter Bagge (Hate), Jaime Hernandez (Love and Rockets) and Joe Sacco (Footnotes in Gaza).

True confession: I was once a collector. I'm pretty sure Spawn 1-60 are still tucked into a box in the back of my mom's garage. But I hail from an era when it suddenly dawned on us that comics could be well-written - the time of Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns and Maus. That idea took root across the art form, and now we have visual storytellers like this year's featured guests: Paul Chadwick, Larry Gonick and Megan Kelso.

Chadwick is the author of Concrete, which relates the adventures of speechwriter Ron Lithgow after a serious case of alien experimentation. While the series has superhero elements, its hero cares more about flirting with a researcher or climbing Mount Everest than nabbing felons. Concrete is a multidimensional human trapped in a (literally) statuesque form.

Larry Gonick, aka "the Overeducated Cartoonist," uses the comic book format to explain such highbrow topics as genetics and cosmology to young people. His work has been praised by such diverse talents as Carl Sagan, Will Eisner, Richard Leakey and Terry Jones of Monty Python, who dubbed his Cartoon History of the Universe "obviously one of the great books of all time." He also wrote The Cartoon Guide to Sex, which has been called "awesome" by every junior high schooler since 1999.

Megan Kelso is an Evergreen graduate who writes comics for girls ... and everyone else. I dug her anthology The Squirrel Mother Stories, which uses simple panels to crystallize big ideas and emotions. It even pays tribute to Alexander Hamilton with a fervor and insight Sarah Vowell would admire. Kelso's work is both charming and deep, a rare combo in any medium.

But wait, as they say, there's more. Frank Hussey, executive producer, explains: "The stage show is meant to be fast-paced and entertaining. It's a little like a late-night talk show, if that was devoted to comic books, so there'll be ridiculous contests, skits, silly slide shows. And then I'm doing short interviews with the guests of honor." This will be followed by a slide show devoted to unintentionally funny comics, which Hussey's been perfecting for years. "It's a compendium of some of the silliest comics panels in history. I go through and find those gem moments. ... There's an old Prince Valiant series in which the prince spanks his wife, ... and then in the next panel you see her wistfully looking out the window as he rides off to his next quest. And she says, ‘Just come back to me unharmed, and you can spank me all you want.'"

Baker's a fan of the all-day kids' workshop, which teaches youngsters how to produce and package their own graphic novellas. And check out that panel on third-wave feminism in comics.

Hussey continues, "(My friend) Abby was interested in the differences between the comics of the second-wave feminists, from the ‘60s and early ‘70s, compared to what's being made now, as well as how third-wave feminism has affected comics."

It's a brave new world of artists and heroes, True Believers.

Olympia Comics Festival

Saturday, May 21, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., free to $5
four locations in downtown Olympia
including the Capitol Theater, 206 Fifth Ave. SW
360.705.3050
website