Yesterday, I heard for the first time about a pretty amazing-sounding event happening in Iowa City, Iowa October 5th-8th that I suspect some of you may be interested in attending (note Minneapolis folks that Iowa City is a 5 hour drive). The University of Iowa is putting on a three day symposium on comics called Comics, Creativity, and Culture: International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Comics luminaries on the guest list include Gilbert Hernandez, Jamie Hernandez, Pheobe Glockner, Joe Sacco, Craig Yoe, John Porcellino, Jessica Abel, James Sturm, Gary Groth and Peggy Burns, as well as a number of comics scholars and historians.
You can see the schedule for the symposium here.
There are other comics-related events happening in Iowa city before and after the symposium.