Digging around the Economic Stimulus Toolbox, sorting past the big, heavy stuff like bailouts and low-interest rates, there’s a tiny, little thing in the bottom: comic books. Doesn’t seem like much, and few city leaders would be willing to bank on its financial prowess, but writer Rhett Thomas and museum curator Eric O’Dell believe it should be in the conversation about ways to bring money back to town.

A couple of years ago, O’Dell leveraged his position at the Museum of Arts and Sciences to create an exhibit focused on the city’s continued contribution to the world of comic books. It highlighted Macon’s big three talents -- Craig Hamilton, Tony Harris and Ray Snyder -- and kicked off a mini-convention. That was February 2008, and though it’s taken a while to plan the follow-up, the momentum for a sequel remains.

“It was one of the most right things the museum has done,” O’Dell said, explaining that the indigenous nature of the comic book exhibit dovetailed perfectly with the mode of a museum whose board members grew up with the museum, making their first visits as children. In the two years since the first exhibit, the requests for another have yet to slow down.

On April 30 through May 1, 2011, those wishes will be answered when the MaCon (pronounced “may-con”) Comic Book Convention returns to the Museum of Arts and Sciences.

The son of MaCon

For this go-round, O’Dell has brought along his longtime pal and former frat brother Rhett Thomas, who works extensively for Marvel Comics.

The two think they can prove that comics are more than a juvenile fancy or a symptom of adult delinquency, that the conference can be an economic engine for the city, drawing comic book fans from across the region.

The approach is simple and, in some ways, brilliant. Comic book fans are a passionate crowd who build followings for their favorite illustrators and writers as much as their favorite characters. Around the country, comic book conventions are big business. In New York, comic book creators hobnob with celebrities from Corey Feldman to M. Night Shymalan, while Hollywood studios flock to the San Diego Comic Con to tease fans with snippets of upcoming comic book movie adaptations. Those may be among the biggest, but they haven’t squeezed out the dozens of other, smaller conventions.

In fact, in a field that has long nurtured the relationship with its fervent fanbase, conventions are the lifeblood of the comic book industry, the prime connection between the reader and creator.

This dedicated niche has inspired O’Dell to take the next convention another step forward. By expanding the roster of guests and creating an exhibit with more universal appeal, he thinks comics fans from all over will be compelled to come see Macon.

And Thomas agrees. “I won’t be happy if we don’t bring them (from around the Southeast).”

While Macon’s artists are well known and admired -- and in some respects, Thomas said, “household names in comics” -- there aren’t enough to sustain the convention alone.

What will set MaCon apart from other fledgling contemporaries is the number and quality of Thomas’s connections in the comics industry. (Not to mention, the comics people connected to Macon’s three heavies.) Using those connections, Thomas said they plan to bring about 40 writers and illustrators, including some big industry names.

Though the attention will have shifted, he said the convention will have a positive impact on the city’s local talent.

“Drawing attention to Macon through the convention and exhibit can only help our local talent, even if we aren’t talking about them directly,” Thomas said.

For the love of Macon

Listening to Thomas and O’Dell talk about the MaCon, it’s hard to tell whether their love of comics is actually overshadowed by their love of Macon. Neither is a native of Macon, but they both have adopted the city, just as they say they feel adopted by the city.

“If every person who comes to (MaCon) had it in their mind that Macon is a good place to live, that’s all we can ask for,” O’Dell said.

After the first MaCon, O’Dell said, noted illustrator Steve Scott was almost talked into moving here.

Artists by training, O’Dell and his brother Brian, who started an online business with Thomas years ago, are Florida natives who attended Mercer University. That’s where they met Thomas.

Macon made its first lasting impression on O’Dell at a party in a nearby historic home.

“That was the first time I’d seen a room with 12-foot ceilings,” he said.

His first brush with the city’s comic book talent came in the middle of the 1990s when he worked at Coke’s Camera downtown. On the film-developing machine, there was a special setting labeled “Harris Snyder.”

“I thought it was a type of camera,” he said, laughing.

He’d later learn that it was used for the photo reference work -- taking pictures of people posing to serve as models for scenes in comic books -- that Tony Harris and Ray Snyder were doing in their work as Jolly Roger Studio.

One night, O’Dell would just happen to notice, through the window of their downtown studio, the illustrators hard at work.

“I said, ‘Hey, there are some dudes over there drawing.’ ’’

Now, he said he’s come to know the artists as friends and neighbors, especially Harris, whom he met as a “just a real dude,” one who loves his kids, has car trouble like everyone else and might help you find a lost dog. O’Dell’s likeness was even used in “Ex Machina,” the award-winning series Harris created with Brian K. Vaughn, one of the principal writers of the TV show “Lost.”

That small world, neighborly aspect of living in Macon is something Thomas appreciates too, but he also sees practical reasons to live here.

“I’m so at home here. Some people don’t realize how good they have it. We’re close enough to enjoy the big city (of Atlanta),” he said, “without the big city turmoil.”

He added, “We’re sort of an underdog here, and I love the underdog.”

Thomas has filled that role himself. After starting a website about Marvel Comics characters -- as a fan, not an employee -- he was asked by Marvel to do some work with the company that has since blossomed into an editing role.

He recently wrote a coffee table book about Marvel’s current editor-in-chief, Joe Quesada, who started off as an illustrator with the company. When the book needed photographs of Quesada, Thomas turned to Macon photographer Maryann Bates, who he took to New York City.

“I could have found a photographer there, paid a whole lot and the pictures wouldn’t have been half as good,” he said.

The book project turned out well and marked a new turn for Marvel, who Thomas said hadn’t previously collected its best illustrations to display in that format. It, he said, has been successful because the book treats Quesada seriously as an artist.

That approach -- treating comics as art with a degree of legitimacy -- is why O’Dell says the first MaCon and exhibit worked so well.

It’s an approach they intend to continue.

“It’s a soup of artistic creativity: drawing and writing synthesized,” Thomas said.

@BR Body Subhed:It’s family fun

In his work with Marvel, Thomas has had the pleasure of profiling Stephanie Buscema, an illustrator who learned the trade from her grandfather, famed artist John Buscema. She first worked in the industry as an inker for him.

When he shared this story with O’Dell, the two realized they could build their exhibit around that theme of family.

“Comics are for kids. They are now and always have been,” Thomas said. “In the same way, in comics, the craft gets passed down from one generation to the next, and we knew we could feature that theme.”

It certainly jives with the mission of the museum and its standing in the community as a place where today’s parents bring their kids to share what they enjoyed when they were youngsters. The “intergenerational nature of the work” as a theme for the comics exhibit will also, they hope, attract non-comics fans who simply want to share in the experience with their children.

O’Dell also has his eye on changes to the museum’s Discover House.

Though a lot has to happen for his plans to work -- like getting it funded -- he aspires to turn the top level into an interactive comics studio that children can use.

It ties back into what Thomas called “a soup of artistic creativity,” something that allows kids to explore the arts through a forum they’re already attracted to.

“We’re like Silly Putty,” O’Dell said, joking about their flexibility and willingness to pick up new ideas to engage the community. “We’re always swinging at pitches.”

Despite all the work it takes, the two men say it’s fun and speak of MaCon like they couldn’t imagine not doing it. With it, they get to combine a love for comic books with their love of this city. Why wouldn’t they jump at the chance?

Thomas says it’s like second nature.

“It’s an easy thing to do, man. Macon’s cool.”

Read the first four stories in this series at Macon.com.