Founded in 1901, the Society of Illustrators is America’s longest-standing nonprofit organization dedicated to the art of illustration. Located on the Upper East Side, SI’s Museum of Illustration advances our mission to promote the art and appreciation of illustration and its history and evolving nature through exhibitions and educational programs.

The SI MoCCA Arts Festival is a 2-day multimedia event. Located at Metropolitan Pavilion in the heart of Chelsea, MoCCA Fest is NYC’s largest independent comics and cartoon festival, drawing over 9,000 attendees each year. Founded in 2001, The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) was located at 594 Broadway and offered exhibits, education programs, and an annual small-press comic convention known as MoCCA Fest, first held in 2002.

In 2012, MoCCA closed its doors and transferred its collection to SI upon condition that a gallery be created in their museum to showcase comic/cartoon art and the MoCCA Fest would continue. Since then, the SI MoCCA Arts Fest has continued to grow into one of the largest independent comic and cartoon festivals nationwide, with over 500 exhibiting artists displaying their work, award-winning honorees speaking about their careers and artistic processes and other featured artists conducting demos, lectures and panels.

2024 MoCCA Main Visual by Natalie Andrewson