The free festival, now in its sixth year, includes a program for children (with free comics); a screening of “White Scripts and Black Supermen”; and panel discussions about social justice and representation in comics, the influence of “Black Panther” and black geekdom in the age of social media. Writers and artists include Sheena C. Howard, the author of “Encyclopedia of Black Comics,” and Dawud Anyabwile, a creator of the “Brotherman” series. They will join Mr. Heredia, whose love for comics led to his career in animation. He recently discussed “Heroes of Color” during a recent phone interview. These are edited excerpts from that conversation.

What are you looking forward to at the festival?

My main objective is to encourage students to tell their stories. Every single one of them has met someone or has someone in their life right now who can be considered a hero for whatever obstacles they have overcome. The best writing advice is to tell the story you want to hear first. Don’t worry about telling a story you think people want to hear. It won’t come out as powerful.

How did “Heroes of Color” come about?

I came up with the idea in 2015. By that time, I had my own small company, Heredia Designs. I was doing animation for Pearson, the educational company. I was creating two-minute shorts, which were covering the Common Core standards of math and English. They had hired me to do 300 short animated videos. I remember the final four characters of the videos were one Asian, one black, one Latino and one white kid. It cemented the importance of representation and planted a seed for what I wanted to see.