While these “cons” have long shed their humble origins to mine the more lucrative veins of pop culture, quietly, here in Boston, an alternative is flourishing. Independent artists are producing less epic stories in graphically innovative ways. About 100 of them will exhibit and sell their works at next Saturday’s third annual Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo, or MICE, at Lesley University’s University Hall.

Splashier events like Boston Comic Con offer a “broad stroke” of the genre, said Dave Kender, cofounder of the Boston Comics Roundtable, a collective of comics artists and writers that teams with the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley to sponsor MICE. “But [they are] not creator-focused. There was a great talent pool of people creating comics but no venue to showcase them.”

MICE to the rescue.

The free event — Boston’s sole expo dedicated to alternative comics, ’zines, and Web comics — taps into a more modest, personal, handcrafted comics movement.

“The expo is a chance to share with the public, to say, ‘This is us, this is what we do,’ ” said Dan Mazur, the Comics Roundtable’s other cofounder. “Ninety percent of what’s being sold at MICE are ‘mini’ comics,” Mazur said. These are limited-run and self-published, often hand-stapled and hand-sewn by the artist. “Cheap and democratic.”

And what these artists “do” is smallish, not superhero-scaled, and has found its own niche.

The so-called mainstream comics industry, dominated by Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and major distributors, feeds into the current superhero movie craze. An alternative comics and graphic novel movement, which sprung from the DIY punk scene of the 1980s, has also become “mainstream,” said Mazur. Cartoonists like Chris Ware, Alison Bechdel, and Dan Clowes are published in The New Yorker and celebrated in high-culture circles. The growing indie scene that MICE exemplifies represents a third way — one that harkens to the roots of this most populist art form and is more democratic than ever.

Shows at The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in New York and the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco have become “pretty huge,” Mazur said. Small presses are multiplying in cities everywhere. “You can’t throw a rock without hitting an indie cartoonist in Brooklyn.’’

Besides allowing fans to connect with artists, the gathering also gives artists a chance to network and talk shop with their peers.

“I really appreciate the social aspects,” said Shelli Paroline, a Watertown-based artist who is one of MICE’s best-known. Paroline met her husband, Braden Lamb, at a Comics Roundtable event. Key organizers behind MICE, together they freelance for Kaboom! Studios, illustrating comic book tie-ins for the “Ice Age” movies and Cartoon Network’s “Adventure Time” program.

The convention also draws novice and would-be artists seeking advice from veterans: How do you work? What kind of pen or brush do you use? Do you draw on digital tablets?

“At MICE, I’m hoping to meet other quirky artists and ‘the public’ who likes us, and I sure would love to sell a few prints and books,” wrote Martha Hull in an e-mail. Hull, who has never before shown her work at an expo, will be traveling from Portland, Ore., to sell her first book, “Untimely Death Alphabet.” “More than anything, I want to get my work seen by a bunch of new people who will hopefully like it.”

The expected 1,000 visitors to this year’s festival can browse booths by exhibitors from across New England, New York City, and elsewhere; attend panels and workshops on issues relevant to the art (“Injury-avoiding Exercises for Artists”; “Character Drawing”); hear talks from noted indie creators such as this year’s guest of honor, Robert Sikoryak, author of the graphic novel “Masterpiece Comics.” There are also portfolio reviews, an art show, and “Iron Cartoonist,” a live drawing competition.

In the MICE exhibit hall, booths marked with a “cheese” emblem mean they are new exhibitors to MICE; balloons denote those vendors selling especially kid-friendly content. Not that many indie comics today shoot for the crude. The days of R. Crumb and his ilk’s sexually explicit “underground comix” movement are largely over.