JILLIAN TAMAKI SPOTLIGHT
Room 1 | 12:00 – 1:00 PM

Award-winning cartoonist and illustrator Jillian Tamaki is the co-creator of the graphic novels Skim, This One Summer, and Roaming, all written by her cousin and collaborator Mariko Tamaki. This One Summer was the first graphic novel to receive a Caldecott honor. As a solo cartoonist, Jillian is the author and artist of works for adults including SuperMutant Magic Academy and Boundless, a collection of short form comics. She is also the author of the children’s book They Say Blue, which earned her the Boston Globe-Horn Book Picture Book Award and another Caldecott Honor. She is an active illustrator and her work appears regularly in the New York Times and other venues. She will discuss her illustration work and her career in conversation with New Yorker Senior Art Director Alexandra Zsigmond.

POST-GRAPHIC NOVELS: THE RETURN OF THE COMIC BOOK
Room 2 | 12:00 – 1:00 PM

Around the turn of the last millennium, the graphic novel became the dominant format for comics in print. While graphic novels have made a broad range of narratives available to a general audience, they are subject to the economic demands of the book trade, including standardized formats and preferred genres. For aesthetic and economic reasons, many artists continue to make work in more modest, staple-bound formats that have their roots in 1930s comic book publishing and zine culture. In a conversation moderated by Bill Kartalopoulos, cartoonists Caroline Cash (PeePee PooPoo), Nate Garcia (Flippy), Kevin Huizenga (Fielder), and Tom Kaczynski (Cartoon Dialectics) will discuss why they make comic books in the era of the graphic novel.

MAURICE VELLEKOOP IN CONVERSATION WITH CHIP KIDD
Room 1 | 1:30 – 2:30 PM

Maurice Vellekoop was born in 1964 in a suburb of Toronto. A prolific artist and illustrator, he has worked non-stop for the last three decades. His published comics have included the book collections Vellevision and A Nut at the Opera and the comic book The World of Gloria Badcock. This year, he has published the long-form graphic memoir I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together about his background growing up queer in a conservative Christian home and the ways he carried that experience forward in his life. He will be joined in conversation with his editor on this project, book designer Chip Kidd.

NARRATIVE OF CARE
Room 2 | 1:30 – 2:30 PM

Caretaking is often invisible labor: invisible because it is often work that is expected of women, and invisible because it often addresses vulnerabilities associated with illness, injury, disability, and end-of-life that contemporary culture is ill-equipped to address. Artists from three nations will discuss narratives that make caretaking visible with Publishers Weekly graphic novels review editor Meg Lemke. Belgian artist Ephameron’s book Us Two Together documents her father’s struggle with dementia; her latest book expresses her experience of motherhood. Taiwanese artist Pam Pam Liu has documented both the inner workings of a mental health facility as well as her own mother’s experiences being treated for cancer. Lauren Weinstein has considered motherhood in comics including “Mother’s Walk,” and was the resident artist at Time Clock CDC, a long-term shelter for survivors of domestic violence. Together they will share a unique, trans-continental conversation about a universal human subject.

TAKING SIDES, DRAWING LINES
Room 1 | 3:00 - 4:00 PM

Jonathan W. Gray (John Jay College-CUNY) leads a conversation with four artists whose work expresses their political commitments. Nora Krug’s works include Belonging, the graphic edition of On Tyranny, and Diaries of War, about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Nate Powell won a National Book Award for his artwork on the March books written by the late Congressman John Lewis and Andrew Aydin and has addressed the culture of militarized policing and other subjects in his work since then. Edel Rodriguez gained international attention for his magazine covers for Time Magazine and Der Spiegel during the Trump administration, and has just published the graphic memoir Worm about his experiences as an immigrant from Cuba. Seth Tobocman co-founded World War 3 Illustrated in 1980, and his books include the Lower East Side squatters’ rights and gentrification narrative War in the Neighborhood. Together, this group will discuss how they express political ideas in visual form and the kinds of responses that work can elicit.

BODY IMAGE AND IMAGES OF THE BODY
Room 2 | 3:00 - 4:00 PM

Our visual culture is saturated with images of bodies, but these selective images fail to represent the full spectrum of human experience, alienating people from their own bodies. Social media has further fostered an epidemic of body dysmorphia, particularly among young girls. Julie Delporte (Portrait of a Body), Siobhan Gallagher (Full of Myself), Anita Kunz (Striking a Pose) and Daisy Ruiz (Gordita: Built Like This) will discuss work that addresses the experience of being an embodied person in a culture that links gendered images of the body to notions of self-worth, social value and sexuality. Kriota Willberg (Draw Stronger), an artist and educator in health sciences, will lead this conversation.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT: ENTRY POINTS INTO COMICS PUBLISHING
Room 1 | 4:30 - 5:30 PM

There is not one single comics industry, but rather several comics industries that overlap: corporate book publishing, independent publishers with mainstream distribution, small and micro-presses, self-publishing, and publishing via digital platforms. What are the benefits of each? How does an artist attract a publisher’s attention? What can artists expect when working with a publisher? Moderator Bill Kartalopoulos will explore these questions with a panel of professionals including Gary Groth, publisher of Fantagraphics Books; Cathy G. Johnson, author of books including Gorgeous and The Breakaways; John Vasquez Mejias, author of The Puerto Rican War; and First Second editor Kiara Valdez. This special professional development panel is co-organized and sponsored by the School of Visual Arts, Division of Continuing Education.