Sunday, July 16, 2017

Artimation! exhibit at Shen-arts, happening now, through August 30th, 2017


In addition to the great art exhibits currently going on at the Museum of the Shenandoah, there's a cool little show happening right outside of Old Town Winchester, Virginia called "Artimation!". You can see this exhibit featuring cartoon and comics-based art at the Shenandoah Arts Council, on Loudoun Street, going on now, through August 30th! Who knows, you may even see a few Splotch Monsters there!   -Steve

Friday, July 14, 2017

Voices, Ideas, and Action at DC Zinefest

With more than 60 zine publishers scheduled and the usual draw of hundreds, organizers of the 7th annual DC Zinefest anticipate a steadily growing gathering of independent publishers and enthusiasts. Yet the event retains its comfort as a haven for diversity, acceptance, and inspired ideas, where free speech and safer spaces categorically co-exist.

Because of these basic values, the zine community, almost by default, emphatically supports countless individuals who might not otherwise have a means of expressing themselves, whether it’s by granting stipends to encourage underrepresented artists and writers to publish or by personally connecting through ideas and action.

Panel discussions also provide a basis for meaningful discussion, and this year’s topics echo recurrent and ever-urgent themes of art and activism and issues relevant to people of color.

During the day-long festival, catch the midday panel “Discourses of Color in Self-Publishing”. Moderated by New York-based artist, writer, and publisher, Andy Wentz, the panel hosts guest presenters including the New-York based American Artist, medical anthropologist and zine publisher Tanvi Avasthi, and tireless activist Dennis Shah of the legendary Positive Force DC.

From 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., meet moderator C.S. Malerich, writer and founding member of DC Stampede, a collective for activists and organizers on behalf of animals, people, and the planet. Malerich’s guest panelists include Baltimore based spoken-word artist Blu The Poet, visual artist Malika Bryant, illustrator and comic artist Evan Keeling, musician and artist Simoné A. Speed, and socio-political feminist artist Lisa Marie Thalhammer.

I. DISCOURSES OF COLOR IN SELF-PUBLISHING

Time 12:00–1:00 p.m.

Moderator

ANDY WENTZ is an artist, writer, and publisher, originally from the Chicagoland area. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, focusing on both independent and collaborative creative projects. He hopes to own a pet of his own one day but will dote on his plant babies for the time being. Website: andywentz.com

Panelists

AMERICAN ARTIST is an interdisciplinary artist who makes texts, videos, and installations about culture and technology and the power structures embedded within them. American Artist’s legal name change serves as the basis of an ambivalent practice—one of declaration: by insisting on the visibility of blackness as descriptive of an American artist, and erasure: anonymity in virtual spaces where “American Artist” is an anonymous name, unable to be googled or validated by a computer as a person’s name. American attended the Whitney Independent Study program as an artist. They have exhibited at the Kitchen, New York, and have participated in group shows internationally. They have published writing in The New Inquiry and New Criticals and have had work featured in Huffington Post, Dazed Digital, Nylon, and PAPER. Website:  https://americanartist.us

TANVI AVASTHI is a medical anthropologist and nursing student whose joy for self-care comes through her yoga practice. Her research interests are the intersections of race, gender, east, and west. Tanvi's goals are to make the healing experience equitable and just for all people and to add humanity to healthcare providers for better care. She will complete her Master's of Science in Nursing in May 2018.

DENIS SHAH is a straightedge activist here in DC, working with different organizations in various capacities. His main thrust over the past 12 months has been Positive Force DC: modernizing, evangelizing, and ultimately, guiding others to set up their own PF chapters elsewhere. Dennis is particularly interested in movement building and understanding how leverage technology and tools to create a disciplined, effective force for change. He also believes in Joey Shithead's maxim: TALK - ACTION = 0.

II. ARTS AND ACTIVISM

Time: 1:30–2:30 p.m.

Moderator

C.S. MALERICH lives and works near the District of Columbia.  Her speculative fiction has appeared previously in Ares Magazine, The Again, and the Among Animals anthologies from Ashland Creek Press — a publisher of eco fiction.  "Phoenix Cross," her contribution to Among Animals 2, was nominated for a 2017 Pushcart Prize.  Most recently, her short story "It Wants to be a Swamp" appeared in the Mother's Revenge anthology from Scary Dairy Press, to raise funds for environmental causes.  An avid fan of skillful drawing (which she can't do), she collaborates with artist-storyteller J. Hollister Conroy on an ongoing series of comic zines.  C.S. is part of local writers' group, the Speculative Wordsmiths, and a founding member of DC Stampede, a collective for activists and organizers on behalf of animals, people, and the planet.

Panelists

BLU THE POET is an up-and-coming poet who hails from Baltimore, Maryland. Not only is she a Spoken Word artist, but she uses her craft in part as a Motivational Speaker to help inspire and educate young African Americans. As a supporter of the Pan-African movement, she also utilizes her platform to aid in the unification of the black community.  As she often says, "I am an advocate for love first and black love second."  With gifts provided by the Creator, her overall mission is to help increase awareness of Black Pride, Black Love, and Black Unity. If you would like to keep in touch with Blu, feel free to follow her on social media sites, such as Instagram, Facebook, & Twitter, at BluThePoet.  For booking information, please contact her at 1bluthepoet@gmail.com.

MALIKA BRYANT discovered her love of art at the age of four.  "I remember the electrifying feeling I had when I dipped my hands in paint, and so the love of art began. I became an Artist because this is what the Creator placed me here to be. I am just as passionate about being a Visual Artist as I am about teaching it to budding art students."  Malika brings art to children and adults across the DC metro area as a charter school teacher in DC, an instructor with the Arts on a Roll program through Prince George’s Parks & Rec Department, and an art teacher working with seniors at Gwendolyn Brit Senior Center.  In the summer, she is a teaching artist with Summer Camp and No School Day Camp at CREATE Arts Center in Silver Spring.

Her artwork focuses mainly on woman of color.  She works with a wide variety of materials, focusing mostly on with dry mediums like pastels, graphite pencils and conté crayons.  In 2012, Malika became the first recipient of the Gerald King Fine Art Study Award and apprenticeship, where she continued to hone her craft.  As a resident of the Hyattsville Arts District, and a member of the Hyattsville Community Arts Alliance, her work can be viewed in a number of venues in the Arts District. Her artwork, handmade greeting cards, and gourd purses are sold in shops throughout the DC area and online at www.southafricanbazaarcraftcooperative.com.

Malika is currently working on a collage of "Maat" the Kemetic (Egyptian) Goddess, and will be traveling to Egypt this August with renowned historian Anthony Browder’s 22nd Annual "Ancient Egypt: Light of the World" study tour.

EVAN KEELING, born and raised in Washington, DC, received a BFA in graphic design from the Corcoran College of Art + Design, and for the last 12 years, has been an exhibit specialist in graphics at the Smithsonian Exhibits.

Evan is also an accomplished illustrator who has worked with a variety of clients. He is a founding member of the DC Conspiracy a collective of Washington, DC area comic book artists and writers. He has been published and self-publishes comic books for print and for the web.

He is developing comic book-based programing as well as creating mini-comics for the Smithsonian as well as working with the International Indigenous Youth Council documenting their experiences during the protest at Standing Rock for websites and free zine-comic formats.

His work and downloads for the Smithsonian and IIYC comics can be found at etkeeling.tumblr.com.
http://etkeeling.tumblr.com
http://www.dcconspiracy.com

SIMONÉ A SPEED has always had a passion for the fine and performing arts. She has performed with Eubie Blake National Jazz and Cultural Center, Muse 360 Arts, Baltimore Polytechnic Institute’s Floetic Lyricists Club, Peabody’s Children’s Chorus, the Morgan State University Choir, Arena Players, and her church choirs. Simoné has studied in the music program at Morgan State University and is proud to be a Poly alumna from the class of 2013. She is excited to be working with New Generation Scholars this summer, which studies the African Diaspora, entrepreneurship, and leadership. It also focuses on radical thought and empowerment of youth through the arts and Black history. This program has established a sense pride and the need for social and political change within Simoné. With everything she does, she hopes to inspire youth to fight for equality, justice and radical thought for the advancement of those oppressed.

LISA MARIE THALHAMMER creates socio-political feminist paintings, collages, and public murals using portraiture, color, and shape. Her mission is to challenge traditional gender stereotypes by creating images that empower women, LGBTQ peoples, and communities.  With a goal to uplift her subjects through visual representation, her works also raise the consciousness of the viewer by challenging stereotypes and communicating uplifting messages. Thalhammer’s works are striking and powerful portrayals of herself and her friends. For Thalhammer, the personal is political, and her private relationships and experiences become the inspiration for public statements through the art-making process. Figures with expressive eyes and angular limbs depict poses that convey a tough femininity and progressive consciousness. Thru use of color and symbolism, Lisa Marie Thalhammer’s artworks explore the interconnectivity between all things.

Thalhammer is currently a D.C. Commission on the Art and Humanities Fellow and Public Art Building Communities grant recipient. She paints murals and exhibits her work in Washington, D.C. where she lives and works, in addition to places such as Vienna Austria, Detroit, Asbury Park, Indiana, L.A., Miami, and New York. Artnet News featured her 2009 “Boxer Girl” public art mural controversy when the D.C. police reported that her work decreased crime by 55%. The Washington Blade, the oldest LGBTQ newspaper in the USA, featured Thalhammer on the cover of their “Top 30 Under 30” issue in 2008 and nominated her Best Visual Artist in 2013. Her David Wojnarowicz protest sign appeared on the cover of the New York Times during the 2010 “Fire In My Belly” controversy, and she was pictured on the cover of the Dubois County Herald painting her Ferdinand the Bull mural in Indiana. The Washington Post Magazine September 2014 “Home and Design Issue” cover featured Thalhammer in her 52 O Street Artist Studio. Additionally, The Washington Post’s home page coverage of the 2017 Presidential Inauguration, highlighted Thalhammer’s “Strong Women LOVE” parachute created for the Women’s March on Washington.

Thalhammer was born in Florissant, Missouri, and grew up attending Catholic all-girl schools while working at her family-owned St. Louis East Truck Plaza. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and Staffordshire University in England before graduating with honors from the University of Kansas with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting. While in Kansas she also received a Women Studies Minor with an art history concentration, the Jacobs Prize, the Hollander Family Foundation Award and the Amsden Award, Daniel Macmorris Scholarship and the Werner Ferguson Service Scholarship. Lisa Marie Thalhammer has traveled to many places around the world and lives in downtown Washington, DC, at the historic O Street Artist Studios. She also teaches yoga regularly on Monday evenings at FLOW yoga at 14th and P Street, N.W., Washington,DC.


2017 DC Zinefest
Saturday, July 15, 2017
10:00 a.m.–4:30 p.m.
St. Stephen and the Incarnation Church
1525 Newton St. N.W.
Washington, DC 20010


Another animated documentary reviewed in The Post

'Harold and Lillian: A Hollywood Love Story' spotlights two moviemakers behind the marquee [in print as A charming tale whose stars weren't stars]

b
Washington Post July 14 2017, p. Weekend 26-27
online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/movies/harold-and-lillian-a-hollywood-love-story-spotlights-two-moviemakers-behind-the-marquee/2017/07/13/b79a47f8-6583-11e7-a1d7-9a32c91c6f40_story.html


A documentary about storyboard artist Harold Michelson and film researcher Lillian Michelson honors film-industry workers who toil away off-camera. Much of the story, which is told by the couple, is rendered as animated drawings including the one above. (Zeitgeist Films)

Monkey See on Spider-Man

July 15: Kevin Panetta & Paulina Ganucheau - Zodiac Starforce signings





  • Big Planet Comics of Vienna
    426 Maple Ave E, Vienna, Virginia 22180

    Zodiac Starforce finally returns, and we are proud to host our hometown heroes Kevin Panetta and Paulina Ganucheau to celebrate the launch of the second series, Cries of the Fire Prince!

    An elite group of teenage girls with magical powers have sworn to protect our planet against dark creatures... as long as they can get out of class! Known as the Zodiac Starforce, these high-school girls aren't just combating math tests--they're also battling monsters!

    After defeating a former ZS member and her mean-girl minions, the girls thought they'd get a little break! But a new big bad's come out to play, and demons are starting to overrun the downtown!

    We are also having signings at:
    Big Planet Comics of Washington DC on July 15 from 3:30 to 5
    https://www.facebook.com/events/309140282866063
    Big Planet Comics of College Park on July 22 from 1 to 2:30
    https://www.facebook.com/events/1387668691347160/

PR: Gordon Harris' First ZINE!

July 14, 2017 

Look! It's Gordon's very first zine!

16 pages of drawings, sketches and other zine-friendly goodness. And it's available tomorrow at the DC ZineFest at 1525 Newton St. NW.

Gordon will be there from 10 AM to 4:30 PM. Come on by if you're in the neighborhood. It's free.



Thursday, July 13, 2017

Mal Jones' new Kickstarter campaign


Local comics creator/illustrator Mal Jones has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund his new book, Nomencreatures, which he describes as “an alphabet book with bright animal illustrations and fun facts that focus on the silly parts of science!” 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/maljones/nomencreatures-illustrations-of-animal-groups-from?ref=thanks_share

PR: Small Press Expo Announces Special Guests for SPX 2017



For Immediate Release
Contact: Warren Bernard
Email: warren@spxpo.com
 
Small Press Expo Announces Nate Powell, Gene Yang, Jim Rugg, Gabrielle Bell, Kickily, Sloane Leong and more as Special Guests for SPX 2017
 
Bethesda, Maryland; July 13, 2017
 
Media Release - Small Press Expo is proud to announce its first slate of Special Guests for SPX 2017. The festival takes place on Saturday and Sunday, September 16-17, at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center and will have over 650 creators, 280 exhibitor tables and 22 programming slots to entertain, enlighten and introduce attendees to the amazing world of independent and small press comics.
 
SPX 2017 is honored to have the following creators as Special Guests to this year's show:

NATE POWELL is a New York Times best-selling graphic novelist born in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1978. He began self-publishing at age 14, and graduated from School of Visual Arts in 2000.

His work includes March, the graphic novel autobiography of Congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis; You Don't Say, Any Empire, Swallow Me Whole, The Silence Of Our Friends, The Year Of The Beasts, and Rick Riordan's The Lost Hero. 

He lives in Bloomington, Indiana.

GENE LUEN YANG is the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. He has written and drawn many graphic novels, including American Born Chinese, which was a National Book Award finalist, as well as the winner of the Printz Award and an Eisner Award. His graphic novel set Boxers and Saints won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He has also written for the hit comics Avatar: The Last Airbender and Superman. His latest project is the comics and coding series with Mike Holmes, Secret Coders. geneyang.comSunday only
JIM RUGG is an Eisner and Ignatz Award winning cartoonist based in Pittsburgh. His books include Street Angel, the PLAIN Janes, the Guild, Afrodisiac, and Notebook Drawings. 

Street Angel, the deadliest girl alive, is back in a series of original hardcover graphic novels from Image Comics and the creative team of Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca. In Street Angel: After School Kung Fu Special, our skateboarding heroine, Jesse Sanchez, faces a ninja bully and battles teen angst over a big school dance. In July, Jesse joins a violent team of troublemakers in the Street Angel Gang.
GABRIELLE BELL's work has been selected for Best American Comics and the Yale Anthology of Graphic Fiction, and has been featured in McSweeney's, the Believer, Bookforum, and Vice among numerous other publications. Her story, "Cecil and Jordan In New York," was turned into a film by Michel Gondry. Bell's previous graphic novel, The Voyeurs, was named one of the best books of the year by Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and the Atlantic. She currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. Find her online at gabriellebell.com. Saturday only
Photo by Jordan Guile
After graduating from the Maryland Institute College of Art, SAM BOSMA taught in the Illustration department from 2011 to 2013 before moving to Brooklyn, NY. At SPX 2016, his first volume of Fantasy Sports won the Ignatz Award for Outstanding Comic! He currently does background drawings for Steven Universe on Cartoon Network when not creating comics and graphic novels. He lives in Los Angeles, California.
KICKLIY is the creator of the critically acclaimed Musnet series of books. The Musnet books follow the all-ages adventures of a certain poor Mus Musculous (a common field mouse, for those of you that don't speak Latin) on his quest to become the greatest mouse painter that ever was. 

Musnet was nominated for the 2017 Prix Angouleme for Kids Comics. Kickliy is also an accomplished oil painter. He lives somewhere between Minneapolis and Giverny.
SLOANE LEONG is a cartoonist currently living in Portland, Oregon who has worked for Image Comics, Dark Horse, Cartoon Network and more. Her Ignatz-nominated short comic, A Map to the Sun, will be expanded into a graphic novel and will be published by First Second in 2019. Sloane Leong's newest comic, A Hollowing, is a lean grim story about a young girl and her horse, the breaking down of performed domesticity and the realization of the horrors of the body.
GILBERT HERNANDEZ is co-creator of the long-running, award-winning, and critically acclaimed series Love and Rockets, which in 2017 celebrates its 35th Anniversary. His books include Marbles, Bumperhead, Luba, Palomar, Speak of the Devil,Love from the Shadows and Girl Crazy. This year, Hernandez designed clothing based on his Love and Rockets characters for men and women available at Pinup Girl.

KEITH KNIGHT,winner of the Glyph, Harvey, and Inkpot Awards, is a spectacular cartoonist whose Knight Life comic strip is read nationwide in such newspapers as the Washington Post. Keef's funny yet hard-hitting cartoons in his series (T)hink and The K Chronicles led him to be named one of the 2015 NAACP History Makers. Knight is the illustrator of the critically acclaimed tween book, Jake the Fake Keeps It RealHe also has a new collection of Knight Life strips called the Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Behind. 

Born in Palo Alto and raised in Nashville, award-winning, New-York-Times-bestselling illustrator JANET LEE is best known for her decoupage art technique. Self-taught, Lee has been drawing comics since she was old enough to hold a pencil. After working for more than a decade at the business end of publishing, Lee received her big break with the publication of Return of the Dapper Men. Since then, she has illustrated close to a dozen different books and anthologies. This year, Return of the Dapper Men returns in a new deluxe edition from Top Shelf Productions. Lee still lives and works in Nashville, in a house filled with one husband, one son, two dogs, and four very bad cats.
JIM MCCANN is an award-winning writer of comic books, television, and theatre. He wrote several critically acclaimed Marvel Hawkeye series before branching out into creating his own comics and graphic novels, as well as other projects. His first graphic novel, Return of the Dapper Men, won the Eisner Award for Best Original Graphic Album. He has since gone on to create hit series such as the space-heist Lost Vegas and the ongoing top-rated series Mind the Gap, both published through Image Comics. This year, Return of the Dapper Men returns in a new deluxe edition from Top Shelf Productions.
In the next few weeks, SPX will announce additional guests, special events, the 2017 Ignatz nominees and a full slate of programming.
 
Small Press Expo (SPX) is the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comics, graphic novels, and alternative political cartoons. SPX is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit that brings together more than 650 artists and publishers to meet their readers, booksellers, and distributors each year. Graphic novels, mini comics, and alternative comics will all be on display and for sale by their authors and illustrators. The expo includes a series of panel discussions and interviews with this year's guests.
 
The Ignatz Award is a festival prize held every year at SPX recognizing outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning, with the winners chosen by attendees at the show.

As in previous years, profits from the SPX will go to support the SPX Graphic Novel Gift Program, which funds graphic novel purchases for public and academic libraries, as well as the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF), which protects the First Amendment rights of comic book readers and professionals. For more information on the CBLDF, visit their website at http://www.cbldf.org. For more information on the Small Press Expo, please visit http://www.smallpressexpo.com.



More on NPR's summer comics poll

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

The Post on cooking comics

Local cartoonist Robin Ha is featured, but the Post seems to have forgotten that it used to run a cooking comic strip for years - Cheap Thrills Cuisine by Bill Lombardo and Thach Bui - see its introduction at https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/food/1993/06/30/and-now-for-a-little-comic-relief/5defeca9-290f-4274-a9ef-a79d65a10ec4/

Some of the newest cookbooks look like comics. But does that work for readers? [in print as Is this the way we want to cook now?]
By Charlotte Druckman
Washington Post July 12 2017, p. E1, 6

A brief history of graphic cookbooks


Washington Post July 12 2017, p. E6
online at https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/a-brief-history-of-graphic-cookbooks/2017/07/10/96bcd410-61be-11e7-a4f7-af34fc1d9d39_story.html

NPR on 100 top comics

Dave Miller's The Frankenstein Zombie comic book campaign


https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-frankenstein-zombie-comic-book-series-horror-literature#/

The Secret History of the Frankenstein Monster is revealed when he becomes humanity's unlikely ally as the dead rise from the grave to feast on the living. I've always wanted a Frankenstein series that is representative of the character written by Mary Shelly. One of the great myth creations of literature. JK Rowling isn't the only English, female fantasy writer that created an enduring horror icon.

July 28 - Aug 12: King Kirby play in MD


King Kirby

By Crystal Skillman & Fred Van Lente

 http://offthequill.org/productions/king-kirby/

Directed by: William Cassidy

 

For over 50 years, Jack Kirby was the driving force behind the most iconic comic book characters in American pop culture.

 

This is the story of the work that made the marvels.

 

At The Greenbelt Arts Center

 

Purchase Tickets HERE

 

July 28 – August 12

 

Cast:

Jack Kirby – Josh Mooney

Stan Lee    –  Erik Harrison

Joe Simon –  Michael J. Dombroski

Roz Kirby  –   Jenny Oberholtzer

Ensemble –   Brett Cassidy

Melissa Robinson

Sean Eustis

Jonathan Palmer

Enoch Wilson

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

PR: Small Press Expo Announces Special Guests for SPX 2017


For Immediate Release
Contact: Warren Bernard
Email: warren@spxpo.com
 
Small Press Expo Announces Jillian Tamaki, Eleanor Davis, Emil Ferris, Ann Telnaes, Tillie Walden and Others as Special Guests for SPX 2017
 
Bethesda, Maryland; July 11, 2017
 
Media Release - Small Press Expo is proud to announce its first slate of Special Guests for SPX 2017. The festival takes place on Saturday and Sunday, September 16-17, at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center and will have over 650 creators, 280 exhibitor tables and 22 programming slots to entertain, enlighten and introduce attendees to the amazing world of independent and small press comics.
 
SPX 2017 is honored to have the following creators as Special Guests to this year's show:
JILLIAN TAMAKI is an illustrator and cartoonist based in Toronto. She is the co-creator along with her cousin Mariko Tamaki of the graphic novel Skim, a New York Times Best Illustrated Book and a finalist for the Governor General's Award. Their second graphic novel This One Summer earned a Governor General's Award and a Caldecott Honor. Tamaki's first collection of her own comics was the critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller and Eisner Award-winning SuperMutant Magic Academy. Jillian will be at SPX to sign her latest book, Boundless.
ELEANOR DAVIS is a cartoonist and illustrator living in Athens, GA. In 2009, Davis won the Eisner Award's Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award and was also named one of Print magazine's New Visual Artists. In 2013, her short story In Our Eden received a gold medal from the Society of Illustrators. In 2015, her book How To Be Happy won the Ignatz Award for Outstanding Anthology or Collection. Her latest book from Koyama Press is You & A Bike & A Road.
EMIL FERRIS will be making a rare East Coast appearance in support of her debut graphic novel, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters from Fantagraphics, that has taken the reading world by storm. The richly textured story follows a young girl obsessed with monsters, as she investigates the murder of her neighbor. Along the way the book explores politics, art, history, race, family and more in one of the most original and rewarding graphic novels. Emil has an MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago and in 2010, Ferris was made a Toby Devan Lewis Fellow in the Visual Arts.
TILLIE WALDEN is a two-time Ignatz Award–winning cartoonist from Austin, Texas. Born in 1996, she is a recent graduate from the Center for Cartoon Studies, a comics school in Vermont. Her comics include The End of Summer and I Love This Part, an Eisner Award nominee. Spinning, her autobiographical graphic novel about her days as a competitive ice skater, will debut at SPX.
ANN TELNAES creates editorial cartoons in various mediums- animation, visual essays, live sketches, and traditional print- for the Washington Post.  She is the 2016 recipient of the National Cartoonists Society Reuben for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year and won the Pulitzer winner for editorial cartooning in 2001.  Ann has an upcoming book "Trump's ABC" with Fantagraphics publishing and her images, which are licensed by Cartoonist Group Licensing, may be found on merchandise at Amazon.com.
HANNAH K. LEE resides in Brooklyn, where she works as a commercial illustrator, letterer, and designer and is a regular self-publisher of zines and art books, which contain personal work and experiments in letterforms and production. She was born to Korean immigrants and raised in the suburbs of Los Angeles, CA. She received a BFA in illustration at Parsons School of Design. Here first book, Language Barrier from Koyama press, will debut at SPX.
MATT WUERKER is the staff cartoonist for POLITICO.COM, providing editorial cartoons, illustrations, caricatures and Web animations for both the print and Web platforms of the publication. Matt won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning  in 2012.  In 2010 he was awarded the Herblock Prize at the Library of Congress and later that year won the National Press Foundation's Berryman Award.
MICHAEL DEFORGE: Michael DeForge was born in 1987 and grew up in Ottawa, Ontario. His one-person anthology series Lose has been nominated for, or won, every major comics award including the Ignatz and Eisner awards. His previous graphic novels with Drawn & Quarterly are Ant Colony, Big Kids, and First Year Healthy. His most recent book is Sticks Angelica, Folk Hero. Photo courtesy Mathew James-Wilson.
ETHAN RILLY is a cartoonist and illustrator from Toronto. His one-man anthology comic series Pope Hats, from AdHouse Books, has received Doug Wright, Ignatz, and Joe Shuster awards as well as Eisner award nominations. He has illustrated for Slate, HarperCollins, Complex, Wired, Chronicle Books, The Walrus and The Believer. His latest is the long-awaited Pope Hats #5. Ethan now lives in Montreal with his wife and brown dog.
SHANNON WHEELER is an award-winning cartoonist best known as the creator of the satirical superhero Too Much Coffee Man. He has also created the strip Postage Stamp Funnies for The Onion and frequently contributes cartoons to The New Yorker. With writer Mark Russell, he co-created the acclaimed book God Is Disappointed in You (a tongue-in-cheek retelling of the Bible) and its sequel Apocrypha Now. In his latest book form Top Shelf, Sh*t My President Says: The Illustrated Tweets of Donald J. Trump, Wheeler tackles the 140-character president.
ALEXIS ZIRITT is originally from Venezuela but has lived in Florida for the past decade. He's been published in Complex Magazine, Heavy Metal, BOOM! Studios, Image Comics, Black Mask Studios, Adhouse Books and Dark Horse Comics among others. He is the Co-Creator of Space Riders and Tarantula, from Adhouse Books.
CHRIS KIM is a graduate of OCAD University in Toronto, his clients include The New York Times and The Hollywood Reporter, among others. He regularly posts illustrations and short stories at chriswkim.com. His first graphic novel, Herman by Trade, is published by SelfMadeHero and will be available at SPX 2017.
In the next few weeks, SPX will announce additional guests, special events, the 2017 Ignatz nominees and a full slate of programming.
 
Small Press Expo (SPX) is the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comics, graphic novels, and alternative political cartoons. SPX is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit that brings together more than 650 artists and publishers to meet their readers, booksellers, and distributors each year. Graphic novels, mini comics, and alternative comics will all be on display and for sale by their authors and illustrators. The expo includes a series of panel discussions and interviews with this year's guests.
 
The Ignatz Award is a festival prize held every year at SPX recognizing outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning, with the winners chosen by attendees at the show.

As in previous years, profits from the SPX will go to support the SPX Graphic Novel Gift Program, which funds graphic novel purchases for public and academic libraries, as well as the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF), which protects the First Amendment rights of comic book readers and professionals. For more information on the CBLDF, visit their website at http://www.cbldf.org. For more information on the Small Press Expo, please visit http://www.smallpressexpo.com.