Telling Feminist Histories With Comics

Thursday, March 31, 2016
7–9pm

How is telling feminist histories aided through the use of comix? How do comix as a medium support healing, processing and exploration? This exciting evening will feature a panel of five amazing comic artists, moderated by Our Comics, Ourselves Exhibition co-organizers, Jan Descartes and Monica McKelvey Johnson. Each artist, working with histories in different capacities, will present their work and will enter a moderated discussion regarding the power and importance of using comix to tell feminist histories, as opposed to other mediums and genres. This moderated discussion will be followed by a Q&A.
Elvis B.
Hazel Newlevant
Emily S. [a.k.a. Roxy]
Whit Taylor
Maggie Thrash
Moderators:
Jan Descartes & Monica McKelvey Johnson
This presentation is part of the programming for Our Comics, Ourselves: Identity, Expression, and Representation in Comic Art on view from January 21-April 17, 2016.
 
Panelist Bios:
Elvis B. is a brooklyn-based fellow who makes the “Homos in Herstory” zine series. They co-founded the NYC Feminist Zinefest, and have given talks about how cool zines are at many high schools & colleges.
Hazel Newlevant is a Portland-raised, Queens-residing cartoonist. She writes biographical and autobiographical comics about queerness, race, music, and being a woman. She is the creator of the comics If This Be Sin and No Ivy League, and the editor of Chainmail Bikini: The Anthology of Women Gamers. Her work has been honored with the Xeric Grant and the Prism Comics Queer Press Grant.
Emily S (aka Roxy) is the co-creator of heartlandcomic currently a web comic where she spills all of her juicy awkward and sometimes painful tales of growing up in the heartland. Emily lives in Chicago.
Whit Taylor is a cartoonist, editor, and writer from New Jersey. She received a Glyph Award and two nominations for her autobiographical comics Watermelon (2012) and Boxes (2014), as well as an Ignatz nomination for her miniseries Madtown High (2013). Some of her latest works include The Anthropologists (Sparkplug Books), which was selected as a Notable Comic for Best American Comics 2015, Ghost (self-published), and SubCultures: A Comics Anthology (editor, Ninth Art Press). Whit has also written about small press comics for Panel Patter, The Comics Journal, The Tiny Report, Nat Brut, and Comics Workbook Magazine.
For more on Whit Taylor see http://www.whittaylorcomics.com/
Maggie Thrash is a staff writer for Rookie, a popular online magazine for teenage girls. Honor Girl is her first book. She lives in Delaware.