Thank you to our amazing 2024 Exhibitors! Click on their names to see their work!
| Table | Exhibitor | Bio |
|---|---|---|
| HQ4 | Mastafran Comics | Ryan Francis is an Joliet cartoonist and animator who loves drawing animals being cute and cool. |
| HQ4 | The Kao | The Kao is Vincent Kao, a queer Taiwanese American illustrator and comic artist known for his slice-of-life web series, Mondo Mango, and the Prism Award-winning & GLAAD nominated graphic novel, Magical Boy! Stop by his table for signed books and fun trinkets like coins and pins, all related to his work. |
| HQ4 | Maurice Buckley | Maurice Buckley is an illustrator and educator. He received his BFA at Alfred University in 2013. Since then he's been teaching art all around New York City and most recently in Chicago, through organizations such as The Art Student's League of New York, Doing Art Together and Marwen. In addition to teaching, he works from home as a freelance artist. He uploads educational videos on youtube for artists of all levels. He currently resides in Chicago and is working on his creator owned work. |
| HQ4 | Kelsey Borch | My name is Kelsey, known as Charfie to some. I love to draw, which is why you're here. My passions include talking to dogs, imagining all the little critters, reading visual novels, and being a rapscallion. If you have read Umineko, please email me immediately. |
| 101A | Sober Rabbit | Whitney Wasson (they/them) is a multidisciplinary artist and performer, originally from Fort Smith, Arkansas. A standup comedian who produced a slew of shows, performed at dozens of comedy festivals across the country, and made thirties of dollars, Whitney got hit in the crosswalk by a distracted driver at the end of 2019. They then became a sitdown comedian and then a stay-at-home comedian during 2020. They're now mostly a cartoonist and were chosen by Chicago Reader's Best of Chicago polls for Best Zine in 2022 and 2023. |
| 101B | Avery Chang | Hello! My name is Avery Chang. I am a 28 year old Asian American trans nonbinary self taught artist. I am a self-published mixed media artist. I have dabbled in many mediums such as traditional/digital illustration comics, 3D forms, mural Design and upcycled clothing and plushies. Through these projects I have explored many topics such as: queerness/transness/othered bodies, mental health, working towards sustainability and mutual aid, desirability politics and general playfulness. In my Queer Trans paranormal pin-up illustration comic series, as well as other illustrational projects, I explored diverse queer bodies in otherworldly environments invoking curiosity + playfulness for cryptids and othered bodies. One of my goals is to explore and reclaim the fear associated with otheredness and celebrate queer joy. |
| 102A | DesignNurd | Hi, I’m a Queer 1st-generation Mexican-American multidisciplinary artist who self-published the books 1963 Is Not an End But A Beginning: A Graphic History, Daddy Issues magazine, Hard Femme EX-MEN, Hell Babes, Piss and the City, and Misanthrisus. My work has been featured in various anthologies and zines. I also sell prints, t-shirts, and stickers. I have shown art & performed in Paris, New York City, Mexico City, Hollywood, Providence & San Francisco. I table at 3 or more conventions a year. I have taught art, crafts, design, fashion, and makeup at Apple, Google, Tinder, Notre Dame High School, Thurgood Marshall High School, City College of San Francisco, and California College of the Arts. You can find me across social media @DesignNurd or check out DiegoDiegoDiego.com |
| 102B | Hoofprint | We are collaborative printers based in Chicago. We work with artists who like to draw. The processes we use—lithography, relief, etching and screenprinting (and now graphic ceramic techniques!)—extend new possibilities to preserve and transform the artist’s marks. Creating multiples allows us to sell the original work we produce at an affordable price. Print partners Liz Born and Gabe Hoare founded Hoofprint in 2012. |
| 103A | Molly Colleen O'Connell | MOLLY COLLEEN O’CONNELL (b. 1986) based in Berwyn, IL. MCO's work is telling stories, often synthesizing fantasy and personal history. She uses the language of cartooning in combination with diverse techniques and materials such as ceramics, painting, poetry, candle making, felting, airbrush, puppetry, and papier-mâché to construct vibrant and immersive installations, comedic performances and narrative books. |
| 103B | Still Vreni | Vreni is a cartoonist and illustrator living in Queens. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Washington Post, and NPR. She has one cat and one husband. |
| 104A | Penina Gal | Penina Gal is a cartoonist, illustrator, painter, and graphic designer. Originally from New York City, they currently live in Providence, RI with their spouse, three cats, and a goofy dog. Penina won a SPACE Prize in 2014 for best minicomic (Limp Wrist, published by Paper Rocket Minicomics, in collaboration with Tiffany St. Bunny). Their comics and illustration work has been published in Cicada Magazine, Narratively, Seven Days, Limestone Post, and a variety of comics anthologies. |
| 104B | Betsey Swardlick | Betsey Swardlick is a Providence, RI cartoonist with bros in different area codes. |
| 105A | Maritsa Patrinos | Maritsa Patrinos is a Brooklyn-based illustrator and comics-maker. She is currently a Syndicated
Cartoonist for the comic strip "Six Chix," an all-female anthology strip published by King Features, and an adjunct professor in the Illustration department at The New School in New York. Among her notable works is the illustrated (and reversible) book titled "Common Blessings Common Curses," a light-hearted book that humorously outlines the minor ups and downs of everyday life. Maritsa has received two Ignatz nominations from the Small Press Expo, a silver medal from the Society of Illustrators, and a MICE mini-grant for her self-published zines. Originally hailing from Washington D.C., Maritsa graduated from Pratt Institute in 2010. |
| 105B | Elk Paauw | Elk Paauw here, sailor cum nomadic comics artist and queer transdude. I’m a PhD candidate at the University of Western Ontario in Theory and Criticism, where my thesis research is in the form of a comic and touches on issues of the subject through time as portrayed in trans graphics. I also moonlight as an adjunct professor at Fanshawe College and Western University teaching film and trans studies. I write diary comics and travelogue as well as on theory. |
| 106A | Entropy Editions | Entropy Editions is a Minneapolis-based comics micro-publisher founded in 2018. Focusing on a mixture of narrative & experimental comics produced with a unifying design theme, our goal is to provide readers an accessible means by which to discover work by artists in both the domestic & international small-press comics community. |
| 106B | Solomon Brager | Solomon J Brager is the author of Heavyweight [William Morrow 2024] and a 2023-2025 Jerome Hill Artists Fellow. Their comics and research have appeared in The Nib, Jewish Currents, and World War 3 Illustrated, the International Journal of Communication, The Holocaust in History and Memory, Pinko Magazine, Refract Journal, Art Forum, and The New Inquiry, among other publications. |
| 107A | Andrea Rosales | Andrea is a 3rd-generation Mexican-American comics artist and graphic designer based in Portland, Oregon. She crafts her original pan dulce character themed artwork and sells it in her online store, Good Walrus Goods (goodwalrusgoods.com) and has had her comics published in The Pub Crawl Anthology (Bad Neighbor Comics), Cuentos (Creatively Queer Press), Mañana: Latinx Comics from the 25th Century (Power & Magic Press), Insider-Art (Off-Register Press) and in Cthulhu is Hard To Spell Vol. 3 ( Wannabee Press), Here And There: A Ukraine Benefit Anthology among other anthology projects and webcomics. In 2022 she was selected as an artist for the DC Comics / Milestone Initiative talent development program and recently had her work published in the pages of DC New Talent Showcase : The Milestone Initiative #1 and in the successfully funded Kickstarter comic Gamer Girl & Vixen Vol. 2: Tyrant Lizard Queen. Pride in identity is an important theme in her work. |
| 107B | Eve | Eve is a nature based zine artist who's passion drives from their fascination with the natural world. They hope to share their nature discoveries of the plants, animals, and biomes all around us to inspire a love for nature with their readers through artful zines. In addition to a lover of nature, Eve is also a stamp collector, coin collector and license plate fanatic. Their personal interests in the slices of joy they find also make their way into their zines. They hope to share their little slice of the world with readers like you! |
| 108A | Sam Cleggett | Sam Cleggett is a Boston-based cartoonist who brings ecology and art history to life with fantasy action-comedy. |
| 108B | Lily (Basil) MacLachlan | Lily (Basil) MacLachlan is a recent graduate of SAIC, and a student of the world. ^_^ They are a comics and fibers artist based in Chicago. Their work includes riso zines, prints, and comics, and deals with themes such as taboo, death, memory, queer sexuality, mental health and personal narratives. |
| 109 | Zine Hug | Zine Hug is a micropress run by Alex Barsky and Zack Lydon, publishing zines, comics, and animation. We are based out of Seattle, WA and use a risograph printer to print all of our work. There is a connection between comics and animation and we love to criss-cross between those mediums. |
| 110A | Jacinto Gonzalez | Born in Hayward, California, to immigrant parents from Jalisco, Mexico, I navigated the challenges of the American dream amidst cultural shock and language barriers. Growing up in Chicago's Mexican immigrant community, I embraced the importance of family and the art of storytelling. Inspired by my uncles, who were gamers, artists, and comedians, I found solace in fantasy and art during an awkward and isolated childhood. High school introduced me to my now-wife, and our journey from a memorable homecoming to navigating life's ups and downs has made us inseparable. A brief stint in the US Air Force inspired my first comic, which led to nationwide travels up until 2020, which was marked by the pandemic and a personal loss. We welcomed our rainbow, our daughter, a year later, adapting to the new normal. Alongside obtaining a bachelor's in digital media and design, I am pursuing my MLIS while aspiring to be a children's book illustrator. |
| 110B | Ree Artemisa | Ree Artemisa is a self taught Chicana artist. Her work focuses on themes of community, her heritage, BIPOC enjoying nature and LGBTQIA representation. They currently live and work in the rural Sonoran desert. |
| 111 | Beth Hetland | Beth Hetland a cartoonist and educator. Her newest book, Tender, is a psychological thriller and body horror out from Fantagraphics. She also makes a variety of comics with her BFF and collaborator, Kyle O'Connell. |
| 111 | Kyle O'Connell | Kyle O'Connell may be at CAKE. |
| 112A | Landis Blair | Landis Blair is the author and illustrator of The Night Tent, Vers le Sud, and The Envious Siblings: and Other Morbid Nursery Rhymes, as well as the illustrator of the New York Times bestseller From Here to Eternity, by Caitlin Doughty and the graphic novel The Hunting Accident, by David Carlson which won the 2021 Fauve d’Or and the 2020 Quai des Bulles prize. His illustrations have appeared in numerous print and online periodicals including The New Yorker, the New York Times, Chicago magazine, VQR, and Atlas Obscura. He lives in Chicago. |
| 112B | Karl Stevens | Karl Stevens is a regular contributor to the New Yorker, and the author of 8 graphic novels including PENNY: A GRAPHIC MEMOIR (2021, Chronicle Books) which David Sedaris promoted on his Fall 2022, and 2023 book tours, and recently MOTHER NATURE (2023, Titan Comics) his graphic novel collaboration with Academy Award Winner Jamie Lee Curtis. |
| 113A | Eddie Campbell | Eddie Campbell is a Scottish comics artist and writer now living in Chicago. Probably best known as the illustrator of From Hell (written by Alan Moore), Campbell is also the creator of the semi-autobiographical Alec stories collected in Alec: The Years Have Pants, and Bacchus, a wry adventure series about some of the Greek gods surviving to the present day. The Fate of the Artist, in which the author investigates his own murder (recently updated along with a sequel, The Second Fake Death of Eddie Campbell by Eddie Campbell) and The Lovely Horrible Stuff, an investigation of our relationship with money, are also among his graphic novels. A Disease of Language is a collaboration with Alan Moore, The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountain is with Neil Gaiman and in Bizarre Romance Eddie turns the short stories of his wife, Audrey Niffenegger, into comics. Eddie is also a historian of cartooning and comics; the Goat Getters is his first large scale work in this field. |
| 113A | Audrey Niffenegger | Audrey Niffenegger is a writer and visual artist. Her novels The Time Traveler’s Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry were international bestsellers. Her graphic novels include The Night Bookmobile and Raven Girl. The Time Traveler’s Wife has been adapted into an HBO TV series by Steven Moffat. She spent eleven years working on the The Other Husband, the sequel to The Time Traveler’s Wife. During that period she met and married the graphic novelist Eddie Campbell. They collaborated on a collection of graphic short stories, Bizarre Romance, in 2018. They live in Chicago with their cats, Alice, Sylvie, and Rory, and an increasingly unmanageable collection of odd books. Ms. Niffenegger has been involved in the book arts for almost forty years. She recently founded a new Chicago literary and book arts center, Artists Book House. Along with her friends and supporters she hopes to welcome readers, writers, and artists to this new haven for book arts in 2025. |
| 113B | Tess Eneli Reid | Tess Eneli Reid is a Toronto-based comic artist and book maker. They’ve been making and exhibiting their comics for a decade, and they prioritize self-publishing fun comic forms and lush melodrama. Tess has been featured in the anthologies Wayward Kindred, Called Into Being, and the Ignatz-award winning Shades of Fear. |
| 114A | Barbara Guttman | Barbara draws comics about monsters and living with your questionable decisions. She subsists almost entire on tea in Minneapolis. |
| 114B | Simon Reinhardt | Simon Reinhardt is a cartoonist and educator based in Rockford, Illinois. His work is grounded in the practice of automatic drawing. |
| 115A | Evan M Cohen | Evan M. Cohen is an illustrator and comic artist living in the Midwest. His work deals with the human experience told through sequential comic art and colorful imagery. He is the illustrator for Hudson Valley Brewery in NY. His clients include the New York Times, Washington Post, and the New Yorker and has worked with bands such as Phish and The National. |
| 115B | Quinn C Amacher | Quinn C Amacher (Am'-occur) is a Cartoonist. She was born in a system hostile to vulnerability and life. Her comics are like windows you can climb through or like something you really want to put in your mouth. She is the author of SYNCING (Secret Room Press, 2023) is currently working on a new solo-anthology, FROLIC, and is a contributing artist to Portland State University's comics ethnography of student homelessness, Changing The Narrative (Street Roots, 2022-2024). |
| 116A | Cyprien A. Morin | Cyprien A. Morin is a comic artist and illustrator who is passionate about risography! He loves cats, campy fight scenes, and nature. |
| 117 | Print Ninja | PrintNinja is a custom printing company offering affordable, high-quality offset printing. They are a long-time sponsor of CAKE. |
| 118A | tommi parrish | Tommi Parrish (b. 1989, Melbourne) is a trans Australian cartoonist and painter living in Western Massachusetts. Their debut work,The Lie and How We Told It, won the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for the best LGBTQ graphic novel, was nominated for the Ignatz award, was featured in many best of lists, and translated into 11 languages worldwide. |
| 118B | Gina Wynbrandt | Gina Wynbrandt is an artist living in Chicago. Her work has been featured at The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, printed in The Best American Comics, nominated for two Ignatz awards, and translated into Danish, Norwegian, and Spanish. |
| 119A | Bianca Brandolino | The majority of Bianca's creative work is derived from their own human experiences; acting as an invitation to discuss fat acceptance, mental illness, healing from trauma, gender identity, and finding the silver linings that keeps one going on the daily. Refusing to limit themself to one medium- they explore many forms of creation but find that quilting, use of fabric, and narrative zine story telling have been continuous creative threads that they’ve followed. |
| 119B | Muchen Wang | Born and raised in a small city in the middle of China, Wang moved to Chicago in 2014 to pursue her art career. Her work is characterized by an abiding love, both for her drawings and for the world around her. Even in her critiques of society, love remains the driving force that sustains her passion and creativity. With her art having been exhibited across the globe, Wang brings a unique perspective to her work. Her story, her love, and her authenticity are a powerful addition and serve as a reminder of the universal appeal of art as a means of expression and connection. |
| 119B | Adele Tamae | |
| 120A | Isabella Rotman | Isabella Rotman is a cartoonist and illustrator from Maine. Her art is usually about the ocean, women, crushing loneliness, people in the woods, or sex. |
| 120B | Rosalarian | Ro Salarian is a nonbinary writer and artist who began making webcomics in the early 00s, and broke into print with I Was Kidnapped by Lesbian Pirates from Outer Space and the recently completed Spectacle series. They were nominated for an Eisner Award for their short story TransPlant, and have had work featured in various anthologies from publishers like Strawberry Comics and Iron Circus Comics, as well as their own self published works. When not making books, they are a burlesque performer, cheese expert, textile designer, and pretty decent cook. They live in Michigan with their partner and cats in a house with a secret room and a spooky pit in the basement. They are represented by Desiree Wilson of Looking Glass Lit. |
| 121A | Caitlin Cass | Caitlin Cass makes comics about failing systems and irrational hope. Her book Suffrage Song: The Haunted History of Gender, Race and Voting Rights in the U.S. was published by Fantagraphics in June 2024. She has been self-publishing a bimonthly comic periodical called the "Great" Moments in Western Civilization Postal Consituent for 13 years. Her work has also appeared in The New Yorker, The Lily and The Nib. Caitlin lives and works in Omaha, NE and teaches comics at The University of Nebraska Omaha. |
| 121B | Katya Granger | Katya Granger is a cartoonist who grew up all over the world, but currently resides in Illinois. She has been noted for her cute, expressive art style and her sincerity and humor in her comics. |
| 122A | Emily Kardamis | Emily Kardamis (she/her) is a Chicago-based artist and merry prankster, originally hailing from Cleveland, Ohio. Her primary works, "Steamed Veggies" and "About", are autobiographical comics that frequently discuss the nuances of life and mental health. She recently collaborated with Kevin Sciretta on a comic series for the podcast Hello From the Magic Tavern, "The Lost Adventures of Dripfang," available on the Magic Tavern Patreon. She has also created art for folks like Jackbox Games, Hey Riddle Riddle, and The McElroy Family, and has been published in Cleveland Scene magazine. |
| 122B | King Ray | King Ray is an Ignatz-nominated cartoonist and writer living in White River Junction, VT. Their work addresses identity and modern anxieties, often within horror or poetry comics. Some of their work includes Phonestoned, for which they got their Ignatz nomination, the MICE mini-grant awardee The House Was Vile, and Scenes from Transition. King received their MFA from the Center for Cartoon Studies in 2023. They also teach and run The Gutter, a monthly comics newsletter. They love hiking with their dog and collecting far too much tea. |
| 123A | Connor Setschulte | |
| 123B | Marnie Galloway | Marnie Galloway is an cartoonist and artist best known for her Xeric Award winning wordless graphic novel "In the Sounds and Seas," as well as the comics "Burrow," "Particle/Wave," and "Slightly Plural." Her comics have appeared in Best American Comics, The New York Times, PEN America, Mutha Magazine, Saveur Magazine, and Ask Magazine, where she worked as staff cartoonist for 9 years. She formerly served as an organizer of the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo, and is currently teaching comics at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and working on her next graphic novel. For more information, visit https://www.marnie-galloway.com |
| 124A | Cathy G. Johnson | Cathy G. Johnson is an award-winning cartoonist, printmaker and educator from Providence, Rhode Island, occupied Wampanoag and Narragansett land. She makes comics, prints, paintings, drawings and zines. Her graphic novels include ‘Jeremiah’ (2015), ‘Gorgeous’ (2016) and ‘The Breakaways’ (2019), in addition to self-published works. Her comic ‘Black Hole Heart’ was self-published in 2020 and won an Ignatz Award. Her next graphic novel, titled ‘Charger County,’ is currently being serialized on ChargerCounty.com. She is also a printmaker, handmaking her work at Binch Press x Queer Archive Work, a cooperative printmaking studio centering queer/trans artists and artists of color. In addition to her artwork, she is also an educator and scholar. She teaches comic workshops throughout New England and is a thesis professor in the MFA Visual Narrative program at Boston University College of Fine Arts. Learn more on her education website ComicArtEd.com. |
| 124B | Jessi Zabarsky | Jessi Zabarsky is a cartoonist and illustrator living in Chicago. She makes comics about small journeys and big feelings, with queer themes and folksy environments. Her first two graphic novels, 'Witchlight' and 'Coming Back', were published by Random House Graphic, and she’s previously worked with Czap Books, Iron Circus Comics, and Shortbox. She has stopped counting her house plants, because there are now far too many. |
| 125 | Karen Czap | K Czap is an Ignatz Award-nominated cartoonist, author of Fütchi Perf and Four Years. Their coloring work can be found in The Breakaways, Freestyle, BUNT!, and more. Czap operates out of Providence, RI as a member of the Binch Press / Queer Archive Works studio co-op. |
| 126A | Carolina Hicks (perra press) | Carolina Hicks (b. 1991) is a California-Colombian multidisciplinary artist, illustrator, writer, and DIY publisher born and based in Los Angeles. She has been tabling at independent publishing festivals since 2013. She has taught experimental drawing at Otis College of Art & Design and a zine-making practicum at CalArts. She is a certified ADS (Acupuncture Detox Specialist in the NADA protocol) who strongly believes that being alive is very intense. Earth is her favorite planet. |
| 126B | Maggie Umber | Maggie Umber paints, prints, and programs graphic novels and zines. She's published three graphic novels — Sound of Snow Falling, Time Capsule, and 270° — and her work has been widely anthologized. |
| 127A | Andrew Misisco | Andrew is a fantasy illustrator, worldbuilder, and game developer known for his ability to bring magical realms and captivating stories to life. He is best known for his illustrated novel, 'Codex Mysteria,' which serves as an entrancing guide to the mystical fae of Aclion. Andrew is also the creative force behind the immersive YouTube series, Aclion Chronicles, that further explores the fantastical realm. Currently, his focus lies on his newest project 'Subterranean Fightin’ Freaks,' a TTRPG that lets you play mutants living under the city streets of Chicago after an earthquake shakes things up. |
| 127B | Sean Dove | Sean Dove is a cartoonist known for his work on projects such as Godzilla Rivals: Biollante vs. Destoroyah, The Last Days of Danger, Madballs, Fried Rice, and Co-creating Brobots at Oni Press. He also illustrated the riot-inciting McDonald's Szechuan Poster, inspired by the acclaimed cartoon Rick and Morty. Born in Hawaii in 1979 and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Sean now calls Chicago home, where he resides with his wife and daughter. |
| 128A | CRAM books | CRAM books is a risograph publisher ran by Andrew Alexander based in Brooklyn making fun, sad and honest art books. Since their beginning in late 2021, they have published half a dozen comics, zines and art objects ranging from a 120-page perfect bound book to a 10-foot accordion codex. All CRAM books are made by hand with the hope that they will decay from loving use. CRAM Comics #1: Relic Crafting for Future Trawlers was nominated for a 2023 Ignatz Award for Best Anthology. |
| 128A | Swayam Parekh | Swayam Parekh is an illustrator
from Bombay, India based in Brooklyn, New York. Swayam works primarily with traditional materials and loves to draw a little bit of everything, especially animals and nature. Her work tends to explore themes of adventure, connection to oneself and dreamstates. When not drawing, she's probably reading comics and attempting to take care of her plants. |
| 128B | Frannie Miller | Hi, I’m Frannie–an artist and designer from Chicago. I spent my Orthodox Jewish upbringing immersed in the visual language of letters, superstition, and folklore, and I try to infuse that point of view in my work. My autobiographical work explores themes of queerness, religion, and diasporic identity. I also love to draw queer fantasy and science fiction. I have a job teaching people how to be creative with technology in libraries and schools, and spend my free time with my sassy pittie Tildie. |
| 129A | Stefani Vlusha | Stefani is a comic artist and a writer. Growing up struggling to communicate, art became the breach between what they struggled to say and their peers. They create work exploring relationships, alternating reality, and the conflict with staying grounded in the ever-changing definition of self, believing that horror is the most forgiving tool for these explorations. |
| 129A | Dhurata Mehmetaj | Dhurata is a baltimore-based illustrator, animator, and designer whose work revolves around human connections, fun, and expression. Dhurata loves designing characters that extend beyond traditional design tropes and turn them on their heads. |
| 130A | Agitator Artist Collective | Agitator Artist Collective is a Chicago based nonprofit. We platform under represented artists and engage under served audiences, with a local approach and a global vision. Members of Agitator are diverse artist-curators with various racial, socioeconomic, gender, and sexual identities. Agitator Comics! is open-call / open theme publication. It puts experienced artists alongside newcomers, and everyone elevates each other. |
| 130B | Max Huffman | Max Huffman is a cartoonist from North Carolina whose current project is the serial Hypermutt. He lives in Chicago with his cat Bonky and works as a professional doorstop. |
| 131A | Alexander Laird/FROG FARM | Alexander Laird is a cartoonist from Toronto originally but lives in Brooklyn currently. He has had his comics on the New Yorker, Vice, and his current comic series "Burg Land" has been nominated for two Doug Wright Awards as well as an Ignatz. He hosts a monthly comic reading/comedy/video show called Frog Farm, that doubles as a risograph small press that publishes exciting new cartoonists and artists. |
| 131B | Grayson Bear | Grayson Bear is a cartoonist from a smelly fishing town on the Oregon Coast. Now they make comics in New York and their life is just like Sex and the City. They’ve released work with Silver Sprocket (Al Dente, Good Boy Mag #1), Bred Press (Pokey), Frog Farm (Business Insider) and they’re currently working on their first big graphic novel with Fantagraphics (Superfun). Bear has not won any awards and they are not bitter about that at all. |
| 132A | Harrison Wyrick | I'm Harrison and I make comics and zines in Chicago with my friend Nell! |
| 132A | Nell McKeon | I'm Nell and I make comics and zines in Chicago with my friend Harrison! |
| 132B | Ruby LaPorta | Ruby LaPorta is an illustrator, printmaker, writer, and musician. She was born and raised in Chicago and recently graduated with a BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She often makes work that addresses themes of childhood, influence, multiplicities of being (and specifically the discrepancy between physical being and mental being), the mundane, and excess. |
| 133A | Jac Dellaria | Jac Dellaria is a self-published, queer cartoonist and illustrator currently based in Chicago, IL. Their work revolves around identity and what it means to be yourself. |
| 133B | Issue Press | Issue Press is a tiny publisher and Risograph print shop based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Since 2011, it has worked with an elastic mandate to publish captivating works by artists of all mediums that trade in humor, history, and exploration of place. |
| 136A | Malcolm Derikx | Malcolm Derikx is a
writer/editor based in Ontario, Canada, and general practitioner of
word-smithery in multiple mediums. They have written and created comic anthologies, tabletop games, and short films. Some of their most notable projects include the Toronto Comics Anthologies, as well as the Hogtown Horror Anthology, collections of short comics written/drawn by creators from around Southern Ontario. |
| 136B | Sarah Webb | Sarah Webb is a freelance cartoonist, illustrator, and background artist from Alaska. Her work is inspired by wandering around in the woods, folktales, and the strangeness within everyday life. |
| 137A | Andy Glass | Andy Glass has been making independent comics for the last 15 years. His comics have dealt with ideas of duality, desires, identity, teen angst, and personal stories of heartbreak and transformation . He's the creator of the one-man, indy comic anthology LIMBUS. He is also the creator multiple mini comics such as BOUND, REME AND CECIL, YOUNG HEARTS BREAK and I REMEMBER YOU. His work has been published by Hic and Hoc Books, the Denver Westword, comics anthology MadHappys from SF, the Chicago Reader and Electric Cruise. |
| 137B | Kat Fajardo | Kat Fajardo (they/she) is a Honduran Colombian award-winning cartoonist and illustrator from the lively and magical place of Loisaida, New York City. They are the creator of Miss Quinces, which was a National Indie Bestseller, received a Pura Belpre Honor for illustration, two starred reviews, and was selected as a summer reading pick by Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, The Horn Book, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. It was also added to the The Spirit of Texas (SPOT) Reading Program by the Texas Library Association. It was the first Graphix title to be simultaneously published in English and Spanish (as Srta. Quinces). |
| 138A | Eli Estrella Perez | Eli Estrella Pérez (she/they) is a Cuban-American illustrator and cartoonist, but mostly just identifies as a "Chicagoan". The only thing that distracts Eli from her Young Adult/Adult comic work is her bossy cat. |
| 138B | Natalie Mark | Natalie 麥月明 is Queer Chinese-Canadian artist of Toisan descent who works primarily with narratives. Their work is somewhere between a reflection of life and a little bit curious. Natalie loves going to their neighbourhood library, playing table top games, and making comics! |
| 139 | Bulgilhan Press | Bulgilhan Press is an award-winning small press comics publisher making new and self-indulgent comics by excellent artists with unique visions and voices. |
| 142A | Michael Kay | A Midwest-based manga artist obsessed with all things gothic, ghoulish, and glamorous. |
| 142B | Scarfff Comics Newspaper/Jake Slingland | Jake Slingland is the Editor-in-Chief of Scarfff Comics Newspaper as well as a cartoonist, illustrator and graphic designer based out of Seattle, Washington. |
| 143A | Tom O'Brien | Tom O’Brien is a graduate of the Center for Cartoon Studies and works as a freelance cartoonist and illustrator. His non-fiction comics have been published in the natural science anthologies Awesome ‘Possum 3 and 4 as well as the Vermont alternative weekly paper Seven Days. In 2020, he was awarded a grant from the The New York State Council on the Arts for his project Get to Know Your Knife, an comics guide to kitchen knives. In 2019 he finished The Liquor Cabinet, a non-fiction comics about the world most popular liquors. When he isn’t cartooning, Tom has worked part time in a kitchen store as the resident knife expert and at a wine shop assisting customers. He lives in Boston with his partner Allison and their cat Elspeth. More of his work can be found on his website, tomobriencomics.com |
| 143A | Allison Bannister | Allison Bannister is a cartoonist, editor, and comics scholar. By day, she teaches writing; the rest of the time, she's focused on comics. Her work can be found in a variety of small-press anthologies, including Wayward Sisters, Meandering Realms, and Bikes, the Universe, and Everything; common themes include fairies, ghosts, getting lost, and finding home. She earned her MFA at the Center for Cartoon Studies, worked as a freelancer and a barista, then went on to do a PhD on the composition and rhetoric of comics and graphic novels and a research fellowship in the comics collection at the Library of Congress. She has rarely met a cat she couldn't befriend. |
| 143B | Radiator Comics | Radiator Comics distributes small press and self-published comics! They also publish original titles, including Días de Consuelo by Dave Ortega, Fizzle by Whit Taylor, Escape from the Great American Novel by Drew Lerman, Viewotron: Comics and Stories by Sam Sharpe & Peach S. Goodrich, and The Chronicles of Fortune by Coco Picard. They are publishing UM Vol.1 by buttercup in September. Radiator Comics is run by Neil Brideau who self-publishes his own all-ages comics in Miami, FL. |
| 144, 145 | Iron Circus Comics | The premiere publisher of award-winning, critically-acclaimed graphic novels and comic anthologies in the American Midwest, on a mission is to showcase the Strange and Amazing in comics. |
| 201A | Jacob Yeates | Jacob Yeates (they/he) is an
artist and educator living in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Driven by a love of
art, literature, and stress, Yeates received a Drawing BFA and English minor
from the University of Iowa in 2013, and an MFA in Visual Studies at the MCAD
in 2017. Yeates’s work has received grant funding from the Minnesota State
Arts Board, the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, Freedom and Captivity,
and MPD150, and has been featured by Society of Illustrators Los Angeles, The
Matador Review, 3x3, Creative Quarterly, Paper Darts, Illozine, IH8 WAR,
Street Fight Zine, Little Village Magazine and (forthcoming) Cartoonists for
Palestine, as well as appearing in multiple exhibitions throughout the
midwest and beyond. Jacob is currently teaching as an Assistant Professor of Illustration at MCAD and continues daily in developing drawing, illustration, and other stress-producing practices. |
| 201B | Morgan Sawyer | Morgan Kendric Sawyer is a comic artist and member of the anxiety frog cultural association. He is based out of Richmond Virginia and enjoys drawing monsters. |
| 202A | Robert Hendricks | R. Hendricks is a Chicago-based visual storyteller captivated by comics about the bizarre, eccentric and troubled lives of human beings. |
| 202B | Elias Gonzalez | Hailing from the suburbs of Chicago, Elias channels his enthusiasm for professional wrestling, toys, creature features, cartoons, and punk music to create honest and fun comics and stories. |
| 202B | Mac McGuire | Mac McGuire is a queer Chicago-based Illustrator inspired by the natural world, her life experiences, and the occasional strange dream. She works primarily in a combination of traditional inking and digital coloring to achieve a style reminiscent of classic picture books. |
| 203A | Darya Farah Foroohar | Darya Foroohar is a writer and cartoonist living in Chicago. Her first book, My Eyes, Your Gaze, will be published this summer by Chicago's Bridge Books, but in the meantime you can find her work in Overexposed Lit, Third Estate Art, and Memoryhouse Magazine. She has also self-published two graphic novellas, “Somewhere Far From Here” (2022) and “I Wish I Didn't Think About This” (2021) She is the recipient of the 2022 UChicago Seidel Scholars Grant, which funded her self-directed adaptation of the Persian myth the “Shahnameh” into a graphic novel. She enjoys incorporating theory into the comics, imbuing autofiction with horror and magical realism, and generally pushing the boundaries of what the medium of comics can be used for. |
| 203B | Rod R. Driver | Rod R. Driver is a nonfiction cartoonist from Seattle. En loves research rabbit holes, intertextuality, and large bodies of water. |
| 204A | Adam Fotos | Originally from East Tennessee, Adam Fotos is a Chicago-land cartoonist and artist who has been making comics the past 20 years with his imprint Fotopia Press. While his main series Dragon and Goat is an all-ages comic, his books for older readers range from a subversively quirky web-comic Cloud Arcadia to a research-driven comic essay about how we see Japan in Beyond Paper Walls. Having lived/studied in Thailand, China, and Japan, Fotos brings his love of diverse cultures and art into his own art and writing. Fotos’s work in comics and art are centered on explorations of wonder, humor, and play- not just as entertainment but as keys to surviving and thriving as a human being. |
| 204B | Carl Antonowicz | Carl Antonowicz is a cartoonist, performer, and noisemaker in Tvlse OK. His comics are largely medieval horror stories in a shared setting. His new book THE ARDENT is due out from Fieldmouse Press in late 2024! |
| 205 | Fieldmouse Press | Fieldmouse Press is a nonprofit
publisher of comics and literature, based in Grass Valley, California.
Founded in 2019 to publish SOLRAD, the online literary magazine for comics,
Fieldmouse Press is committed to expanding the reach and appreciation of the
comics arts. Since 2021, Fieldmouse Press has been publishing award-winning books from artists all over the world. We are passionate about comics and our goal is to advance the medium through the publication of new and underrepresented voices. We believe that comics should be a place for every story and every person. |
| 206 | Keith Knight: Gentleman Cartoonist | Keith Knight is an award-winning veteran of the indie-comics scene. For decades, his comics strips "the K Chronicles" and "(th)ink" have infiltrated the public consciousness with humorously unique takes on race, social justice, auto-bio and more. |
| 207A | Kelly Phillips (Dirty Diamonds) | Kelly Phillips is a cartoonist and publisher in Philadelphia. Her comics are frequently based on her own life and experiences. She is the creator of Weird Me, the story of her teenage years as the moderately successful webmaster of a "Weird Al" Yankovic fan site. She is also the co-editor and publisher of the award-winning all-girl comic anthology, Dirty Diamonds. She has been featured in anthologies including Drawing Power, Sweaty Palms, and The Illustrated Al. She likes cats, outer space, karaoke, and Lifetime movies, and continues to channel her embarrassing personal history into comics as a cheap form of therapy. |
| 207A | Claire Folkman | Claire Folkman is an artist living and working in Philadelphia, PA. She creates out of Mercer Street Studios where she makes comics, collages, videos and costumes. She has been featured in Drawing Power and will appear in an upcoming edition of Smut Peddler. Co-editor and publisher of Dirty Diamonds. |
| 207B | Max Bare | Max Bare enjoys making comics for all ages, from smelly kid to smelly geezer, as long as they like stories that are strange and silly. He is the creator of HERO BEARDS, the self-published middle grade comic featuring super heroes with super beards . He has been published by Lion Forge (Rolled & Told), Scout (By the Horns) and Really Easy Press (Scally-Ho!). Max lives in Chicago with his lovely wife Melissa Sue Stanley, where they sometimes make comics about beer and oftentimes pet their smelly dog, Rocko. |
| 208A | Robin Carnilius | Robin Carnilius is an illustrator and multimedia storyteller who creates pop culture media with a focus on LGBTQ and PoC representation and nerd culture. As a creator who is Black and trans, they aim to entertain, engage, and entertain people through their work. |
| 208B | Peter Quach | Peter Quach is a comic book artist, illustrator, and graphic designer who lives in Brooklyn, New York. Peter’s cartoons were published in The New Yorker magazine in 2023. His comic “Pinan,” which is about a Latina with a brown belt in karate and the aftermath of her sexual assault, was published in English by The Believer magazine in 2018 and in Spanish by Revista BLAST in 2021. I Am a Racist (And so Can You), a comic investigation into the historical roots of racism in Indiana and how that history shaped Peter’s internalized racism, was a notable comic in the Best American Comics 2013 anthology. Quach, self-published in 2023, is an examination of French colonization in Vietnam. Peter has provided freelance design and illustration work for numerous clients, including Penguin Random House and Gates Ventures. He has taught art classes in illustration and graphic novels in association with the Beverly Arts Center in Chicago. |
| 209A | Hardscrabble Cafe | Hardscrabble Cafe is a hobby
risograph printing press & publishing team by hannah larson & Alex Nall located in Chicago, IL. We are deeply dedicated to our community, & offer free or low-cost printing needs for local community organizers, projects, & events. |
| 209B | Aquatic Panda Distro | Aquatic Panda Distro is a small press comic and art zine distributor. Started by Chicago cartoonist Andrea Pearson in 2023, Aquatic Panda’s mission is to highlight artists of color. Our other focus is bringing artists of all kinds together through comic and art anthologies. |
| 210A | Alan Cortes | Alan Cortes is a Chicago based Illustrator and character designer. He has mainly focused on digital illustration since learning Photoshop in early Highschool. He has worked as a character designer for clients such as DreamWorks TV, The Line Studio, and Nickelodeon. In recent years he has enjoyed drawing and designing fantastical creatures like kaiju and dungeon monsters in his spare time. |
| 210B | GABO | GABO is a Mexican-American illustrator raised in the burbs of Chicago. He has a fiery passion for making sci-fi and fantasy zines. He has worked for DC Comics, Image, Oni Press and Webtoon. |
| 211A | Patrick Lay | Patrick Lay (he/him) is a cartoonist from Northwest Ohio. He gets just as excited about sad things as he does about happy things (imagine a Golden Retriever raised by cats). He is the artist for Death Strikes: The Emperor of Atlantis with writer David Maass, released in early 2024 through Berger Books, an imprint of Dark Horse Comics. He has also self-published the webcomic Screaming Mimi Kids, the all-ages sci-fi adventure Multi-, along with writer Nick Dutro, and several other comics and mini comics. He co-hosted the podcast Pop!Whiz!Bang! A Comics Conversation with Meggie Ramm. |
| 211B | Stephen Gilpin | Despite various attempts to take on other more noble occupations, Stephen Gilpin has worked as an illustrator and graphic novel artist for a long time, but nothing he has done up to this point is remotely similar to his current work in theme, genre or content and would be distracting to mention. He began writing in earnest in 2022 and is currently at work illustrating his metaphysical and ontological revolt against the human condition -- The Lestrygonians: Apocalypse of Destiny |
| 212A | Max Dlabick and Tobi Rose | Max Dlabick is an ex mall emo
who crawled out of the Mississippi River mud to make comics and draw weird
little animals. Their comic projects "André and Karl" and
"Stick 'n Poke" are available to read online, or you can swing by
to check out print copies! Tobi Rose is a comic artist, illustrator, character designer, amateur baker, and all around chill dude. He is currently working on the romantic drama webcomic "Stick 'n Poke". |
| 212B | Grace Culloton | Grace is a cartoonist and game developer who lives in Chicago with her wife, who she is gay married to. She has recently gotten back into reading books which has been pretty cool. |
| 213A | Art by Minerva Fox | I am a Filipino-American artist with a flair for Western and Manga style comics. My style is usually described as 80's and 90's shonen anime. |
| 213B | Daimondrewthis | Daimon is an artist and writer from the south-side of Chicago. He does manga inspired stories with diverse characters. Not so well know for the comics Become, Rewrite , Story of Solace, and one time he did a DC comic. |
| 214A | Andrew Greenstone | Andrew Greenstone is a cartoonist from New England living in Hollywood. He is most recently known for "Sid The Cat Magazine", "Starr Wars From Memory" and several other hilarious thoughtful and visually striking works in both fiction and non fiction. Follow him at @comicsareforkids |
| 214B | Rachel Dukes | Rachel Dukes is the creator of the cat-centric webcomic Frankie Comics (Oni Press, 2020) and the co-creator of the comic series The Wizerd with Michael Sweater (Oni Press, 2020). A Center for Cartoon Studies graduate, Rachel's work has appeared in several comic anthologies, including the Lambda Literary Award winning Beyond and the DiNKy Award winner Bottoms Up. Clients include Brain Quest, Silver Sprocket, BOOM! Studios, and The Nib, among others. Rachel lives with a variety of invisible illnesses and is currently making the best of things in Southern California with their two cats, Frankie and Willow. They are thankful for fresh air, tea, and readers like you. |
| 215A | Ben Sears | Cartoonist and musician from Kentucky |
| 215B | E Joy Mehr | E. Joy Mehr (that's me!) started making comics in March 2018 after getting laid off from a hearing aid plant. She does autobio zines and organizes shit. |
| 215B | Dustin Harbin | Dustin Harbin is a cartoonist and nice fellow from Charlotte, North Carolina. He's known mainly for drawing himself and dinosaurs (rarely together). |
| 216A | Sarah Becan | Sarah Becan has been drawing comics since she was very small. Her food-based autobiographical webcomic "I Think You're Sauceome" sparked a love of food and culinary illustration, and her work has since appeared in various publications, including Saveur Magazine, Eater.com, and the Chicago Reader. Her first graphic novel, The Complete Ouija Interviews, was a recipient of a Xeric grant, and she illustrated The Adventures of Fat Rice (2016). She is the coauthor and illustrator of Let’s Make Ramen!, published July 2019, and Let’s Make Dumplings!, published June 2021, and the most recent Let's Make Bread!, coauthored with baker Ken Forkish, published May 2024. She would be very happy to do nothing but draw food all day. |
| 216B | Rachel Bard | I create unusual mini-comics in a variety of formats and styles. I print and assemble all of them by hand. I like to experiment with unconventional book formats and materials and my comics are short, all-ages, and can usually fit in the palm of your hand. |
| 217A | Ariel Chan | Ariel is an office worker by day and artist by night. From a short story about a knight and ghost becoming friends to her diary comics, her work often stems from personal growth and seeing beauty in the every day life. |
| 217B | Katie Schenkel | Katie Schenkel is a comic writer best known for the critically acclaimed graphic novel series The Cardboard Kingdom. Her other kids comics include The Wolf in Unicorn’s Clothing, Night of the Undead Frogs, and Alice, Secret Agent of Wonderland. She especially loves to write about girls' friendships and their perspectives on the world around them. Midwest to her core, Katie lives in Chicago with her partner Madison and their three-pawed rescue dog Moira. |
| 218A | Emmanuel Guerrero | Emmanuel Guerrero is a cartoonist from Southern CA and the creator of the Cactus Kid series. |
| 218B | DnA Artists | DnA is a collaboration between Dana Amundsen and Alex O’Keefe, midwest-based zinesters, illustrators, and comic artists. Dana draws girls with swords (and cats), while Alex draws saturated comics (and bunnies). They’ve been drawing together since 2010 no matter how far apart they find themselves. |
| 219A | Mark Bouchard | Mark Bouchard writes horror comics like LEAF PEEPERS and IT TOOK LUKE. Their debut graphic novel was re-released by Oni Press as IT TOOK LUKE: Overworked and Underpaid. Mark also wrote a Sonic the Hedgehog comic, and always goes very fast. They live in Chicago with their partner, two cats, and ancient toy poodle, Juicebox. |
| 219B | Marie Enger | Marie Enger is a cartoonist and illustrator based outta StL, MO (USA). Half the time they’re drawin’ creeps, and if they’re not drawin’ creeps, they’re drawin’ weirdos. They’re the creator of CONTROLLED BURN (Random House Graphics) and Casket Land (the occult Western TTRPG), the art-part of UNDER KINGDOM (Darkhorse Comics) WHERE BLACK STARS RISE (Tor Nightfire) AND they’ve had their short horror stories featured in CORRIDOR, RAZORBLADES, and DAGGER DAGGER. Neat! |
| 220A | Emily Riesbeck | Emily Riesbeck has been writing comics since they were ten, and tends to prefer stories of girls in love, and the orbits our bodies fall into. Their recent work includes Mountain (Cow House Press, 2023) with Bitmap Prager and It’s Your Funeral (Iron Circus Comics, 2020) with Ellen Kramer. Their latest book, The Pirate and the Porcelain Girl (Simon and Schuster, 2023) with NJ Barna, follows a pampered noble cursed with porcelain skin who enlists a reckless pirate to help her win back her lost love, all while pursued by a twisted zealot with a terrible scheme. Emily lives in Chicago with their partners, Diane and Angie and their cat, Yuri. When not writing, Emily enjoys making up character voices for tabletop roleplaying games and sometimes daydreams of being an actor. |
| 220A | Bitmap Prager | In the face of a harsh world, Bitmap Prager's art celebrates lived-in spaces rich in history and culture, as well as unapologetic and resilient queerness. She is always building grand worlds for her next story. |
| 220B | Charlotte Cha | Charlotte is a lover of self-indulgent romance, procrastinator, knitter, and lover of dogs. They've always got something in the works--when they're not knitting! |
| 221A | Iona Fox | Iona Fox is a cartoonist living in Chicago. Her weekly strip Almanac ran in a Seven Days alt-weekly newspaper from 2016-2019, during which time she was twice-nominated for EXPOZINE MONTREAL “Best English Comic” Award & appeared in Best American Comics 2018 Notables. Book collections of her comics are available through Radiator Comics. |
| 221B | Kevin Huizenga | Kevin Huizenga is an American cartoonist living in Chicago best known for the comics character Glenn Ganges, who appears in most of his work. His graphic novels include The River at Night, Curses, The Wild Kingdom, and Gloriana. |
| 222A | MargeMakesComics | Marjorie Gaber is a cartoonist, illustrator, and craftsperson from Dearborn, Michigan. She makes fanzines about albums, comics about lesbian vampires, and art that explores |
| 222B | Grace Desmarais | Grace Desmarais is a cartoonist
and illustrator, whose work is inspired by history, magic and romance. Grace lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband, and little black cat Lala. When she is not making romance comics, Grace spends most of her time writing fan-fiction or re-playing Dragon Age. Grace is represented by Sara Crowe with Sara Crowe Literary Agency. |
| 223A | Priyanka K & Anchovy Press | Priyanka K is an visual storyteller and printmaker from Kolkata, eastern India, currently based in Baltimore. She teaches illustration at the Maryland Institute College of Art, and is creative director at Anchovy Press, a Baltimore-based slow publishing project that centers BIPOC+ stories. She also serves as comics editor for the magazine South Asian Avant-Garde (SAAG). Her graphic stories have been published in the comics anthologies "Bystander: Stories, Observations and Witnessings from South Asia" and "First-Hand: Graphic Non Fiction from India" among others. |
| 223B | Gabi Mendez | Gabi Mendez is a queer latinx comics artist and illustrator. A graduate of the School of The Art Institute of Chicago, and the Sequential Art Master's program at SCAD, she is currently working and taking on new and exciting projects! She writes a lot of silly comics, says "dude" too much, and just wants everyone to feel included. |
| 224 | Trung Le Nguyen | Trung Le Nguyen is an award-winning Vietnamese American cartoonist, artist, and writer from Minnesota. Trung’s first original graphic novel, The Magic Fish, was published in 2020 through Random House Graphic. He has also contributed work both as an author and as an artist for a variety of comics publishers, including DC Comics, Oni Press, Boom! Studios, Image Comics, and Marvel. Trung has been nominated for an Eisner, a prize at Angoulême (France), a GLAAD award, and has won two Harvey Awards and a Romics (Italy). He currently lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota and raises a small flock of very spoiled hens. |
| 225A | Peter Wartman | I'm Peter Wartman, a cartoonist and illustrator living in Minneapolis, MN who is definitely not a robot. I'm interested in telling all-ages stories about growing up and dealing with the messiness of the world (and in drawing cool fantasy cities and lots of sci-fi machines). |
| 225B | Simple Heady | Robert Henry Stevenson, AKA Simple Heady, grew up in Chicago and blames his obsessive mark making on comics, album covers, skateboard graphics & graffiti art. Father & self taught artist with over 20 years of experience in illustration, sign art, comics & painting. His latest books are collections of illustrated rhymes in a pop surreal, psychedelic, somewhat grotesque style, with notes of humor, horror & occasional insight. |
| 226A | Mo McMasters | Mo McMasters is a comic artist and illustrator based in Los Angeles. They've made comics about everything from post-apocalyptic mental health crises to clown cryptids from outerspace to freak accidents with bees. Their latest publication, The Spiral, is a risograph-printed comic they made through their print studio Pretty Guts Press with the help of a mini grant from The Comics Advocacy Group. |
| 226A | Pretty Guts Press | Pretty Guts Press is an independent risograph studio launched in 2024 by Mo McMasters. We’re based right outside of Los Angeles, California, but our services are available to riso enthusiasts worldwide. |
| 226B | Jay Bees | Jay is an independent comic artist and illustrator based out of Grand Rapids Michigan. Influenced by cartoons, horror, and creepy crawlies their mixed media art explores the humor in the mundane. |
| 227 | Perfectly Acceptable Press | Perfectly Acceptable Press publishes short-run narrative artist books with an emphasis on synergy between content, craft, and form. Our aim is to create an object that pushes the boundaries of 'zine' without sacrificing accessibility. Almost all of our books are printed in-house with Risograph duplicators. |
| 228A | Sam Hensley | Growing up in rural Kentucky, Sam Hensley learned to love creatures living and dead, both of which are common in the country. Now they make comics and sculptures in Chicago. People remain divided on whether these works are sweet or creepy. |
| 228B | Bred Press | Bred Press is an artist books, comics, and zine publishing house located in Chicago. Started by Brad Rohloff in 2014, it provides a platform by which to support contemporary artists working within the medium of printed and published matter |
| 229A | Shari Ross | Shari is an illustrator and comic artist from the slums of Cleveland, Ohio. They've bounced around the country and love to explore new places in unfamiliar territories. Currently, they're known for illustrating comics relating to auto-immune diseases, territorial cat antics, and antisemitism. |
| 229B | Daria Tessler | Born in Finland, Daria Tessler is a cartoonist and printmaker based in Portland, OR. Her books include Cult of the Ibis, Loop of the Sun, and Salome's Last Dance. She also creates silkscreen prints and more. |
| 230A | Anya Driffill | I'm a comic book artist and illustrator trying to make my way. I grew up really inspired by superhero comics, especially books like the X-Men but while I was in college and after I met an incredible community of other artists that introduced me to the world of Indie comics and the variety of stories to be found there. I want to make stories that move people to give back the same kind of experiences that I've gotten from reading comics. |
| 230B | Mike Rossi | Mike Rossi is a cartoonist, illustrator and avid lover of cheese. Most of his comics work is memoir and slice-of-life. He is currently seeking a home for his first graphic memoir, Branches. He resides in SF with his partner, and the cat they adopted during the pandemic. (The cat was pregnant! They didn't know! His second book will be about that.) |
| 231A | Lily Herring | Lily Herring is a Maryland-born, Colorado-raised, and Brooklyn-based comic artist and illustrator. Her product line is varied in approach and appeal but always stays grounded; from lush, linework-heavy comics about queer melancholia in an opportune yet overwhelming world, to zines featuring cartoony bites of stupid, feel-good humor. |
| 231B | Leda Zawacki | Leda Zawacki is a queer
cartoonist who has been making comics for over twenty years. She received a
BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007. She recently
moved back to Minneapolis after receiving her MFA from the Center for Cartoon
Studies in 2022. Publications include Little Gods, a graphic novel published by Tinto Press in 2017; contributor to the award-nominated Votes for Women anthology in 2020; and the Ignatz-nominated mini comic The Drain Pipe in 2021. She is also a two-time MICE Mini Grant winner for The Swinging Bridge in 2018, and The Stain in 2021. When she's not pitching comics, writing comics, thinking about comics or drawing comics she enjoys learning how to cast her own resin creatures, playing with intaglio printing (oops, that's sometimes comics!), organizing drink and draw nights, DJing at the local goth club and spending time with her beloved and their yorkie Lucas. |
| 232B | Jasjyot Singh-Hans | Jasjyot Singh Hans is an illustrator unendingly inspired by an explosive neon mix of fashion, music and pop culture. He has a constant regard for things past and a voracity for all that is current. He studied animation film design at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad and has an MFA in Illustration Practice from Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore. His work chronicles around themes of body image, sexuality and self love. |
| 233A | Linnea Nierman | Linnea is a non-binary comic artist from Kansas City. They love making comics about their life with their partner Cameron, and their pets in their little apartment. They also love eating, reading, and camping as often as they can. |
| 233B | Noella Whitney | Noella has made her return to the comics scene after a brief international and pandemic-induced hiatus! She presently lives in Baltimore with her cat, and creates stories about butches loving other butches with second helpings of fantasy mixed in. They are currently working on TO BUILD, the 3rd and final installment in their multi-award-winning butch lesbian series. Much like those gals, she enjoys rugged backpacking, a smooth whiskey, and building campfires! |
| 234A | kuš! | kuš! is a comic art publisher from Latvia founded in Riga in 2007. It is most well known for its signature pocket-sized anthologies and its mini-kuš! series. The aims of kuš! are to popularize comics in a country where this medium is practically non-existent and to promote Latvian comics abroad. At CAKE kuš! will be represented by Christopher Sperandio, the artist behind books such as 'This Year Is Next Year's Last Year' and 'Li’l Jormly.' |
| 234A | Christopher Sperandio | Christopher Sperandio is an associate professor at Rice University in Houston. In 2015, Sperandio established the Comic Art Teaching and Study Workshop, a hybrid research/study/production space dedicated to comics. Sperandio’s new book, THIS YEAR IS NEXT YEAR’S LAST YEAR, has just been published by kuš! |
| 234B | Siah Files | Siah is a comics artist and prolific henchperson to many notable villains in the larger NYC area. They make drawings about the interior experience of stressing out n going out to deal with it! |
| 235A | Lane Milburn | Lane Milburn is a cartoonist in Chicago. He is published by Fantagraphics Books. |
| 235B | Anya Davidson | Anya Davidson is the author of three graphic novels, including Night and Dana from Lerner Books, which was named on the 2023 Great Books for Teens list by the Young Adult Library Services Association. |
| 236A | Kelly Wang | Kelly Wang (草 千 Caochian) is an
alternative cartoonist, printmaker, and musician based in Chicago, USA. BFA
2023 from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her hand-drawn works combine Asian and American influences, their stories exploring personal narratives and growth often with absurd or magical realism twists. Her works OUR GRAND STATION placed the grand prize in the 2020 Clip Studio Paint International Comic/Manga Schools Contest and A GOLDFISH’S DREAM honorable mention in the 2020 CCC Original Comic and Script Awards Contest. They currently self-publish their work through their own small risograph press REESO PRESS and play music in a punk band, URGES. |
| 236B | Teddie Bernard | Teddie Bernard is a queer cartoonist, printmaker, and writer whose work explores identity, artistic journey, and failed connections. They're currently working on a queer-noir graphic novel and live in Chicago, where they wish for colder weather. |
| 237A | Caroline Cash | Caroline Cash is a cartoonist who previously lived in Chicago. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Vice, The Chicago Reader, the Nib, and various other publications. She is currently working on her Ignatz award winning series PeePeePooPoo with Silver Sprocket, as well as an untitled graphic novel for Drawn and Quarterly. She is a Capricorn. |
| 237B | Eileen Chavez | Eileen Chavez is an alternative comics and zine artist born in Oakland, CA and based out of Chicago, IL. They like to create squishy emotional landscapes for you to get lost in. You can find them on instagram @franksgiving666. |
| 238A | higu rose | higu rose is a cartoonist, illustrator, educator, and local terror based in Pittsburgh, PA. higu’s work is inspired by their experiences as a queer and trans person of color living in western PA, as well as the aesthetics of Japanese shoujo and boys love manga and eastern orthodox iconography. higu has self-published over 10 autobio and fiction graphic novels that focus on the experiences of being black, queer, and trans; their autobiographical graphic novel TITTYCHOP BOOBSLASH has been called "the best trans comic" of 2017. higu is currently working on YINZ CITY, an ethnography-based graphic novel series about a group of queer and trans people of color. they work in various mediums such as paint, ink, fiber, and printmaking. |
| 238B | Shea Cahill | Shea Cahill is a professional mall goth originally from FL - now living and working from Chicago, IL. When Shea is not making comics about centipedes, they are eating hotdogs, trying a new flavor of Monster, or practicing with their band, Urges. |
| 239A | Paradise Systems | Paradise Systems publishes
exemplary comics from the United States, China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Inspired by, but unfaithful to comic conventions, we seek to create a community of writers and readers that relish in weird, sincere, experimental storytelling. Since 2017, we've released 26 comics, including Naked Body, the first major anthology of Chinese comics to be published in English. Our work has been featured in the Guardian, Hyperallergic, and The Comics Journal. Paradise Systems is headquartered in Brooklyn, New York and Toronto, Ontario. It was founded by Orion Martin 2017. |
| 239B | COMA THEORY | COMATHEORY consists of two
midwestern artists, Kass and Argyle. They enjoy drinking toxic slime from the
Chicago river, playing otome games, and getting into car accidents. CT is an ongoing project under which we publish independent horror and sci-fi narrative art, collaborate with other artists, and indulge in our mutual love of transformative work. |
| 240A | Lance McMahan | Lance (he/they) is a part-time comic and storyboard artist with a love for bizarre fantasy worlds and magic systems. He grew up fully immersed in shows like Steven Universe and Sailor Moon, which later inspired their work. Currently, he is working on his first comic series, Aster in the Mirror, and resides within the US Midwest with his cat, Matcha. |
| 240B | Theora Kvitka | Theora is a comics artist living
in Los Angeles, CA. Her comics cover topics ranging from robot dogs, climbing
walls of trash, falling asleep in public, squirrels and women’s voting rights, but not all at once. She’s been published in outlets like The New Yorker, The Nib, The Guardian and The Funny Times. |
| 241A | Sophie McMahan | Sophie McMahan is an illustrator/comics artist who lives in Urbana, IL with her husband and six cats. Her work is inspired by the push and pull between beauty and the grotesque and finding what's in between. |
| 241B | Tony Breed | Tony Breed is the writer and artist behind Muddlers Beat, a queer slice-of-life comic about how life is what happens when you don't know what you're doing. He also created Finn & Charlie Are Hitched, about a gay married couple and their friends. When not making comics he DJs at Chicago's CHIRP Radio, works as a Product Designer, frets about the universe, and thinks about what he's going to eat next. |
| 242A | Harper Sims | Harper Sims enjoys writing, drawing, design and cooking for her friends! She currently lives in Los Angeles (by way of Chicago (by way of Cleveland)) with her wife, Christi, and dog, Ruby |
| 242B | KJ Martinet | KJ Martinet is comic artist and printmaker living in Brooklyn, NY |
| 243A | Ruby Carter | Ruby Carter is an emerging alternative cartoonist from Chicago. She primarily works with comedy and sparsely narrated visuals. Her new book Bird Comic will debut at the Fieldmouse Press table- come get your copy signed! |
| 243B | Tenderly & friends | Alex Belardo Kostiw is an artist, designer, and educator in Chicago. Their work deals in poetic elements, visual structures of comics, and conceptually driven forms. It invites interactive, intuitive reading—even as it resists full unraveling. By exploring in-betweenness and ambiguity, their comics make space for feeling out complex realities of identity and human intimacy. Alex received an MFA in Visual Communication Design from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in English literature from the University of Chicago. They live with many reams of paper and two cats. |
| 244A | George Porteus | George Porteus is an artist and writer based in Chicago, IL. |
| 245A | E. J. Barnes/Drowned Town Press | E. J. Barnes is a recovering software engineer whose comics have appeared in various anthologies, including Colonial Comics (Chicago Review Press) and SubCultures (Ninth Art Press), as well as several Boston Comics Roundtable anthologies on various themes. She self-publishes as Drowned Town Press, including mini-comics on historical subjects, and authorized adaptations of stories by the late humorist Blaster Al Ackerman. E. J.'s political cartoons have appeared in the (Greenfield, MA) Recorder, the (Bratteboro, VT) Commons, The Cambridge Chronicle, and Funny Times. She is currently working on a watercolor graphic novel about “Count” Alessandro di Cagliostro. |
| 245B | Cupcake Grube | I have an MFA in theatre and two NEAs in art - I have performed in cake costumes that I make out of canvas, acrylic paint, bells, hula hoops that are all sizes. There are 9 such costumes. If admitted I plan to have friends in the costumes at my booth while I wear the cupcake costume. I am hoping to have a cellist accompany this event. |
| 246 | Sam Szabo | Sam Szabo is a beautiful cartoonist and printmaker from the north shore of Massachusetts, currently based in Chicago. She has self-published dozens of comics and zines, including "Girl Hell," "Momix", and "Comics Will Break Your Balls." Sam's first book, "Enlightened Transsexual Comix" was released by Silver Sprocket in 2023. "ETC" garnered widespread critical acclaim and was named one of the ten best comics of 2023 by "The Comics Journal." Sam has seen Phish live 20 times. |
| 247, 248 | Silver Sprocket | Silver Sprocket is an independent publisher championing socially conscious and independently produced comic books, graphic novels, and related arts. |
| 249A | Beatrix Urkowitz | Beatrix Urkowitz makes comics and art in Providence, Rhode Island. Her works include "She's Done it All!" and "The Beauty Theorem" for Penguin Random House, as well as "The Lover of Everyone in the World" for Popula. The latter was recently expanded into a book of the same name for Parsifal Press, which received the 2022 Ignatz Award for Best Story. She's currently developing "Penelope's Property," her first graphic novel. |
| 249B | Quietly | Yumi Yamaguchi is a half-Japanese, half-Mexican cartoonist from Los Angeles. She self publishes a comic series, Quietly, that has two primary storylines. The first is a surreal, semi-autobiographical exploration of the main character’s anxiety, cultural identity, and sexuality. The second is a dark comedy about a librarian frustrated with patrons who don’t respect the library. |
| 250A | Rae Boraz | I’m Rae Boraz, an animator, illustrator, and comic artist from Chicago, IL. I love to make uncanny, diverse, and colorful art with sci-fi and fantasy inspirations! |
| 250A | J.E Paeth | I’m a queer Chicago based illustrator and comic artist who’s currently pursuing a BFA at the School of the Art Institute. My work centers around themes of divinity, angels, and the intersections of transness and queerness with a sci-fi horror twist. I’ve always loved comics and getting the opportunity to consistently create, explore, and grow as an artist continues to be my greatest joy. |
| 250B | Naoto lichtblau-tepley | Naoto Lichtblau-tepley is a Queer artist based in Minnesota. He enjoys bugs, Tamagotchis and stale cigarettes |
| 251A | Sage Coffey | Sage Coffey is a trans non-binary cartoonist living in Chicago, IL. They graduated from SCAD Atlanta with a Bachelor's in Sequential art and Animation. Since 2016 they've edited the Ignatz award nominated anthology Sweaty Palms, a comic anthology about anxiety and have helped co-organize Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE) since 2019. Sage has been published by The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The Nib, and multiple award winning comics anthologies such as Comics for Choice and Be Gay, Do Comics. They've also done freelance work for Wizards of the Coast, Cards Against Humanity, Def Jam Entertainment, Millie Magazine, Young Horses Games, We Testify, The Chicago Public Library and Kickstarter LLC. |
| 251B | Bonnie Guerra | Bonnie Guerra is a cartoonist from Chicago IL, she liked to make erotic lesbian comics under the pen name Alice. Sometimes featuring cute animals and/ or people. She has been described as talented but evil. |
| 252A | Jen Chavez | Jen Chavez is a Chicana illustrator and comic artist. She loves to create zines that explore the rough edges of mental health and all the associated vulnerabilities that come with experiencing all of those emotions honestly. On the lighter side, Jen also enjoys exploring the lingering effects of being raised catholic, the eruption of pompeii, and the sun and moon. When she isnt drawing, Jen likes to go on very long walks all over Chicago. |
| 252B | Hannah hallman | Hannah Hallman is a lesbian living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She self-publishes gay comics. She graduated with a BFA in illustration from the Milwaukee institute of Art and Design in 2017, and is the founder of Milwaukee's first indie comic festival, MILK Comic Fest. |
| 253A | BearBear | BearBear launched as a self-publishing Risograph studio in 2018 by two artists, Diana H. Chu and Benjamin Grzenia, who desired to see their work on bookshelves on their own terms. Inspired by DIY zine culture and gig-poster screen prints, BearBear attends to the intricate details of book design with a wabi-sabi ethos. BearBear’s art books act as a wholesome yet radical antidote to homogenous mass-produced volumes. The studio aspires to deliver contemporary ideas of selfhood + beauty, with a retro aesthetic, to the creative class’s bookshelves and imaginations. |
| 253B | Cris Siqueira | Cris Siqueira is a Brazilian immigrant established in Milwaukee since 2004. She is a cartoonist and a 2023/24 Ruth Arts Mary Nohl Alumni Fellow, as well as co-owner of Lion's Tooth bookstore and lead singer of the Tropicália-inspired psych band Spidora. A lifelong multimedia artist, Cris is passionate about comics, film, punk and the circus. |
| 254A | D.R.Y. | D.R.Y. comprises Daniel Zhou, Raul Higuera, and Yasmeen Abedifard, all Bay Area-based comic artists. They make comics, books, screen & riso prints, handmade apparel, and plenty of mistakes. D.R.Y. is aimed at fostering community and highlighting the Bay Area comics scene. |
| 254B | moongerm | Karen is a freelance
illustrator, comics maker, and musician based in Chicago. Having lived her entire life in the midwest, she feels most at home while surrounded by corn. When she isn’t working on art, you can find her constructing elaborate houses in The Sims while nestled in a dark corner of her office. She also loves animals and watching movies. |
| 255A | Días Cómic | Días is an independent graphic narrative publishing house from Puerto Rico led by artists and educators Rosaura Rodríguez and Omar Banuchi. Since 2011 they have collaborated along with many local artists in the creation, exhibition and publication of comics focused on history, politics, society, grief and daily life in Puerto Rico and la diáspora. The aim is to create and share beautiful and culturally relevant publications, and amplify voices from a diversity of Caribbean and Puerto Rican authors and artists. |
| 255B | Hana Silver | Hana Silver (she/her) lives and makes art and comics in Chicago's Albany Park neighborhood (often collaboratively along with Keith Couture). Hana was born in the Bay Area and moved to Chicago during the pandemic. Having worked previously in the non-profit-industrial complex and as a teacher, Hana has always been an artist, and is now part of a landscaping cooperative whose mission is to restore Chicago's ubiquitous grass lawns back to Illinois native prairies. Hana's art depicts female friendships, vulnerability and feelings without taboo, human sexuality, and queerness. Hana is a lifelong diarist and frequently draws on her own writings to tell deep stories of personal and interpersonal conflicts, change, and growth. |
| 255B | Keith Couture | Keith Couture (they/them) is an artist making comics and prints individually & collaboratively (with Hana Silver) in Chicago's Albany Park neighborhood. Keith is from Fort Wayne, IN, where they always felt different from their peers. After picking up and living in many U.S. cities, they came to Chicago where they came out and discovered a community of people they feel safe with. Keith's art depicts possible futures, some more utopian, some more dystopian--all of them feature heavy doses of love, bicycles, mutual aid in action, trans people, disabled people, and neurodivergent people. |
| 256A | Nate Powell | Nate Powell is a National Book
Award-winning cartoonist who began self-publishing as an Arkansas teenager in
1992. His work includes the new graphic novel Fall Through and a new comics
adaptation of James Loewen’s influential Lies My Teacher Told Me, as well as
Save It For Later, civil rights icon John Lewis’s March trilogy, Come Again,
Two Dead and more. Powell’s work has received multiple Eisner and Ignatz awards, the Comic-Con International Inkpot Award, multiple ALA and YALSA distinctions, and is a two-time finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He has discussed his work at the United Nations, on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, PBS, and CNN. He lives in Bloomington, Indiana. |
| 256B | Eric DeSantis | Eric is an illustrator and self-publisher with a multitude of credits from a life’s pursuit of art and games. |
| 257A | SAW Sequential Arts Workshop | Elizabeth Trembley is a graphic
memoirist, whose debut graphic memoir, Look Again (Street Noise 2022) was a
finalist for the Graphic Medicine International Collective Award. Beth is
also a Lambda Literary Award-winning mystery writer, and a skilled teacher
and coach to creators working in prose and comics. She has published books and articles on a wide variety of popular culture including Batman, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Michael Crichton. She has also contributed to anthologies which have been nominated for an Edgar Award and won a Michigan Notable Book Award. Currently, she works for the Sequential Artists Workshop as the facilitator of the Graphic Memoir + Medicine Working Group and the teacher of four- and twelve-week courses on the practice of graphic memoir. |
| 257B | Hyena Hell | Hyena Hell is a comics mentor with Sequential Artists Workshop, and their “Demons” series is published by Silver Sprocket. She is a cartoonist, illustrator, and sometimes-printmaker. She lives in rural Kentucky (for some reason) with a pack of unruly dogs and a multitude of personal demons. Her autobio comics have been published by Tinto Press, Birdcage Bottom Books, and her own imprint Horror Vacui Press. |
| 258A | Tuxedo Bunny | Tuxedo (aka Adrien) is a Denver artist, writer, designer and micropress operator who makes comics about jewel thieves. Diamond emoji rabbit emoji. |
| 258B | Andy Wieland | Andy Wieland is from Northwest Wisconsin, and lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He works at a Persian rug store. He has a zine newsletter called 'Wheels' that features his comics. |
| 259A | Anders Nilsen | Anders Nilsen is the author and artist of Big Questions, Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow, The End and several other graphic novels and books of comics. His work has appeared in Kramer’s Ergot, The New York Times, The Believer, The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine and elsewhere and has been translated around the world. He's currently serializing a major graphic novel loosely based on the Greek myth of Prometheus, called Tongues. After years in Chicago, Minneapolis and Portland, Oregon, he now lives in Los Angeles. |
| 259B | Zak Sally/ La Mano 21 | Zak Sally is a cartoonist (RECIDIVIST, Sammy The Mouse), writer (FOLRATH), musician (Low, The Dirty Three, The HAND, etc), micro-publisher (La Mano 21) and printmaker operating out of Minneapolis, MN. He's been making and releasing weird art objects for over 35 years. |
| 260 | John Porcellino/Spit and a Half | John Porcellino has been self-publishing his zine King-Cat Comics since 1989, and running the Spit and a Half Distro since 1992. He lives in Beloit, Wisconsin. |
| 261A | Kimberly Wang | Kimberly Wang is an illustrator and comic artist based in New York City. They love making comics that are sometimes moody, sometimes ridiculous, often both, and always queer. They are the creator of the sci-fi corporate magical girls graphic novel Of Thunder and Lightning published by Silver Sprocket. When not drawing or daydreaming about comics, they enjoy roller skating and all sorts of crafty activities. |
| 261A | Anna Chen Campbell | Anna graduated from RISD in 2020 with a BFA in Illustration and currently works in the Chicago area as a production designer at Sourcebooks. She loves soup, sudoku, and stories of all shapes (though sinister sapphic sorceresses are especially sweet). |
| 261B | Robyn Chapman | Robyn Chapman edits, publishes, and (sometimes) draws comics. She is the proprietor of Paper Rocket Minicomics, a New York-based micro-press that publishes comics, zines, and graphic novels. Paper Rocket's recent publications include American Cult (co-published with Silver Sprocket) and the Mini Memoir Project. At her day job, Robyn is a senior editor at First Second. |
| 262 | Ronald Wimberly | Ronald Wimberly is an American cartoonist. He has published several graphic novels, as well as shorter works for The New Yorker, DC/Vertigo, Nike, Marvel, Hill and Wang, and Dark Horse Comics. Wimberly was the 2016 Columbus Museum of Art comics resident, and was a two-time resident cartoonist at Angoulême's Maison des Auteurs. He is the recipient of the 2008 Glyph Comics Award, and has been nominated for two Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. Founder of LAAB Art Newspaper and the recently released Gratuitous Ninjas from Beehive Books, Wimberly’s work is celebrated for his unique style and sequential design. |
| 263A | Jim Terry | Author of Come Home, Indio, artist on Deathstalker, West Of Sundown, The Crow and more |
| 263B | Matthew Allison | Matthew Allison began making comics later in life, starting a web comic in his late 30's that eventually became CANKOR. Mixing autobio and drippy, super powered mayhem, much of Matthew's comics delve into the subject of emotional dysfunction and the challenges of self-betterment. |
| 264A | Ryan Alves | Ryan Alves is a cartoonist working in Providence, RI who needs to start making the most of these bios. |
| 264B | Evan Salazar | Evan Salazar is a cartoonist
originally from Tucson, Arizona. His main project is the self-published comic
book Rodeo, which explores the secret passageways that connect memory,
imagination, and family. Salazar was awarded the Emerging Talent Award at Cartoon Crossroads Columbus 2023, was the recipient of a 2020 MICE Mini-grant, founded the Tucson Comix Club, and has presented his work at comics festivals across the United States. He currently lives in Arizona with his dog, Margie. |
| 265A | Cam Collins | Cam Collins has fun drawing
stories that are created by the people within the illustrations themselves. He is simply the person transcribing the stories for them. To the people within the drawings, he is an artist and friend, and has published a variety of comics, album artwork, and even a game titled Copper Odyssey. |
| 265B | Hink | Hink is a comic artist, illustrator, muralist, paster, and creature person from Chicago. They have been self-publishing their own comics and zines since 2019, and can be spotted vending at (and generally running around) at different events around the city and beyond. Their work tends to explore gender, sexuality, mental illness, interpersonal relationships, and social issues, all in a stylized manner. Hink hopes to inspire others to get familiar with their own respective creature inside. |
| 266A | Reptile House Comix | Reptile House Comix is an underground comix collective based in Philadelphia, PA. |
| 267A | Xiomar Luna | Xiomar Luna (They/He) is a cartoonist, zine maker, and educator. Originally from South Bend, Indiana, they graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2012 with their BFA in Comic Art. They were a founding member of the (now disbanded) Plus Dog Collective, and were one half of the team behind the comic, “Collision Course”. Xiomar is an Aquarius who's comics center trans/ queer experiences and things that are otherworldly. They are inspired by anime, punk rock, astrology, nature, and queer history. |
| 267B | Uncivilized Books | Uncivilized Books is a boutique comics publishing house based in Minneapolis, MN, founded in 2010. We envision a future full of cartoon philosophers, comic-book poets, graphic novelists and doodler scientists. |
| 268A | Özge Samanci | Özge Samanci, is an artist and associate professor at Northwestern University. In 2017, Ozge received the Berlin Prize, and I was the Holtzbrinck Visual Arts Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. Her autobiographical graphic novel Dare to Disappoint (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2015) has been translated into six languages. Her drawings appeared in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Slate Magazine. Her second graphic novel Evil Eyes Sea will be released by Uncivilized Books on April 30th. Her interactive installations have been exhibited internationally in museums and galleries. |
| 268B | Sophie Yanow | Sophie Yanow is queer artist and writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her graphic novel The Contradictions (Drawn & Quarterly) won the 2019 Eisner Award for Best Webcomic. Her work has been nominated for the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Comics, a Publishers Triangle Award, Ignatz, Ringo, and Harvey awards, and longlisted for the Believer Book Award. Yanow is also the author of What is a Glacier? (Retrofit) and War of Streets and Houses (Uncivilized Books) and her comics have appeared at The New Yorker, The Guardian, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Nib, and The Paris Review. She has been a MacDowell Fellow, and her translation of Dominique Goblet’s Pretending is Lying received the Scott Moncrieff Prize for translation from French. Yanow previously taught at the Center for Cartoon Studies, the New Hampshire Institute of Art, and The Animation Workshop in Denmark. She currently teaches in the MFA in Comics at the California College of the Arts. |
| 269A | connor brown | comic artist from los angeles, california. owner of three cats. friend to all. |
| 269B | Cynta Camilia | Cynta (They/Them) is a queer Malaysian artist currently based in San Francisco, CA. They recently graduated from Minneapolis College of Art and Design with a BFA in Illustration, and is currently pursuing their MFA in Comics at the California College of the Arts. They draw a lot of silly comics based on their life! Most of their work is influenced by their Malaysian culture/heritage, growing up aggressively Southeast Asian, and their love for cosmic horror mixed with a touch of sci-fi. |
| 270A | Shannon Spence | Shannon Spence is a cartoonist,
amateur performer, and medical technologist living in Jersey City, NJ. She
makes fuzzy characters largely inspired by video games and fantasy (from The
Elder Scrolls to Pokemon) and expressive linework rooted in her experience
making woodcuts. She turned to indie comics in 2019 out of a desire to share
her work in common spaces and tell wild and fun stories. Her newest book, P*NK LAB GRL!, is a punk sci-fi lite comedy inspired by her time behind the scenes at hospital labs. She is also creating a risograph comic series called CART Zine with a rotating theme. Shannon co-founded the Comix Accountability Club in March 2022, an inclusive online community for cartoonists looking to connect and collaborate. |
| 270B | Pranas T. Naujokaitis | Pranas is a Chicago based cartoonist who has been making hand-crafted minicomics since 2006. His comic Laffy Meal was nominated for an Ignatz award for Best Minicomic. He's created kid-friendly work for publishers like Boom! Studios and First Second. He's still trying to get the hang of all this. |
| 271A | Snack King Comics | Snack King Comics is a mini-comics producer that caters to fans of comedy, sci-fi/fantasy, and slice-of-life - snacks for your feelings! |
| 271B | Marcelo Biott | Marcelo Biott is an artist/creator who loves dipping his pen into different worlds to create new inspired stories and characters. He is the creator of stories such as InfraCity and is the artist for books like Nook and The Neverland. |
| 272B | S.R. Arnold | Philly sewer mutant comic artist channeling Millennial dread. Fabulism delinquency as high art. |
| 272A | Tony DiPasquale | I'm a 23 year old cartoonist from central Illinois who draws weird, wordless comics about an unlucky little guy named Nugget. |
| 272B | Michael Kamison | Philly sewer mutant, comic writer and educator. Punk rock and existential dread. |
| 273A | Maddie Dennis | Maddie Dennis is a cartoonist, animator, and teacher from Providence RI. She loves telling two stories at once, worms (and their lies), and snooping on other people's life experiences. |
| 273B | Lezlie Dorcus | Lezlie Dorcus (they/them) is a
printmaker, zine maker and tattoo artist from Portland, Oregon. They grew up
in New Hampshire and got their BFA in Printmaking at the Rhode Island School
of Design (RISD) in 2011. After relocating to Portland soon after graduation, they joined Flight64 Printmaking Studio and started to explore emotional storytelling through visceral imagery in their screen prints and comic work. They have presented solo exhibitions at the Alberta Abbey, Red Fox, and Wolff Gallery and tabled in community events including the PDX Zine Symposium, Flight64 last Thursday events, and Buckman Journal Art Market. You can find their comics on their website and at Floating World Comics in Portland, OR. |
| 274A | Madeline McGrane | Madeline McGrane is a cartoonist and illustrator. She is the author and illustrator of the Accursed Vampire graphic novels. In her spare time she regularly self-publishes minicomics. She lives in Minneapolis. |
| 274B | Ezra David Mattes | Ezra David Mattes is a writer and graphic artist from Minneapolis living with disabling chronic illness. His work on the self-published first chapter of his graphic anti-memoir A Terrified Child Played by Jeremy Strong earned him a 2024 Minnesota State Arts Board grant for Creative Individuals, in addition to a 2024 Comics Advocacy Group mini grant and the Athenaeum Comic Art Spring 2023 microgrant for early career cartoonists. |
| 275A | Izzy "Strontium" Hall | Izzy Hall is a human being (much to their chagrin) from the Chicago suburbs. They love comics, creatures and chemistry, and go by “Strontium” on the web. Izzy is the creator of the webcomic Heroes of Thantopolis, and has their work printed in Wayward Kindred (ToComics). When not working on comics and zines, they’re probably imagining future comics and zines in their head. Or watching Youtube. |
| 275B | Alex Lupp | Alex Lupp is a writer of comics. Born in Bucharest, Romania, he found himself flung across the ocean at the tender age of thirteen. Landing in the Washington, DC area, he has since come to call the city his home. Along the way came comics, and a life long interest in experiencing and telling stories. He is currently working on Sand, a series of comics set on a desert world. The story begins in a realm of myth where twin siblings accidentally create a world due to their rivalry. Future issues tell of life on that young planet, from animal friends facing the adversity of life, to the cruelties of the developing human world. |
| 276A | Bridget Bilbo | Cold Boy Press is an itty bitty press in Chicago run by Bridget Bilbo, they make diary comics and a small series called 'Basil'. They also started publishing a collaborative zine called Cloudy this year :) |
| 276B | Strange Deer Press | Strange Deer Press a midwestern comic & zine collective. Stationed in Northeast Ohio, Chicago, and the Twin Cities, SDP creates works that are real, accessible, wonderful, and wild. Come find queer weirdo art, skin-crawling horror, sweet remix poetry, and abolitionist zines. |
| 277A | Sean Mac | Sean Mac is a cartoonist from the midwest who likes making cute and funny stories for all to enjoy. His top interests at the moment are Kirby, Dungeon Synth, and taking long walks. |
| 277B | Andrea Bell | Andrea Bell is an illustrator and comic artist who grew up playing in the northern woods of Wisconsin. It's these memories of adventure, nurturing nature, and adolescent independence that are reflected throughout her colorful work. Her hope is to create stories that resonate with children and the inner child. She currently resides in Chicago, IL. |
| 278A | Dave Scheidt | Dave Scheidt is a writer from Chicago. When he’s not writing comic books, he likes watching monster movies and eating snacks. He first started writing stories when he was ten years old and hasn’t stopped since. |
| 278B | Coleton Mastick | Coleton Mastick is a comic artist and Illustrator from Chicago, IL. He has always been interested in creating his own books and comics. He loves to create characters, worlds, and his own adventures and bring them to life. |
| 279A | Autumn Crossman-Serb | Autumn Crossman-Serb is a
Metis/Libya muslim residing in Winnipeg, MB, Canada. She has contributed to
publications such as Augur Magazine and Broken Pencil. Currently looking for an agent she is working on some personal comics in the meantime that are science fiction and fantasy romance focused. Outside of that she works as a barista at a cafe and teaches art classes at the Winnipeg Art Gallery. You can find her at https://ko-fi.com/akitron or on blsky/twitter/ig @akitron |
| 279B | Bianca Xunise | Bianca Xunise is an illustrator, writer, and educator based out of Chicago, Illinois. With two Ignatz Awards under their belt, Bianca enjoys being a voice for those who march to the beat of their own drum and hopes that their comics are comforting to those who feel like they don’t fit in. In 2020, Bianca became the first nationally syndicated non-binary cartoonist (and the second black woman) when they joined the comic strip Six Chix in 2020 as their first black creator. Xunise has also collaborated with Vogue, The Washington Post, The Nib, and Believer Magazine. When Bianca isn’t doodling away, they are usually at an underground DIY punk show dancing with friends by the Chicago riverside. In April 2024 their graphic novel Punk Rock Karaoke (Penguin Teen) debut with rave reviews. Critics are already calling it “...a gripping narrative, relatable situations, and evocative artwork with an aesthetic that oozes with late-1970s zine flair” – Publishers Weekly, STARRED review |
| 280A | Junkworld Comics | Kiana Stewart is a Portland-based cartoonist. |
| 280B | Ana Two | Ana Two (@anatwocomics) is a cartoonist and painter living in Vermont. They make thriller and romance comics that explore themes of Americana, religion, and queer desire. They have a soft spot for vampire stories and toxic yuri. |
| 281A | JT Wilkins | JT Wilkins, also recognized by the moniker JTW, is a prolific figure in the realm of alternative cartooning. Renowned for his distinctive artistic style and innovative storytelling, JT has carved a niche for himself in the world of indie comics. His creations resonate with fans who appreciate his unconventional approach, pushing the boundaries of artistic expression and narrative exploration. With a captivating blend of uncanny surrealism and retro underground aesthetics. |
| 281B | Luis Echavarria Uribe | Medellín (Colombia) 1980. Cartoonist. Most of my work is self-published, and the struggle/journey of promoting my work, as well as other’s has led me to tackle other fields. This includes collaborating on planning and organizing an annual festival centered around comics and illustration, conducting workshops on topics like comics, zines, printing, and screen-printing. I also established a riso studio that specializes in printing small press and graphic arts by local artists, edited comics for fellow authors, curated exhibitions, and formed a comics work group that aims to nurture collaboration among colleagues, encourages the creation of compelling new work, and contributes to the vibrant local comics and artistic scene. And I'm now starting from scratch again since I recently moved to Madison (WI). |
| 282A | Jimmy Giegerich | Jimmy Giegerich is an illustrator living and working in Baltimore, MD. He’s the creator of the Executioner and Friend cartoon and comics, as well as the Fight Frogs and Death Knightcomic series’. He runs on heavy metal, horror movies, and slime. |
| 282B | Odin Cabal | I’m Odin Cabal and I have published Midwestrn Cuban Comics on my own for the last 12 years. It’s taken a few years to get back into the comics making mode but I am back with new and different material. Now I’m digging deep into my love of pro wrestling for my latest series Guts and Honor Wrestling. Read the in and out of ring exploits of the men and women of the GHW the hottest wrestling promotion in world. Hot action in the ring, hotter action out of the ring. This first run sets up a sixteen wrestler tournament for the world heavyweight championship. It’s a power bomb of pour printed fun. |
| 283A | Jimmy Kucaj | Jimmy Kucaj (pronounced kootz-eye) is a comic book artist and illustrator from Indiana whose work can be found on the cover of the Big Hype Volume 2 anthology and in the pages of Scott Snyder Presents Tales From the Cloakroom. Jimmy also enjoys playing guitar and hanging with their cat, Lucy. |
| 283B | David Daneman | Creator of The DaneMen Comics (Webtoon / Tapas) and publisher of your favorite webcomics anthologies. |
| 284A | Heberto BICIO | My name is Heberto, I'm an artist from Puerto Rico, currently living in NYC. When making comics, I try to combine social commentary with action and weirdo humor. I explore themes relating to immigrant identity, decolonization, sexual liberation and psychedelic self introspection. |