2019 Special Guests
Ezra Claytan Daniels is a writer and illustrator based in Los Angeles, CA. His work has been featured at the Fantoche International Animation Festival in Baden, Switzerland, the Fumetto International Comics Festival in Lucerne, Haarlem Stripdagen in the Netherlands, and is in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum. His graphic novel, UPGRADE SOUL, was the recipient of the Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics and was named one of the best books of 2018 by Publishers Weekly, Vulture, The Library Journal, and Paste. His graphic novel collaboration with Ben Passmore, entitled BTTM FDRS, will be released June 2019 by Fantagraphics Books. Table 316B
Ever since he was little, Nicholas Gurewitch has been told that he holds his drawing utensils in an uncommon way. His comic strip, The Perry Bible Fellowship, first published in Syracuse University's The Daily Orange in 2001. It quickly went on to be published all over the globe, including places like the Guardian, Playboy, and the Internet. Nicholas Gurewitch has worked on a number of never-televised TV shows, and has recently completed a picture book homage to Edward Gorey. Table 418
Corinne Halbert has lived and worked in Chicago since 2006. She was born in Anchorage, Alaska and grew up in suburbs of Boston. Halbert received her MFA in Painting and Drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008. She's a painter, illustrator and cartoonist who specializes in erotic horror and horror comics. Halbert has self-published six issues of Hate Baby comics since 2010 and has contributed comic strips to Black Eye, and Magic Whistle. When she isn’t rendering body cavities real and/or imagined with her signature psychedelic aplomb, Halbert peddles zines, comics, and other incendiary literature at Chicago’s revered Quimby’s Bookstore. Table 216
Michael Kupperman is an Eisner-winning comic artist and writer living in Brooklyn whose work has appeared in or on The New Yorker, Fortune, The New York Times, Nickelodeon Magazine, Forbes, Playboy, Heavy Metal, McSweeney’s, DC, Marvel, Vice, Saturday Night Live, Adult Swim, and Comedy Central, and five of his own books. All the Answers, published in 2018 by Simon & Schuster, was his first serious book (the others, with titles like Snake 'N' Bacon's Cartoon Cabaret and Tales Designed to Thrizzle, were supposed to be funny). Table 308
Anders Nilsen is the artist and author of nine books including Big Questions, The End, and Poetry is Useless as well as the coloring book A Walk in Eden. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Poetry Magazine, Kramer's Ergot, Pitchfork, Medium and elsewhere. His comics have been translated into several languages overseas and his painting and drawing have been exhibited internationally. Nilsen's work has received three Ignatz awards as well as the Lynd Ward Prize for the Graphic Novel and Big Questions was listed as a New York Times Notable Book in 2011. Nilsen grew up in Minneapolis and Northern New Hampshire. He studied art in New Mexico and lived in Chicago for over a decade. He currently lives in Portland, Oregon.Table 106
Ben Passmore lives in self-imposed exile in the cut. His comics are about crime, monsters, anarchism, sexual dysfunction, police brutality, art theory, and his feels. Author of DAYGLOAYHOLE, Goodbye, and Your Black Friend, as well as the artist of BTTM FDRS. Table 316A
Aaron Renier is the author of three graphic novels for younger readers; Spiral-Bound, Walker Bean, and Walker Bean and the Knights of the Waxing Moon. He is the recipient of the Eisner award in 2006 for talent deserving of wider recognition, and was an inaugural resident for the Sendak Fellowship in 2010. He teaches drawing and comics at universities in Chicago. Table 227
Isabella Rotman is a cartoonist and illustrator from Maine living and drawing in Chicago. Her art is usually about the ocean, mermaids, crushing loneliness, people in the woods, or sex. Isabella was nominated for the Promising New Talent Ignatz award in 2017. She is author of the sexual health comic You're so Sexy When You Aren't Transmitting STIs and Artist in Residence at Scarleteen.com. Table 504A
Whit Taylor is a cartoonist, editor, and health educator from New Jersey. Her comics have been published by The Nib, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Czap Books, Sparkplug, Rosarium, and others. Taylor co-edited Comics for Choice (pub. Hazel Newlevant), which won an Ignatz Award in 2018 for Outstanding Anthology. She likes to make comics about public health, mental health, social science, identity, and reality television.Table 507B
Rosemary Valero-O'Connell is a Minneapolis-born, Zaragoza raised cartoonist and illustrator. She's the artist of the Eisner nominated comic What Is Left (ShortBox, 2017) and the co-creator of Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me, alongside award-winning author Mariko Tamaki (First Second 2019). She's done work for DC Comics, BOOM! Studios, CAPY games, Crunchyroll, Mondo Tees, and Kazoo Magazine, among others. She won her second grade spelling bee by spelling the word 'human'. Table 518A
