Most mornings at the Adventure School will begin with a critique session by one of our brilliant Visiting Artists. “Who?” You may ask, particularly if your scroll function is not working properly. Well, below is a bit more about them, and we suggest you look it over, even if you have to press the down button on your keyboard multiple times:
Sarah Becan is a prolific self-published comics artist, author, illustrator and designer based in Chicago, and founder of Shortpants Press. She won a Xeric Award and a Stumptown Trophy for Outstanding Debut for her first graphic novel, The Complete Ouija Interviews, and her work has twice been nominated for the Ignatz Award. She is probably best known for “I Think You’re Sauceome,” an autobiographical webcomic about food, health, and self-image. Becan’s second and most recent graphic novel, Shuteye: Six Tales of Dreams and Dreamers, was funded with a successful Kickstarter campaign and released in early 2012.
Jeffrey Brown is a Chicago cartoonist best known alternately for his autobiographical comics (Clumsy, Funny Misshapen Body) and humorous graphic novels (Incredible Change-Bots, Cats Are Weird). He teaches a comics course at SAIC, co-wrote a film that premiered at Sundance 2012 (Save The Date) and most recently released the Star Wars book Darth Vader and Son.
Jo Dery is an artist who experiments with storytelling. Her works include short films/videos, drawings, prints, illustration, installation, and artist/small-press book publications. Her animations have screened at festivals nationally and internationally, including the Ann Arbor Film Festival and the International Film Festival Rotterdam. She has been awarded grants for her film/video work from the LEF Foundation, the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, and The Free History Project. She has exhibited her drawings and prints in Providence, New York, San Francisco, Portland, and Los Angeles. Her books can be found in independent stores like Ada Books (Providence) and Quimby’s (Chicago), or purchased online from Little Otsu. She has completed residencies at the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, as well as participated in an animation workshop at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow, Poland. Most recently, she designed an installation project for the DeCordova Museum Biennial, at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Massachusetts. She holds a BFA in Film/Animation/Video from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College. In 2011, she relocated from Providence, RI, to Chicago, IL, where she is currently an Assistant Professor of Animation in DePaul University’s School of Cinema and Interactive Media.
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Nicole Hollander was the daughter of Shirley Mazur Garrison and Henry Garrison, a labor activist and member of the carpenters union. Growing up in a working-class Chicago neighborhood, she was educated in Chicago public schools. She earned a BFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1960 and an MFA from Boston University in 1966. During the 1970s, she was the graphic designer of a feminist publication, The Spokeswoman, where she had the opportunity to transform the newsletter into a monthly magazine. While designing pages, she occasionally added her own political illustrations. Around 1978, she created a comic strip, The Feminist Funnies, later introducing the character who became Sylvia. Hollander has donated the archive of her work to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at Ohio State University. A number of her drawings are in the collection of the Library of Congress. She is a faculty member at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Corinne Mucha is a Chicago based cartoonist, illustrator, and teaching artist. She is the author of the YA graphic novel Freshman: 9th Grade Tales of Obsessions, Revelations, and Other Nonsense, as well as the Xeric Award-winning My Alaskan Summer. She is also a frequent anthology contributor, and has been self-publishing minicomics for 7 years, on topics such as singledom, hating cats, and hypochrondria.
Laura Szumowski writes and illustrates non-fiction books about women’s health, and moonlights as a travel guide for Chicago. She occasionally screen prints, and even more occasionally makes minicomics. Laura currently manages ZMK Press, a small Chicago-based press.
Trubble Club is a jam comics collective of loosely-affiliated folks, many based in Chicago, that meet in secret every Sunday.
