ICAF

This week, I’m traveling to Seattle to participate in the International Comics Arts Forum’s (ICAF) annual conference at the University of Washington and the concurrent Short Run Comics & Arts Festival. I’ve been invited to ICAF to speak on my work as artist & scholar, and also around teaching comics. My plan for my talk this Thursday, November 2nd at 4pm is to discuss the evolution of my approach to making comics from my full-on return to comics while still in Detroit through my dissertation/Unflattening, and get into some specifics about my working process. (I made a little overview about this journey many years back posted here – and put those pages below as well. And note, this was created before my dissertation, so it’s a bit dated in including recent things…) My solo talk will segue into a broader discussion around teaching comics alongside comics scholars Brittany Tullis, Qiana Whitted, and Frank Bramlett. ICAF is a jam-packed three-day gathering of comics scholars and comics authors – including Jim Woodring, Emil Ferris, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Leela Corman, and more! (See the full schedule and special guests here.) On Saturday, November 4th, I’ll be signing Unflattening at Short Run held at Fisher Pavilion at Seattle Center, i think roughly from 11-1.

I’m just back from a great trip to Michigan, where I spent a day at the College for Creative Studies where Unflattening is in its second year as freshmen common read, and worked with students there (including the one pictured above, who tattooed a quote from the book on her arm!). From there it was over to UofM to do a workshop and participate in a colloquium on Humility. (Details on that in previous post here.) As Unflattening has been used in classrooms, I frequently have had the good fortune to see student responses including high school students (some of which I shared in detail here), and Omaha Central High students Uri & Ethan have created an app that generates art based on the cover to Unflattening. I’ve only played with it a bit – but they are looking for people to give it a spin and share feedback. Right now it’s for PC-users only, but have a look here (it downloads a .zip file). To say the least, I’m geeked to have students find such innovative ways to explore the work!

Onward – N