I have no answers. 🔥

But we're going to some interesting places.

I’m back on the East Coast this week because I’m going to the UN to talk about comics. 

⚡️Record scratch. ⚡️How did I get here?! I’m just an artist who makes zines. My office is actually a garden shed. I usually have hummus on my shirt. How did I wind up getting invited to the actual, honest-to-God, for-real UN?!

This all started way back in 2008. I was working on a zine at the Independent Publishing Resource Center in Portland. A stranger using the photocopier next to me was also making a zine. Their arms were covered in tattoos, they had an asymmetrical haircut, and their shirt said, “Fix Shit Up.” 

“What are you making a zine about?” I asked. They picked up their photocopies and showed me what they’d been working on. 

“My time as a guard at Guantanamo Bay.” 

This interaction led to a friendship and that friendship led to a wild reporting journey. A few months after we met, a group of former Guantanamo prisoners led by author and speaker Moazzam Begg invited my new zine-making friend Chris to go on a speaking tour around England. A group of former prisoners and a former guard on a roadtrip together?! My only question was, “Can I come?” They very generously said yes. I built a free website on Wordpress and kept a blog of the trip. On the month-long trip, we ate meals together, visited museums together, and traveled across the country to churches, mosques, and universities. Meeting those men and hearing their stories blew my mind. It was a first-hand education in how our country functions at its worst—how political leaders designed entire systems to lie and torture people and then used the media very effectively to sell their version of reality. And it was an even more powerful lesson in how people can find each other and connect. These two groups that our government had tried so hard to dehumanize—prisoners and guards—sought each other out and discovered what humanity they had in common. 

Ten years later, I was still thinking about Guantanamo every day. I started working on a book that would put the stories of people with different experiences at “the world’s most infamous prison” in conversation with each other. I hired 10 different comics artists for the book, each artist illustrating a different person’s story. When I thought about who should illustrate the story of Moazzam Begg, my immediate answer was Omar Khouri, a Lebanese artist whose linework burns with emotion. The texture, perspective, and visual power Khouri brought to his chapter was incredible. 

Now, Omar has co-written and illustrated the first-ever UN report that uses graphic reportage—a searing study of the food crisis in Palestine. And amid launching a nonfiction comics press, I’m spending many, many volunteer hours helping put together the Cartoonists for Palestine anthology, a collection that gathers together work from over 60 artists from around the world. This week, Omar is coming all the way from Beirut to discuss the report at a UN panel, and he invited me to be a part of the event, too. After working together so intensely, we’re meeting in person for the first time.

All of this started from wanting to connect with a stranger about their artwork… and then really listening to what they told me about their life. I don’t know where I’m going to wind up. I don’t know what we should do about all the problems of our country. I don’t have any answers. But my curiosity and compassion led me here, to this work. Where will yours lead you? 

New York Events

Thursday October 17: Omar and I are part of a panel at the actual UN (!!)  discussing comics and human rights. This discussion marks the release of the report Omar co-wrote and illustrated about the food crisis in Palestine. The panel is from 1-3pm EST and can also be watched live online. Register here to attend or get the link to watch. 

Friday October 18: I’m co-hosting a drawing night at Starr Bar in Brooklyn to support Cartoonists for Palestine. This is a time to connect with like-minded people, participate in some low-key drawing activities, and learn about the upcoming book. Art supplies will be provided, just bring yourself and your friends! 5pm-8pm at Starr Bar (214 Starr St, Brooklyn)

Things I’ve made 

A comic explainer about Portland’s upcoming election: While most people are focused on the national election, there’s some big, exciting, somewhat confusing things going on locally in Portland. For example: ranked-choice voting baybeee. I made this comic available as a free PDF you can download here. A couple teachers have already messaged me to say they want to use it in their classes this week! 

Where there’s smoke: I drew this comic reflecting on the unfolding environmental disasters I saw while driving across the country from Vermont back home to Portland. It feels relevant each week, as hurricanes and floods and fires abound. The climate crisis isn’t something abstract happening in the future, but something happening around us right now. 

Neighborhood photo zine: I’ve been very stressed out recently by the world, etc, so I spent a really nice afternoon walking around my neighborhood with a friend not looking at my phone or thinking about politics at all and instead taking photos of beautiful, mundane spots. Carrying around an instant camera turned out to be an amazing way to interact with neighbors. Multiple people said hi, asked what I was taking photos of, and offered up their own flowers, dogs, or porches as photo material. 

Upcoming classes

Making memoir comics: I’ve been teaching a memoir comics class online since 2020 and it’s such a joy each time. Creating a space for people to express their personal stories and creativity feels like pure magic. This fall’s session starts October 23rd, which is coming up remarkably fast. You can sign up here (sliding scale pricing!).

Editing comics: My friend Whit Taylor and I are running this somewhat experimental class on editing comics. “Experimental” meaning that we’re both teaching this for the first time (I’ve never seen a class on editing comics! Have you? Do they exist??). This class will be a mix of discussion, lectures, and editing activities and is guaranteed to be a lot of fun. The class starts November 12. You can sign up here (sliding scale pricing). 

What I’ve Been Reading 

Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin: I devoured this trans-centric thriller set at an anti-gay conversion therapy camp in the early 1990s. Imagine But I’m a Cheerleader meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but against a backdrop of violent right-wing homophobia. 

I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones: I first came across Stephen Graham Jones’ work in the haunting Indigenous dark fiction anthology Never Whistle Alone at Night. When I wanted a spooky-but-not-too-scary book to read for October, I looked up what else the library had by him. This book is a surreal, funny, very bloody twist on horror movie tropes. Imagine a world where “slashers” are a type of magical cryptid, like a werewolf or vampire, and unfortunately our hapless narrator becomes one. 

Who’s Afraid of Gender? By Judith Butler: To be fair, I’ve been hauling around the e-book version of Judith Butler’s newest work for weeks, trying to get myself to read it but getting distracted after a few pages. It’s the kind of book where you want to stop every few paragraphs to text a line to a friend… and then somehow three hours have passed. Butler’s analysis brings a lot of clarity to the upsetting and violent responses to drag story hours around the country, which can send me on a mental spiral. This weekend I finally put my phone in another room and sunk my teeth into a few chapters. If anyone wants to talk about this book, I would love to. Hopefully I’ll finish it by the time 2025 rolls around.

What I’ve been up to

Fun things I’ve been doing instead of writing this newsletter:  

• Squelching thousands of apples to make apple cider 

• Stirring soup in a giant cauldron on a mountaintop 

• Attending a drag show staged by farmers in a barn 

• Receiving a delivery of 400 bright green Crucial Comix hats 

• Running a workshop called “Playing with gender through zines” at Smith College  

• Turning all of my t-shirts into crop tops 

Way less fun things I’ve been doing instead of writing this newsletter: 

• Harassing forty artists about licensing agreements so my collaborator Eleri and I can include their art and interviews in our book Making Nonfiction Comics: A Guide to Graphic Narrative. We’re in the home stretch of getting this book to print!  

• Trying to make sure every name in the Cartoonists for Palestine book is spelled correctly.

• Trying to stop my dog from hunting and eating rats at the dog park. Any advice on that one?!

  

  Sending love from me and a truly great Vermont sunset.