March 15: Library of Congress event with cartoonists

"In Conversation with the Librarian of Congress: Drawn to Purpose: American Women Illustrators and Cartoonists" featuring Whitney Sherman, Barbara Brandon-Croft and Jillian Tamaki
Thursday, March 15, noon
LJ 119, Thomas Jefferson Building

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden will talk with a panel of women illustrators and cartoonists highlighted in the current exhibition and Library co-published book, "Drawn to Purpose." A book signing and exhibition tours will take place after the conversation in the Graphic Arts Gallery on the ground floor of the Jefferson Building.

Barbara Brandon-Croft is the groundbreaking creator of the comic "Where I'm Coming From," which ran from 1990 to 2005. She was the first African-American woman to publish a nationally syndicated comic strip. Featuring an engaging cast of African-American women, her feature brought a broad range of topical themes into the comics, including politics, history, race and gender issues, and relationships. She has since continued to use her artistic talent in activist pursuits that include illustrations for a guide for black teen girls by Franchestra Ahmen-Cawthorne entitled "Sista Girl-Fren Breaks It Down…When Mom's Not Around."

Whitney Sherman, director of the MFA Illustration Practice program at the Maryland Institute College of Art and an award-winning illustrator, has created a body of multifaceted work for national magazines, corporations and multiple book projects. She has also co-authored and co-edited a monumental new book, "History of Illustration," that covers image-making and print history from around the world, spanning from the ancient to the modern.

Jillian Tamaki, an award-winning illustrator and comic artist, has in a short span of years produced an impressive volume and variety of creative work that includes three graphic novels, web comics, editorial illustrations for newspapers and magazines, portrait drawings of authors for the New York Times Book Review, book covers, posters and, most recently, her first children's book.

Additional events during the month will highlight the Library's wide array of collections and resources that enable life-long learning.