For Immediate Release
Contact: Eden Miller
Small Press Expo Announces Eddie Campbell, MariNaomi, Kevin Huizenga, Shing Yin Khor, Bianca Xunise and Rosemary Valero-O'Connell as Special Guests for 2019. Bethesda, Maryland - June 25, 2019 Media Release - Small Press Expo is proud to announce the first group of Special Guests for SPX 2019. The festival takes place on Saturday and Sunday, September 14-15, at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center and will have over 650 creators, 280 exhibitor tables, over 20 programming slots and additional hands-on workshops to introduce attendees to the amazing world of independent and small press comics. Additional Special Guests will be announced soon. SPX 2019 is honored to have the following creators as Special Guests to this year's show: | | Publishers Weekly calls Eddie Campbell "one of the premier cartoonists of his generation." Campbell has been writing and drawing comics since 1974, and is best known for his collaborations with Alan Moore (From Hell, A Disease of Language) and Neil Gaiman (The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains), as well as for Alec, his tour-de-force autobiographical series that Booklist called "a high-water mark in the graphic novel's short history," and the 1200-page epic Bacchus. His most recent book is Bizarre Romance (with Audrey Niffenegger), and he is currently serializing a new colorized edition of From Hell. | | | | | MariNaomi is the award-winning author and illustrator of four graphic memoirs and the Life on Earth young adult graphic novel trilogy, the founder and administrator of the Cartoonists of Color, Queer Cartoonists, and (soon) Disabled Cartoonists databases, and cohost of the Ask Bi Grlz podcast with author Myriam Gurba. Mari's art has been featured at the Asian Art Museum, Smithsonian API culture lab, Cartoon Art Museum, de Young Museum, and Japanese American Museum. She has toured twice with the literary roadshow Sister Spit. MariNaomi.com | | Kevin Huizenga splits his time between Chicago and Minneapolis. He has lived near the Mississippi River for almost twenty years but only swam in it once. His favorite river is the Wabash. His character Glenn Ganges is based on his brother-in-law and the name is a reference to two separate towns that appear on the same sign on the interstate. The River at Night is his fourth publication with Drawn & Quarterly.
In The River at Night Kevin Huizenga uses the cartoon medium like a symphony, establishing rhythms and introducing themes that he returns to, adding and subtracting events and thoughts, stretching and compressing time. | | | | | Shing Yin Khor is a Malaysian-American cartoonist and installation artist exploring collections, immigrant identity and memory, new human rituals, and collaborative worldbuilding at the intersection of race, gender and immigration. A 2019 Kickstarter Thought Leader, they won an Ignatz in 2018 with their minicomic Say It With Noodles, and their forthcoming graphic novel, The American Dream? A Journey on Route 66 is out in August. They co-founded the endurance art event Resistance Cranes, which raises money for low income refugee and immigrant causes, founded the Wiregrid Grant program for new exhibiting convention artists, leads the Three Eyed Rat, an immersive installation crew building small stories in large scale structures, and co-organizes Wayward, a creative retreat and intentional community for womxn and genderqueer people.
They are currently working on The Legend of Auntie Po for Kokila (Penguin Random House) for a 2020 publication date. | | Bianca Xunise is an illustrator and cartoonist based out of Chicago. Her work primarily focuses on the plight and daily struggles as identifying as a young black feminist weirdo in modern society. Her story-telling can range from simple relatable slice of life content to complex nuanced narratives like police brutality that have garnered her an Ignatz Award for Promising New Talent. Bianca's work has been published on diverse platforms such as The Washington Post, Riot Fest, The Nib, Bitch Magazine, and Shondaland and has been featured on platforms such as Vogue The BBC, The Nerdist, and NYLON. When she's not doodling away Bianca is usually somewhere dreaming of the mothman, while listening to The Damned. | | | | | Rosemary Valero-O'Connell | Rosemary Valero-O'Connell is an Eisner-nominated cartoonist and illustrator born in Minneapolis, MN, and raised in Zaragoza, Spain. She's published comics with First Second (Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me), Shortbox (What Is Left), Boom! Studios (Lumberjanes, Steven Universe), and DC Comics (Gotham Academy). She's worked with clients like CAPY Games, Kazoo Magazine, The City Pages, Mondo Prints and Tees, and Crunchyroll, and had her work recognized by the Society of Illustrators NY, as well as on platforms such as VICE and The A.V. Club. Her illustrations have been shown in galleries both locally and internationally. | | Small Press Expo (SPX) is the preeminent showcase for the exhibition of independent comics, graphic novels, and alternative political cartoons. SPX is a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit that brings together more than 650 artists and publishers to meet their readers, booksellers, and distributors each year. Graphic novels, mini comics, and alternative comics will all be on display and for sale by their authors and illustrators. The expo includes a series of panel discussions and interviews with this year's guests.
The Ignatz Award is a festival prize held every year at SPX recognizing outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning, with the winners chosen by attendees at the show.
As in previous years, profits from the SPX will go to support the SPX Graphic Novel Gift Program, which funds graphic novel purchases for public and academic libraries. For more information on the Small Press Expo, please visit http://www.smallpressexpo.com. | | Small Press Expo P.O. Box 5704 Bethesda, Maryland 20824 | | | | | | |
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