Come and sit-in on one or more of these panels! Or hole up in the room waiting for a Pokemon panel happening afterwards. Either way, you’re learning about the amazing authors and books that we publish, and we couldn’t ask for anything more! Plus, our panels are so cool that they’ve been featured on Hollywood Reporter as panels to make sure you catch during the convention!
Thursday, July 21st
Love and Rockets: Past, Present, and Future
Love and Rockets by brothers Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez is one of the most influential comic series to ever be published. Rounding on 35 years, the characters and stories within Love and Rockets have inspired countless cartoonists, musicians, and writers with their unique world building and stories. Hear about the series from the very beginning with Gilbert and Jaime, publisher Gary Groth (Fantagraphics), co-creator Mario Hernandez (Love and Rockets), and fans like Matt Fraction (Sex Criminals, Hawkeye), with exclusive art and announcements.
Thursday July 21, 2016 11:00am – 12:00pm
Room 9
Something for Everyone: Indie Comics
Love comics but aren’t into superheroes? What about spooky fairy tales, witty comedy, survival stories, social commentary, or love and wrestling? There is something for everyone in the wide world of indie comics. Moderator Andrew Farago (curator, Cartoon Art Museum) leads Comic-Con special guests Emily Carroll (Through the Woods), Lisa Hanawalt (Hot Dog Taste Test), Jennifer Hayden (The Story of My Tits), Keith Knight (The K Chronicles), and Ed Luce (Wuvable Oaf) in a discussion about how they get their unique perspectives across and then out into the world!
Thursday July 21, 2016 1:00pm – 2:00pm
Room 29AB
Comics Arts Conference #3: Comics and Latin America
Award-winning writer and CAC special guest Trina Robbins (Pretty in Ink: North American Women Cartoonists 1896-2013) looks at how two women, Lily Renee and Tarpe Mills, presented their Brazilian fantasies to the North American public in the form of adventure strips starring capable, glamorous heroines. Braeden Jones (University of Iowa) demonstrates how contemporary artists recontextualize and reappropriate images, motifs, and themes from historical sources, and compares external artistic influence on Latin America to historical conquest. Nicole Larrondo (Brown University) takes this scholarly journey to Chile, where the comic format is a helpful tool for teaching history, and speculates on the challenges of having the state as the primary support for an artistic form.
Thursday July 21, 2016 1:00pm – 2:30pm
Room 26AB
Crockett Johnson’s Barnaby: What Makes a Great Comic Strip
Before Calvin and Hobbes, Peanuts, and Pogo, there was Barnaby. Crockett Johnson’s classic strip combined fantasy and satire, a child’s feeling of wonder and an adult’s wariness, with highly literate jokes and a keen eye for the ridiculous. Johnson’s biographer Philip Nel is joined by Eric Reynolds, co-editor of Fantagraphics’s Barnaby series, cartoonist Jeff Smith (Bone), and moderator Thomas Spurgeon (The Comics Reporter). They’ll talk about why the strip remains so influential and its place in the history of great American comics.
Thursday July 21, 2016 4:00pm – 5:00pm
Room 29AB
Queer History in Comics
Queer characters and narratives are finding their way into a popular growing genre of comics with historical themes and stories. However, writing about the lives of LGTBQ past can present a number of challenges for comics creators today. How do writers and artists create a complete and honest view of historical queer characters and their stories? How do we balance modern labels and values to best represent these characters, their experiences, and the periods they lived in? What tools are available for researching queer lifestyles throughout history? Join Prism Comics and moderator Josh Trujillo (Love Machines), Joseph Hawkins (director of the USC ONE Archive), and creators Kez Pagtakhan (Until the Last Dog Dies), Trina Robbins (The Complete Wimmen’s Comix), and Emily Willis (Cassius) as they discuss their work, inspirations, and challenges in presenting LGBTQ history through comics.
Thursday July 21, 2016 5:00pm – 6:00pm
Room 28DE
Friday, July 22nd
Kramer’s Ergot and the Art of the Comic Anthology
Few anthologies have done as well a job of capturing modern cartooning and visual storytelling than the Kramer’s Ergot series, edited and compiled by Sammy Harkham. Learn about the history behind the series, the process of wrangling over 15 artists, and the importance of anthologies in the comics medium, with contributors Johnny Ryan, John Pham, Matt Groening, and Steven Weissman.
Friday July 22, 2016 11:30am – 12:30pm
Room 24ABC
Walt Kelly and POGO
The greatest newspaper strip of all time? Some would call it that. Even if you aren’t one of them, you’ve gotta love the wit and whimsy of Walt Kelly’s magnum opus, Pogo, now receiving its first-ever complete reprinting in an Eisner Award-winning series from Fantagraphics Books. Remember this great artist with comics historian Maggie Thompson (Comics Buyer’s Guide), film critic Leonard Maltin, historian Michael Barrier, cartoonist Scott Shaw!, Eric Reynolds (co-editor of the Complete Pogo series), and moderator Mark Evanier (Groo the Wanderer).
Friday July 22, 2016 12:30pm – 1:30pm
Room 8
Generations of Women in Comics
Trina Robbins (Pretty in Ink), Mary Fleener (Twisted Sister Comics), Anina Bennett (Heartbreakers), and MariNaomi (Turning Japanese)-women of four generations-discuss surprising and often unknown contributions by women in comics from early history, WWII, and underground to trends today. Moderated by Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson (The Major Loomed Like a Superman).
Friday July 22, 2016 3:30pm – 4:30pm
Room 8
Marketing and Publicity the Alternative Comics Way
Distribution, press, and conventions can be intimidating ventures for cartoonists with unconventional stories and art; how do you find your market and rise above the rest to be noticed by publishers, reviewers, and booksellers? Jacq Cohen, Anna Pederson (Fantagraphics), Simon Hanselmann (Megahex), and others shed light on the process of putting yourself out there and getting noticed.
Friday July 22, 2016 4:00pm – 5:00pm
Room 28DE
Comic Book Secret Origins: How the Industry’s Best and Brightest Began
Every hero has an origin story, the defining moment where they thrust themselves to greatness. So do the comics industry’s best and brightest! Comics luminaries and tastemakers David Steinberger (comiXology CEO and co-founder), Denis Kitchen (cartoonist/publisher/agent, The Best of Comix Book), Derf Backderf (cartoonist, Trashed, My Friend Dahmer), and Ed Luce (cartoonist, Wuvable Oaf) offer a look at the extraordinary events that transformed them from comics fan to comic industry heroes!
Friday July 22, 2016 6:00pm – 7:00pm
Room 9
Saturday, July 23rd
Spotlight on Daniel Clowes
Appearing at Comic-Con International for the first time in 15 years, influential cartoonist Daniel Clowes (Ghost World, Wilson) is joined by editor and friend Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics) to discuss his career beginnings, Hollywood, and his newest New York Times bestselling graphic novel, Patience.
Saturday July 23, 2016 11:00am – 12:00pm
Room 28DE
Comics Arts Conference #11: Focus on Trina Robbins
Comics Arts Conference special guest Trina Robbins is a writer, cartoonist, and comics herstorian. A leader in the feminist underground comix movement with her landmark It Ain’t Me, Babe Comix and co-founding of the Wimmen’s Comix Collective, Robbins is also a renowned chronicler of the history of women in comics. Her work includesThe Great Women Superheroes, Pretty In Ink: North American Women Cartoonists 1896-2013, and The Brinkley Girls: The Best of Nell Brinkley’s Cartoons from 1913-1940. Robbins, a Will Eisner Hall of Fame inductee, has also written Wonder Woman: The Once and Future Story, Honey West, GoGirl! and contributed to Sensation Comics and Girl Comics. Her latest opus, The Complete Wimmen’s Comix, collects every issue of this first continuing all-woman produced comic book anthology Jennifer K. Stuller (Ink-Stained Amazon, GeekGirlCon) moderates.
Saturday July 23, 2016 1:00pm – 2:00pm
Room 26AB
Celebrating 40 Years of Fantagraphics
Now in their 40th year of publishing groundbreaking alternative comics, come hear the story of how it all began from founder Gary Groth, associate publisher Eric Reynolds and cartoonists Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, Daniel Clowes, and Simon Hanselmann. Moderated by Nina Gregory, Arts Desk senior editor at NPR.
Saturday July 23, 2016 3:30pm – 4:30pm
Room 26AB
Gays (and more) in Comics (and more): Year 29: Queerly Inspired
LGBT creators and creators of LGBT-related comics discuss the works and events that inspire their work. Prism Comics and co-moderators Roger Klorese (Prism Comics Board) and Shannon Watters (BOOM! Studios, Lumberjanes) are joined by Ed Luce (Wuvable Oaf), Robert Rodi (Merry Men, Loki), Magdalene Visaggio (Kim & Kim), Ari Yarwood (Oni Press), and others to be announced.
Saturday July 23, 2016 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Room 29AB
Sunday, July 24th
The Complete Wimmen’s Comix: A Her-story
Groundbreaking women cartoonists discuss the pioneering history of this comic series that covered still-taboo topics like abortion, menstruation, masturbation, castration, lesbians, witches, murderesses, and feminists. Featuring cartoonists Joan Hilty, Barbara “Willy” Mendes, Rebecka Wright, Lee Marrs, Mary Fleener, Sharon Rudahl, Caryn Leschen, Terre Richards, and moderator Trina Robbins.
Sunday July 24, 2016 12:00pm – 1:00pm
Room 29AB