I am proud of the work I’ve done as part of theWomen’s March policy table – a collection of women and folk engaged in crucial feminist, racial and social justice work across various intersections in our country. I helped draft the vision and I wrote the line “…and we stand in solidarity with sex workers’ rights movements.” It is not a statement that is controversial to me because as a trans woman of color who grew up in low-income communities and who advocates, resists, dreams and writes alongside these communities, I know that underground economies are essential parts of the lived realities of women and folk. I know sex work to be work. It’s not something I need to tiptoe around. It’s not a radical statement. It’s a fact. My work and my feminism rejects respectability politics, whorephobia, slut-shaming and the misconception that sex workers, or folks engaged in the sex trades by choice or circumstance, need to be saved, that they are colluding with the patriarchy by “selling their bodies.” I reject the continual erasure of sex workers from our feminisms because we continue to conflate sex work with the brutal reality of coercion and trafficking. I reject the policing within and outside women’s movements that shames, scapegoats, rejects, erases and shuns sex workers. I cannot speak to the internal conflicts at the Women’s March that have led to the erasure of the line I wrote for our collective vision but I have been assured that the line will remain in OUR document. The conflicts that may have led to its temporary editing will not leave until we, as feminists, respect THE rights of every woman and person to do what they want with their body and their lives. We will not be free until those most marginalized, most policed, most ridiculed, pushed out and judged are centered. There are no throwaway people, and I hope every sex worker who has felt shamed by this momentarily erasure shows up to their local March and holds the collective accountable to our vast, diverse, complicated realities.
Conventions can feel like a days long performative party at which everyone but me can have fun. It spends energy in exchange for gratitude which, while great, ain’t energy. I like seeing friends on either side of the table, old and new. I like to shake hands and sign my name and say thank you to the people that afford me this ridiculous lifestyle. I like to hug people, total strangers, who look at me and i can see in their eyes that we are alike in ways other people can’t see, don’t know about, can’t understand. Mostly, though, I try to smile and say thank you and to occupy as little space as possible. I try hard to not ask for that exchange, for that transaction, with others who, like me, find themselves on the other side of the table.
I made an exception at Dragon*Con last year. Congressman John Lewis walked by me and I shouted – I mean straight-up SHOUTED – “Congressman!”
He stopped and turned and smiled, all pro. I told him that in a place that was all about superheroes it was nice to meet a real one, and I shook his hand. I said, “You know my wife. Red hair. We were all supposed to have dinner together –”
The Congressman cut me off as we shook. He brought his other hand up to mine and embraced it, turning a handshake into a – into I don’t know what. A gesture of sincerity. “Last year. And your father passed. I’m sorry. That’s terrible,” he said and, shaking his head said very quietly, again, “Terrible.”
He was right. I was a guest at the show the previous year when my father’s tenuous grip on his health slipped for the last time. I left the show and raced the reaper from Atlanta to Charlotte to be at his – and my mother’s – side when his time came that evening.
And indeed, had I stayed, the Congressman, writer/aide-de-camp Andrew Aydin, wunderartist Nate Powell, and Kel and I were supposed to have dinner together. In fact it was during that meal that I texted my wife to tell her dad had died.
And a year later the Congressman remembered.
I praised his book MARCH (Leigh Walton of Top Shelf, who shepherded the project, gave me a copy of the freshly-minted v3 then and there and the March team signed it and you coulda knocked me over) and thanked him for teaching me the virtues of “good trouble.”
Then, to make Kel laugh, Leigh and the Congressman and I took this:
In a crazy sea of humanity, where everyone’s got their game-face on, where everyone’s on their grind, when everyone’s hustling literally and figuratively, this man, this hero, straight-up remembered why, a year ago, we were supposed to meet but did not.
Put aside the man’s career, his history, his legacy – that small, true moment of humanity from anyone would’ve meant the world. That it came from him meant all the more.
So yeah, I’m pretty ride-or-die for Congressman John Lewis, you goddamn butterscotch nazi pissmagnet. Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
This is a web-based
zine/anthology based around Donald Trump x Shonen Jump. The pun itself is merely a
starting point; there are no genre rules other than it just
has to involve Señor Trump!
We’ll be posting sketches and process images throughout September, and final comics and illustrations will go up early October! We want Donarudo Turumpu to be proud (no we don’t).
We will also put out a small zine collection at Cartoon Crossroads Columbus!
Now I’m sure by now you’re
all sick of hearing about Trump and all of his awful shenanigans, but
imagine it this way: It’s close to election time and there would be no
better time to push this monster of a thing out. I mean, if Clinton gets
elected, Donny Boy will just fade out of fashion, no longer a hot
topic. And if Trump gets elected by some freak collapse of good-will,
well that’s the End of Days and no longer funny.
notyourplayground asked: For your crossplay interviews: do we need to be doing crossplay this DragonCon/in crossplay for the interview, or are street clothes okay? I've done crossplay before and will again, but just don't happen to be doing any this year. Either way, this project sounds amazing; thanks for your time!
Hey there!
You totally don’t need to be doing crossplay at the time of the interview. I’d love to talk to you - drop me a line! laurennmcc at gmail
Hey there, people going to DragonCon 2016, or people who might know them! I am going again this year to work on my experimental documentary about Cosplay/Cross Play, and I am again looking for people who might being interested in sitting down with me for 15 minutes to talk!
If you know ANYONE! who might be interested, please, send them my way! Again - I am looking specifically to talk to people who do cross-play, where they either play across gender by genderflipping the character, OR who play a character who is different from their own gender expression.
These interviews will be included in an experimental documentary piece that will be included in my upcoming gallery show next March, and I will happily share some of the artistic output with my interviewees. MEANING - if I draw you, I will give you a print! If I use you in a video piece, I will give you a hi-res photo! I am always extremely grateful for my collaborators, and try and show my appreciation.
I am super excited to announce that in 2017, Columbus College of Art & Design will be launching it’s new Comics and Narrative Practice major! Check out this SWEET comic by @spitballcomic artist @pencilshaevings, (featuring cameos by Spitball artists @sallataire & @drawn-onward!)
Columbus College of Art & Design is launching a new major dedicated to the study and practice of comics.
In CCAD’s Comics & Narrative Practice program — accepting students starting in fall 2017 — students will work with comics professionals to learn how to write, illustrate and publish their own sequential art.
The program is a perfect fit for Columbus, which is quickly gaining a national reputation as a comics hub.
“Columbus is in a unique positon to become a major center of comics study in the country, thanks to the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, the Cartoon Crossroads Columbus festival and our strong tradition of illustration at CCAD,” said Stewart McKissick, Chair of CCAD’s Comics & Narrative Practice and Illustration programs.
In the new comics program at CCAD, students will create original comics and graphic novels and learn how to shape narrative elements and invent signature styles, stories and characters. They’ll also meet with top industry practitioners and gain practical experience with story pitches, prepress, budgeting and marketing.
“We’re going to have robust business content as well so the students that come out of this program will have a good understanding of the comics industry today and the skills and strategies they need to participate in it,” McKissick said.
In recent years, comics have become increasingly popular, with blockbuster movies based on comics topping the box office. And student interest in the medium has grown, too.
“It’s very clear that comics are now a huge part of popular culture,” McKissick said. “And we’re responding to the fact that there’s growing interest from students.”
For the past two years, students in CCAD’s Illustration program have partnered with professional comics writers including Kelly Sue DeConnick (known for writing Captain Marvel), Grace Ellis (Lumberjanes) and Eisner award winner Matt Fraction to produce a comics anthology called Spitball.
That publication showcases student illustrations about all sorts of different topics and highlights an important point about comics today: They can be about anything.
“Comics have become a conduit for people to tell stories,” McKissick said. “It’s not just superheroes anymore.”
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Columbus College of Art & Design teaches undergraduate and graduate students in the midst of a thriving creative community in Columbus, Ohio. Founded in 1879, CCAD is one of the oldest private art and design colleges in the United States, offering 12 undergraduate majors and two graduate programs in art and design that produce graduates equipped to shape culture and business at the highest level.
