The Cambridge Community Comic Arts Fair (CCCAF) will be Saturday May 7th at the Cambridge Public Library from 10 am to 4:30 pm. We expect a day of comic and art-filled fun with an exciting selection of exhibitors and three free and engaging comics workshops to choose from. See below for a complete list of our exhibitors and a description of the day’s workshops.

Exhibitors

LJ-Baptiste is a young cartoonist from Dorchester that grew up heavily influenced by cartoons of the 90s and early 2000s. His current project is an ongoing web comic series entitled Comixscape which focuses on the exploits of a young boy and his let raccoon, which can be read in full on www.comixscape.net.

Cara Bean is a cartoonist and art teacher from the Boston area. She creates comics about her life, strange encounters with gorillas, and the plight of a caterpillar who fails to create a cocoon. Her work is characterized by stylistic experimentation, autobiography, and playful narration. Learn more about Cara Bean at carabeancomics.com.

Joony Bloozit is a swell fellow who draws little pictures and writes software in Arlington, MA.

Caleb Brown lives in Groton, Massachusetts with his wife and twin boys. He loves museums and libraries and dialing back the irony. Caleb has spent much of his professional life practicing information architecture, and now he cartoons for software developers, business teams, and for himself. Find his work online at
caleb-brown.com.

Boston Comics Roundtable is a community of independent comics artists and writers based in the Greater Boston area, acting as a resource for local creators. We encourage development and collaboration and welcome anyone interested in creating or publishing comics, at all ages and levels of experience. More information about BCR and our upcoming events can be found on our website at www.bostoncomicsroundtable.com.

Ben Doane is a boston-based illustrator who specializes in cartooning and storytelling. Graduating from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2010, they have gone on to write for the comic Good Morning, Gorgon with Olivia Li, and produce a number of other works with the artist collective known as Robot Camp. Their work can be found at jamjarastronaut.tumblr.com.

Jerel Dye is a cartoonist, illustrator, and artist living and working in the Boston area. He has been creating comics since 2010 and has produced several self-published mini comics and has created comics stories for anthologies like Inbound, Minimum Paige, Hellbound, and the award winning Little Nemo/Winsor McCay tribute Dream Another Dream. In 2012, he received the MICE comics grant for his mini-comic From the Clouds. Much of his art stems from a deep interest in science and technology though frequently contains a healthy dose of wonder. His illustrations have appeared in various fiction magazines, museum exhibitions, story books, and children’s books. In 2015 his work was featured in the art book Sketching from the Imagination: Sci-fi. Jerel Dye received his BFA from Umass Dartmouth in Painting, and his MFA at MassArt in the Studio for Interrelated media. Jerel is also a freelance designer and teaches courses in drawing, cartooning and comics in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.

Mehitabel Glenhaber hails from Somerville and likes to make comics about squid, Alan Turing, the 1950s, and other things! You can find more of her work at topquarkintown.tumblr.com.

Rebecca Gundlach, a.k.a. singingstranger, is a 19-year-old German nanny who went to Art School parallel to High School and is now drawing whenever they find the time. Usually it’s fantasy, activist, or silly doodles. Comics creator, illustrator, and loves hedgehogs.

Spencer Hawkes: In addition to drawing, Spencer rides his bike, goes camping and eats toast. He likes to travel with his lady Sam and explore other cities’ comic shops, and often finds himself buying comics in languages he cannot read. He has contributed to several anthologies such as Reality Not Included, and God-Zine-Ra and has drawn comics for the Cambridge Historical Society and the Boston Globe. You can find see his work at spencerhawkes.com.

Bennet Hazell is a student and artist at Somerville High School. His interest in the creepy and the unusual inspires him to make comics.

Neil Johnson is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a degree in English. He is one of the editors of the Boundless anthology and is a co-founder of the Robot Camp comics collective. He lives and works in Boston. You can see more of his work at neiltheghost.com.

LB Lee is a multivarious entity that makes mental health comics, draws pretty pictures, and writes stories about reality melting. They live in Boston. They have windows.

Jesse Lonergan is an independent comic artist who has been producing comics since the early 2000s. He graduated from Hampshire College and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Turkmenistan. He’s produced dozens of minis and appeared in numerous anthologies. Three of his graphic novels have been published by NBM ComicsLit. His most recent comic is titled Hedra. Jesse supports his comics habit by teaching ESL in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Olivia Li is an artist and animator with way too much on her plate. She works in editing and book design on anthologies for the Boston Comics Roundtable, and is a co-founder of the Robot Camp comics collective. She’s currently drawing a family-oriented, family-friendly series called Good Morning, Gorgon! with Ben Doane, and writing a family-oriented but decidedly not family-friendly comic called Charm & Fury with Hailey Thurrott.

Ken Perez is an illustrator/writer, creator of meta-sci-fi graphic novelettes or ‘zine’ epics. They’re mixed-media books, incorporating many mediums, avante-garde/visionary comics, speculative essays about the nature of reality, and illustrated short story/parables with extensive art galleries. He’s created his own mythos with semi-autobiographical themes that also explore our evolutionary potential.

Joey Peters is a writer, cartoonist and beauty contest champion. His work primarily focuses on bringing new life to the strangest forgotten characters from comic book history, including the Super Wizard Stardust and the billionaire industrialist vigilante lumberjack Big Red McLane. Read his comics at SuperWizard.net.

Maria Photinakis is an illustrator, cartoonist, painter, and giant Star Trek nerd who loves sci-fi and autobiographical comics. Her sci-fi comic, Red Flag, about a young woman trying to make her dreams of space life come true despite the odd, is available to buy at CCCAF!

Christopher Previte is an artist, graphic designer, writer, photographer, and educator. He has enjoyed working creatively for over twenty-five years. In that time, he has created content and solutions in the areas of Illustration, Identity & Branding, Print & Web Design, Photography, and Event Media. His current practice explores themes of loss, responsibility, and impermanence through comic book storytelling. His pursuits include fiction writing in the form of micro-stories, image creation, illustration explorations, and spoken-word narratives. This wider view of storytelling techniques has resulted in a number of interesting projects that he is currently pursuing. You can see his work and learn more about him at www.christopherprevite.com.

Roho was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, and immigrated to the United States in his early adulthood. Shortly after moving to Cambridge in 2008, he joined Boston Comics Roundtable. Roho has contributed to the last three issues of Inbound, Show and Tell, The Greatest Comics Anthology of all Time and In a Single Bound as well as publishing and editing Outbound: The Science Fiction Comics Anthology and five issues of Hellbound Annual Horror Anthology. Continuing his work as publisher he is partnering with John Carvajal on the newsprint periodical The Midnight Oil. Building on the mission of using comics as a teaching tool for children and adults in the community and supporting local creators for the last three years working with the Cambridge Historical Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society and the Cambridge Public Library on the mission of using comics as a teaching tool for children and adults in the community. More about his work can be seen at roho.tumblr.com and riverbirdcomics.com.

Catalina Rufin is a Boston-area cartoonist, illustrator, and zine-maker. Catalina’s comics are about fairy warriors, girls who do awesome things, and her own travels.

Ben Rutberg is a college freshman and an aspiring cartoonist and writer. His comics have gained a small but dedicated following on Tumblr, and he once had an article published in a local newspaper.

Michael Saver and Andrew Bratica just released their first comic book, The Radically Ordinary Adventures of Mr. Teacher and Panda, in the Spring of 2015. The goofy, dry humor book follows the debut adventures of the temperamental Mr. Teacher and dull-witted Panda as they face off against life’s more trying tribulations – death, work, police, taxes, and grocery shopping. Following a sell out debut at Boston Comic Con last year, the self-published book is in its second printing of Issue 1 and will be debuting Issue 2 at CCCAF!

Patrick Scarborough started illustrating back in elementary school when Toonami was still airing on Cartoon Network. A huge day dreamer, he spent much of his classes doodling, which is how he learned to draw. Inspired by everything from Hannah Barbara cartoons to anime, I’ve had a pretty normal American cartoon education. My pilot issue of Outer Demons follows Mora Chelmsford, an immigration officer responsible for registering “para-humans,” the monsters, machines, and mythical creatures who are forced by the U.S. government to live in her city.

Jesse Schuh is a cartoonist from Brookline, Massachusetts. He is currently doing a comic strip on Tapastic.com called “Year ‘Round Days.” It is a strip about little kids based on the author and friends he knew  growing up. The strip is based on the human condition and contains a lot of real-life humor. Schuh has been developing this strip since roughly around August 25, 2003, shortly after turning 12 years old. Since then, he has been reworking the strip’s characters and humor with some influence from other pieces of work. Schuh’s style is heavily influenced by daily comic strips such as Garfield, Calvin & Hobbes, but believes Peanuts by Charles Schulz is his greatest influence. When growing up, he utilized Charles Schulz’s drawing style, humor, and characters to create his own strip. Schuh is proud to be able to share his strip with others and be part of Boston Comics Roundtable.

Heide Solbrig is a graphic novelist, media artist, filmmaker, and communication scholar. She is the author of the The Dandelion King, a graphic memoir about the 1970’s and has taught media art, film and communication at Wheaton College, Emerson, Bentley University, UCSD, and SFSU. She currently runs the Boston Comics Workspace and organizes comics classes, workshops, and speaking series.

Brendan Tobin currently works in marketing as a designer for a RI tech company and enjoys creating comics and cartoons for himself. He lives in Norwood, Ma with his beautiful wife, wonderful stepsons, and two, terrible kitties, all of whom he loves very much. Occasionally, he dreams of building an angry robot army and waging war against bigfoot when not dreaming of grilled cheese sandwiches.

Jonathan Todd is a Massachusetts-based author/illustrator who creates comics for kids that explore friendship, racial identity, bullying and getting along with parents. He is a graduate of the MFA in creative writing program at Pine Manor College and has served as the graphic novelist-in-residence at libraries in Massachusetts.

Wesley Todd is an eight-year-old author and cartoonist whose first comic, Super Egg, premiered at the Maine Comics Arts Festival in 2015. In his latest work, he uses classic fairy tale characters to tell new prose and comic stories.

Jess Semeraro makes cartoons about work, pets, and forgotten or invisible people.  She lives in Gloucester, MA and has yet to see a whale in the harbor but has seen the occasional seal and once, a snowy owl.

Ansis Purins is a Xeric Award-winning cartoonist living in Allston, MA. You can see his strips in Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine and online at www.ansispurins.squarespace.com. His next book, Magic Forest, will be coming out soon from Revival House Press. 

E. J. Barnes writes, draws, and paints comics, cartoons, illustrations, and animation in a variety of media, including ink, watercolor, scratchboard, gouache, and digital media. Her work covers history, humor, horror, science, and nature. She teaches cartooning in Cambridge and surrounding communities. Her self-published books appear under Drowned Town Press.

Dan Mazur is an independent cartoonist, editor, publisher and author who lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  His comics have appeared in numerous anthologies, and his Cold Wind (with Jesse Lonergan), was named a notable in The Best American Comics of 2013. He is the co-writer with Alexander Danner of Comics: A Global History, 1968 to the Present.  He is co-founder of the Boston Comics Roundtable, and MICE: the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo, and founder of Ninth Art Press, as small press devoted to comics and comics anthologies. His comics include The Jernegan Solution, based on a true historical mystery, set in Maine in 1898 and Hooves of Death, a mashup of 1940s superhero comics, Marxism and modern art. www.danmazurcomics.com

Jack Turnbull (b. 1983) is the author of Roger Otto: Dinosaur Skateboarder, The Invasive Exotics & I Escaped A Satanic Ninja Cult.  He has been self publishing graphic novels since 1999.  He currently lives in Jamaica Plain. He teaches at Lesley University & through the Boston Public Schools.  He plays guitar and skateboards. For more information visit his website at www.jackturnbull.com .

Cambridge Rindge and Latin School

 

Workshops

FREE Hands-On Comics Workshops will be held at CCCAF in the Community Room downstairs on floor L2. First come, first seated. Workshops 1 and 3 are well suited for younger artists.

10:30–11:30 AM: Mix and Match Comics Workshop
Instructor: Jerel Dye

Bring your creativity and your silly streak to this fun and unusual comics-making workshop. Learn about the way the comics work as we explore this unique medium. See just what can happen when we combine words and pictures in surprising and unexpected ways. In this workshop we will create and swap, mix and match, and tell silly, strange, and hilarious comics stories. Fun for all ages and all skill levels. (Jerel Dye, MFA, has taught art at the Eliot School of Fine & Applied Arts, Cambridge Center for Adult Education, and Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo.)

1:00–2:00 PM: Tell Your Own Story in Comics
Instructor: Heide Solbrig

Have you thought about taking events from your own life and making them into a comic? Beginning with self-portraits, we will make character designs for real people in our lives, and learn how to take an event, idea, or daily encounter and turn it into story. Next we will organize our stories, characters, settings, and events around a three-part narrative arc. This workshop will give you a roadmap for working on your personal comic! (Heide Solbrig, MFA, PhD, is a writer, artist, and filmmaker who has taught visual storytelling at Emerson, Wheaton, Bentley, and other local colleges. She manages the Boston Comics Workspace.)

2:30–3:30 PM: A Doodling Comics Workshop
Instructor: Cara Bean

This playful workshop opens with a few sketching games to inspire your imagination. After generating interesting characters and settings, we will explore how words and pictures can come together to build comics. Topics include storytelling, page design, pacing panels, word bubble coherency, and methods for solving drawing problems. In the end you’ll be ready to write and draw your own stories inspired by the activity. Creative people of all ages are welcome. (Cara Bean, MFA, is an art teacher at Lexington High School and the author of such books as 20 Ways to Draw a Mustache.)