Queer Peers: Representation in Comics
DIAMOND BOOK DISTRIBUTORS and BOOKLIST have partnered to bring you QUEER PEERS: REPRESENTATION IN COMICS, a virtual webinar interviewing some of comics most prolific and upcoming creators.
Join us on FRIDAY, JUNE 4 at 1P CT.
MODERATOR
Vincent (Vincey) Zalkind is a library worker in California. As a huge comic book fan he can usually be found advocating for comics and graphic novels as literacy, promoting LGBTQIA comics in the library, organizing his ever growing record collection, baking, or hanging out with his cat and partner.
PARTICIPATING CREATORS
STEVE ORLANDO‘s first book ever was poorly drawn in fifth-grade classroom pencils on Xerox paper, and featured a doughboy with superpowers, and names changed from trademark purposes. He was a precocious child. Today he writes and produces comics, including Virgil, Crude and stories in the Eisner Award Nominated Outlaw Territory at Image Comics. He launched Midnighter and took part in Batman and Robin Eternal and CMYK: Yellow at DC Entertainment. Find him at your convenience deep down the rabbit hole of discussing wine, spirits, or mythology.
SINA GRACE has worn many hats in his many years in comics but is mainly known for his work as a writer, artist, and general gal about town.
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Grace got his start making comics as early as high school, when he worked as an editorial intern at Top Cow Productions and spent weekends working the register at Hi De Ho Comics in Santa Monica. From there, he split his time attending University of California, Santa Cruz and self-publishing zines, mini-comics, and his first-ever series, Books with Pictures.
Grace continues to work as an illustrator, contributing art to musicians Jenny Lewis, Tegan and Sara, Childish Gambino, Colleen Green, and more. Clients include Cameron Crowe, Stars, and Capitol Records.
He continues to live in Los Angeles, where he can be found in coffee shops working on whatever the next thing may be.
HAZEL NEWLEVANT is a Portland-raised, Queens-residing cartoonist. Their comics include If This Be Sin, Tender-Hearted, Sugar Town, and No Ivy League. They edited and published the anthologies Chainmail Bikini and Comics For Choice. They co-edited the anthology Puerto Rico Strong, published by Lion Forge Comics, which received an Eisner Award. Their comics have been honored with the Ignatz Award, Xeric Grant and the Prism Comics Queer Press Grant. They have worked as an Associate Editor at Lion Forge Comics, and are currently the social media manager of A Wave Blue World. They like to dance around, alone or with others.
JEN HICKMAN is a visual storyteller and a graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design’s Sequential Art program. Past work includes Lonely Receiver, TEST, Moth & Whisper, Jem and the Holograms, and more. They get really excited about dystopian fiction, good coffee, and drawing hands.
LELA GWEN is a writer that has written Hellraiser Bestiary 4 (BOOM!), Where We Live (Image), All We Ever Wanted (Wave Blue World), Bad Luck Chuck (Dark Horse), as well as upcoming graphic novel Nightmare in Savannah (Mad Cave Studios). She’s a proud social justice warrior, and the town weirdo in her rural community. She’s currently in school despite being way too old, but she loves it.
