Diamond Book Distributors partnered with Booklist to bring you a special Pride Month Webinar – Queer Peers: Representation in Comics.
Vincent (Vincey) Zalkind interviewed Steve Orlando, Sina Grace, Hazel Newlevant, & Lela Gwen about their works & the importance of representation in the medium.
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.
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.
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.
