Gender and Color in Comics

Joel Christian Gill is the Chair of Foundations at the New Hampshire Institute of Art and recipient of the 2016 Boston University College of Fine Arts Alumni Award. He wrote the words and drew the pictures in Strange Fruit, Volume I: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History and Bass Reeves: Tales of the Talented Tenth, No. 1.

John Jennings is a Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California at Riverside. His work centers around intersectional narratives regarding identity politics and popular media. Jennings is co-editor of the Eisner Award–winning collection The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art and the illustrator for the graphic novel adaptation of Octavia Butler's classic dark fantasy novel Kindred.

Mildred Louis studied animation at Sheridan College in Canada, and launched her first webcomic series—Agents of the Realm—in March of 2014.

Books by Our Panelists

The following titles by our panelists will be on display and available for purchase this evening!

By Joel Christian Gill:

• Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History
• Bass Reeves: Tales of the Talented Tenth, Volume I
• Bessie Stringfield: Tales of the Talented Tenth, No. 2

By John Jennings

• Blue Hand Mojo: Hard Times Road
• Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation
• The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art
• Pitch Black Rainbow: The Art of John Jennings

By Mildred Louis

• Agents of the Realm, Volume 1

Joel Christian Gill is the Chair of Foundations at the New Hampshire Institute of Art and recipient of the 2016 Boston University College of Fine Arts Alumni Award. He wrote the words and drew the pictures in Strange Fruit, Volume I: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History and Bass Reeves: Tales of the Talented Tenth, No. 1. Joel received his MFA from Boston University and a BA from Roanoke College. His secret lair is behind a secret panel in the kitchen of his house (sold separately) in New Boston, New Hampshire where he lives with his wife, four children, talking dog, and two psychic cats.

John Jennings is a Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at the University of California at Riverside. His work centers around intersectional narratives regarding identity politics and popular media. Jennings is co-editor of the Eisner Award winning collection The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art and co-founder/organizer of The Schomburg Center's Black Comic Book Festival in Harlem. He is co-founder and organizer of the MLK NorCal's Black Comix Arts Festival in San Francisco and also SOL-CON: The Brown and Black Comix Expo at the Ohio State University. Jennings is currently a Nasir Jones Hip Hop Studies Fellow with the Hutchins Center at Harvard University. Jennings' current comics projects include the Hiphop adventure comic Kid Code: Channel Zero, the supernatural crime noir story Blue Hand Mojo, and the upcoming graphic novel adaptation of Octavia Butler's classic dark fantasy novel Kindred.

Mildred Louis was born and raised in a small town outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Growing up, she always had a passion for comics and cartoons, leading her to study Animation at Sheridan College in Canada. Though she did not immediately take to actually animating, she did fall more in love with the art of story telling. Eventually she launched her first webcomic series—Agents of the Realm—in March of 2014 that she still updates twice a week. Outside of the on going series, she works as a comic colorist and takes the occasional Freelance Illustration gig.