The art of telling stories with words and pictures often demands that visual storytellers reduce their representations of themselves and others to a sort of shorthand, or caricature. We sometimes call these distilled representations—icons, or types, or even, stereotypes. The medium of the comics depends, in large part, on various forms of caricature to efficiently and effectively tell stories in words and pictures. The artist in this circumstance can face difficult choices involving questions of ethnicity, diversity, community and individuality. What should an artist consider in making these choices? How can the experiences of artists working in the graphic narrative highlight and inform the choices at the heart of sensitively and effectively representing ourselves and others?

The Diversity Programming Committee at the Ringling School of Art and Design proposed a Comics Summit on Issues of Diversity to explore how artists who come from diverse positions or who represent diverse populations work with these issues in the real world. As part of a campus wide initiative in considering questions of diveristy within the Ringling Community, Dr. Larry Thompson, the President of the Ringling School of Art and Design, allocated funds to support the Summit in 2002.

Guest Artists

Will Eisner—It is impossible to underestimate the importance of Will Eisner to the last 65 years of the graphic narrative. In the late 1930s, Will was the creative end of the Eisner/Iger Studios the most important studio producing content for the first comic books. He is one of the founders of the genre and from the 1930s onward the most respected graphic narrator in the field, widely respected for a number of features he originated including The Spirit and sort of short story comic book anthology that was published as an newspaper insert. During WWII Eisner worked in the Army designing and writing a new generation of training materials, becoming one of the founders of the field of narrative educational graphics. He continued this work after the war and while working on various educational projects he became convinced that more extended graphic narratives, what he was to call the "graphic novel," could become a viable literary form. He is considered the founder of the contemporary American graphic novel. Will's work has always been interested in the theme of prejudice and most of his work his marked by a consistent interest in social issues. Most recently his work has been investigating the stereotypes of Judaism in his book Fagin the Jew, a story exploring the sources and implications of Dicken's stereotype. As a sign of Eisner's importance to the comics, it can be noted that the top award for film is the Oscar, for T.V. it has been the Emmy and in the medium of the comic book, the top award is called the Eisner.

link to Time interview with Eisner

Mary Grand Pré—A freelance magazine and book illustrator educated at the Minneapolis College of Art, Grand Pré's career took an interesting turn when she received an ordinary assignment to illustrate a children's book, a story about a young wizard by the name of Harry Potter. Just a small portion of Grand Pré’s work is related to Harry Potter, but it has made her a subject of innumerable web sites, the focus of a number of fan clubs, and probably the most well-known illustrator in the world today.

link to Mary Grand Pré home page with examples from her portfolio

Ho Che Anderson— The son of a Jamaican father who moved from the UK to Canada when Ho Che was five years old, Anderson has become one of the most recognized African-North American authors of graphic narratives. His reputation is founded on his 11 year project creating a comics biography of Martin Luther King, the third and final volume of which was completed in 2003. Anderson's treatment of King is very personalized, blending historical fact with historical fiction and evokes King as a human being whose achievement is in the way he rises to the ocassion despite his own flaws and imperfections as a person. Anderson works as a journalist for the Toronto Star and has also produced a set of short graphic narratives called "Young Hoods in Love." He is the author of a book for young people, The No-Boys Club.

Link to Time Review of King

Howard Cruse—A preacher's son from Alabama, Cruse's early work emerged in the underground comics movement of the 1970s including a stint as the founding editor of Gay Comix in 1979. Subsequently he created the comic strip Wendel which appeared in the pages of The Advocate, the national gay and lesbian newsmagazine, from 1983 to 1985 and from 1985-1989. The Wendel: All Together, collection of the strip serves as an historical document on gay life in the 80s including the advent of AIDS and continuing struggle for gay rights in the Reagan years. After folding the strip in 1989, Cruse went on to the multi-year task of completing the widely respected graphic novel, Stuck Rubber Baby, an account of young Southern boy's awakening to and acceptance of his homosexuality in the context of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Cruse currently works as a free-lance illustrator.

Trenton Doyle Hancock—was born in 1974 in Oklahoma City and raised in Paris, Texas. He received his BFA from Texas A&M and his MFA from the Tyler School of Art. Hancock was featured in both the 2000 and 2002 Whitney Biennial, one of youngest artists ever to be selected. Hancock's work finds equal inspiration from the comics as it does from abstract expressionism and seems invented beyond any distinctions between high and low. At the center of much of Hancock's work is a central and ranging narrative, often expressed using the visual language, values and character of the comics. This overarching narrative is virtually a lifelong project, interweaving with autobiography involving recurring characters and plot lines that mesh with Hancock's own experiences. Hancock himself sometimes assumes the identity of an alterego, one of his fictive characters, Torpedo Boy.

Link to Art 21 page of Trenton Doyle Hancock and his work

The appearance of Trenton Doyle Hancock will be co-sponsored by the Fine Arts Department. The appearances of Howard Cruse and Will Eisner will be co-sponsored by the Illustration Department.

Joan Staveley—one of the founding faculty members of the Ringling School’s highly regarded program in computer animation, will return to campus to present her recent work and speak on issues of gender in new media. Staveley, one of the first generation of academically trained computer artists, was a pioneer of computer animation as fine art. She is animator and animation director whose recent commercial projects have included animation for Roly Poly Olie and the 3D animation of Barbie. She is currently at work on the second Rescue Heroes feature for Nelvana.

Link to Joan Staveley Home Page

Pat Oleszko—Pat Oleszko works with considerable humor to explore art as political and social comedy. She makes icons that thrive within performance and audience interaction such as the piece she created for the Winter Olympics at Lake Placid which was simultaneously a sculpture, a costume and a photo opportunity utilized by thousands of visitors to memorialize their time at the Olympics. This work was featured in most media coverage of the Lake Placid Games and its standard of applying interactivity and playfulness to public event sculpture has been widely copied in subsequent events and venues.

Link to Pat Oleszko Home Page

Schedule

Summit Panel

The Summit of the Comics Summit a panel featuring many of the visiting artists discussing the subject of “Diversity and the Ethics of Representation,“ will be held at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, March 17, in the A2 Lecture Hall behind the Selby Gallery on the Ringling campus. The panel will be moderated by Dr. Douglas Chismar, Program Head for the Liberal Arts and a philosopher of ethics.