Graphic Content: A Conversation on Comic Biography and History

Candida Rifkind is Professor in the Department of English at the University of Winnipeg, where she specializes in alternative comics and Canadian literature. Her co-edited scholarly collection, Canadian Graphic: Picturing Life Narratives (Wilfrid Laurier UP), won the 2016 Gabrielle Roy Prize for English Canadian literary criticism. Her second co-edited collection, Documenting Trauma in Comics: Traumatic Pasts, Embodied Histories and Graphic Reportage, is forthcoming with Palgrave in 2020, and her collaborative project, Indigenous Comics and Graphic Novels: An Annotated Bibliography, is an open access resource hosted by Jeunesse at http://jeunessejournal.ca/index.php/yptc/resources. Recent articles and chapters in comics studies include studies of: graphic memoirs by Geneviève Castrée; graphic biographies about Robert Oppenheimer; Ho Che Anderson’s comics biography, King; Seth’s “picture novella” George Sprott; and visual nostalgias of the Canadian company town. Forthcoming book chapters focus on photography and Civil Rights in Lila Quintero Weaver's Darkroom and Indigeneity and intermediality in the graphic novel Will I See? She is currently researching comics about migrants and refugees, co-editing a special issue of A/B: Auto/Biography Studies on “Migration, Exile, and Diaspora in Graphic Life Narratives,” and co-editing the new Wilfrid Laurier UP book series Crossing Lines: Transcultural/Transnational Comics Studies. For more see: candidarifkind.com.

Jamie Michaels is a comic book writer and educator from Winnipeg, the greatest city in the world. He works at the intersection of politics, history, and bubbles that go POW! His latest project is a historical fiction graphic novel looking at tensions between immigrants and proto-fascists in 1930s Toronto that culminated in the Christie Pits Riots. When he's not writing, Jamie divides his time between helicopter firefighting, cage fighting in Alaska, and being a mensch. More information about his work and upcoming projects can be found at dirtywatercomics.com.

Keegan Steele (k.steele) is an illustrator, visual artist, and graphic designer from Winnipeg, Manitoba. He graduated with a BFA from The University of Manitoba in 2018, and is the author of several comic strips, including STRESS and MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE?, which appear in The Uniter and The Manitoban respectively. His work has appeared in publications across North America and Europe. He is 26 years old, and he has no scent.

Recommended citation:

Rifkind, Candida, Jamie Michaels, and Keegan Steele. “Graphic Content: A Conversation on Comic Biography and History.” Sequentials, vol. 1, no. 3, 2019.