Button Making!

Friday July 3rd 7:00pm-8:00pm

Room C

Sponsored by Blim!

Take a break from setting up and make a button!  

Comics Pep Talk

With Paterson Hodgson

Saturday July 4th 12pm-12:45pm 

Performance Centre

Experimental drawing and fantasy comics for manifesting, intention setting, and creating the future you want to live in through autobiographical and fictional comics.

Put a spell on yourself, if you can draw it you can do it.

–

Paterson Hodgson self publishes comics about modern life, city living, paying the rent and getting by. She publishes the Pulping Anthology with her peers and organizes comics readings and zine fairs in Toronto.

Frostbite Preview

With Ian Boothby & Pia Guerra

Saturday July 4th 1:30pm-2:15pm

Performance Centre

Ian Boothby and Pia Guerra are Eisner Award winning comic book creators. Reuben nominees for their comic strip work in MAD Magazine, The Washington Post and The New Yorker. Ian is a Canadian Comedy Award winner and the co-creator, with Nina Matsumoto, of the bestselling Sparks! series of books. Ian also is the co-creator of Exorsisters, an Image graphic novel and web comic with Gisele Legace.  Pia is a Pulitzer Finalist for her editorial cartoons and the co-creator and artist of the Eisner, Shuster and Harvey Award winning DC Vertigo series Y The Last Man. They do the web comic and Mannequin on the Moon Patreon.com/mannequinonthemoon and have a new horror graphic novel comic from Scholastic Aug 4th called Frostbite. 

Vancouver Comics Jam

With Jason Turner & Doug Savage

Saturday July 4th 1:00pm-2:30pm

Room C

Jason Turner is a Canadian comic book artist currently residing in Vancouver, BC. He has been steadily producing and self-publishing comics since he was in high school in the 1980s. His best known work is the True Loves trilogy, co-created with his wife Manien Bothma. More recent work includes Fir Valley, Farm School, the Adulation, and Bird Comics.  His work has appeared in magazines such as Broken Pencil and Taddle Creek. Jason currently organizes the monthly Vancouver Comic Jam. 

Doug Savage is the creator of the popular comic Savage Chickens, which he has been drawing and posting online every weekday since 2005 and for his all-ages graphic novel series, Laser Moose and Rabbit Boy. Born in rural Ontario and raised by a pack of wild piano teachers, Doug lives in Vancouver with his partner, Janet, and their two cats, Watson and Crumble. 

Children’s Illustration and Sequential Art

With Dawn Lo, April dela Noche Milne & Naomi Fong

Moderated by Sarah Green

Sunday July 5th 12pm-12:45pm 

Performance Centre

Dawn Lo is an illustrator whose work has appeared in zines, picture books, stationery, greeting cards, public art installations, and more. Growing up in both Hong Kong and ‘Canada,’ Dawn tends to create quirky and whimsical works that are inspired by little moments from everyday life with a nod to the Asian diaspora.

April dela Noche Milne is a mixed Filipino-Canadian author-illustrator based in Vancouver. Her work explores grief and memory, the humour of everyday narratives, and issues of identity. The illustrator for the middle-grade graphic novel The Blue Road: A fable of migration, and contributor to the comic anthology The Witching Hours, her work has appeared in The Globe & Mail and Chatelaine. She is currently an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. April’s debut picture book as author and illustrator, Nora At Night, is forthcoming Fall 2026 with Kids Can Press.

Naomi Fong (she/her) is an illustrator and comic creator. Graduating from the Alberta University of the Arts, Naomi has been writing and drawing comics since she was seven years old. Her work is often autobiographical or from real-life experiences or observations. She uses a combination of watercolor, pencil crayon, and digital painting to illustrate and depict honest childhood experiences and family folklore.

Universes and Analogues: The Self-Referential Superhero

With Orion Kidder

Presented by the Canadian Society for the Study of Comics/Société canadienne pour l’étude de la BD (CSSC/SCEBD)

Sunday July 5th 1:30pm-2:00pm

Performance Centre

Orion Ussner Kidder is a professor of writing, literature, and media studies at Fairleigh Dickenson University – Vancouver as well as the current president of the Canadian Society for the Study of Comics / Société canadienne pour l’étude de la bande dessinée. Orion is a life-long comics reader who biked to “The Comicshop” in Kitsilano every week for 21 years before it closed forever in 2018. He now lives in North Vancouver with his wife, two boys, and two very fluffy cats

Comics as Method: Threshold Thinking, Collaboration, and Comics-Based Research

With Jennifer Nagtegaal

Presented by the Canadian Society for the Study of Comics/Société canadienne pour l’étude de la BD (CSSC/SCEBD)

Sunday July 5th 2:00pm-2:30pm

Performance Centre

Jennifer Nagtegaal’s thesis, Expanded Comics, was received in the summer of 2025. Jennifer is the author of Politically Animated: Non-Fiction Animation from the Hispanic World (2023). This talk reflects on work with Spanish-Canadian artist CoCo Guzmán in creating a comic about the future of comics studies.

Invasion of the Comic Book Creators: Fotonovela storytelling form and documentary photography as collaborative sociological research.

With Mike Emme

Presented by the Canadian Society for the Study of Comics/Société canadienne pour l’étude de la BD (CSSC/SCEBD)

Sunday July 5th 2:30pm-3:00pm

Performance Centre

Michael J. Emme is emeritus and adjunct professor of Art Education with the University of Victoria. Much of his recent publication introduced comic book creation as a way of doing sociological research. It focused on immigrant children’s experiences in Canada based on fotonovela comic books co-created with those young newcomers. Along with a career teaching in studios and training future teachers, he once tried to save the world through a series of editorial cartoons published in The Project Ploughshares Monitor. (How’d that work out?).