By Marek Bennett
NFCF Weekend Programming
From science to politics, history to health care, cartooning has exploded as a legitimate medium for exploring non-fiction topics and the textures of lived experience.
NFCF Closing Party & LIVE Comics Reading!
The Non-Fiction Comics Festival Presents: A LIVE COMICS READING!!
With special cartoonist guests: Mike Dawson, Teresa Logan, Sanika Phawde, Madalyn Drewno, Alex Nem, and Kristen Shull.
Saturday, November 14th from 6:30 - 9PM
(Following The Non-Fiction Comics Festival!)
Burlington Beer Company
180 Flynn Ave., Burlington, VT 05401
Saturday - Panels and Programming
Panels
From Panel to Print: Comics Construction and Distribution
11:30am - 12:30pm // Pickering Room
Panelists: Christine Tyler Hill, Isabella Rotman, Shay Mirk, Unfolding Connections
Moderator: Rachel Bivens
How do you get an idea from your head into the eyes of the public? Is social media a useful tool or frustrating necessity? Is there value in the physical form of a comic? This panel will explore the individual processes comic artists use to create their comics as well as various venues they utilize to showcase their work.
Drawing on Folklore
12:45pm - 1:45pm // Pickering Room
Panelists: Daryl Seitchik, Kristen Shull, Emily Zea, Ben Wickey
Moderator: Dr. Isaac Cates
Vampires, elves, and dragons aren’t real. But if an imaginary figure is shared broadly enough — if it becomes folklore — it may dwell in our knowledge almost like history, accessible in the culture’s deep knowledge. How do these shared figments support the “nonfiction” of a new fantasy world, even in the cases when they can be traced back to a known author?
Laughing with Trauma
2:00pm - 3:00pm // Pickering Room
Panelists: Gemma Correll, Dave Horowitz, Alex Graudins, Alex Nem
Moderator: MK Czerwiec
From illness to accident, from breakups to breakdowns, trauma comes in many forms. This panel considers comics, humor, and trauma. Can comics about trauma help us cope? If so, how does that work? When is and isn’t it appropriate to use humor to help us cope? Artists Dave Horowitz, Gemma Correll, Alex Graudins, Alex Nem, and MK Czerwiec will discuss.
Researching Comics: History and Current Events on a Paneled Page
3:15pm - 4:15pm // Pickering Room
Panelists: Katy Doughty, Camila Kerwin, Caitlin McGurk, Hazel Newlevant
Moderator: Marek Bennett
How & why do artists work with historical materials? What can we draw from primary sources & archives, and what does it mean to artists & readers in the present moment?
Love, Culture, and History
4:30pm - 5:30pm // Pickering Room
Panelists: Sanika Phawde, Stephanie Stalvey, Tillie Walden
Moderator: Holly Painter
Love, weddings, and romance may be tales as old as time, but a couple’s historical and cultural context will undoubtedly shape their joined story. What unique challenges will be placed on the characters in these three distinctly romantic tales based on when and where they were set?
Workshops
Lightning Round Comics
11:15am - 12:15pm // Fletcher Room
Instructor: Bonkd Comics Collective
Open to everyone, this one-hour workshop will be a good workout for your comics drawing muscles. Participants will take on different, time-constrained drawing tasks. Some exercises will be personal, others in small groups. By the end of the workshop you'll have had a lot of fun and be ready to create your own fast comics.
⭐ Ages 10+! ⭐
Draw Anything and Everything!
12:30pm - 1:15pm // Children’s Library
Instructor: James Kochalka
Learn how to draw anything and everything with Vermont’s first Cartoonist Laureate, James Kochalka. Draw with the Eisner winning creator of Johnny Boo and Gentle Observation (in Seven Days each week).
⭐ For Kids! ⭐
Local History Zine Making
12:30pm - 1:30pm // Fletcher Room
Instructor: Vivian Li
What memories, experiences, or events about your hometown do you want to preserve? Come create a zine and learn how local history research can help you discover new things about the places you already know.
⭐ Teens & Adults! ⭐
Make an Autobiographical Comic!
11:30am - 12:15pm // Children’s Library
Instructor: Jonathan Todd
Jonathan Todd, the author/illustrator of the kids graphic novel Timid (Scholastic/Graphix), will present a step-by-step way that you can make a comic about something that really happened to you. Planning steps will include writing a short prose version of a true story. If there is time, we’ll share our comics with the other cartoonists who participate in this workshop.
⭐ For Kids! ⭐
Let's Time Travel with Non-Fiction Comics!
1:30pm - 2:15pm // Children’s Library
Instructor: Alexandra Gallant-Lee
Let's Time Travel with Non-Fiction Comics, how you can use comics to tell stories that span a second, a minute, a year or a lifetime through the power of storytelling. We'll look at different comics that travel through time over the course of a panel, a page and an entire comic and then make our own time travel comics using some common comics formats such as four panel gag and eight panel mini-comic.
⭐ For Kids! ⭐
Comics, Poetry and Song Lyrics
1:45pm - 2:45pm // Fletcher Room
Instructor: Julian Peters
Come discover the many surprising similarities between the art forms of comics and poetry! After a short presentation of different strategies for translating poetic techniques, atmospheres, and imagery into comics form, attendees will have the opportunity to try their hand at creating their own comics adaptation of a favorite passage of poetry or a song lyric.
⭐ Teens & Adults! ⭐
SPLAT, SPLUT, SPLOCK: Making Comics Make Noise
2:30pm - 3:15pm // Children’s Library
Instructor: Jon Chad
One of the greatest effects in comics is its ability to recreate the sensation of noise through sound effects. Sound effects can help strengthen the sense of place in your comic, can help communicate what's going on to the reader, and are also a ton of fun to draw. In this workshop, cartoonist Jon Chad will lead participants in some activities to help make their sound effects as squishy, explode-y, splashy, or zappy as they can possibly be!
⭐ For Kids! ⭐
Comics-Based Research! An Introductory Workshop
3:00pm - 4:00pm // Fletcher Room
Instructors: Rivi Handler-Spitz, Audra McNamee, Luis Vivanco
Although comics have long been a focus of scholarly inquiry, researchers have recently been integrating comics creation into the scholarly research process itself through “Comics-Based Research." Join CBR practitioners Luis Vivanco (UVM), Rivi Handler-Spitz (Macalaster), and Audra McNamee (Oregon), who will provide a brief overview of CBR’s place in the broader non-fiction comics scene and provide a hands-on activity working with research materials in comics form.
⭐ Teens & Adults! ⭐
Cartooning Lessons: Telling Our Stories Using the Language of Comics
3:30pm - 4:15pm // Children’s Library
Instructor: Mike Dawson
Award-winning creator Mike Dawson will walk young and aspiring cartoonists through every stage of the comics-making process. Warm-up with doodles, then practice telling stories using visual language, experiment with the ways adding text changes the meaning of our images, then finally revise, edit, and share what we’ve made. No drawing skills necessary!
⭐ Kids & Teens! ⭐
Think It, Ink It, Zine It! Bringing Stories to Life in The Classroom
4:15pm - 5:15pm // Fletcher Room
Instructor: Shuchita Mishra
Ready to turn big ideas into tiny books? This hands-on, DIY workshop invites educators to explore the power of personal storytelling through mini-comics and zine-making! Participants will discover the fundamentals of storytelling, then roll up their sleeves to experiment with folding, drawing, writing, cutting, and pasting their way to creating zines in a variety of formats. No artistic experience required—just a little curiosity and a willingness to play!
All materials will be provided, so come ready to create, experiment, and have fun. Educators will leave with their own handmade zines, practical ideas, and easy-to-adapt activities they can bring straight into their classrooms, regardless of grade level or teaching discipline. Because sometimes, the biggest ideas come in the smallest packages!
⭐ Teens & Adults! ⭐