Center for the literary arts in New York State
Joel Christian Gill is the author and illustrator of Fights: One Boy's Triumph Over Violence, named one of the best graphic novels of 2020 by the New York Times. His most recent book as illustrator is the current national bestseller, Stamped from the Beginning: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas in America (2024), an adaptation of Ibram X. Kendi’s 2016 National Book Award winner. His other books include the graphic novel series, Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History (2014-18), and three volumes of Tales of the Talented Tenth (2015-21).
David F. Walker, journalist, filmmaker, and comic book writer, is the author of the graphic novels, The Black Panther Party (2021), winner of the Eisner Award, and The Life of Frederick Douglass (2019). He is also the co-writer and co-creator of the DC comic hero Naomi, and the Eisner Award-winning series, Bitter Root. Other comic book credits include Power Man & Iron Fist, Nighthawk, and Occupy Avengers for Marvel; Cyborg for DC; Shaft for Dynamite; and Planet of the Apes for Boom. A noted authority on “Blaxploitation” films, he is the author of Shaft’s Revenge (2016), the first new novel starring John Shaft in over 40 years.
BRINGING BLACK HISTORY TO LIFE
Joel Christian Gill,
Marcus Kwame Anderson,
David F. Walker
4:30 p.m. Wednesday, October 16, 2024
University at Albany
Multi-Purpose Room, Campus Center West
1400 Washington Avenue Albany NY 12222 - See map.
Marcus Kwame Anderson is the illustrator of The Black Panther Party: A Graphic Novel History (2021, with David F. Walker), winner of the Eisner Award, the comic book industry’s highest honor, and an American Library Association “Best Graphic Novel of the Year.”
His new graphic novel, another collaboration with Walker, is Big Jim and the White Boy (Oct. 2024), an Afrocentric reimagining of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. Anderson is the co-creator of the comic book series Snow Daze, and illustrator of stories in Action Lab's Cash and Carrie and F.O.R.C.E. He lives and creates in Albany.
Major support and funding provided by the Carl E. Touhey Foundation. Cosponsored by the UAlbany Department of Art and Art History, the Writing and Critical Inquiry Program (WCI), and the English Department’s Creative Writing Program and Young Writers Project.