Tag Archives: aimee de jongh

SPX 2022 Announces its International Special Guests

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Small Press Expo 2022

Small Press Expo has announced the International Special Guests for SPX 2022. Coming from Canada, England, and Europe. Announced are Aimée de Jongh, Elizabeth Pich, Katriona Chapman, Ho Che Anderson, Barbara Stok, Lote Vilma, and Carla Berrocal as Special Guests at this year’s show.

The guests are made possible by generous grants from:

  • Spain Arts & Culture – Carla Berrocal
  • Goethe Institut – Elizabeth Pich
  • Nederlands Letterenfonds – Aimée de Jongh and Barbara Stok

The first in-person show in three years takes place on Saturday, September 17, and Sunday, September 18, with programming and workshops about the amazing world of independent comics, along with over 500 creators on the exhibitor floor.

See the Special Guest page on the SPX 2022 web site for more information.

Aimée de Jongh will be attending SPX fresh on the heels of winning over a dozen international Best Of awards for her latest book from SelfMadeHero, Days of Sand. The Return of the Honey Buzzard, her first graphic novel, won the Prix Saint-Michel for best Dutch graphic novel and was made into a film in 2017. Her following books, Blossoms in Autumn and Taxi!, were translated worldwide and won awards in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Japan. Aimée worked as a graphic journalist in the refugee camps in Greece. Her interest in travel, ecology, and journalism resulted in Days of Sand, her biggest project to date. When she’s not drawing comics, Aimée works in animation as a storyboarder and director.

Elizabeth Pich is a comic artist from the United States and Germany. After studying design and computer science, she now works as a comic artist in Saarbrücken, Germany. Since 2011, she has published several series including the popular webcomic War and Peas, with co-author Jonathan Kunz. Her current book Fungirl was released by Silver Sprocket in November 2021. Her comics are read weekly by over one million readers worldwide.

Katriona Chapman is a comic creator living in London, England. She spent years working as an illustrator before starting to self-publish zines and comics. Her zine Katzine won Best Ongoing Series in the Broken Frontier Awards. She has two graphic novels out with Avery Hill Publishing – Follow Me In (2018) and Breakwater (2020) and is currently working on a third. In 2018, Follow Me In won Best Graphic Non-fiction in the Broken Frontier Awards, and in 2020, Breakwater was on the New York Times list of best graphic novels of the year. It’s also just been translated into French for an edition by Futuropolis. Katriona works as head of marketing for Avery Hill Publishing.

Born in London, England, Ho Che Anderson was named after the Vietnamese and Cuban revolutionaries Ho Chi Minh and Che Gue­vara. Anderson is the author of nu­merous graphic novels, including King, a biography of the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.; the horror thriller Sand & Fury; and the science fiction action-adventure Godhead. Ho Che Anderson lives in Toronto, Canada. 

Barbara Stok is an award-winning comic artist from The Netherlands. She briefly studied at the Fotoacademie school of photography in The Hague and worked as a journalist before becoming a cartoonist and illustrator. Her early work was autobiographical in nature, constantly questioning the meaning of life and right and wrong, always with a light touch. She has spent the last few years studying the classical philosophers and taking philosophy classes at university. Her critically acclaimed graphic novel Vincent (SelfMadeHero, 2012), about the life of Vincent van Gogh, has been published in more than 20 countries. Stok’s fascination with philosophy led her to write The Philosopher, the Dog and the Wedding, the result of five years of research.

Lote Vilma is an illustrator and poet from Latvia. Besides commission work, she writes and illustrates her own books, which have received several awards in Latvia for both writing and illustration. Lote also draws comics, many of which have been published in kuš! anthologies, as well as in magazines such as Kutikuti and Le Monde Diplomatique. Her next big project is a graphic novel based on her own experiences as a student in an art high school while living in a communal flat with an exciting yet chaotic atmosphere.

Carla Berrocal was born in Madrid, where she studied illustration and graphic design. She has written reviews of comics in the Guía del Cómic and also contributed to the radio program of the Fine Arts Circle in Madrid on the same theme.

In 2019, she was awarded an artist residency at the Royal Spanish Academy in Rome for her comic project about the Spanish Copla singer Concha Piquer, Doña Concha, (Reservoir Books, 2021).

She works in her own studio and teaches workshops on comics and graphic novels at various institutions. She is also a comic artist for several different publications and an illustrator for countless advertising agencies and publishing houses.

Review: Days of Sand

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Based on real events and inspired by true stories, Days of Sand follows 22-year-old photographer John Clark as he’s hired to document the Dust Bowl for the Farm Security Administration.

Story: Aimée de Jongh
Art: Aimée de Jongh
Translation: Christopher Bradley

Get your copy now! To find a comic shop near you, visit http://www.comicshoplocator.com or call 1-888-comicbook or digitally and online with the links below.

Amazon
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Bookshop

SelfMadeHero provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review
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Days of Sand is a Depression-era tale based on work of photographer John Clark

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United States, 1937. In the middle of the Great Depression, 22-year-old photographer John Clark is brought in by the Farm Security Administration to document the calamitous conditions of the Dust Bowl in the central and southern states, in order to bring the farmers’ plight to the public eye.

When he starts working through his shooting script, however, he  finds his subjects to be unreceptive. What good are a couple of photos against relentless and deadly dust storms? The more he shoots, the more John discovers the awful extent of their struggles, coming to question his own role and responsibilities in this tragedy sweeping through the center of the country.

A moving and unforgettable tale, inspired by real-life stories of courage and perseverance against all odds.

Days of Sand, by Aimée de Jongh, is based on true events. In 1937, the federal FSA agency hired photographers to document the lives of farmers across the United States. The Dust Bowl was an oval-shaped region in the Mid-South, that was struck by severe droughts and heavily blowing dust storms. These storms carried so much sand and dust, that they could block all sunlight, turning days into nights. A total of 2.5 million inhabitants decided to leave the area, mostly toward California, in search of a better life. They became climate refugees – 90 years ago.

To research the story of Days of Sand, Aimée made a study trip to Oklahoma and California. She received a travel fund from the Dutch Foundation for Literature to make this trip possible. In 10 days, she drove from Oklahoma, through the old Dust Bowl area, to California. On the way, she stopped at museums and archives, to interview experts of the Dust Bowl and FSA history. A detailed travelogue of this trip is available in English on her blog.

Days of Sand

Small Press Expo 2019 Announces International Special Guests

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Small Press Expo has announced the first group International Special Guests for SPX 2019. The festival takes place on Saturday and Sunday, September 14-15, at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center and will have over 650 creators, 280 exhibitor tables, over 20 programming slots and additional hands-on workshops to introduce attendees to the amazing world of independent and small press comics. Additional Special Guests will be announced soon. SPX 2019 is honored to have the following creators as International Special Guests to this year’s show:

Aimée de Jongh

Aimée de Jongh (1988) is a comic author, animator and illustrator from the Netherlands. After drawing a Dutch daily newspaper comic called “Snippers” for nearly five years, Aimée decided to change the direction of her career entirely. Now focusing on graphic novels and graphic journalism, Aimée has reached an international audience for her work. Her debut graphic novel “The Return of the Honey Buzzard” won the Prix Saint-Michel and was adapted to a feature film. In her recent comic works, Aimée does not shy away from social and political subjects. During a visit to the refugee camps in Greece, she made the comic “Europe’s Waiting Room” to draw the attention to the poor living conditions of the refugees. Her new graphic novel “Blossoms in Autumn” is a taboo-breaking book about love and sex after 60, written by the acclaimed Belgian comic author Zidrou. The book reached third printing in France in only three months time, and won the Silver Japan International Manga Award 2019. Her upcoming graphic novel is “TAXI!”: an autobiography about taxi rides all over the world.

Kenny Rubenis

Kenny Rubenis  (1984) is one of the Netherlands best known cartoonists. His popular comic strip “Dating for Geeks” is published daily in the country’s largest newspaper “Metro”, and is read by close to a million people every day. To date, 9 collections of the strip have been published and the 10th book in the series is coming out later this year. 
“Dating for Geeks” details the lives of 7 nerdy characters. There’s Jasper, who’s searching for true love (and mint condition comic books) with the help of dating-consultant Yvon, there’s geeky couple Renee and Edward who have just moved in together and now have twice as many collectables, there’s hopeless romantic Claire, not so much looking for a Prince Charming on a white horse, but more for a Doctor in a bright blue box and there’s Jeff, your typical gamer who isn’t really looking for a girlfriend, but more for someone to play “two player games” with, if you know what I mean. And finally the author himself is one of his own characters. A little bit dumber, more insecure and less charismatic than in real life. 

The first proper translated Dating for Geeks comics will debut at SPX this year.

José Quintanar

José Quintanar is an artist working on narrative drawings, comics, and books. He has released several full-length graphic novels and artists’ books includingConociendo a Jari, Grundfunken, Fartlekand Culto Charles. His drawings have been published in The New York Times, Nieves, Vice, Esquire, kuš! Komikss, Fulgencio Pimentel, Editions Misma, Fosfatina and many more. His work has been exhibited in galleries in New York, Paris, London, Rotterdam, Madrid, Porto, and Berlín. José is also a professor at Willem de Kooning Art Academy of Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and a Ph.D. Student at Universidad Politecnica Madrid, where he researches narrative structures and artists’ books. Recently, his short stories have appeared in several issues of Now: The New Anthology, from Fantagraphics. 

Yann Kebbi

Yann Kebbi was born in Paris in 1987, and studied at the École des Arts Décoratifs. His paintings and illustrations have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Washington Post and elsewhere. Most recently, he collaborated with writer Viken Berberian on the graphic novel The Structure is Rotten, Comrade. He lives and works in Paris.

Typex

Typex is a Dutch illustrator and graphic novelist. A graduate of the Amsterdam College for the Arts, his work has appeared in many national newspapers and magazines. He has illustrated numerous children’s books and has published some of his own. Typex is the author of the acclaimed graphic biographies Andy: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol and Rembrandt, both published by SelfMadeHero. He lives in Amsterdam.

Jérôme Tubiana

French writer and researcher Jérôme Tubiana first met the former Guantánamo Bay detainee Mohammed El-Gharani in N’Djamena in 2011, two years after his release from the notorious camp. They met every afternoon for two weeks, after which Tubiana turned their conversations into a diary piece for the London Review of Books. Now, in collaboration with Mohammed El-Gharani, he has written a graphic novel: Guantánamo Kid. Illustrated by French cartoonist Alexandre Franc and endorsed by Amnesty International, this landmark work of graphic non-fiction tells the astonishing true story of one of the camp’s youngest detainees, who was held and abused for seven years without charge or trial.

SPX 2016 Announces International Guests Tom Gauld, Cyril Pedrosa, Aimée de Jongh and Pascal Girard

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spx-logo-240Small Press Expo is proud to announce Tom Gauld, Cyril Pedrosa, Aimée de Jongh, and Pascal Girard as Special Guests for SPX 2016.

Small Press Expo is honored that all of these international creators are appearing at the festival for the very first time.

This is in additon to previously announced special guests Daniel Clowes, Lisa Hanawalt, Jeffrey Brown, Trina Robbins, Charles Burns, Jaime & Gilbert Hernandez, Sarah Glidden Carol Tyler, Jim Woodring, Drew Friedman, Ed Piskor, and a rare festival appearance by Joe Sacco.

Tom Gauld is reknown comic creator, designer and illiustrator. He has weekly comic strips in The Guardian and New Scientist, as well as having his work published in The New York Times and The Believer. In addition to his graphic novels Goliath and You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack, he has designed a number of book covers, as well as a can for Diet Coke. This fall he releases Mooncop from Drawn & Quarterly. Gauld lives and works in London.

Cyril Pedrosa studied animation design at the Gobelins, a Parisian school dedicated to careers in the moving image. He went on to work on Disney animated feature films such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Hercules. A rising star in graphic storytelling, his unique work is a product of his animation background combined with his literary influences of Borges, Marquez and Tolkien. His moving journal of going back to his family roots, Portugal, is a bestseller. NBM will release Pedrosa’s latest, Equinox  this September.

Aimée de Jongh is an award-winning animator, comic artist, and illustrator from the Netherlands. She has since created work for children’s books, TV shows, music videos, and art installations, alongside numerous comic book series. Her animated film Aurora was screened widely in the Netherlands and Janus, a video installation she created with the L.A.-based artist Miljohn Ruperto, was exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The Return of the Honey Buzzard, her first graphic novel, won the Prix Saint-Michel and is published in English by SelfMadeHero.

Pascal Girard was born in Jonquière, Quebec, Canada, in 1981. He began filling his notebook with drawings on his very first day of school and never stopped. Since he was unable to rid himself of this habit, he naturally decided to make it his career. Girard is the award-winning author of Nicolas, Bigfoot, Reunion, and Petty Theft. He lives in Montreal. In September 2016, Girard is releasing an expanded hardcover edition of his first book Nicholas published by Drawn & Quarterly.

In the next few weeks, SPX will announce more guests, the 2016 Ignatz nominees and a full slate of programming.

SPX 2016 takes place on Saturday and Sunday, September 17-18, and will have over 650 creators, 280 exhibitor tables and 22 programming slots to entertain, enlighten and introduce attendees to the amazing world of independent and small press comics.