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.