Bay Area Comic Slam
Sunday, January 14
2:00 pm
Cost: Included with Museum admission. Free for Members!
Join Bay Area cartoonists, including Rina Ayuyang, Briana Loewinsohn, Thien Pham, Jason Shiga, and Julia Wertz, to celebrate their new books with live comic readings followed by a book signing.
ABOUT RINA AYUYANG
Rina Ayuyang
has been making comics in the Bay Area for over 20 years. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, she was always inspired by the Sunday newspaper funnies and slice-of-life tales. Rina’s new book, The Man in The McIntosh Suit, is a Filipino-American take on Depression-era noir featuring mistaken identities, speakeasies, and lost love in San Francisco’s Manilatown. It has been nominated for the Harvey Award Best Book of 2023 and an Ignatz for Outstanding Graphic Novel. Rina has made comics for Mutha Magazine, PEN America, and The Comics Journal. Her short stories have been nominated for the Ignatz and Eisner awards, and she has been honored with a MoCCA Arts Festival Awards of Excellence silver medal. Rina lives with her family in Oakland, CA.
ABOUT BRIANA LOEWINSOHN
Briana Loewinsohn is an American cartoonist. These days she teaches high school art and draws comic books. Her graphic novel Ephemera was published by Fantagraphics in March 2023. It is a memoir about the fog of childhood memory, her mum, and plants. She lives in Oakland, CA with her husband, daughter, and son. If she doesn’t text you back, she is probably gardening. Say hi to her on Instagram at @brianabreaks!
ABOUT THIEN PHAM
Thien Pham is a graphic novelist, comic artist, and educator based in Oakland, CA. He is the author and illustrator of the graphic novel Sumo and did the art for the middle-grade graphic novel Level Up, written by Gene Luen Yang. His latest book Family Style is a memoir about his family’s immigration to America told through the lens of food. Currently, Pham is working on his next graphic novel, teaching, and eating. A lot. Follow Thien on Instagram at @thiendog
ABOUT JASON SHIGA
Jason Shiga was born and raised in Oakland, California and has been drawing comics since 1996. His comics have a geeky side, and often feature exciting uses of math. Many of his comics are interactive and require the reader to make choices to move the story along. In his 20 year career, Shiga has created 8 graphic novels, 20 comics books, over a dozen magazines and newspaper strips and the world’s second largest interactive comic. Although his works range from strips to graphic novels he is best known for his love of unusual structural forms. His newest project is a 600 page interactive comic book with an automated memory system.
ABOUT JULIA WERTZ
Julia Wertz is a professional cartoonist, amateur historian, and part-time urban explorer. She made the comic books The Fart Party vol 1 and vol 2 (collected in Museum of Mistakes) and the graphic novels Drinking at the Movies, The Infinite Wait and Other Stories, Tenements, Towers, & Trash, (for which she won the 2018 Brendan Gill Prize), and Impossible People. She does monthly short story comics for the New Yorker and her work has appeared regularly in the New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, the Believer, the Best American Comics, and other publications. Her photography of abandoned places has appeared in a handful of newspapers. She is a repeated MacDowell fellow but was rejected from Yaddo. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, she spent a decade in New York City before settling in Sonoma County, CA, with her partner Oliver (yeah, the Oliver from Fart Party) and their son Felix. She’s currently working on the graphic novel Bury Me Already (It’s Nice Down Here) to be released by Hachette/Black Dog & Leventhal in 2025.
