Second Saturday Cartoonist: MariNaomi
Saturday, August 8, 2026
1:00–3:00 pm
Cost: Included with Museum admission. Free for Members!
Meet, watch, and talk to author and illustrator MariNaomi, a Japanese American visual storyteller and community organizer who has been making comics since 1997. MariNaomi is the creator of the SPACE Award-winning graphic memoir Kiss & Tell: A Romantic Resume, Ages 0 to 22 (2011); the Eisner-nominated Dragon’s Breath and Other True Stories (2014); Turning Japanese (2016, 2023); I Thought YOU Hated ME (2016); the Life on Earth trilogy (2018-2020); Dirty Produce (2021); and I Thought You Loved Me (2023). Their work has appeared in approximately 100 print publications and has been featured on websites such as The New Yorker’s Daily Shouts, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Rumpus, LA Review of Books, Midnight Breakfast, San Francisco Examiner, and BuzzFeed.
ABOUT MARINAOMI
MariNaomi (they/them) is an author and illustrator whose work spans comics, graphic storytelling, and painting, with pieces appearing in roughly 100 print publications. Their comics have also been translated into multiple languages. Their work has been exhibited in major institutions including the Smithsonian, the de Young Museum, the Cartoon Art Museum, the Asian Art Museum, and the Japanese American National Museum. They have toured with the literary roadshow Sister Spit, founded several widely used cartoonist databases, taught in the California College of the Arts Comics MFA program, guest edited PEN Illustrated, cohosted the Ask Bi Grlz podcast with Myriam Gurba, and served as a California Chapter Leader of Authors Against Book Bans; they are currently a co-editor of comics at The Rumpus and split their time between the San Francisco Bay Area and Nagoya, Japan.
