Every year we feature a slate of talks about geek culture by professionals as well as SU staff and students.
We’re ready to start announcing our speakers, which we’ll add over the next couple weeks, starting with…
Ryan Dunlavey and Fred Van Lente!
They both went to Syracuse University and have now worked as creative partners in making comics for many years. They will be tabling and will also appear together on a panel.
Ryan Dunlavey is a freelance illustrator and comic book artist of Action Philosophers, Marvel’s M.O.D.O.K., The Illustrated Weird Al and many more comics and graphic novels. He is an alumni of Syracuse University’s School of Visual Arts (BFA Illustration, ‘93).
Fred Van Lente is the six-time New York Times bestselling writer of such comics as Amazing Spider-Man, Marvel Zombies, Archer and Armstrong, The Future Is ****** and numerous humorous non-fiction comics with artist Ryan Dunlavey, like Action Philosophers and The Comic Book History of Comics. His book Gamemasters: The Comic Book History of Roleplaying Games with artist Tom Fowler recently released to great acclaim. His original graphic novel Cowboys & Aliens was made into the film with Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford.
We’re thrilled to have both of them here together,
Nick Sousanis!
We will also have a Zoom talk with Nick Sousanis, creator of the well-known Unflattening graphic novel! Yet another of the several Eisner nominees or winners that have graced the panels of the CONfluence.
Nick Sousanis is an Eisner-winning comics author and an associate professor at San Francisco State University, where he started and runs an interdisciplinary Comics Studies program. He is the author of Unflattening, originally his doctoral dissertation, which he wrote and drew entirely in comics form. Published by Harvard University Press in 2015, Unflattening received the 2016 American Publishers Association Humanities award for Scholarly Excellence and the 2016 Lynd Ward prize for Best Graphic Novel. Sousanis’s comics have appeared in Nature, The Boston Globe, Columbia Magazine, MIT Technology Review, and more. See more at www.spinweaveandcut.com or on Bsky: @nsousanis.bsky.social
Movie Monsters!
“Here There Be Monsters: Sci-Fi Pulps, Legacy IPs, and Neo-Victorian Adaptation,” a panel discussion by faculty and graduate students in the Department of English.
The talks will be:
Meg Healy: “Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) and the Growth of a Science-Fiction Film Genre”
Meg Healy (she/her) is an English PhD candidate at Syracuse University, where she studies the relationship between cinematic and literary science fiction. Her dissertation explores the evolution of the sci-fi genre as it is discussed, defined, and redefined by various groups that participate in its production, distribution, and reception.
Will Scheibel: “Van Helsing (2004) and Universal’s Cancelled Monster Franchise”
Will Scheibel (he/him) chairs the Department of English at Syracuse University, where he is Professor of Film & Screen Studies. He is currently writing a book on the monster movies of Universal Pictures and their afterlives in media and popular culture.
Elena Selthun: “You Are The Monster: Adapting Frankenstein as a Bad Dad”
Elena Selthun (they/them) is a fourth-year English PhD candidate at Syracuse University, where they research Gothic ecologies in Victorian literature and their contemporary echoes and adaptations. They are especially interested in monsters, fungi, haunted houses, and decaying empires.
Body Anthology Reflection
“Contributors of Body: An Anthology, a curated collection of comics about the human experience”
The speakers all contributed comics to the graphic novel Body: An Anthology.
Ella Larson is an Illustration MFA candidate at Syracuse University. She likes bizarre animals, kooky humor, fairy tales, wild science, and art that does a little good in the world.
Normandie Luscher Acevedo is a US east coaster, originally from Northern VA, but currently resides in central NY. Normandie is an author and illustrator whose work often depicts slice of life narratives with an interest in unearthing original stories and perspectives with distinctive characters. She is an Assistant Professor at Syracuse University where her current research focuses on sequential narratives, particularly around concepts of trauma and recovery and representation of unique experiences. Her work has been recognized by American Illustration, Creative Quarterly and Applied Arts Illustration Magazine, among others.
Janna Morton is a Baltimore-based artist known for colorful and captivating illustrations, comics, and paintings. Her work explores themes of nature, inclusivity, overlooked beauty, grief, and joy. Discomfort is a comic about struggling to feel positive about one’s body when nothing in the world seems to be built with it in mind. This comic was created traditionally with gouache and mixed media and edited digitally.
Keith Wilson is a second-year MD/MPH student at SUNY Upstate Medical University. He grew up between Colorado and Utah and lives in Syracuse with his wife and son. He loves to doodle during class and enjoys the field of graphic medicine as a bridge between comics, medicine, and the stories that make us human.
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One more to come!
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Past speakers have included A. Andrews (A Quick and Easy Guide to Sex & Disability), Alexandre Tefenkgi (The Good Asian), Atagun Ilhan (Poison Ivy), Ben Marra (Jesusfreak), C. Spike Trotman (Iron Circus Comics), Dani Pendergast (Demon in the Wood), Jeff Trexler (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund), JoAnn Purcell (Comics, Caregiving, and Crip Time), Mady G (A Quick and Easy Guide to Queer and Trans Identities), MariNaomi (Turning Japanese and multiple comics databases), Marcos Chin (Kama Sutra), Marella Moon Albanese (Gorillaz art book), Marie Enger (Death to the Wizard Kings!), Maya McKibbin (The Song That Called Them Home), Natalie Riess (Power Within), Noah Fischer (Occupy Museums), Tyler Boss (What’s the Furthest Place from Here?), and Valentine De Landro (Silver Surfer: Ghost Light).
Geek/Art CONfluence 