Ilustration professor, Ben Katchor, is the recipient of the 2015 Gene Burd Urban Journalism Award, presented at the annual AEJMC conference this past weekend. The jury, composed of Urban Communication Foundation board members and past winners of the award was “truly impressed with [his] creative and dynamic approach to the urban landscape and it’s bizarre variety of complex urban issues.”

The Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) Awards recognize outstanding achievements. AEJMC conferences feature journalism and mass communication administrators, educators, and researchers; well-known authors and publishers of communication texts; companies and organizations tracking emerging trends in higher education; social media professionals and internet and technology professionals; and practitioners.

Read more about Ben’s award here.

Leah Hayes, former Illustration student and faculty member, published Not Funny Ha-Ha, a bold and slightly wry graphic novel about two young women going through abortions. It’s a little bit technical, a little bit moving, and often funny, in a format uniquely suited to communicate.

The book is available for pre-order here.

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Early press for Not Funny Ha-Ha:

“A woman’s written a comic book about abortion and everyone should read it”- Metro UK

“Hayes’ illustrations are straightforward and witty. She defines technical terms and medical processes while still managing to capture the deeply personal, human side of the reproductive decisions a woman makes.” – Huffington Post

“Conveys a feeling of comfort and openness, while also conveying the weight of the topic.” – Buzzfeed

“A serious work that aims to ease anxiety and bring clarity.” – Bitch Media

” Judgement-free, but still witty and brutally honest enough to demystify the topic.” – Ravishly

“An amazingly thoughtful, empathetic guide to abortion.”- Listen to the Publisher’s Weekly More to Come podcast interview with Leah

Work by Steven Guarnaccia

AMT Illustration Faculty Member Steven Guarnaccia will be featuring his exhibition titled, Fatherland, at the upcoming Nobrow’s ELCAFestival in London. The exhibition will be on view from June 20 – 27th. Fatherland originally opened this spring at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair.

About the exhibition: Guarnaccia’s childhood, family history and fraught relationship with his father are the themes of this exhibition. The show features a series of transformed objects, which Guarnaccia dedicates to the memory of his father: painted shoes, vests, pipes, duckpins and rusty saws, along with wooden shirts and paper neckties made by the artist. Guarnaccia emblazons these objects with patterns, puns and emblematic phrases from his childhood. The objects suggest a narrative, an interplay of images and words that explore notions of memory, father-son relationships and coming of age.

The 124th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, May 12, 2015 at 7pm at The New School, 66 West 12th Street, room A510 (Klein Conference Room), New York City. Free and open to the public. Please note the new location for this event!

The Eternal Question: What’s Funny About This?! 

The Eternal Answer from Arnold Roth.

Arnold Roth will present a profusely illustrated talk with a selection of his works through the decades, from the philosophical to the filthy.

Arnold Roth is an award-winning cartoonist based in New York City. His cartoons have appeared in numerous publications including The New Yorker, TIME, Sports Illustrated, Playboy, Punch, the New York Times, and many, many more. Since 2011 Arnold Roth posts on his weekly blog http://www.humblug.com.

Lale Westvind: Shake A Line! Images of Motion.
Lale Westvind will screen several of her hand drawn animations as well as segments from a new work in progress titled Cunt Eyes. Following the screening there will be a talk and slideshow describing influences, process, function of animation as inner space and the expression of kinetic energy in static and moving images.
Drawing movement has always been a fascination and a goal of Lale Westvind’s work, motion being the life force or energy of the physical space. This lecture will highlight the visual vocabulary created as a means to that end.
Lale Westvind was born in 1987 in New York City. She is a multi-disciplinary artist working in animation, comics and painting. She has self-published over a dozen comic books and two anthologies. A segment of her series Hyperspeed to Nowhere was featured in the 2014 issue of Best American Comics and her self-published comic Hot Dog Beach #2 won an Ignatz Award in 2012. She teaches animation at Parsons.

The 122nd meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, April 28, 2015 at 7pm at Parsons The New School, 2 West 13th Street, in the Bark Room (off the lobby). Free and open to the public.

Eric Bernard: A Child’s View: 19th Century Paper Theaters
 A rather unique and enchanting entertainment for children emerged at the beginning of the second decade of the 19th century.  Before the wide availability of children’s periodicals and mass-produced toys, small tabletop theaters—constructed out of printed paper, adhered to cardboard and mounted on a wooden frame—introduced a unique visual entertainment into homes.  Nearly every major European country, as well as the United States, developed its own tradition of paper theater during the 19th century into the early 20th century.  It was Juvenile Drama in England, Papiertheater or Kindertheater in Germany, théâtre de papier in France, dukketeater in Denmark, and teatro de los niños or teatrillo in Spain.  Today, these small theaters and their vast repertoire of plays remain invaluable records of contemporary professional stage performances and theater design of the 19th century.

Eric Bernard has collected antique paper theaters for 30 years and had an extended exhibition of his collection at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut in 2011.  He holds a BA in music from Texas Christian University and an MA in Arts Administration from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.  Eric’s career in arts management has included Lincoln Center Theater, the Museum of Modern Art, and, for the past 17 years, the Metropolitan Opera.