Small Press Expo 2017 Hosts Jillian Tamaki, Tillie Walden, Emil Ferris and More

The Small Press Expo, an annual festival of independent a comics and graphic novels, held September 16-17 at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel, will host 650 artists including such acclaimed creators as Jillian Tamaki, Emil Ferris, Ethan Rilly and Tillie Walden.

This year’s SPX will feature 280 exhibitors at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel& Conference Center, as many as 170 publishing debuts and two days packed with programming and panels. The show also hosts the Ignatz awards, the festival prizes for outstanding achievement for comics and graphic novels.

In addition to Tamaki, Walden, and Ferris, artists and special guests at this years show will also include Eleanor Davis, Ethan Rilly, Gene Yang, Michael Deforge, Shannon Wheeler, Chris Kim and many others. International artists include French artists Alex Alice and Anaïs Depommier, Finnish cartoonist Tommy Musturi, and Spanish comics artist Albert Monteys among others.

Programming highlights include a discussion between CXC director Tom Spurgeon and cartoonists Ann Telnaes, Matt Wuerker, Keth Knight and Ben Passmore about the political cartooning. Also Tillie Walden talks about her new graphic memoir Spinning with SPX executive director Warren Bernard and cartoonists Jeremy Sorese, Carta Monir, Kevin Czap and Rio Aubry Taylor discuss genderfluidity and science fiction.

This year’s annual SPX Lecture will be by Charles Brownstein, executive director of the Comics Book Legal Defense Fund, on the history of comic book censorship, form the earliest days of the medium to the present. The lecture will be delivered at the Library of Congress Madison Building on September 15.