Comic Crush

Comic Crush with Loïc Locatelli-Kournwsky, Kohinata Marco, Rachel Ang, Stacy Gougoulis, Steven Christie, Aude Yukiko Luce, and Campbell Whyte.

State Library of WA - Theatre (Ground Floor)
12:00 - 1:00pm

Roll up! Roll up! The world’s best comics makers battle it out for your entertainment to decide who has the mightiest pen in town! Ridiculous challenges, unimaginable quests and unwinnable obstacles all stand between them and victory.

Featuring: Loïc Locatelli-Kournwsky

Loïc Locatelli is an illustrator and comic book author based in Japan, where he has worked as a concept artist for several prestigious animation studios, including Mappa, Bones Studio, and Satelight. He now mainly creates works for young-adults audiences, contributing to French magazines as well as through his comic books published around the world — notably Persephone and Flavor Girls (BOOM! Studios).

Featuring: Kohinata Marco

Kohinata Marco was influenced by her mother’s love for art and became enraptured with drawing as a child. Her mother often took her to art exhibitions and museums and at home she was exposed to picture books from all around the world, manga, illustrations, anime, and the like. Marco first learned art as an academic subject when she joined the art department at Osaka Prefectural Kogei Senior High School. After high school, she took correspondence courses through Musashino Art University, but eventually left academia after making her debut as a manga artist. While working as a manga artist she also takes on illustration and animation commissions. Beginning with manga, Kohinata Marco has felt comforted by many works of art made by her predecessors and wishes to recreate that feeling in people through her art.

Featuring: Rachel Ang

Rachel Ang is an artist and writer who makes comics. Their work has previously been published in international outlets such as The New Yorker, The Washington Post and kuš!, and local journals such as The Lifted Brow (RIP), Meanjin (RIP), Island and Overland. Their new book, a collection of short stories in comics form titled I Ate The Whole World to Find You, is out now through Drawn and Quarterly and Scribe, and was shortlisted for an Ignatz Award.

Featuring: Stacy Gougoulis

Stacy is an illustrator, radio presenter and Eisner Award–nominated cartoonist whose work has appeared in publications like The Washington Post, Fantagraphics NOW and VICE. They are currently working on their debut graphic novel, Bivouac, which will be published by Fantagraphics.

Featuring: Steven Christie

Steven Christie (he/him) is an Australian artist based in Naarm. Through comics, he explores the intersection of conceptual art, science-fiction, and (increasingly) freshwater fishkeeping. He is most known for the graphic novels Turtlenecks (Adhouse Books, 2021), the story of an artist who accidentally turns his flower necklace into a ready-made art work, and then must pull off a conceptual art heist performance piece to get it back. The story continues in Good Praxis, currently being published serially by Melbourne-based comics publisher Glom Press.

Featuring: Aude Yukiko Luce

Aude Yukiko Luce is a manga translator and comic festival enthusiast. After graduating with a Masters in Japanese language in Paris, she moved to Tokyo in 2013 and coordinated the French Embassy's annual book festival around Japan, bringing the work of French authors to a Japanese audience. While in Tokyo, she collaborated with the Kaigai Manga Festa and its founder Frédéric Toutlemonde, publisher and CEO of Euromanga. Aude then co-founded Comic Art Tokyo with Hakusen gallery owner and Black Hook Press publisher James Stacey, with the support of TCAF and Lakes International Comic Art Festival. After moving to Melbourne in 2017, she focused on a full time career in marketing and manga translation for Casterman's Sakka label, based in Paris.

Featuring: Campbell Whyte

Campbell Whyte was born in Perth, Western Australia where he creates stories about place and strives to create an inclusive, supportive and healthy comics community. Through his love for comics literature, he has created deeply personal, widely accessible and award-winning works such as Home Time and Luna Express. For the past ten years, he has been developing and delivering comics-making courses at the Milktooth School of Art and Stories where he teaches over 400 students a year.

This event is part of the annual Perth Comic Arts Festival, a completely free to attend, volunteer run celebration of comics, their creators and readers.