Barbara Brandon-Croft became the first nationally syndicated Black woman cartoonist to cross the color line into the mainstream press in 1989 with her cartoon feature Where I’m Coming From. Last year, Drawn + Quarterly published a compilation of selected strips and the story of her career.

Emily Flake is a cartoonist for the New Yorker, a writer, and a performer. She wrote on Steven Soderbergh’s recently-released Command Z series, and her essays and illustrations appear in publications all over the world. She is the author of several books, most recently Joke in a Box: How to Write and Draw Jokes. She is the founder of the St. Nell’s Humor Writing Residency in Williamsport.

Alessandra Olanow is an author and illustrator of the bestselling book I Used to Have a Plan. She is a practicing end-of-life doula and the creator of A.OK, a line of healing body oils. Alessandra shares her artwork on Instagram at @aolanow. An ISB parent, she lives in Brooklyn with her daughter Coco.

Lauren Redniss is a Brooklyn-based author and artist. Her book Thunder & Lightning won the 2016 PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Her Radioactive was a finalist for the 2011 National Book Award and was adapted as a major motion picture. She is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” and has been a Guggenheim fellow, a fellow at the NY Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars & Writers, the New America Foundation, and Artist-in-Residence at the American Museum of Natural History.

Moderator Dan Nadel is Curator-at-Large for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. His biography of Robert Crumb will be published in 2025 by Scribner. A frequent writer on art and cartooning for books and magazines internationally, Nadel has curated exhibitions for institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Whitney Museum of American Art. He is an ISB parent and lives in Brooklyn.