African Futurism Comics Brunch

For our July meetup, we’re meeting a little earlier in the day for a comics brunch. We’re reading Laguardia, by Nnedi Okorafor with Tana Ford and James Devlin. We’re also reading/viewing a couple of supplementary items to get Okorafor’s view on Africanfuturism.

Saturday, July 25, 2020 11:00 Central Time.

And, since it’s hot out and to help us get into the spirit of things, here’s a list of some African cocktails, many with non-alcoholic variants.

Contact the organizers to get added to the group for Zoom details.

Comics vs. COVID

Whew! It’s been a while since we’ve posted. The Comics Colloquium has been trucking along during social isolation. We’ve met online since March, talking about fantastic books like Parable of the Sower, Ooku, and Y: The Last Man, and we’ll continue to convene virtually until we’re able to safely assemble once again.

In the meantime, we asked our members to share what they’ve been reading during the pandemic, for fun or for scholarship. Here’s what folks shared:

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Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me

Our October meet up is Saturday, October 12, 2:00 p.m. at Riggs Beer Company in Urbana.

October is LGBT History Month, so for our October meet up, we’re reading the queer YA graphic novel Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me by Mariko Tamaki, Rosemary Valero-O’Connell (Illustrator). We’ll be back in the game room at Riggs on Saturday, October 12 at 2:00 p.m.

To set up our conversation, Uni High Library GA Cynthia Medrano Torres shared a reflection on the book:

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Banned Books Week

September 22-28 2019 is Banned Books Week. Comics and graphic novels are among the most frequently banned and challenged books in the United States. To help draw attention to comics, we asked members of the U-C Comics Colloquium to share some information about their favorite banned or challenged comics. Read on to learn more about the comics we dare to read!

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They Called Us Enemy and Citizen 13660

For our September meeting we read They Called Us Enemy, the 2019 graphic novel by George Takei, along with excerpts from Miné Tokubo’s 1946 graphic narrative Citizen 13660. The U-C Zine Library hosted the meet up. While we found Tokubo’s classic work compelling, Takei’s graphic novel didn’t quite make the grade.

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September Meet Up: They Called Us Enemy

Our September meeting will be Saturday, September 14, 2019 at 2:00 p.m. at the Urbana Zine Library in the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center, 202 South Broadway, #100, Urbana, IL 61801.

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The First U-C Comics Colloquium Meeting

The first meeting of the U-C Comics Colloquium was held August 17, 2019 at Riggs Beer Company in Urbana.

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