We are excited to be speaking with Marek Bennett, who joined us to speak about his contributions to the comics anthology Turner Family Stories: From Enslavement in Virginia to Freedom in Vermont, as well as some of his recent and upcoming comics projects!

Marek Bennett is a New Hampshire-based based cartoonist, musician, and educator , who leads discovery-based Comics Workshops for all ages throughout New England and the world beyond! His comics work includes the Daisy Turner book, the graphic novel series, The Civil War Diary of Freeman Colby, as well as drawing, translating, & editing for The Most Costly Journey (2021) with the bilingual El Viaje Project. His crowd-funded cartoon travel memoirs include Sharjah Sketchbook (2020) and SLOVAKIA: Fall in the Heart of Europe (2013).

Marek is currently running a kickstarter for Freeman Colby volume three that runs until June 3rd. Go find it over at kickstarter.com, and stay tuned to the end of the episode for a preview from Marek himself!

Kickstarter link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/marekbennett/the-civil-war-diary-of-freeman-colby-vol-3-1864

We are proud to present the first episode in a short series of interviews with cartoonists who worked on the comics anthology Turner Family Stories: From Enslavement in Virginia to Freedom in Vermont. Edited by Jane Beck and Andy Kolovos, this anthology presents some stories from Daisy Turner, a black woman born in Vermont in 1883. Working with six New England cartoonists Turner Family Stories presents two of Daisy’s accounts from the life of her father, Alec Turner, by Marek Bennett and Joel Christian Gill, and two stories from Daisy’s own life by Francis Bordeleau and Lilllie Harris. The comics adapted from Daisy’s interviews are linked together through a story by Grafton native Ezra Veitch, based on a childhood encounter he and a friend had with Daisy one afternoon. Center for Cartoon Studies graduate Robyn Smith drew the volume’s cover. The book also features a Foreword by Gretchen Gerzina, Introduction by Graphic Possibilities’ own Julian Chambliss (!) and a Preface by Jane Beck.

P.S. Thanks for y'all's patience in the gap between episodes. Graphic Possibilities has been BUSY this Spring!!

Episode 10: "Sadam Issa and Valentina Denzel" (March 2021)

The Graphic Possibilities PodcastBy J. ChamblissAug 06, 2021