DRAWN OUT: PANDEMIC COMICS LIVE READING
23 Feb 2022
Drawn Out was a free online live reading event facilitated by Rachael House, an artist who published a book of the drawings she made over the course of the first year of Covid-19 pandemic titled Resistance Sustenance Protection.
For this event Rachael House invited artists Holly Casio, Natasha Natarajan, Robert Bidder, Candice Purwin, Monique Jackson, and Jess Hannar to join her in sharing and reading from their work. The artists’ sequential drawings and comics explored topics of class, race, unions, fat politics, long covid, queer politics, disability and more. Their observations of such notions and how they were impacted by the pandemic are rich, funny, angry, and compassionate.
This was the final reading in a series of events, previously hosted by Metal Culture as part of Estuary Festival, Lambeth Libraries, De La Warr Pavilion, LDComics and Middlesex University.
BIOGRAPHIES
Rachael House is a UK artist who makes events, objects, performance, drawings and zines. Events have been curtailed over the past couple of years, and drawing has taken centre stage, with her first book, Resistance Sustenance Protection, published in May 2021. Rachael House’s work focuses on feminist and queer politics and resistant histories/herstories, aiming to reach as many like-minded people as possible, inside and outside of the art world. She uses humour, personal engagement and events to draw in those who may not be like-minded too- she recruits.
Natasha Natarajan is a British-Indian creative running a freelance business under the name Chikaboo Designs. You can find her around London working on commissions, delivering children’s art workshops, managing other artists and self-publishing zines. Since 2016 she has been writing an autobiographical comic strip ‘FML Comics’ exploring her most personal and political experiences. In February ‘FML Comics: Collected 2016-2020’ was published by Good Comics and this summer her work will be exhibited at The Cartoon Museum.
Rob Bidder is an artist who has worked in different mediums including video, performance, drawing, music and puppetry, but in the last few years has mostly been making comics. He made the weekly comic Body Squabbles for Wellcome Collection for 3 years, a series about emotions, the body and human interaction.
Jess Hannar makes memoir and diary comics, with a special interest in physical & mental health. She studied Philosophy at KCL but became ill with M.E./CFS a few months after graduating & she has been ill ever since. She published her first book of diary comics about life in lockdown in December 2020 and since then her comics have been exhibited in North London and can be found in the Museum of London library.
Candice Purwin is an illustrator, writer and animator living in Edinburgh. She makes comics, both documentary and fiction, often writing under the pseudonym Goblin. Panelled storytelling is her first and best language, her work deeply entrenched in nature, absurdity, horrors and socially conscious outrage.
Monique Jackson is an Artist and Long Covid Advocate. Monique is the creator of The Still Ill Corona Diary which documents her journey with experiencing Long Covid through an online graphic journal.
Holly Casio makes queer zines and DYI comics about pop culture, being fat, class, OCD, and Bruce Springsteen.
23 Feb 2022
Drawn Out was a free online live reading event facilitated by Rachael House, an artist who published a book of the drawings she made over the course of the first year of Covid-19 pandemic titled Resistance Sustenance Protection.
For this event Rachael House invited artists Holly Casio, Natasha Natarajan, Robert Bidder, Candice Purwin, Monique Jackson, and Jess Hannar to join her in sharing and reading from their work. The artists’ sequential drawings and comics explored topics of class, race, unions, fat politics, long covid, queer politics, disability and more. Their observations of such notions and how they were impacted by the pandemic are rich, funny, angry, and compassionate.
This was the final reading in a series of events, previously hosted by Metal Culture as part of Estuary Festival, Lambeth Libraries, De La Warr Pavilion, LDComics and Middlesex University.
BIOGRAPHIES
Rachael House is a UK artist who makes events, objects, performance, drawings and zines. Events have been curtailed over the past couple of years, and drawing has taken centre stage, with her first book, Resistance Sustenance Protection, published in May 2021. Rachael House’s work focuses on feminist and queer politics and resistant histories/herstories, aiming to reach as many like-minded people as possible, inside and outside of the art world. She uses humour, personal engagement and events to draw in those who may not be like-minded too- she recruits.
Natasha Natarajan is a British-Indian creative running a freelance business under the name Chikaboo Designs. You can find her around London working on commissions, delivering children’s art workshops, managing other artists and self-publishing zines. Since 2016 she has been writing an autobiographical comic strip ‘FML Comics’ exploring her most personal and political experiences. In February ‘FML Comics: Collected 2016-2020’ was published by Good Comics and this summer her work will be exhibited at The Cartoon Museum.
Rob Bidder is an artist who has worked in different mediums including video, performance, drawing, music and puppetry, but in the last few years has mostly been making comics. He made the weekly comic Body Squabbles for Wellcome Collection for 3 years, a series about emotions, the body and human interaction.
Jess Hannar makes memoir and diary comics, with a special interest in physical & mental health. She studied Philosophy at KCL but became ill with M.E./CFS a few months after graduating & she has been ill ever since. She published her first book of diary comics about life in lockdown in December 2020 and since then her comics have been exhibited in North London and can be found in the Museum of London library.
Candice Purwin is an illustrator, writer and animator living in Edinburgh. She makes comics, both documentary and fiction, often writing under the pseudonym Goblin. Panelled storytelling is her first and best language, her work deeply entrenched in nature, absurdity, horrors and socially conscious outrage.
Monique Jackson is an Artist and Long Covid Advocate. Monique is the creator of The Still Ill Corona Diary which documents her journey with experiencing Long Covid through an online graphic journal.
Holly Casio makes queer zines and DYI comics about pop culture, being fat, class, OCD, and Bruce Springsteen.
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