Frank Johnson, Secret Pioneer of American Comics Book Launch and Panel

Join Chris Byrne and Keith Mayerson (editors of Frank Johnson, Secret Pioneer of American Comics Vol. 1: Wally’s Gang Early Years (1928-1949) and The Bowser Boys (1946-1950)), Mark Newgarden (How to Read Nancy: The Elements of Comics in Three Easy Panels), and Karen Green (Curator for Comics and Cartoons at Columbia University) for a panel discussion, followed by an audience Q&A! 

They will be discussing the iconic, yet curiously obscure work of Frank Johnson, an itinerant musician and shipping clerk who left behind more than 2,300 notebook pages of comics and 131 unbound drawings, among them a massive, continuous story line beginning in the earliest surviving notebook dated 1928 — before the existence of comic books! — and following the exploits of his own cast of characters across 50 years until Johnson passed away. For the first time, his work has been collected in one volume, available for sale at the event!

$15 general, $10 members, $7 seniors/students

Chris Byrne is the author of the graphic novel The Magician (Marquand Books, 2013), included in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Byrne is the owner and founder of the Elaine de Kooning House in East Hampton, NY, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. He was the former chair of the American Visionary Art Museum. He co-edited Frank Johnson, Secret Pioneer of American Comics Vol. 1: Wally’s Gang Early Years (1928-1949) and The Bowser Boys (1946-1950), out from Fantagraphics in 2024. 

Keith Mayerson has professionally exhibited his art in galleries and museums since 1993. His exhibitions are often installations of images that create larger narratives. His long running non-linear narrative “My American Dream” has been presented in separate exhibitions as “chapters” and the ongoing series continues through today and has recently been published as a 428 page “wordless novel” and monograph by Karma. His graphic novel Horror Hospital Unplugged, a collaboration with the writer Dennis Cooper, is well known among graphic artists and the queer community. He co-edited Frank Johnson, Secret Pioneer of American Comics Vol. 1: Wally’s Gang Early Years (1928-1949) and The Bowser Boys (1946-1950), out from Fantagraphics in 2024 and a graphic-novel biography of James Dean is forthcoming, to be published by Fantagraphics.

Mark Newgarden is an American underground cartoonist. His work has appeared widely, and his influential shape-shifting weekly feature Newgarden, which appeared in alternative weekly newspapers like New York Press, created a cult following for the artist. He is the author of several books of, and about, humor including How to Read Nancy: The Elements of Comics in Three Easy Panels (Fantagraphics, 2017) and We All Die Alone (Fantagraphics, 2006).

Karen Green is Curator for Comics and Cartoons at Columbia University.  Since 2005 she has been instrumental in building a collection and archive that now includes the original art and papers of Chris Claremont, Al Jaffee, Howard Cruse, Jerry Robinson, S. Clay Wilson, Wendy and Richard Pini, and Kitchen Sink Press, among others.  Karen is highly active and visible at comics conferences and conventions, has been a judge for the Eisner Awards and the Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Cartooning, and she co-produced the documentary She Makes Comics (2014).  She has also organized and hosted numerous online conversations with comics artists.  In 2017, Nick Sousanis created the online comic “A Life in Comics: The Graphic Adventures of Karen Green” for Columbia Magazine.