2025 MoCCA Festival Announces Robust Guest List:
Charles Burns, Michael DeForge, Jaime Hernandez, María Medem, Anders Nilsen, Linnea Sterte, Lale Westvind, Bianca Xunise and more

NEW YORK, NY- The Society of Illustrators is proud to announce a robust and distinguished roster of honored guests and featured artists for the SI MoCCA Arts Festival, taking place March 15 – 16, 2025 at Metropolitan Pavilion (125 W 18th Street) with programming steps away at the SVA Flatiron Gallery (133 West 21st Street). This year’s featured artists include:

• Dissident Chinese cartoonist Badiucao, presenting his book You Must Take Part in Revolution. 
• Legendary artist Charles Burns returns to MoCCA following the publication of his graphic novel Final Cut, his art book Kommix, and his comic book Unwholesome Love.
• Michael DeForge, the prolific and influential Canadian artist whose graphic novel Holy Lacrimony debuts this March.
• Illustrator Olivia Fields, who provides this year’s stunning MoCCA badge artwork, has worked for clients including the ACLU, Google, The New York Times, The New Yorker, NPR, PBS, and Scholastic.
• John Hankiewicz, long admired in the small press for the poetic approach to comics on display in his most recent book, Hot House. 
• Jaime Hernandez, the indie comics icon whose ongoing “Locas” narrative has developed over more than four decades in the pages of Love & Rockets and his new graphic novel Life Drawing.
• Aidan Koch, whose recent book Spiral and Other Stories demonstrates her revolutionary and influential approach to comics form. 
• Spanish illustrator and cartoonist María Medem, whose richly saturated, elegant illustrations are an oasis of calm in the New York Times and elsewhere, with her graphic novel Land of Mirrors.
• Anders Nilsen will debut his epic graphic novel Tongues, a mythologically inflected meditation on human struggle in resource-rich conflict zones.
• Swedish cartoonist and illustrator Linnea Sterte, who provided this year’s gorgeous MoCCA poster, will appear with her new graphic novel World Heist. 
• French artist Chloé Wary will discuss her richly colorful and award-winning graphic novel Season of the Roses, about a women’s soccer team in a metropolitan suburb. 
• Comics dynamo Lale Westvind, whose recent collection Grand Electric Thought Power Mother was one of the New York Times’s Best Graphic Novels of 2024.
• Bianca Xunise, one of the women who draws the nationally syndicated comic strip Six Chix and author of the graphic novel Punk Rock Karaoke.

Other featured artists will include Bim Eriksson, Frances Jetter, Mattie Lubchansky, John Vasquez Mejias, Kay Sohini, Katie Skelly, Adrian Tomine, and many more. These artists will all appear in our programming schedule, to be announced in mid-February. Original artwork by Hankiewicz, Koch and Westvind will appear in the exhibit Modern Comics, opening at the Society of Illustrators on March 19th. 

The Society of Illustrators gratefully acknowledges the support of the following institutions for their support of our 2025 SI MoCCA Arts Festival international guests:

• The Cultural Services of the French Embassy for their support of Chloé Wary
• The Consulate General of Sweden for their support of Linnea Sterte
• The Cultural Office of the Embassy of Spain for their support of María Medem

Tickets are available to purchase online as well as at the door. More information about the Fest can be found here.

About the Museum of Illustration at the Society of Illustrators and the SI MoCCA Arts Festival
Founded in 1901, the Society of Illustrators is America’s longest-standing nonprofit organization dedicated to the art of illustration. Located on the Upper East Side, SI’s Museum of Illustration advances our mission to promote the art and appreciation of illustration and its history and evolving nature through exhibitions and educational programs. 

The SI MoCCA Arts Festival is a 2-day multimedia event. It is NYC’s largest independent comics and cartoon festival, drawing over 8,000 attendees each year. Founded in 2001, The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) was located at 594 Broadway and offered exhibits, education programs, and an annual small-press comic convention known as MoCCA Fest, first held in 2002. In 2012, MoCCA closed its doors and transferred its collection to SI upon condition that a gallery be created in their museum to showcase comic/cartoon art and the MoCCA Fest would continue. Since then, the SI MoCCA Arts Fest has continued to grow into one of the largest independent comic and cartoon festivals nationwide, with over 400 exhibiting artists displaying their work, award-winning honorees speaking about their careers and artistic processes and other featured artists conducting demos, lectures and panels. 

For media inquiries please contact:
Kate Feirtag | Deputy Director, Society of Illustrators | kate@societyillustrators.org

If you are Press and would like to attend the Fest, please contact us.