With barely a week to go, Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC) has announced four new additions to the 2023 lineup: Tauhid Bondia (Crabgrass), Scott Chantler (Squire & Knight), P. Craig Russell (Coraline), and Joe Sutphin (Watership Down: The Graphic Novel). The free comics, art, and animation festival begins with its opening gala the evening of Wednesday September 27 and runs through to Sunday October 1 – with talks, panels, Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum tours, and a comic mart for visitors to look forward to.
Cartoon Crossroads 2023’s lineup currently boasts heavy hitters like Raina Telgemeier, Daniel Clowes, Derf Backderf, and magaka Keito Gaku, so these four additions will be extra icing on the cake.
The festival has had some guest cancellations – as of time of writing both Jeff Smith and Ray Billingsley have had to drop out of this year’s festival due to health issues. Henry Barajas will be unable to attend due to a scheduling conflict.
The full schedule of the festival can be found on their own website – which includes a handy timetable.
In the press release, Cartoon Crossroads 2023 said:
“Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC), the international showcase for cartoon art, is excited to announce the following additions to our featured guest slate for the 2023 festival running September 27th – October 1st. CXC brings the global family of cartoon storytellers, comic makers, and animators together with the people who love and are inspired by cartoon art, and connects them in Columbus, Ohio.”
The press release also provided a bio of all the creators:
“Tauhid Bondia grew up in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. After a few stints in handful of other states he finally landed one town over in Hodgenville. Cartooning has been a passion of his since grade school when Tauhid was introduced to his school library’s selection of Garfield collections. After his first foray into publishing, with a comic called “School Daze” in his high school newspaper, Tauhid knew his trajectory was set for life. Over the years he would pen several online comic strips before coming up with Crabgrass in 2019 which was quickly selected for syndication by Andrews McMeel Universal (AMU). Now in it’s second year of syndication, Crabgrass has enjoyed uncharacteristic success for a new comic and Tauhid is finally living his childhood dream.”
“Scott Chantler is the creator of the critically-acclaimed graphic novels Squire & Knight, Bix, and Two Generals, which was nominated for two Eisner Awards, selected for Best American Comics 2012, and voted by CBC’s Canada Reads as one of the 40 best Canadian non-fiction books of all time. His other work includes Northwest Passage (nominated for Eisner and Harvey Awards) and the Three Thieves series (winner of the Joe Shuster Award for Best Comic for Kids and listed by YALSA as a Great Graphic Novel for Teens). In 2015, he served as Cartoonist-in-Residence at the University of Windsor, the first cartoonist to be appointed so by a Canadian university. He lives and works in Stratford, Ontario, Canada where he is hard at work on his next project, a sequel to Squire & Knight.”
“P. Craig Russell lives in Kent, Ohio, and has spent forty years producing graphic novels, comic books, and illustrations. He is well-known for his graphic novel adaptations of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline and Sandman: The Dream Hunters, as well as his Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde series. His work ranges from such mainstream titles as Batman, Star Wars, and Conan to adaptations of classic operas and a Jungle Book series. He has won several Harvey and Eisner Awards.”
“Joe Sutphin is an illustrator and cartoonist of children’s books and graphic novels. His body of work includes the official graphic novelization of Richard Adams’s masterwork Watership Down, the re-envisioned edition of Helen Taylor’s timeless classic Little Pilgrim’s Progress, Andrew Peterson’s beloved Wingfeather Saga, and others. His love of nature and the living creatures in the fields and woods around his home has informed his art for much of his life. Joe lives in a barn in Ohio with his wife Gina and a bunch of cats.”
