CCS Faculty
Tillie Walden
Tillie Walden is a cartoonist and illustrator from Austin, Texas. She is a graduate from The Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont. Over the course of her time at CCS, she published three books with the London based Avery Hill Publishing. Her graphic novels with First Second include her autobiographical work Spinning, sci-fi epic On a Sunbeam, and Are You Listening?, a magical realism road trip story. She is a two-time Eisner winner and Ignatz Award winner who now lives in Vermont. Her first picture book My Parents Won’t Stop Talking comes out in February 2022. When she is not drawing comics, Tillie can be found walking and listening to audiobooks or asleep with a cat.
Glynnis Fawkes
Glynnis Fawkes is co-author with Eric H. Cline and illustrator of 1177 BC: A Graphic History (Princeton University Press 2024), and Charlotte Bronte Before Jane Eyre (LBYR 2019), Persephone’s Garden (Secret Acres 2019), Reign of Crumbs (Kilgore, 2017) and the minicomics Allé Egó and Greek Diary, both of which won medals at the Society of Illustrators’ MoCCA fest. She was the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to Cyprus where she published Archaeology Lives in Cyprus and Cartoons of Cyprus and has worked as an illustrator on archaeological projects in Greece, Cyprus, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey. Her comics have appeared on The New Yorker.com, The Comics Journal, Popula.com, and MuthaMagazine.com (for which she was nominated for an Ignatz Award). She has received grants from the Vermont Arts Council, Sustainable Arts Foundation, and an SMFA alumni travel fellowship, and has had residencies at La Maison Des Auteurs in Angouleme, France, The Vermont Studio Center, Ragdale, and Mud House in Crete.
Dan Nott
Dan Nott is an artist, cartoonist, and educator living in Vermont.
His debut nonfiction graphic novel, Hidden Systems (Random House Graphic, 2023) was long listed for a National Book Award, won the Vermont Book Award, and has been honored by the National Science Teaching Association, National Council of Teachers of English, the American Booksellers association, among others. He has released two comic books with the Center for Cartoon Studies, This is What Democracy Looks Like: A Graphic Guide to Governance, and Freedom and Unity: A Graphic Guide to Civics and Democracy in Vermont.
Dan’s short comics and illustrations have appeared in dozens of publications. In 2022, his comics work was exhibited at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for the exhibit Drawing Us Together: Public Life and Public Health in Contemporary Comics.
Dan co-runs Parsifal Press, a micro press for independent comics and special objects, with his partner, Daryl Seitchik.
Dan holds an MFA from the Center for Cartoon Studies, where he teaches his course on comics history, theory and communities called Survey of the Drawn Story.
Robyn Smith
Robyn Smith is a Jamaican cartoonist known for her mini-comic The Saddest Angriest Black Girl in Town, illustrating DC Comics’ Nubia: Real One (written by L.L. McKinney) and Black Josei Press’ Wash Day (written by Jamila Rowser). She has an MFA from The Center for Cartoon Studies and has also worked on comics for College Humor, Nike, and The Nib. She loves cake and her cat, Benson, and holds onto dreams of returning home to the ocean.
Jason Lutes
Jason Lutes was assistant art director at Fantagraphics Books until 1993. During this time, he created the critically acclaimed Jar of Fools (Drawn and Quarterly), which was serialized in the weekly paper The Stranger. Upon collecting this comic, he began his recently released, 20-year-in-the-making, ambitious historical graphic novel Berlin (Drawn and Quarterly). His other works include The Fall (Draw and Quarterly), written by Ed Brubaker, and Houdini: The Handcuff King (Disney) with Nick Bertozzi. Jason has been nominated for—and won—many Ignatz and Eisner Awards. Most recently Berlin was nominated for a Ringo, Harvey, and Eisner, and won the 2019 Book of the Year and Best Educational Comics from the Excellence in Graphic Literature Awards. He also recently won the prestigious Comic-Con International’s Inkpot Award.
Emma Hunsinger
Emma Hunsinger started her career making New Yorker gags before getting her MFA at the Center for Cartoon Studies. Her short comic How to Draw a Horse appeared in The New Yorker and was nominated for an Eisner Award and National Cartoonist Society Division Award. Her comic She Would Feel The Same was one of the AV Club’s “Best Comics of 2020”. Her picture book with fellow faculty member Tillie Walden, My Parents Won’t Stop Talking, released in February 2022. Her middle grade graphic novel How It All Ends is out August 2024
James Sturm
James Sturm is the co-founder of The Center for Cartoon and his graphic novels include Off Season, Market Day, and The Golem’s Mighty Swing (Drawn and Quarterly). Working with Andrew Arnold ′07 and Alexis Frederick-Frost ’07, he has co-authored eight books in the Adventures in Cartooning series (First Second Books). James is the recipient of two Eisner Awards including one for his Fantastic Four series, Unstable Molecules (Marvel) and another for Satchel Paige, Striking Out Jim Crow (Hyperion/Disney).
Kori Michele Handwerker
Kori Michele Handwerker is an avid zinester who loves making small, intimate, weird books about romance, identity, and LGBTQ experiences. Publishing comics since 2011, their work has been included in a dozen comic anthologies, including Beyond, 1001 Knights, and their own co-edited anthology, The Other Side. Kori has an MFA in Cartooning from CCS, a BFA in Painting from the Maine College of Art, and experience in many corners of the comic industry. They’re currently self-publishing journal comics, screen-printed zines, and erotic adult comics as well as organizing collaborative fanzines and doing freelance comics work that includes authenticity reading and color flatting.
CCS Staff
Michelle Ollie
President & Co-Founder
Michelle Ollie is co-founder and president of The Center for Cartoon Studies (CCS). She teaches design and was previously a director and faculty at Minneapolis College of Art and Design and faculty for New York Institute of Technology’s online graduate business program. Michelle has also worked as a development manager in the printing industry and she received her MBA from the University of St. Thomas. She currently serves on several nonprofit boards including the Vermont Higher Education Council.
James Sturm
Director & Co-Founder
James Sturm is the co-founder of The Center for Cartoon and his graphic novels include Off Season, Market Day, and The Golem’s Mighty Swing (Drawn and Quarterly). Working with Andrew Arnold ′07 and Alexis Frederick-Frost ’07, he has co-authored eight books in the Adventures in Cartooning series (First Second Books). James is the recipient of two Eisner Awards including one for his Fantastic Four series, Unstable Molecules (Marvel) and another for Satchel Paige, Striking Out Jim Crow (Hyperion/Disney).
Dave Lloyd
Operations Manager
Dave Lloyd has over 15 years professional experience in operations management with arts organizations, including Director of Orchestral Operations for The Richmond Symphony, and prior to CCS was the Production Department Business Coordinator for the Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth College. Dave’s undergraduate degree is in Classical Guitar and Arts Administration from James Madison University. He does not like clowns or garden gnomes.
Jarad Greene
Administrative & Development Coordinator
Jarad Greene is a cartoonist originally from Lutz, Florida, who now lives in the curious village of White River Junction, Vermont. In addition to his own comics, Jarad works on staff at The Center for Cartoon Studies and has helped color many graphic novels for younger readers. He is the author and illustrator of the graphic novels A-Okay, A for Effort, and Scullion: A Dishwasher’s Guide to Mistaken Identity.
Cuyler Hedlund
Program Coordinator
Cuyler Keating Hedlund is a cartoonist, illustrator, and printmaker. In 2017, she graduated from Bates College in Lewiston Maine with a BA in English and in Studio Art. She received her MFA from The Center for Cartoon Studies in 2019, and now works as the school’s Program Coordinator and as a co-host of the school’s Visiting Artist class. Her work is often inspired by Classical, Medieval, and Gothic themes (but with the frequent addition of frogs in funny clothing).
Alec Longstreth
Director of Academic Outreach
Alec Longstreth has proudly self-published over 2,000 pages of his comics since 2002. 25 issues of his minicomic Phase 7 have been collected into seven books, two of which were translated into French and published by L’employé du Moi. Alec’s all ages webcomic Isle of Elsi has also been collected into two volumes. Over the years Alec’s comics have won two Ignatz Awards, a Divisional Reuben Award from the National Cartoonist’s Society and have twice been nominated for Eisner Awards. Alec also works as freelance illustrator, animator, and digital colorist.
