PORTLAND COMICS PEOPLE ASSEMBLE!!

The Portland  State University Comics Studies program joins the Will & Ann Eisner  Family Foundation to recognize Will Eisner Week 2016, the annual series  of events held across the country that celebrate graphic novels, sequential  art, free speech, and the legacy of Will Eisner, one of the most innovative  figures in the history of comics and graphic novels.

The PSU  Comics Studies program will host a special screening of the documentary Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential  Artist followed by a panel discussion of “Eisner the Dreamer.”

Panel discussion  participants include Steve Lieber, Eisner-Award winning cartoonist, illustrator  and storyboard artist; Matt Wagner, comics artist and creator of Grendel and current writer of The Spirit; David Walker, an award-winning comic book writer; and  Heidi Kaufman, Associate Professor of English and comics scholar at  University of Oregon.

The event will be moderated  by Brian Michael Bendis, an award-winning writer whose work  includes Powers, Jessica Jones, Avengers, Ultimate Spider-man, and Daredevil, among many others.

Will Eisner (1917-2005) was a  pioneer in the creation of comics during the “Golden Age” of the 1930s and  ’40s, achieving fame with his noir crime-fighting superhero, The Spirit. He  later re-invented himself by publishing several graphic novels, including A Contract with God and To the Heart of the Storm. Each year,  the prestigious Will Eisner Awards, the “Oscars of the Comics Industry,” are  presented at San Diego Comic-Con, the world’s largest comics convention.

Friday, March 4, 2016
 Documentary screening: 12pm
 Panel discussion: 2pm

School of Business  Administration, rm. 190

631 SW Harrison St.