CREATORS IN CONVERSATION
Panel 1: Slashies
Sat 13 September 2025, 10:15โ11:15am
Studio 01, Adelaide City Library, Level 3 Rundle Place,
77โ91 Rundle Mall, Adelaide, South Australia
Cost: FREEย (no booking required, butย RSVPing on Facebookย will help us know how many people to expect)
Alyssa Bermudez (TAS), Evie โYEEVZโ Hilliar (NSW), and Tim Mcburnie (SA), with Jake Holmes (SA) (chair)
In the world of comics, itโs common for a creator to wear multiple hats โ but if being writer-slash-penciller-slash-inker-slash-colourist wasnโt enough, our guests for this panel pursue many different avenues of work! Hear the pros and cons from three multi-disciplinarian comics makers / teachers / animators / art directors / concept designers / photo-retouchers! Is being a โslashieโ a necessity for them or a choice? These panellists will discuss the different branches of their careers and how they balance competing demands for their time and focus. Not to mention the big question: are comics a side hustle or their main gig?
This session will feature sign interpretation in Auslan, provided by Deaf Connect.
BIOGRAPHIES
Alyssa Bermudez
Alyssa Bermudez (she/her) is an author, illustrator, and teacher living and working in Hobart. After studying illustration and animation at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, she spent years working for magazines, agencies, and schools, before moving across the world to Tasmania where she currently works as a freelance author, illustrator, and art director for a fashion company. In her 2021 debut graphic novel, Big Apple Diaries, Alyssa told the story of her 12-year-old self navigating the challenges of middle school, her identity, and a life changing world event. Big Apple Diaries was shortlisted for the Comic Arts Awards of Australia in 2022 and selected for the 2021 ALA Best Graphic Novels for Children Reading List. Alyssaโs follow-up graphic novel, Run Home, will be published in January 2026.
Alyssa has also illustrated such middle grade and junior fiction books as Iveliz Explains It All, which was chosen for the Newbery Honor Award in early 2023, My Singing Nana, and the much loved Amelia Chamelia series. Her illustrations have graced the pages of over a dozen picture books, and won the School Library Journal’s Picture Book Cover of the Year with Lucia The Luchadora, a book that made Romperโs list for Childrenโs Picture Books That Defined 2018.
Evie “YEEVZ” Hilliar
Evie Hilliar (she/her) is an artist based on Gadigal land. As a comics-maker, she has more than 100,000 followers on Instagram โ making her one of Australia’s most followed comic artists โ and her comics have appeared in numerous publications. As an animator, she has produced and co-written Deadbeat Ends Meet, a comedic four-part animated series for Instagram funded by Screen Australia. As a teacher, she works at the University of Technology Sydneyโs Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, and as a retoucher who speaks fluent Photoshop, she has retouched images for ALDI, Tourism Tasmania, NSW Health, and countless more.
Since first posting her comics online in 2018, Evie has amassed a global following. Her work highlights that with sadness there can be silliness, and that itโs important to embrace both. Her goal in her art is to put forward different, unconsidered perspectives so that both she and her audience can find common ground and understanding while figuring out the trickiness (and often absurdity) of existing in a world that frequently doesnโt make sense. Her work finds humour and relatability in the mundane, and she is an expert in striking a chord in the masses by combining her own vulnerability and levity. Or, in her own words, โCome for the comics, stay for the crisesโ.
Tim Mcburnie
Tim Mcburnie (he/him) is a comic book creator, concept designer, illustrator, and teacher based in Adelaide, specialising in character design and story development. His work in comics for the French bandes dessinรฉe market since 2007 includes illustrating 7 Pirates (written by Pascal Bertho) and Pinocchio (written by David Chauvel) for Editions Delcourt, as well as writing and illustrating his own fantasy comic Ara. He is currently working on the English language science fiction graphic novel Star Atlas: CORE. Six chapters have been released thus far, complementing the next-gen gaming metaverse Star Atlas.
Tim has been a professional artist for over 20 years. Beyond comics, he has worked in feature animation and video games, doing blue sky concept design and world building, as well as following through and taking those characters, vehicles, props and environments to the final model sheet. His client list includes companies such as Blizzard Entertainment, Wizards of the Coast, Gunfire Games, Animal Logic, Ankama, and Blur Studios. He particularly enjoys the process of taking a brief and building something from nothing. For more than a decade, Tim has also been teaching the craft of drawing for comics, illustration, and concept art. He has taught courses and run art bootcamps for CDW Studios, and currently teaches drawing and illustration through The Drawing Codex.
Jake Holmes (chair)
Jake Holmes (he/him) is a multi-disciplinary artist with a Bachelor of Visual Arts from Adelaide College of the Arts. As a screenprinter, his work has been acquired by the National Gallery of Australia, South Australian Art Gallery, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Flinders University Art Museum, and the Australian War Memorial. He has also worked as a chalkboard artist, mural painter, and art facilitator, and co-founded artist-run initiative Tooth and Nail Studios (2011 to 2018). He has a lifelong interest in making comics, and is currently developing his first graphic novel, a middle grade fantasy titled Ketty & Ara: City of Monsters.
Presented by CDW Studios
CDW Stuยญdios School of Visuยญal Effects and Enterยญtainยญment Design has been runยญning since 2011 and proยญvides artists Ausยญtralia-wide with the most up-to-date and relยญeยญvant eduยญcaยญtion availยญable to kickstart their career. You can find out more by visiting their website or by following them on Instagram or Facebook!
