CREATORS IN CONVERSATION
Panel 3: IRL
Sat 13 September 2025, 1:15โ2:15pm
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)
Jess Harwood (NSW), Mirranda Burton (VIC), and Sam Wallman (VIC), with Eleri Harris (ACT) (chair)
Comics can do anything โ and that includes documenting true stories! From the tale of Australian resistance to conscription during the Vietnam War through to coverage of the current climate crisis and a firsthand account of working in an Amazon warehouse, our guests have found their inspiration in real life. No โalternative factsโ here! In this panel, three of Australiaโs leading comics journalists, essayists, and chroniclers of creative nonfiction will delve into their process, why theyโre drawn to comics as the medium for their reportage, and the challenges of converting real life events into sequential art.
This session will feature sign interpretation in Auslan, provided by Deaf Connect.
BIOGRAPHIES
Jess Harwood
Jess Harwood (she/her) is a cartoonist, lawyer, and campaign strategist living on Darramurragal land in Sydney. In 2025, Jess is a Dahl Fellow with Eucalypt Australia to work on a comic art education project to raise the profile of Australiaโs iconic eucalypt trees. She has created visuals for many campaigns and organisations, such as the Climate Council, is regularly published by The Guardian, and took part in the Comic Art Workshop residency in 2022.
She also uses her art and comics to explain climate change and to drive people to take action on environment and social justice issues. In 2023 and 2024, Jess was a virtual โCoptoonistโ for the Resilience Hub side events, capturing the sessions on climate justice that platformed diverse voices at COP28 and COP29 through comic art and graphic recordings.
Initially training as a lawyer, Jess has worked with farmers affected by coal and gas developments at NSW Farmers Association, on shark conservation at Humane Society International, on environmental legal education with Local Land Services through the Environmental Defenders Office, and most recently on community campaigns pushing back on Australiaโs rapidly accelerating coal expansions at the Sunrise Project. Jess is the co-founder of Sapna South Asian Climate Solidarity and is particularly interested in platforming voices who are not traditionally heard from in climate narratives.ย
Mirranda Burton
Mirranda Burton (she/her) was born in Aotearoa / New Zealand, and now lives on Wurundjeri country / Melbourne. She is the writer-artist of two graphic novels: Hidden (published by Black Pepper Publishing in 2011, recipient of an Aurealis Award and a Gold Ledger Award) and Underground: Marsupial Outlaws and Other Rebels of Australiaโs War in Vietnam (published by Allen & Unwin in 2021). Both books explore non-fiction subjects with curiosity and Mirrandaโs trademark flights of fancy, and both have been translated into French. Her work is fuelled by a passion for history, social issues, and a dream of humans finding new ways to understand each other.
Mirranda graduated from the North Adelaide School of Art with an Advanced Diploma of Visual Arts, and also holds a Bachelor of Multimedia Design from Swinburne University of Technology. She first began publishing comics in 2008 in anthologies such as Tango and Going Down Swinging, but her career has also spanned fine arts, independent and commercial animation (including working as an inbetweener at DisneyToon Studios Australia), printmaking, education, illustration, and graphic recording. Whether working with a lino-carving tool, paint brush, animation timeline, pencil, still image, or narrative, Mirranda seeks to make sense of the complex, and searches for new ways of showing in the hope they lead to new ways of thinking.
Sam Wallman
Sam Wallman (he/him) is a writer and illustrator based in Naarm / Melbourne who is actively involved in the trade union movement. His work has been published in The Guardian, the New York Times, Labor Notes, The Age, the ABC, and SBS. Three of his comics-journalism essays have been nominated for Walkley Awards, including Winding Up The Window: The End of the Australian Auto Industry and A Guardโs Story: At Work in our Detention Centres, which won the 2014 Human Rights Award in the Media category.
His first long-form book, Our Members Be Unlimited: A Comic about Workers and their Unions (Scribe Publications) was published in Australia, New Zealand, England, the US, and Canada in 2022, and was shortlisted for the Victorian Premierโs Prize for Nonfiction, the 2023 Nonfiction Book Award at the Queensland Literary Awards, and the Small Press Networkโs Book of the Year 2023.
His second book, 12 Rules for Strife (Scribe Publications), produced in collaboration with socialist writer Jeff Sparrow, was released in 2024 in Australia and North America and is being translated into Greek for European publication. He is currently working on All Out, a book about the Pink Bans, to be published in 2025 by National Library of Australia Publishing and PM Press in the US.
Eleri Harris (chair)
Eleri Harris (she/her) is an Eisner award-winning cartoonist, journalist, and editor. Her non-fiction comics have been exhibited and published all over the world, and she has spoken about making non-fiction comics at conferences from the US to India. She was the Features Editor for comics website and magazine The Nib, and is a regular guest lecturer in comics journalism at the University of Technology Sydney, the Center for Cartoon Studies, and the California College of the Arts. Her book Making Nonfiction Comics: A Guide to Graphic Narrative (co-authored with Sarah Shay Mirk) will be published by Abrams ComicArts in November.
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!
