The art of politics: Sperandio convenes April 30 panel on protest art in comics

Politically engaged art publishing is energized as perhaps never before

As the New York Times put it in a recent profile, artist Sue Coe “proudly labels her own work propaganda.” Coe’s “searing social-political art,” notes Times writer Hilarie Sheets, “can feel like a punch in the face or a call to action — or both.”

Coe, whose famously graphic illustrations often highlight animal exploitation, will be among the guests April 30 at “The New Art of Protest: Artist as Publishing Auteur.” The online panel was organized by Rice associate professor of art Christopher Sperandio, and together they’ll be joined by the editor-in-chief and publisher of Rotland Press, Ryan Standfest, and artist and publisher Stanley Wany. The four artists will discuss protest art and its impact across art, culture and politics.

Rice associate professor of art Christopher Sperandio will join fellow artists Sue Coe, Ryan Standfest and Stanley Wany for the April 30 discussion of protest art.

The event takes place at noon with rounds of discussion followed by a Q&A with the panelists. The panel is free and open to the public; it will also be livestreamed.

As owner of Argle Bargle Books, Wany is also the publisher of Sperandio’s own graphic novels, including the second in Sperandio’s ongoing “Forced Collaboration” trilogy about the dangers of corporate greed and unchecked capitalism.

The just-released “Greenie Josephenie” follows a part-plant superheroine fighting evil global oligarchs in a world ruled by 12 beverage conglomerates. Sperandio’s first book in the series, “Pinko Joe,” saw the titular character — a troubled antihero wage-slave from another planet — save earthlings from gun-toting corporate raiders.

The just-released “Greenie Josephenie” follows a part-plant superheroine fighting evil global oligarchs in a world ruled by 12 beverage conglomerates.

But Wany, said Sperandio, “is also a tremendous artist in his own right, who does really, really beautiful work.”

And Standfest, he said, just produced “The Plague Review,” a well-regarded project featuring interviews, sketches, comics and poetry by contemporary artists, printmakers and graphic artists meditating on the collective trauma and grief we’re all enduring throughout the pandemic. Coe and Sperandio’s work is among them.

The timing, then, is ideal for the four protest and comic artists to convene.

“I’m publishing books about protest and organizing a panel around that topic,” Sperandio said.

That’s books, plural: Sperandio is releasing three this year, including “Greenie Josephenie.”

“Person, Woman, Man, Camera, Monster” is a 32-page mini-comic riffing on former president Donald Trump’s repeatedly recited phrase, a description of a cognitive test Trump claimed to have taken. Inside is a “Race to Save Democracy” board game. The comic is in English and French, “for no good reason,” Sperandio laughed.

His third book this year, “Comics Making” is an almost-pocket-sized hardback. The glossy 80-page tome condenses some of what Sperandio teaches in his popular courses like Comics and Sequential Art, past workshops with bioengineering students and his work with Rice’s Comic Art Teaching & Study Workshop. In addition to essays on the history of comics and “cute little endpages,” Sperandio also spotlights some of his own students’ work in the book.

But the “star of the show,” he said, is “Greenie Josephenie.” At a hefty 96 pages, the casebound, full-color comic book was underwritten by a subvention from Rice’s deans of Humanities, Architecture and Music and picks up the story of Pinko Joe 180 years after the first book ended.

Sperandio is releasing three books this year, including “Comics Making” and “Person, Woman, Man, Camera, Monster.”

On April 30, Sperandio will discuss both of these works alongside his fellow comic artists. Expect the roundtable discussion to be wide-ranging. Protest art — a category which includes everything from Pablo Picasso’s “Guernica” painting and Keith Haring’s “Ignorance = Fear / Silence = Death” poster to works by Banksy and Ai Weiwei — has a long, rich tradition. And Sperandio pointed out that politically engaged art publishing is energized as perhaps never before due to ongoing world events.

His panel discussion brings together a group of artists and publishers who represent some of the freshest approaches to a long-standing practice, with original imagery and new distribution channels — those packing the biggest punches, Sue Coe-style.

Yet amid the current onslaught of social and other digital media, the panelists will ask, is it enough to make people pay attention and take action?

“The New Art of Protest: Artist as Publishing Auteur,” April 30, noon. Free and open to the public. No registration required; livestream available at https://vimeo.com/539709652.