Words and Pictures

Jan Eliot got her start in the 1970's drawing for alternative newspapers in

and around Eugene, Oregon, her weekly comic strips Patience and Sarah and

Sister City focusing on the then-novel (for the funny pages) concepts of

single moms and blended families.  In the 1990's...

During the presidential campaign of 2008, Weather Underground co-founder

and Distinguished Professor of Education Bill Ayers teamed up with

cartoonist Ryan Alexander-Tanner to adapt Bill's groundbreaking education

textbook into comics form.  The result is To Teach: The J...

Rapper, cartoonist, and social activist Keith Knight is a longtime fan of the

Portland comics scene as well as community radio.  He was delighted to make

a detour to the KBOO studios during his visit to the 2006 Stumptown Comics

Festival, where his slideshow and stage pe...

For half a century, Bruce Bickford ran a one-man clay animation production

house, constructing surreal miniature worlds in a cavernous Seattle studio

and bringing them to life through the magic of stop-motion.

 Bickford gained notoriety in the 1970's as the fertile mind ...

Shary Flenniken is one of the most influential figures in the history of

underground comics.  Her comic Trots Bonnie burst onto the pages of the

National Lampoon in the early 1970's, and with its mix of radical politics,

coy sexuality, absurd situations, approachable

...

Marjane Satrapi is the artist and writer behind such graphic memoirs as

Persepolis, Embroideries, and Chicken with Plums, and is the co-director of

the animated feature film version of Persepolis.  She grew up in Tehran

during the revolution that toppled the Shah and led...

In this encore episode of Words and Pictures, we welcome fimmaker Gus Van

Sant, whose directorial work has ranged from the avant-garde

(Gerry and Last Days) to the transgressive (Mala Noche and Drugstore

Cowboy) to Hollywood crowd-pleasers (Good Will Hunting and Finding ...

Charles Brownstein is the Executive Director of the Comic Book Legal

Defense Fund, a non-profit advocacy organization that moved its headquarters

from New York to Portland in 2016.  The CBLDF provides aid to artists and

publishers facing legal threats such as censorship,...

Sibling filmmakers Sarah and Zachary Ray Sherman have spent years working in

the local production scene, and are now premiering their debut feature film

Thunderbolt In Mine Eye at the Portland International Film Festival.  Their

work has brought together actors, crew mem...

Portland media artist Rose Bond is celebrated around the world for her

animation installations — large-scale projections that intensify

architecture, interpret history, and magnify music.

Following up her acclaimed 2016 collaboration with the Oregon Symphony,

accompanyi...