The 157th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, The New School, 2 West 13th Street, in the Bark Room (off the lobby). Free and open to the public.

A conversation with Benjamin Marra and Josh Bayer.
Join Ben and Josh for a lively discussion about process, influences and what it means to be cartoonists who are much indebted to comics history as they are committed to making their permanent mark on comics’ future.

Benjamin Marra is the notorious and influential creator of the successful underground comic books Night Business, Gangsta Rap Possee,  The Incredibly Fantastic Adventures of Maureen Dowd, Lincoln Washington: Free Man!, Ripper and Friends, Blades & Lazers and Terror Assaulter: O.M.W.O.T. (One Man War On Terror). Marra’s comic book work has drawn comparison to mainstream masters Paul Gulacy and Jim Steranko along with underground comix legends, like Robert Crumb and Spain Rodriguez. Marra’s illustration work has been recognized by The Society of Illustrators, The Society of Publication Designers, 3×3,American Illustration and in 2006 he was named one of the Art Directors Club’s Young Guns.

Josh Bayer‘s style is characterized by a genre fusion, tying together different historical cartooning styles with a devout punk rock anti-narrative. His comics work has been reprinted in the Best American Comics series and Theth was listed by The Comics Journal as one of the best small press comics of 2014. Josh is the editor of the All Time Comics series from  Fantagraphics, and the editor of the anthology Suspect Device as well as the author of Mr Incompleto, Rom; Prison Riot,  and Raw Power 1 and 2.
Bayer also has an extensive career producing conceptual art for a variety of TV and film productions for clients including MTV, HBO and Amnesty International. Josh earned an MFA in Illustration and Cartooning in 2009, and has been teaching professionally since 2007 at schools all over New York.

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images: Benjamin Marra (top) and Josh Bayer (bottom)