Comics Off the Page Live: Exhibition Launch and Performances

Aaron Billings is comics artist and researcher from Melbourne, Australia. In 2018 he co founded Pink Ember, a queer focused art space, which is where he works out of. He is currently a PhD candidate at RMIT University researching the aesthetic of the cute in contemporary graphic narratives. He runs the seasonal comics reading night […]

Leonie “Luggs” Brialey is a cartoonist, writer, and musician working on Wurundjeri country. Her comics have been published by Glom Press, Island Magazine, The Suburban Review, and on newsprint wrapped around seedlings. Her lockdown newsletter, “Lonely Times,” garnered a small but dedicated following. She has worked with paper, t-shirts, clay, super 8 film, puppets, and played various instruments in various bands.

Nicola Bryant is a writer, curator and emerging comics artist based in Naarm (Melbourne). Her comics tend to explore the moment solitude slides into isolation and how this can do funny things to perception. She is a member of Gutter Stars, a collective of artists and writers interested in expanded comics practice.

Bernard Caleo draws and performs. He edited and published the romance comics anthology Tango from 1997 to 2009, made the feature documentary Graphic Novels! Melbourne! with Daniel Hayward in 2012, and with Erica Wagner and Liz MacFarlane he runs Twelve Panels Press – they published Safdar Ahmed’s graphic novel Still Alive: Notes From Australia’s Immigration […]

Melody Ellis is a Naarm-based nonfiction writer with a background in the visual arts. Her work is preoccupied with the politics of value and taste, power, interpretation, and writing the self. She is currently a Senior Lecturer in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University.

Jenny Hedley is a neurodivergent writer, digital artist, critic and Writeability mentor whose work has appeared in Archer, Cordite, Crawlspace, Diagram, Griffith Review, Overland, Rabbit, The Suburban Review, TEXT, Westerly and the anthology Admissions: Voices Within Mental Health. She lives on unceded Boon Wurrung land with her son. She can be found at jennyhedley.github.io.

Martin Huang is an intercultural practitioner whose interest spans multiple forms of media, including non/fiction writing, documentary filmmaking and alternative comics. He is currently pursuing a PhD at RMIT seeking to challenge preconception that ideological differences are the primary causes of growing tensions between China and the West and reframe the relationship in the context […]

Gideon Hutapea is a storyteller from Indonesia. He has worked on book design, illustration, children’s story books, comic books, and illustrations for a spectrum of clients. His cartoon is published in the Kompas Sunday edition. While still active, making short comics, he teaches communication design at Universitas Multimedia Nusantara. Now, he lives in Australia with […]

Eloise Grills is a writer and artist living on Wadawurrung country. Her illustrated memoir, big beautiful female theory, was shortlisted for the 2023 Stella Prize. Her work has been published widely, in places like the New Yorker, Meanjin, Kill Your Darlings, and others. She is currently writing her first novel.

Reimena Yee is a strange and fancy graphic novelist, illustrator and designer originally from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and currently based in Melbourne, Australia. Her awards-decorated graphic novels include Seance Tea Party, My Aunt is a Monster and The Carpet Merchant of Konstantiniyya. She is also the researcher behind the Comics Devices Library, a resource that […]

Caitlin McGregor is a writer, illustrator, editor and researcher. Their work has been published in a range of places, including in Meanjin, Overland, Kill Your Darlings, Sydney Review of Books, and the recent nonfiction anthology Someone Like Me (UQP 2025). Caitlin is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne, where they teach creative writing. They live on unceded Dja Dja Wurrung Country.

Dr. Bruce Mutard is a comics maker, publisher and researcher. His graphic novels include The Sacrifice, The Silence, A Mind of Love and The Bunker. His latest graphic novel Bully Me, was published as Souffre Douleur in France. He completed his PhD at Edith Cowan University with his thesis The Erotics of Comics and makes […]

Benedicte O’Leary-Rutherford (she/they) is an artist, writer, and PhD student at RMIT. Their preferred mediums are angsty comics and self portraits.

Ronnie Scott is the author of the essay Salad Days and the novels The Adversary, Shirley and Letter to a Fortunate Ex, all published by Penguin. He researches comics at foliocomics.com and teaches Creative Writing at RMIT.

Susan-Elin Solimani is a Naarm/Melbourne-based visual designer, comics artist, and creative writer whose work delves deeply into themes of identity and belonging. Originally from Sweden with Persian roots, her art and storytelling explore complex questions of self and community, weaving her research interests into her creative practice. She sees her work as a form of […]

Emilie Walsh is a French Australian artist, printmaker, educator and comic author living and working on Wurundjeri land. They are an active member of the comics scene in Australia. As a queer and CaLD artist, they offer a unique perspective in Australian comics today.