In 2016, My short comic The Fear was selected to be part of Resist a newspaper – format zine produced to co-incide with the women’s marches in America. The Zine was organised by Francoise Mouly of the New York Times and featured work by some of my favourite creators including Lynda Barry and Alsion Bechdel.
The Fear is about my feelings of trepidation around the 2016 election of Donald Trump and what his election means for the normailisation of hate speech directed at Disabled People. The comic relates a then-recent incident where someone called me a retard, a word I hadn’t heard for a long time. I then related it back to my experiences in the 90’s of having “Run Forest Run” shouted at me across the playground. (I wore a splint to correct my gait, as I have cerebral palsey.) I’m glad I made this piece as it was the beginning of my making work about my disability, which I would take further in my work on my Masters degree.
While there have been some valid criticisms of the project in the years since and the political moment has definitely shifted as Trump’s presidency has become even more disastrous than we could have imagined 4 years ago – I’m still really proud to have this work on my C.V.
You can learn more about the project at the archive website here – http://www.resistsubmission.com/