Mexican American graphic designer and comics creator Kayla E. will visit Ohio State to deliver a public talk at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum and Library. Kayla is the author of Precious Rubbish, which won the 2025 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Graphic Novel, received an Honorable Mention in the 2025 International Latino Book Awards, and earned starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Booklist. In 2026, she received a Creative Capital Award for her next graphic memoir, I Will Give You Rest. Her work has earned two Eisner Award nominations and appears in The New Yorker, NOW (the New Comics Anthology), Ecotone, and The Comics Journal, among others. Her work has been exhibited by museums and galleries including the North Carolina Museum of Art, Culture Hole, Central Server Works / Marian Cramer Projects, Marfa Invitational, and the Goss-Michael Foundation / Hignite Projects. She served as editor-in-chief of the Whiting Award–winning literary magazine Nat. Brut for nine years and co-edited a collection of Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy comic strips (Fantagraphics, 2026).
This event is free, open to the public and welcoming to everyone.
The Humanities Institute and its related centers host a wide range of events, from intense discussions of works in progress to cutting-edge presentations from world-known scholars, artists, activists and everything in between.
We value in-person engagement at our events as we strive to amplify the energy in the room. To submit an accommodation request, please send your request to Cody Childs, childs.97@osu.edu