Price range: $150.00 through $300.00
Queer survival and resilience are the heart of this class focused on zine-making and collaborative comics. This six-week class runs on Sundays, 11/2–12/7 from 10AM–12PM PST.
How do queer folks keep each other alive, fed, housed, and laughing—especially when the system isn’t built for us? Co-taught by Gili Rappaport and Joaquin Golez, this six-week class blends queer theory and comics with creative writing and drawing, transforming stories of queer survival and care into comics and zines. Each week, we’ll share survival strategies, read and discuss queer texts and comics, and turn those ideas into hands-on comics prompts.
Comics are a radical, connective medium for sharing our stories and building community. By the end of the course, Participants will stitch together a collaborative zine that archives queer resilience and imagination—one panel at a time.
Readings will include short excerpts from authors like Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Audre Lorde, Tourmaline, Dean Spade, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and others, paired with comic examples curated by the instructors.
No prior comics experience is necessary—just curiosity and a desire to build community.
Details:
This class runs for six weeks on Sundays, 11/2–12/7, from 10AM–12PM PST / 1pm-3pm EST. This class meets online, via Zoom, and is capped at 25 participants. The class will be recorded and emailed to all participants weekly, if you need to miss a session.
What you need:
• Writing and drawing supplies. Participants can work in whatever medium they prefer—on paper or digital.
About the teachers:
Gili Rappaport (they/them, she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and writer whose work spans public art, publishing, and movement practice. Their projects explore queer care, collective storytelling, and resource-sharing through workshops, zines, and installations. Gili has facilitated seminars at The Kitchen, Barnard Center for Research on Women, and CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies at CUNY, and co-authored They Call Me The Mayor at Riis Beach: Ralph’s Beach Parties 1994–2000 (Anthology Editions, 2024 – now at Printed Matter). They also run the co-regulation station, a roving space for nervous system support. www.gilian.space, @gilnotjill
Joaquin Golez is an illustration artist, tattooist in training, and a mixed-race unsortable gender goblin with a gentle heart and a neurospicy brain. He draws evocative and often visually complex images motivated by queerness, eroticism, fantasy, gender mutations, graphic narrative and decorative delights. He teaches illustration at Portland State University.
Quotes from past class participants:
“This seminar has affirmed to me a) how much we need each other and to be in communal queer spaces and b) that survival is a creative and collaborative practice; we can’t survive alone.” — Madeline R.
“It gave me faith and hope back in the minuscule seismic actions that build disruption and make room for our communities to build homes in the hearts of those cracks.” — Kai N.
“Six weeks of weekly meetings…a space to embrace walking out talk of queer care amongst us; for real, for real!” — Zeus H.
“It was a gift: a container to draw, move, write, and share, reminding me how much I need to participate in collective spaces.” — Madeline R
“The beautiful sense of togetherness and care for each other. The connections we made with the readings as a way to begin thinking about our toolkits.” — Kai N.
Questions about this class?
Email Crucial’s publisher at smirk@crucialcomix.com
To make them affordable, all of our classes and workshops are offered at a sliding scale cost.
Supporter - This payment level pitches in a little extra toward the teacher’s income and helps pay artists to create new comics at Crucial. Thanks for your support!
Standard - This is the basic rate for the class, which covers our costs.
Discount - We want people of all income levels in our classes, so choose this rate if you paying the standard rate is a stretch for you.
We set aside three spots in each class to be offered for free to people who would find it a hardship to pay the discount rate for any reason. These free spots are first-come, first-serve. If you would like to take a class for free, please send us a short email about yourself, what class you would like to take, and why. If a free spot is still available, we’ll send you a discount code to register for free! Email: editors@crucialcomix.com
