Latest Stories
The Nashville Comic Arts Festival, a free event celebrating independent comics, graphic novels and zines, will return for a third year to Vanderbilt University’s Central Library on Saturday, Oct. 3. More than 100 national and regional exhibitors representing small-press and independent comic creators, writers, illustrators and printmakers will be on hand for panel discussions, programming and workshops.
The festival, which is open to the public, will be held in Central Library’s fourth-floor main lobby and Community Room from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The event is presented by Vanderbilt’s Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries, the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy at Vanderbilt, the Nashville Public Library and Wakeup Comics.
Featured artists at the 2026 festival include:
Hyena Hell (they/them), whose cartooning is described as “smashing up DIY punk aesthetics with classic silver age comics in an unholy farce for people who like John Waters movies and Kafka.” They’ve been self-publishing comics and zines for 25 years, including their DEMONS series, published by Silver Sprocket. Hell also works with Sequential Artists Workshop as a comics mentor. They live in rural Kentucky with two very good dogs.
Chris Schweizer (he/him), a three-time Eisner Award-nominated cartoonist, writer, concept artist and Sunday Times best-selling illustrator. His books also have been nominated for YALSA and CYBILS awards. Schweizer lives in rural Kentucky with his wife, teenager and three cats.
Steenz (they/them), a St. Louis-based cartoonist, editor and professor. They’re the cartoonist on the syndicated comic strip “Heart of the City,” the co-creator of the Dwayne McDuffie Award-winning graphic novel Archival Quality, and the co-creator of the Standard Comic Script. Steenz currently teaches at Webster University and School of Visual Arts while editing titles from independent publishers and creators. They live with their husband and two cats.
Other creators appearing at this year’s festival include AL Comfort-Wasnewsky, studiOmnivorous, Dylan Stephens, Sean Choate and more.
The official poster for this year’s festival was created by Tennessee-based artist Shelley Couvillion. A native of California, Couvillion loves making any kind of art that doesn’t involve screens, which she does by painting mostly pumpkins and ghosts. Her coloring book The Spooky Academy was published in 2025 by Hachette UK, and she illustrated the cover of The Wrong Way Home, a Newbery Honor Book. Couvillion lives outside of Nashville with her husband and child.
“We’re excited to return for our largest Nashville Comic Arts Fest yet,” said NCAF organizer Ryan King, librarian for English, Theatre, and Culture, Advocacy and Leadership at the Heard Libraries. “As a free, all-ages event, we strive to promote comic arts literacy, education and community within the U.S. South.
“This year we are offering a number of free educational workshops and have expanded the size of our festival to include even more local and regional comics creators,” King said. “It’s been amazing to see this festival grow in such a short span of time, and it’s all thanks to the local comics enthusiasts who make this such a wonderful perennial event.”
A highlight of the 2026 festival is a series of educational workshops conducted by the featured artists and others. Hell will host “Confronting Your Demons: Creating a Four-Panel Comic”; Schweizer will host “Comics Character Design”; Steenz will host “Gender Self-Determination Zines with Steenz!”; and Jon Sewell of SALT Weekly, a Nashville-based alternative print zine, will host “A History of Nashville’s Independent Press, 1955–2025.” These sessions are designed to provide participants with expert insight and hands-on learning skills.
The workshops are sponsored by an Arts Education Mini-Grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission, whose mission is to cultivate the arts for the benefit of all Tennesseans and their communities. This project is funded under a Grant Contract with the State of Tennessee.
In addition, the Nashville Black Literacy Coalition will host the inaugural gathering of the Black Comics Collective Youth Group at the festival. This new group, facilitated by the A to Z Learning Club and founder Robin Griffin, provides a space where young readers can talk about the comics, graphic novels or manga they love and read them alongside other young fans.
If you’re interested in serving as a volunteer at the festival, please sign up here.
For more information about the Nashville Comic Arts Festival, visit nashcomicsfest.org, follow @nashvillecomicartsfestival on Instagram, or email nashvillecomicartsfestival@gmail.com.