4/23 Meet-Up: Disabled Characters in Comics

The Disability Visibility Project invites you to their first live event this April! We will meet-up and discuss disabled characters in comics at Mission: Comics and Art on April 23, 2016, at 3-4:30 pm in San Francisco.

We’ll talk about the following:

• Favorite disabled characters and storylines in comics
• Major themes about disability in comics
• Problematic portrayals of disability in comics
• Superpowers as a metaphor for disability
• Accessibility of comic books
• …and much more!

Special thanks to Mission: Comics and Art for hosting this event! They are located at:

During your visit, check out their display of comic books featuring disabled characters curated by Hamza Jaka and Alice Wong. Be sure to support your local comic book store!!

Please notify Alice Wong no later than April 1 if you have any accommodation requests. For more information: DisabilityVisibilityProject@gmail.com

About

Disability Visibility Project is a community partnership with StoryCorps and an online community dedicated to recording, amplifying, and sharing disability stories and culture.

Guest Host, Hamza Jaka

At age nine, Hamza learned one of the most important lessons in life from an Amazing-Web Slinger, with great power there must also come great responsibility (though it took him until 2010’s Spectacular Spider-Girl to get the quote right). He’s been hooked on comics ever since, collecting everything from Naruto to Sex Criminals, although Spider-Family series remain his favorites. He was also part of the group of young people in 2010 that co-created the Silver Scorpion, the first Muslim comic book superhero with a disability. “Comics made me believe anything was possible, and that I had my own great responsibilities to fulfill,” he says. Hamza is currently a law student at UC-Berkeley Law and an advocate for disability rights and intersectional justice.

Twitter: @HamzaAJaka

Host, Alice Wong

Alice Wong is the Founder and Project Coordinator of the Disability Visibility Project. The DVP is a community partnership with StoryCorps and an online community dedicated to recording, amplifying, and sharing disability stories and culture.

She is a contributor to The Nerds of Color and strongly identifies with the X-Men. You can read her origin story here: http://thenerdsofcolor.org/2014/04/03/a-mutant-from-planet-cripton-an-origin/

Twitter: @SFdirewolf

Additional great reads:

Call for Papers: Disability and Superheroes (deadline 6/30/16)

Marvel Comics Universe and Disability Disability Visibility Project Twitter chat (April 18, 2015)

Daredevil & Disability Disability Visibility Project Twitter chat (April 10, 2015)

Deadpool As Disability Narrative By Elsa S. Henry (2/19/16), Feminist Sonar

Fiskal Responsibility: How a Supervillain Did Right by Autistic Characters By Zack Budryk (5/18/15), The Mary Sue