Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC) is a FREE, city-wide, four-day arts festival hosted every year by people and places with a passion for cartoon arts. CXC connects the global family of cartoon storytellers, comic makers, and animators with the people who love and are inspired by their art. This year’s festival will take place September 27 – October 1 at a variety of venues throughout Columbus, Ohio.
At a reception at Seventh Son Brewing Company Tuesday evening, CXC unveiled its artwork for the ninth annual festival. Ohio cartoonist Victoria Douglas joins an exclusive roster of artists who were chosen to design the official poster and artwork for Cartoon Crossroads Columbus.
“I’d done more thumbnails and explorations than I usually do, looking for the magic bullet. Sometimes it’s a push and pull between perfectionism, and the due dates that keep you grounded to the “doing” part,” says Victoria Douglas, “The pressure can ramp up when the urge to rework pushes me closer to the wire than I’d like to be.”
“This year’s festival art is by Ohio artist Victoria Douglas,” added Jeff Smith, co-founder of the festival and creator of the graphic novel series Bone, “It’s one the most kinetic posters we’ve ever had! Victoria has created a perfect metaphor for the rush and forward momentum of pumping out comic pages on deadline with this Formula One scanner and printer!”
Victoria Douglas is the 2022 CXC Emerging Talent Award winner for their work creating CINNAMON, a series about a cat turning normal household life into ginormous tales of danger and adventure. Douglas also operates Halftone Hospital, an online repository of free and open comic tools, assets and resources. A graduate of The Columbus College of Arts and Design, their work has been featured in the Columbus Scribbler, Bonfire’s Stratos Anthology, and CCAD’s Spitball 666 among others.
“From the electric way that Victoria Douglas illustrates, to their approach to printing, they seem to represent something new and electric in the zeitgeist of comics,” said cartoonist CM Campbell, co-chair of CXC’s programming committee.
“It’s no coincidence that the first CXC I ever attended predated my career in comics. It was a true reintroduction to comics for me, both as media and as an industry,” says Douglas, “I was a listless illustration student at CCAD, and had wandered into the Columbus Metropolitan Library to study. I found myself surrounded by cartoonists who were maybe a little too eager to get into the weeds about craft and narrative. I switched my major shortly after and haven’t looked back.”
About Cartoon Crossroads Columbus
CXC is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that draws together Columbus educational and arts organizations including the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus College of Art & Design, the Columbus Museum of Art, the Columbus Metropolitan Library, The Laughing Ogre, GFC: Gateway Film Center, and Pop Culture Studies at Ohio State University.
The festival is generously supported by the Greater Columbus Arts Council, White Castle, UBS, Columbus Dispatch / Dispatch.com, Ohio Arts Council, The Columbus Foundation, Orange Barrel Media, and Seventh Son Brewing Co.
Special Guests Underwritten with support from Avery Hill Publishing and Kodansha Ltd.
CXC aims to provide an international showcase for the best of cartoon art in all its forms, including comics, animation, editorial cartoons, newspaper strips, and beyond, in a city that is a growing center of importance to comics and cartooning. The festival also focuses on helping the next generation of young talent develop careers that invigorate the industry for years to come.
