Among our amaz­ing res­i­dents, the least expected area of cre­ativ­ity resides in two of our neigh­bors — Mike Brace and Andrew Cohen — who are car­toon­ists. Their graph­ics will be fea­tured in the DC Con­spir­acy exhibit at MLK Library begin­ning July 12.

Mike Brace: Moved to West End for a graph­ics job at the GW Med­ical Cen­ter. He liked the loca­tion and the neigh­bor­hood, so has remained for 30 plus years. While he enjoyed med­ical art, he had a greater love for car­toon­ing. After leav­ing GW, he con­tin­ued work­ing on his own for a num­ber of years, until he got involved with the DC Con­spir­acy, a group of DC area car­toon­ists. He says, “I was excited to par­tic­i­pate in the upcom­ing exhibit because it show­cases the local inde­pen­dent pub­li­ca­tions the group has been work­ing on.”

Andrew Cohen: Moved to DC in 2005, and shortly there­after started law school at George Wash­ing­ton. In 2006, he moved to Foggy Bot­tom, ini­tially, he says, so that he wouldn’t have to “schlep my books so much.” Cohen says, “When I grad­u­ated, I just stayed put. I liked the neigh­bor­hood and the stores, the prox­im­ity to the libraries and met­ros and parks, and the fact that I could basi­cally walk to any place I might want to go within the city.”

“I got into comics when I was about ten, but fell out of them for a period. I kept draw­ing, though, and enjoy­ing art. And I still loved draw­ing car­toons — I drew for the school news­pa­per, and for friends and myself. In col­lege, I got back into comics and dis­cov­ered that the col­lege library actu­ally
had quite a good col­lec­tion of graphic nov­els and his­tor­i­cal stuff about comics. I loved read­ing the his­to­ries and the old news­pa­per strips, and dis­cov­er­ing all the car­toon­ists who were out there, plug­ging away in the world today. I really dug the vari­ety of sto­ries and styles that was available.

The show at the Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Memo­r­ial Library was sort of born of that fas­ci­na­tion. We’re part of a group — the D.C. Con­spir­acy — and it’s made up of D.C. area car­toon­ists. A lot of peo­ple don’t real­ize the comic tal­ent hid­den away in the city, and so we look for ways to cel­e­brate comics when­ever we can. We con­tacted the Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Memo­r­ial Library with some ideas for a show, and the library was incred­i­bly open. So we decided to do some­thing that would really show off all the work being done in the District’s comic book scene. D.C. doesn’t have the artis­tic rep­u­ta­tion of some cities, and that’s not entirely fair. Hope­fully, this show will give peo­ple an appre­ci­a­tion for some of the cre­ative spir­its that are brew­ing in the District.

We’ll have orig­i­nal art hang­ing on the walls, so that peo­ple can see the car­toon­ing up close. Hope­fully, that will jazz peo­ple up to read some comics, and so there will be a comic book read­ing area. We’ll have spin­ning racks and book shelves filled with comics that city and sub­urb folks have put out. There will be lit­er­ary and lit­er­ate comics, comics about war and sci-fi, sur­re­al­ist stuff, children’s stuff… and chairs, so that vis­i­tors can grab some ‘toons and enjoy. If all goes well, that will have peo­ple think­ing that they, too, can make a comic, and so we’re putting on two work­shops — July 31, and August 22 — to teach peo­ple how to do just that. Each one will be led by a D.C. Con­spir­a­tor who will instruct folks how to write, draw and put together their very own comic.”

D.C. Con­spir­acy July 12 – August 27, 2010

(Open dur­ing MLK Library hours)
Exhibit of Orig­i­nal Comic Art and All-ages work­shops on how to make your own comics: July 31 and Aug 22
Mar­tin Luther King Jr. Library, 901 G Street, NW, 2nd floor, West lobby

For more infor­ma­tion about D.C. Con­spir­a­tors visit www.dcconspiracy.com