Joel Christian Gill, Cartoonist, Historian: Creative Writing Reading Series

The Importance of Sharing Stories

 Prof. Joel Christian Gill is an award winning cartoonist and historian who speaks nationally on the importance of sharing stories. He is the author of the Eisner Nominated graphic memoir Fights: One Boy's Triumph Over Violence, cited as one of the best graphic novels of 2020 by The New York Times and for which he was awarded the The Cartoonist Studio Prize. He wrote the words and drew the pictures for the award-winning graphic novel series Strange Fruit: Uncelebrated Narratives from Black History and Tales of The Talented Tenth, each volume tells the stories of Bass Reeves, Bessie Stringfield and Robert Smalls. He adapted into a graphic novel Dr. Ibram Kendi's National Book Award-winning Stamped From the Beginning into the Stamped From The Beginning: A Graphic History of Racist Ideas from Ten Speed Press. Gill has dedicated his life to creating stories and helping others create stories to build connections with readers through empathy, compassion, and, ultimately, humanity. He is the Inaugural Chair of Boston University’s CFA MFA in Visual Narrative. He received his MFA from Boston University and his BA from Roanoke College. Catch all his updates on Instagram, Tik Tok @joelchristiangill. 

March 24, 2025

4-5 p.m.

DMC Lecture Hall, MassArt, 621 Huntington Avenue

Host or Publisher MassArt