2025 Vendors

I am a retired librarian and I live in Champaign. I make zines about my "new country" project, called Alphistia and its constructed language.

Annie Middleton (she/they) is a mixed media artist with interest in fiber arts, painting, drawing, and collage. Originally from Champaign, IL, they reside in Indianapolis, IN and graduated with a BFA in Painting from Herron in May 2025. They love to create work surrounding the act of growing up with both the pains and jubilance. Middleton's work captures visuals and sensations of growing up, reflecting on a timeless process with tenderness and compassion. Middleton reflects and digs into connection and intimacy that is lacking in our current world. While relatability is encouraged, the feeling and closeness that is exhibited in Middleton's works is the central drive forward. Stories create mutual understanding, her work aims to deconstruct and rebuild community through shared vulnerability.

Johnny Willems (he/they) is a Mexican-American artist and social worker based in Indianapolis. His work combines printmaking, collage, and graffiti to explore themes of grief, spirituality, and community care. Johnny runs CLEAR TRUTH Studios which offers community self-publishing and screenprinting resources. CLEAR TRUTH is committed to the complete spiritual-material liberation of all beings.

Bold, thoughtful, and unapologetically expressive, my artwork explores story telling with detailed single page illustrations. My illustrations mostly consist of cats in a living space. Detailing home decor and funny cat moments, cats are an ideal essential for a home. My artwork also extends to sticker designs of feminist morals and disability awareness.

Eric Von Haynes is a printmaker and designer with over 15 years of experience leading Flatlands Press, an imprint recognized for its innovative design and community-based projects. In addition to serving as President of the Chicago Printers Guild, he also teaches as an Instructor in Graphic Design at the UIC School of Design. He teaches offset production in the Print Media Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he shares his expertise in design, print techniques, substrates, and documentation. His work, blending creative and analytical approaches, has been acquired by prominent collections, including the Joan Flasch Artist Book Collection in Chicago, the Center for Book Arts in New York, and the Illinois State Museum. His work has been featured in exhibitions at venues including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, and the Elephant Room Gallery. A committed community advocate, Eric co-founded Love Fridge Chicago, a mutual aid initiative supporting community fridges throughout the city. His practice extends to collaborative projects and public workshops, reinforcing his commitment to skill-sharing and community engagement.

Eric is the CUSPF 2025 Keynote Speaker and will be tabling representing work from the Chicago Printers Guild.

Felicity: queer/lesbian multimedia artist Maren: writer, poet, photographer, and artist

Get Home Safe is a way of saying "I love you" without saying it. A neurodivergent run local small press thats just gettting started, GHS aims to find and publish weirdos from all walks of life.

Han Beshey is a zine artist who lives and works in the Midwest. Han has been creating zines from a young age, and enjoys making work that focuses on personal narrative, whether that be serious or silly in nature. Han is also a teacher, and considers educating others about zines, illustration, and printmaking to be just as important to her life, and informative to her artistic practice, as the art making itself is.

Immaterial Books is an independent publisher of contemporary art and literature on photo media and its practice. Based in Champaign, Illinois

Lexington, KY based artist Jenny Butor specializes in drawing and painting, loves bookmaking and a good statement earring, and is obsessed with her two cats. Her zines often feature cats, collage, and mental health issues, but not always together. :)

We are a group of poets working to make poetry more visible in our home communities. We do all of our poetry on typewriters and even type custom poems right in front of you!

Kamila Glowacki is a musician, artist, and museum educator based in Champaign, Illinois. She is currently continuing work on her autobiographical comic, “Bunny Splint,” which documents her experiences with injury, healing, and seeking meaning through nature. Kamila’s indie punk band, Nectar, exists as her main songwriting outlet. Mark Hewitt is a video artist, writer, library specialist, and gardener from Merkel, Texas now based in Champaign, Illinois. He is interested in VHS, experimental, and 16mm film and has contributed video work for the BBC, SXSW, and the Texas Archive of the Moving Image. Mark is the creator of "The Skeptic's Almanac,” a zine of investigative fiction, photography, short stories, and visual art playfully testing and reviewing the paranormal and the occult.

Lauren Layton is a cartoonist and writer living in the western suburbs of Illinois. Her work centers around themes of loneliness, community, grief, and connection. She lives with her husband and cat.

Matthew David Crowther is a Chicago based photographer, designer, and bookmaker. His work uses personal, subjective experience to investigate relationships between humans, time, and our environment, challenge the duality of human vs nature, and explore cultural understandings of our place in the world.

Melon Press is an independent Risograph printer and publisher with a focus on curating magazines featuring artists from the Midwest. We have ongoing titles such as Froot Punch and Duplicator Magazine that are submission based zines. We offer publishing and printing services for individuals and collectives based out of Saint Louis, MO.

Cristina “Miss Cbenav” is a local independent writer and artist, drawn to the creative freedom of zines. She likes to spend her free time cuddling her dog, Waffles, if he’ll let her.

Nathan Pearce (born 1986) is an artist based in Southern Illinois. Pearce works in book and zine making and photography. Pearce’s publications are held in several artists' book and library collections including those at MoMA, The Met, Museum of Contemporary Photography, and the Center for Creative Photography. His work has been exhibited in solo shows at the PhotoNola festival, Cedarhurst Center for the Arts, Nizhniy Tagil Museum of Fine Arts and The Rangefinder Gallery in Chicago. He has been published in over 200 books, zines and exhibition catalogs; as well as online in The Huffington Post, The British Journal of Photography, and Juxtapoz.

Creater of The Shadow Banshee comics, and maker of many interdimensional zines drawings and things!

I create unusual zines in a variety of formats and styles. I print and assemble all of them by hand. I like to experiment with unconventional book formats and materials and my zines are short, all-ages, and can usually fit in the palm of your hand.

Ruby Carter is the author of bird comic and the BOGUE series. She only reads books with pictures.

Steve Keiser is a comic artist based in Chicago. He makes comics and zines about cyberpunk witches, ghosts, and cooking.

Smudge Pudge Designs mixes adorable cats and everyday life to spark joy, nostalgia, and a sense of connection. Explore silly cats through risographed prints, zines, and more!

Sovereign portrays a small Drag community in West Michigan, USA. Traditionally, the act of men dressing as hypersexualized women, Drag is an oddity in West Michigan, a conservative rural area. And yet a group mixing different genders, races, and sexualities can often pack a venue. Within mainstream culture today, Drag is presented as male, gay, competitive, and ceremonial. Sovereign presents a community that rejects these rigid rules and interpretations of Drag, creating a community for all who wish to participate. In a society with rigid and polarized views of gender, Sovereign looks at the Drag artists involved, and asks the question "What is drag and what is gender today?"

The 50 Flip Experiment is a funny, trippy comic book which may be enjoyed for its manifest content of jokes, funny cartoon animals, and science fiction conceits. Close readings (try putting it on the back of your toilet tank) will yield gnostic themes and explorations into the idea of eternal return (reusing jokes, sticking in cartoon animals from years ago). I have been drawing it for over 20 years and am wrapping up the 35th issue. I paint it in full color alone in the morning and copy it into books for you with a 100 dollar office copier I got from a nice guy on craigslist.

Thelma grew up near the abandoned ordnance plants, whose ruins remain in local fields. A former, 30 year, library technician, her last position was a government documents library specialist at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville's Lovejoy Library. Thelma enjoys local historical research; a hobby leading to four self-published projects earning her an Illinois Author designation. "Illinois Munitions” evolved by a request from an Illiopolis resident and is her final historical project.

Joseph Morris runs TORC Press, a Small Press Comics Publisher based out of Champaign, Il. He has produced over 200 Comics, Strips, Zines, and Mini-Comics. He’s exhibited his work all over the US, including SPACE, STAPLE, and APE.

ARTS 405 Relief Printmaking is a course regularly offered by the School of Art & Design at UIUC, and is currently in progress this semester. Students in this course explore a variety of traditional and contemporary color relief printmaking techniques, from hand carving to digital technologies incorporating laser cutting and CNC router. Projects for the class engage with the history of relief printmaking as a tool for social change.

Students participating from Urbana High School's Art Club.

For years Julia ran a small organic farm with her husband. During that time, she developed characters to tell the stories of how to keep and treat each plant. The project evolved into a collection dedicated to anthropomorphic vegetables with familiar traits and challenges, all stumbling through their life cycles together yet separate. The vegetables range in personality from sweet to bitter in stories that include themes of Time, Ambition, Love, Loss and more.

Weird Little Homeschoolers is a small print collective formed by UIUC MSLIS students Luisa (she/her) and Zadia (she/they).  Luisa is a printmaker and book artist currently living in Urbana, Illinois. Her work focuses on the interaction between old craft and new technology, mixing the physical with the digital. She loves long rambling walks and the conclusions that can be drawn from them, odd illustrations in newspapers, and working with textiles, all of which appear in her publications.  Zadia is a zinester originally hailing from Western Massachusetts.  Their work discusses pop culture, disability, retro tech, and the odd interactions that make us all human.  When she’s not making zines, she can be found staring at a wall while listening to music.

Will Arnold is the co-founder [Work Press & Publication](https://www.workpandp.com/), a Risograph-based zine and artist book self-publishing venture. He is also an organizer for the CU Small Press Fest and the St. Louis Independent Comics Expo. Will’s artistic practice is primarily centered around zines, comics, and artist books. Through collage and delving into and remixing historical comics, he explores themes such as landscape, perception, memory, and gender.

Arianna Unabia Aquino is a Filipina-American printmaker and illustrator from Chicago. They mainly utilize risograph printing in their work and derive inspiration from the thoughts that are stuck in their head, allowing intuition and exploration at the forefront of how they create.

blue crow lavender is a watercolor based artist. That enjoys telling stories through conversations and soft illustrations.

Dane Georges is a cartoonist and designer living in Evanston, IL, with his wife and cat. His self-published comics and zines—featuring oddball characters like Doom Skull, Fish & Chip, and Jiggly-Bub—blend humor, horror, and surrealism. In addition to making comics, Dane hosts Dangerous Comics, a YouTube channel where he reviews strange, forgotten, and underground books from the world of sequential art. Find more at danegeorges.com.

Eli Rayas is an animator/artist from Minnesota living in Chicago. He usually isn't satisfied with just one form of art, so he is usually found working simultaneously on zines & comics, animated short films, children's books, and digital painting. His work often comes from the need to process the difficulty of existing in the world, and attempts to inspire connection with viewers by putting those feelings into the context of stories, prose, and visual art.

Hi, I’m Elaine the author/illustrator of A Tale of Winter, a fantasy short about a fairy family telling a fairy tale, Shadow Dance, A Dark Telling, a horror short about why we shouldn’t look too closely at what lurks in the shadows, and Minstrel Fair, my self-published comic. I am also the author of The Low Sodium Lifestyle health book series available on Amazon. As Fantasy Art by Elaine C. Oldham, I sell original drawings, prints, cards, and bookmarks of fairies, dragons, and other fantastical creatures, as well as custom art drawn onsite to order using photos or online images as models. Visit my website, www.dreamlightgraphics.com, to see galleries of my work, and purchase my books, art, and more.

Eric Von Haynes is an experienced printmaker and designer with over 15 years of experience leading Flatlands Press, an imprint known for its focus on innovative design and community-based projects. In addition to being President of the Chicago Printers Guild, he serves as an Instructor in Graphic Design at the UIC School of Design. He teaches offset production in the print media department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he shares his knowledge of design and print techniques, substrate knowledge, and documentation. His work, blending creative and analytical approaches, has been acquired by prominent collections, including the Joan Flasch Artist Book Collection in Chicago, the Center for Book Arts in New York, and the Illinois State Museum. His work has been in exhibitions spanning esteemed venues such as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, and the Elephant Room Gallery. A committed community advocate, Eric cofounded The Love Fridge Chicago, a mutual aid initiative supporting community fridges throughout the city. His practice extends to collaborative projects and public workshops, reinforcing his commitment to skill-sharing and community engagement.

Grant Thomas is a cartoonist, book architect, printmaker, and educator. He works across comics, block prints, and handmade books, using each form to explore visual storytelling through sequence, rhythm, and structure. His comics range from abstract experiments to traditional narratives, all grounded in a love of process and the physicality of print media. Whether carving linoleum or folding paper into zines, he invites viewers to read images as much as see them. His work has appeared in Abstract Comics: The Anthology (Fantagraphics) and Visual Arts Research (University of Illinois Press). He teaches art in Illinois and continues to create work that reflects a deep engagement with craft and form.

Kamilah Jones is a Chicago based illustrator passionate about alternative fashion. Much of her work is adding to that culture whether that is through apparel, comics, accessories, and meet ups.

A Reviewer, Editor, Author, and Dreamer of stories and books, Ekta has worked in niche publishing since 2005—she’s written and edited about everything from healthcare to home improvement to Hindi films! Ekta judges writing contests, hosts writing workshops, and podcasts about great books and how to write them. She’s currently the Content Coordinator of Neighbors of SW Champaign, a hyper-local magazine focusing on and lifting up the Champaign, Illinois, community. Ekta’s award-winning holiday novella, The Truth About Elves, and her award-winning fairy tale for grownups, In the Heart of the Linden Wood, are available from Atmosphere Press. Her newest release, The Witch’s Apprentice and Other Stories, releases in August 2025 from Atmosphere Press. Learn more about her at https://ektargarg.com or https://thewriteedge.wordpress.com.

Eric Bartholomew is a Midwest zinester who publishes the zine Junk Drawer, which is inspired by objects with stories to tell. It explorers the random nature of ephemera, from the odd to the ordinary. It’s a space where anything that doesn’t seem to fit in finds a place to belong.

Ostensible artist. Irresponsible cartoonist. Responsible hedonist. Connoisseur of nonsense. Printer of shirts. Maker of comics.

Kat makes comics that celebrate tenderheartedness and goofy cartoon antics. Her current main project is a story about using imagination to combat fear, featuring a wayward young boy and a very good dog who is stealing the show.

I make comics ranging in genre from sci-fi to auto-bio to western. My stories draw on my real-life experience as professional tree climber and barista and on my imagined-life experience as a pigeon man and bumbling cryptid.

Melanie Burnell is a recent SAIC comics graduate. Her work focuses on the relationship between people and the landscape they exist in. Melanie’s work while humorous, often carries a deeper undertone.

I’m a queer Mexican-American artist and storyteller based in Chicago. I never grew out of my love for cartoons, comics, and toys. Instead, I turned it into Miracle Brain, a universe inspired by 90s Nicktoons, lowbrow art, and pop surrealism. My work blends dark humor, camp, nostalgia, and philosophy wrapped like a bacon wrapped skewer into bizarre little characters and their stories. I’ve pitched original stories to Netflix, won script and comic competitions, and taught myself the art of storytelling from the ground up. Everything I make is about capturing that raw, offbeat energy I felt as a kid, and building a space for others who feel the same.

David (moonvillezines) is a zinester and middle school art teacher from northern IL. His zines include a mix of drawing, photography, collage, writing, and found imagery. His zines cover topics such as roller coasters, funky monsters, travel, chocolate bars, and more! He also has a selection of zines in Spanish!

Printmakers club at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Prairie Rambler Press is ran by Ryan Searl, a lens-based artist and photo zinemaker from Ottawa, Illinois. His work explores contemporary and underrepresented rural spaces across the midwest. His work has been featured in Immaterial Books' Fields of Vision show and in Pamplemousse magazine.

Ren [they/she] is an independent artist, designer and friend of birds. Their art practice is their reverence to all beings, to communicate that each of us are worthy of compassion and total liberation. Originally from downriver of Detroit, Michigan, they now reside in another rust belt city: Indianapolis. Their queerness centers their relationships to these resilient places and the other-than-humans often featured in their pieces, who provide them with unconditional refuge. Ren creates two zine series themed around nature and interconnectedness: Non-Human Neighbors and A More-Than-Human Society, as well as one-off poetry zines. All are limited-edition risograph prints on recycled papers.

Sarah Foley is an interdisciplinary artist from Arlington Heights, Illinois who has a passion for self-publishing! By intertwining fantastical elements with reality, they aim to create authentic and comforting visual narratives that explore human emotion and the importance of the natural world. Their work ranges in content but primarily tackles themes of mental health, identity, and nature.

Skeuomorph Press & BookLab is an experiential studio for teaching and researching the history and art of the book at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. We are housed in the Champaign-Urbana Community FabLab and sponsored by the School of Information Sciences, with support from the Department of English. We also sponsor the Skeuomorphics club.

Sophie McMahan is an illustrator living in Urbana, IL with her 6 cats. She's inspired by the 1960's, big hair, monsters, and the beautifully grotesque.

Angelica, otherwise known as Tea online, is an artist that had dedicated their whole life to illustration. Their goal with their artwork is to create something that makes everyone smile, and enjoy life. You can often find her playing with her two cats, Ollie and Megatron.

Kyle Robateau is an illustrator, animator, and comic artist with a passion for exploring sexuality, queerness, oppression, and the complexities of relationships throughout their work. Kyle currently resides in the Chicagoland area and is attending their fourth year at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s BFA program. They are known for their colorful cutesy art style and intricate panel layouts, and they run a business selling comics, stickers, prints, and more both online and in-person at events across the midwest.

My name is Tony. I live in Lincoln, IL. a small-town between Springfield and Bloomington. I've been drawing all my life, and for the past 4 years have been drawing a comic about a misofortunate little yellow guy named Nugget.

ARTS 205 Intro to Printmaking is a course regularly offered by the School of Art & Design at UIUC, and is currently in-progress this semester. Students in this course learn traditional and contemporary print processes including intaglio, relief, and screenprint, and incorporate these into the development of a personalized portfolio of creative work. Two sections of this class, one currently focusing on screenprinting and one currently focusing on relief printing, are represented here.

Uncanny Urbana is a collective of weird local writers.

Students participating from Urbana High School's Punk Club.

VENOMYTHS is Joshua Ray Stephens’ ongoing anthology of cartoon future fantasy. Equal parts sci-fi, fantasy, philosophy, poetry, religious revelation and silly ass comics. Set in a far off future in a psychiatric asylum that everyone calls Magic Moon VENOMYTHS is a mind bending romp through the ravings of an over-active imagination and over-saturated mind.

Keidra Chaney is the founder of Wild Ramp Publishing, a Chicago-based micro-press dedicated to small-run zines and chapbooks about pop culture, fandom, disability, and social justice. I created this press to uplift marginalized voices and support community-driven storytelling, including offering micro-grants to disabled zinesters working at the intersection of art and activism. My zines (like Act Your Age: Fandom at 35+ and Beyond and My Years of No: An ADHD Story) reflect a DIY ethos rooted in care, curiosity, and self-expression.

Zoya Wu is a watercolor artist that specializes in mixing scientific accuracy with ethereal abstraction.