Robyn Smith ’17 won the Emerging Talent Award at the recent CXC (Cartoon Crossroads Columbus)! The award comes with a no-strings-attached check for $7,500, to support an amazing cartoonist just starting to make their mark on the comics scene.
Robyn is an alumni and fellow at The Center for Cartoon Studies (CCS). She is a Jamaican cartoonist best known for her mental health / Blackness memoir The Saddest Angriest Black Girl In Town; Wash Day, written by Jamila Rowser; and illustrating DC Comics’s Nubia: Real One graphic novel, written by L.L. McKinney. You can preorder her next book, Wash Day Diaries, coming in May 2022 with Chronicle Books.
CXC takes place in Columbus, Ohio, though last year the festival was entirely virtual. CXC 2021 took place with a mix of virtual and in-person events. Since its first festival in 2015, it has given Master Cartoonist, Transformative Work, and Emerging Talent awards to unsuspecting special guests. The list of past winners includes many wonderful creators that have been to CCS.
Previous CCS Fellows to win Emerging Talent are:
- Keren Katz (2018-19 fellow, creator of The Academic Hour) won in 2018
- Kevin Czap (2017-18 fellow, creator of Fütchi Perf) won in 2016
If you want to add a big smile to your day, you can watch Jerzy Drozd, Jeff Smith, and Vijaya Iver surprise Robyn with her win in a video call. Congratulations to Robyn on joining such a skilled group of her peers with this award.
Tags: CXC, DC, Emerging Talen Award, Nubia, Robyn Smith, The Saddest Angriest Black Girl in Town, Wash Day, Wash Day Diaries
