Meet the Toolkits: Graphic Narratives 2025 participants
It’s time to meet the young artists who are taking part in this season of Toolkits: Graphic Narratives!
Facilitated by Bailey Sharp, this 12-week program combines theoretical approaches, practical exercises, and group workshopping to guide young writers through the development of their work.
These workshops offer a unique developmental opportunity for participants to work one-on-one with the facilitar, hear from industry guests, and forge creative community.
We’re so excited to see what this cohort will create!
Sam Cheng
Sam Cheng / KindleSpark (she/he/they) is an Aussie Chinese-Malaysian artist who loves comics and colours! They're passionate about making transformative work in online art communities, having produced a fair amount of collaborative fanzines in their life, and are now finally branching out to local fairs and markets with original stories. A fervent reader of comics since their tweens, Sam is an enthusiast for character-driven stories with far-off worlds, funky page layouts, and messy LGBTPOC women.
Indigo Colquhoun
Indigo Colquhoun (she/her) is a creative artist and illustrator living in Canberra. She writes comics, draws fun characters and is a comedy genius...
Lee Evatt
Lee Evatt (he/they) is a transgender and queer artist based on Ngunnawal Country. He works across mediums such as comics, animation, print media and live performance. He is also the founder of the zine anthology Sticky Beak Comics Magazine.
Bern Hall
Bern Hall (she/her) is a curator at Science Gallery Melbourne. An eclectic mix, her academic background spans a diverse range of fields including neuroscience and design. Bern curates spaces, schemes and shows that animate the sparkiest parts of the brain, tugging the audience playfully along with her into a more curious state of mind. Weaving and whirling her way through many disciplines, she thrives in the messy middle - a place full of sparks, conversations and ideas.
Jack Honeybone
Jack Honeybone (he/him) is a comics creator hailing from Naarm, Australia. His interest in making comics started at a yovung age and he occupies himself now on whichever latest project interests him most. Jack's comics tend to be semi-autobiographical in nature and tend to reference special interests and life experiences.
Crys Kirk
Crys Kirk (they/them) is an artist and writer based in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia. They write and draw the webcomic Ragdoll, about animals pulling off a cyberpunk heist, in addition to a variety of short comics and zines that they peddle. They are also the lead artist for Skyless, an indie comic series written by Sean Coyle, and have worked as a designer for TV animation and video games.
Shelley Spangler
Shelley Spangler (she/her) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Naarm/Melbourne and a graduate of the Bachelor of Fine Arts Visual Arts, specialising in drawing and printmaking at the Victorian College of the Arts. She works with drawing, watercolour, animation, zines and printmaking.
Luca Steele
Luca Steele (he/him) is a writer and maker from Naarm. He has recently finished a Bachelor's of Creative Writing and Gender Studies from the University of Melbourne and loves swimming, reading and knitting up a pair of socks.
Teo Tabar
Teo Tabar (they/them) is a Filipino designer and illustrator based on Dharug Land (Sydney). Their practice is centred around packaging, branding and illustration, and embodies a love for visual storytelling. They enjoy drawing inspiration from all sorts of places, from their nerdy hobbies and interests, to their culture, identity and lived experiences. In their spare time, you can find them reading manga or playing rhythm games at their nearest arcade.
CJ Wu
CJ Wu (any pronouns) makes comics about life's little joys and struggles. CJ is a graduate of the Year Long Program at the Sequential Artists Workshop. Besides making comics, CJ translates children's books, teaches languages and runs zinemap.com, a community mapping platform that helps with the discovery and distribution of zines and small-press work.
About the facilitator:
Bailey Sharp is a cartoonist and educator, originally from Atlanta, now living in Naarm. She is a co-administrator of the comics publisher Glom Press, as well as an organiser of the Other Worlds Zine Fair.
Learn more about Toolkits here!
Interested in participating in Toolkits? An annual Express Media membership lets you access our full range of programs. You’ll also be among the first to hear about upcoming Toolkits streams via our community e-Newsletter.
Toolkits: Graphic Narratives is supported by The Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.