JAM/Index Collective Show + Interviews
This year we're supporting comics artists with the creation of Jam/Index, an artists' collective exploring, making, and exploding autobiographical comics and art.
WELCOME!
To Max Barnewitz, John Borstel & Athena Naylor, the three artists comprising Jam/Index, a 2025 Initiative by Dwightmess to support autobiographical comics & storytelling!
MAX BARNEWITZ
Max is a comics educator exploring queerness, transition in sequential art, often populating their storytelling with animals. They hold an MFA in Comics from California College of the Arts and an MA in Comparative Literary & Cultural Studies from the University of Utah. Max has taught many comics and zines workshops, and Digital Illustration at the University of Utah. Max currently teaches at the University of Maryland in the University Honors program as a Collegiate Fellow.
JOHN BORSTEL
John has described himself as an artist working at the crossroads of photography, performance, and text. For 20 years, John worked in programming and development for Dance Exchange, a nationally-touring contemporary dance company founded by MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient Liz Lerman. In his own artwork, John practices "self-imaging," positing himself as both a medium and subject in various media. In John's words: "Some of my work synthesizes image and text. At the start, my biggest influence came from contemporary dance artists who combine spoken text with movement. In putting words and pictures together, I'm trying to do more than caption or explain. I hope to achieve a fusion of elements in which the specificity of language and the allusive quality of image each derives greater meaning by virtue of being placed together." See more by John Borstel»
ATHENA NAYLOR
Athena grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and now lives and works in Washington, D.C. She specializes in autobiographical comics and illustration. Her work has been featured in Nat. Brut and The Washington Post, and in 2021 she received an Honorable Mention for the Chicago Alternative Comics Expo (CAKE) Cupcake Award.
See more by Athena Naylor»
INTERVIEWS: JAM/INDEX Collective
Concluding our interviews with Max & John! A comic by Athena !
Max Barnewitz’s animal comics emerge from the tradition of comics such as George Herriman’s Krazy Kat among others:
DWIGHTMESS: In your minicomic "PASS/FAIL," you define what "Looking Queer" is, and the fact of all the human characters being animals that talk seems to come into sharper relief. While we'd love to believe that B&W animal comics from the 1980s or maybe early Disney inspired this choice, it feels more device-like in your work; the form of your personal storytelling is much more novelistic in some sense; something more like Kipling might ring more true first. Tell us more about your connection to animals in your stories.
MAX BARNEWITZ: This is a fun question! I will answer in three parts. First, I have always loved stories about animals. Redwall and the Beatrix Potter collection were among my absolute favorites growing up. I am very invested in the animal comics, too, and feel a strong kinship to George Herriman's Krazy Kat (the genderless cat who is sincerely in love with the world, even though Ignatz petulantly throws bricks at her!). I also strongly identify with Max from Where the Wild Things Are. The wild things and animals in these stories are full of humor and liveliness and a sort of tenderness that I love. Secondly, my creative work has been heavily influenced by literary theory that I studied during my Masters program in comparative literature. I continue to be very interested in work by theorists like Jack Halberstam, Donna Haraway, and Jacques Derrida. Their work on the animal and language and the wild deeply resonate with my understanding of story and where my expressions of queerness can find a visual, embodied form. Finally, I just really love drawing animals!
John Borstel admires the dreamlike imagery of photographers such as Arthur Tress
DWIGHTMESS: We hate the question "Who is your favorite artist/what is your favorite comic. So! This is our version for you:
There is much about your practice that is original - for me especially within your photography and its connection to performance. Is there a certain performer, photography project or photographer's portfolio that you admire, recently or in the past that impacted you so greatly that you would recommend it/them to others?
& If you do read any comics, is there any certain comic or cartoon that impacted you recently or in the past that you would recommend to others?
JOHN BORSTEL: Actually the idea of photography as performance goes way back to the earliest days of photo technology almost 200 years ago, but it seems to go through cycles of disrepute in relationship to documentary photography. There’s a lot to admire throughout that history and one photographer whose work really moves me is Arthur Tress, who created a series of dreamlike images, often working in an improvisatory way with everyday people, not professional performers or models – friends, children, gay men in cruising spots. I met him once. He has a disarming, childlike charm that makes it easy to understand how he could pull powerful images out of his human interactions. I recommend his work to anyone who wants to think about how a single still image can carry narrative and a bounty of allusion.
I do read comics, and my most-admired-people list includes Lynda Barry (of course!) plus Alison Bechdel, Ivan Brunetti, Chris Ware, and Seth -- all big names, I guess. One person in the autobiographical vein I’d like to shine a light on is Jason Lips, whose Denim Rider tells stories of his fraught childhood and current life as a teacher and a dad, using a variety of visual approaches and touching into memory, documentary, dream, fantasy, and rant. His work has a quality of unsentimental tenderness, and he uses the comics medium to move between interior reflection and exterior incident in a that way feels authentic to how we experience life.
“WORF” by Athena Naylor
JAM/Index Meeting: Autobio artists working together, helping to refine each other’s voice:
**JAM/Index has their first show coming up at the compound! Visit our IG for the latest news»
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