Comics, et cetera
Comics, et cetera is the culminating exhibition of E23: DWIGHTMESS Comics Lab, Transformer’s 23rd annual Exercises for Emerging Artists program. The exhibition brings together new comics-based work by four DMV-area artists—Yuki Clarke, Art Hondros, Linda Kuo, and Tia Wilson—under the lead mentorship of cartoonist, illustrator, and community leader Adam Dwight Griffiths. The artists use comics and illustration to explore storytelling, world-building, animation, sculpture, personal history, technology, identity, and the experience of sequential form in space.
The exhibition follows biweekly mentorship sessions held from mid-March through the end of June. Its artists approach comics through distinct forms and subjects: redesigned personal histories, fictionalized biography, interactive technological environments, creature characters, queer experience, and sculptural or mechanical interpretations of movement beyond the traditional comic panel.
When: The exhibition is on view from July 25 through September 12, 2026.
Venue: Transformer.
Preview: A Visionary Leaders Circle preview is scheduled for Friday, July 24, from 5 to 7 PM.
Opening reception: A community open house reception takes place Saturday, July 25, from 12 to 6 PM.
Artist talk: Adam Griffiths moderates an artist talk on July 25 from 1 to 2 PM.
Featured artists: Yuki Clarke, Art Hondros, Linda Kuo, and Tia Wilson.
Lead mentor: Adam Dwight Griffiths, a Washington, D.C.-area cartoonist, illustrator, arts administrator, and community leader, leads the Comics Lab. He founded DWIGHTMESS, a comics compound in Silver Spring, Maryland, with gallery spaces, a Risograph studio, screen-printing facilities, a comics and zine library, and a video vault. His work includes the surreal graphic novel *Washington White*, which reimagines his grandmother’s landmark Civil Rights case as a science-fiction spy thriller.
Guest mentors and coordination: The program was coordinated by Transformer Exhibitions & Programs Manager Camille DeSanto, with guest mentorship from Corinne Halbert and Dana Jeri Maier.
Program background: Transformer’s Exercises for Emerging Artists began in March 2004 and supports selected D.C.-area artists at important points in their professional and creative development. Each year focuses on a different discipline, combining peer critique with mentorship, critical feedback, and professional-development guidance from artists, curators, gallerists, and critics.
Yuki Clarke: Clarke is a Maryland-based self-taught cartoonist and illustrator known for the sapphic science-fiction mystery-adventure series “Rita and Josey,” set in 1974. For this project, Clarke experiments with the characters’ forms and ages, returning them to mid-century versions for an innocent backyard rocket-building project. A multimedia presentation traces the characters’ changing iterations as a meditation on the molding of self and the unexpected evolution of life. Clarke also serves as Outreach Chair of the Cartoonist Cooperative and organizes panels, meetups, and educational programs.
Art Hondros: Hondros is the creator of the “Dot” comic series, which follows his mannequin-builder aunt. Initially intending to document her life faithfully, he turned to fiction when he found little historical material about her career. The resulting story combines mannequins, Cold War atomic-bomb testing, and other mid-century upheavals with an imaginative reconstruction of her life. Hondros has also created the graphic novels *I’ll Take Lagerhead* and *Legion of the Condemned*, and has collaborated on a comic about Tsar Ivan the Terrible.
Linda Kuo: Kuo creates comics, zines, and illustrations informed by personal experience, close relationships, science, Chinese art, and the humanities. Her work considers interdependence, unnatural phenomena, monstrosity, primordial elements, and the life cycles of organisms. Her exhibition piece “Secret Garden” is an interactive cyberdeck that invites visitors into a mossy, magical landscape populated by playful creatures. Through actions such as making wishes and choosing stars, visitors help reveal the space’s puzzles, confessions, and wonders. Kuo also teaches bookbinding and zine-making, publishes comics and zines, and leads creative healing programs in collaboration with the Asian/Pacific Islander Domestic Violence Resource Project.
Tia Wilson: Wilson’s comics center queerness, including the ongoing “1-800-DYKE” comic and Substack, which transform anonymous submissions into sapphic stories that can be awkward, painful, funny, or joyful. Her new sculptures examine movement beyond the fixed comic panel through bodily mechanics and paper-scrolling actions that invite physical interaction. Wilson is a Maryland artist, illustrator, printmaker, and cartoonist whose practice includes Risograph printing, screen printing, painting, dip-pen drawing, zines, and documentation of everyday personal experience. Their work also addresses queerness, Blackness, and culture and identity.
Comic reading: Tia Wilson presents an “1-800-DYKE” Comics Reading on August 4 from 6 to 8 PM. Selected comics from the project will be projected slide by slide and read aloud for an audience, with original pages displayed. The program features Wilson and friends of 1-800-DYKE. RSVP is indicated on the event page.
Q&A with Art Hondros: On August 15 from 1 to 2 PM, Hondros discusses the inspiration, research, and creative process behind “Dot,” including the way its story shifted from biography toward fiction. RSVP is indicated on the event page.
Comic zine workshop: Yuki Clarke leads a workshop on August 27 from 6 to 8 PM about creating a comic zine from a single folded sheet of paper. Participants learn simple story structures for telling a narrative in eight small pages. RSVP is indicated on the event page.
Sequential Constellations workshop: Linda Kuo leads “Sequential Constellations: Stories of This Moment” with guest facilitator Shreya Basu on September 3 from 6 to 8 PM. The 90-minute workshop treats sequential art as a collaborative process of response and connection. Participants begin with marks and patterns made by a partner, then work in pairs to create an interpretive zine as a collectively authored record of the group and its moment.
Flipbook workshop: Adam Griffiths leads an introduction to flipbook animation on September 10 from 6 to 8 PM. He shares examples from his collection, introduces basic techniques for simulating movement through sequence, and discusses tools and best practices.
Tickets: No exhibition admission price is listed. RSVP is requested for the Comic Reading, Art Hondros Q&A, and Yuki Clarke workshop.
Run time: No general exhibition run time is specified. The Sequential Constellations workshop is described as 90 minutes.
Ages and accessibility: The page does not specify age restrictions or accessibility information.