2018 Cleveland Arts Prizes announced

The Cleveland Arts Prize has announced the winners of its 2018 awards. The 58th annual prizes recognize artists working in fields as diverse as architecture, literature, painting, and comics. A Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Rita Dove, a playwright, author, poet and lyricist based out of Akron. In 1993, Dove became the first Black Poet Laureate of the United […]

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The City Life: John “Derf” Backderf talks about his his early comic strip days in Cleveland, and a new Web comic

Derf found his cartoon voice circa 1990 in the Cleveland Edition with The City, a gravelly mash of Rust Belt angst, vulgarity, vunerability and glee. He went on to draw/write the critically acclaimed My Friend Dahmer and Trashed. Sort of the Josephine Baker of the comic book world, he’s really big in France and Belgium, where he travels four times […]

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