Comics artist discusses Latinx comics and futurism

This academic year the Latinx Scholars Academic Residential Community (ARC) is reading the comic anthology Mañana: Latinx Comics from the 25th Century which features 27 young-adult stories by creators from across the United States and Latin America. The futures these artists imagine stretch from the depths of Earth’s oceans to distant stars. Some imagine radical utopias, others reckon with post-apocalypses, and some fall somewhere in-between. 

Author, editor, and artist Joamette Gil will visit with the ARC class to discuss the book, Latinx futures, and more on Friday, January 9, 2026. Afterward, she will give a public lecture “Imagining Mañana: Unpacking Latinx Comics About the Distant Future with Joamette Gil” at 11:15 a.m. at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. 

Gil is a queer Afro-Cuban illustrator, cartoonist, and writer. She moved to Portland to study illustration after graduating from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. Her interdisciplinary degree in social justice and psychology gave her a language to identify the socioeconomic inequities her mom always called “la vida.” Now she works to create her own language—a combination of images, words, and digital technologies—to tell her stories.

Gil is the driving force behind Power & Magic Press, an independent comics publisher in Portland. Its mission is to empower queer, BIPOC, and intersectional creators. 

She also serves as Managing Editor for Weird Enough, a social impact organization that combines the use of diverse comic books with groundbreaking social emotional learning programs to fight the youth mental health crisis.

Gil’s visit is cosponsored by the OHC’s Endowment for Public Outreach in the Arts, Sciences, and Humanities.