Barbara Margarethe Eggert is one of the speakers at the conference. She has been affiliated at NEXTCOMIC, Austria’s biggest annual comics festival. Barbara studied German Language, History of Art, and Museum Studies in Hamburg and Berlin. Her main research are media that combine text and images, and the future of museums. She’s also a webcomic-author, working online using her nom-de-plume, Eggy.

First, tell us something about your comic project.

The photo comic project I am working on is about Maggie & Arnold . The story goes like this: It is the late 1980s in San Francisco, CA. Maggie McFearsome is a poorly paid illustrator of children’s books who often lets her imagination run away with her. Maggie’s boyfriend just moved out for dubious reasons. Now, she has to find a new roommate, because she can’t finance the small Victorian house on her own. This is when a Giant Anteater shows up at her doorstep and turns her world upside down.

The first part is on sale at Greenapples in San Francisco.

Which comic book or graphic novel have you been reading most recently, and why is it good?

Macellari, Elisa: Kusama. Berlin: Laurence King Verlag, 2020

The comics biography is an artistic homage to Yaoyi Kusama’s artistic work in its synchronous ramification and complexity. For this very purpose, the queer medium of comics proves to be highly suitable for demonstrating the parallel existence of worlds of experience in a de-hierarchizing way. Furthermore, with its focus on an asexual artist, the publication enriches the LGBTQ+ spectrum of comics by an important facet. Above all, however, the comic is a feast for the eyes, congenially celebrating an exceptional artist.

2. What are your plans and expectations for the Remix Comix conference? 

My plan is to mix with like-minded scholars/curators/artists/readers and discuss the aesthetic and didactic powers of comics in museums, in the public sphere, and in the classroom. I am looking forward to get to know zines & comics I haven’t heard about yet and I can’t wait to familiarize myself with deep mapping.

3. Which story or narrative do you think would be great material for writing and visualizing comics? 

I would like to see the multifaceted life of model, actress, portrait painter, interior designer and author/photographer Dare Wright (1914–2001) covered in form of a comics biography.  The two existing biographies are a good starting point here.