When comics meet creative writing

Credit: John Porcellino, 2025

Chris Fink, professor of English, first met John Porcellino a decade ago at a Beloit Library book event where they discovered shared interests, including the work of the poet Lorinne Niedecker ’26.

Fast forward to 2023, in the wake of renowned graphic novelist Lynda Barry’s inspiring Mackey Chair term, when Fink asked himself, how can we keep this enthusiasm (for graphic storytelling) going? He immediately thought of Porcellino, who lives in Beloit and whose King-Cat Comics, which contributed to the rise of the 1990s zine scene and its distinctive culture, are among the most well-known and longest-running comics today.

Chris wrote a proposal to bring comics into his creative writing classroom and received funding from an anonymous grant that allowed him to co-teach a class with John in fall 2023. Using Comics in Creative Writing was stimulating for the instructors as well as the students. “We were kind of playing it by ear,” John recalls. “I had some exercises, I sat in on every class, and tried to bring comics, drawing, and visual storytelling into it. I’d taught comics workshops, but this was educational for me.”

“Nobody's afraid of comics,” says John Porcellino, who sees comics as a way to make poetry more accessible. “Comics and poetry are similar…there is rhythm in poetry, and rhythm in comics.”
Credit: Ray Broad ’25

John’s class, Making Comics Out of Life, which grew out of the class he co-taught with Chris, was offered the following spring, and due to popular demand, he offered it again this spring. He sees the class as helping students create something out of their own life experiences. “It’s a weird combination of stuff I’ve developed in my workshops and borrowed from Chris’ creative writing class.” He credits Chris’ workshop with helping him structure a course over a semester, implementing text, visuals, and exercises.

“My goal is to give the students permission to express themselves. Everybody knows how to write and draw,” says John. For a final project, the students each create a zine that they publish in an edition of 18 copies and distribute to their classmates as well as to the instructor. “I learned that honest and real stories tend to be the ones that are the most compelling,” says Fernando Orbezo ’27, who took Making Comics From Life in 2024 and was Porcellino’s teaching assistant this spring.

Fink and Porcellino’s collaborations have gone beyond the classroom and into the realm of book publishing. This spring, Bored Wolves Press, a small independent press based in Poland, published Forage Like a Bear, a collection of Chris’ short essays with illustrations by John. Stefan Lorenzutti, an American poet, runs Bored Wolves Press with his Polish wife, Joanna Osiewicz-Lorenzutti.

The press, which had published a compilation of John’s comics, is dedicated to publishing poet’s and artist’s books, zines and comics, often overlapping these categories. “When Chris and I started talking about our book, I said ‘let’s run this by Stefan,’” says John. Stefan’s response to the project was unambiguous: “This press exists to publish books like this!”

Beloiters at Quimby's Books in Chicago May 31 celebrated the launch of Forage Like a Bear by faculty members Chris Fink and John Porcellino. Front row: John Porcellino, and Chris Fink. Middle row: Breja Gunnison ’08 and Iris Fink. Back row: Brigid Parker ’25, Mark Conway ’15 (hat), Julie Heney ’10, Jessica Fujan ’08 (cap), Tyler McGaughey ’10 (pose).