Board of Directors

Katy Farina

Chair

Katy Farina is a queer comic artist and illustrator based in Los Angeles, CA. She is best known as the artist of the New York Times bestselling series Baby-Sitter Little Sister, and is currently developing her own original stories. Katy received her BFA in illustration from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2009. Since then she has worked in a number of industries before finding her love in comics.

Pat Race

Co-Chair

Pat Race is a filmmaker and illustrator living in Juneau, Alaska with his wife Marian. He’s a co-owner of the Alaska Robotics Gallery, a small comics shop / art gallery catering to local adventurers and wandering souls. He loves the comics community and hosts a Comics Camp and mini-convention in Juneau. The Alaska Robotics Gallery was honored as a finalist for the Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Award in 2019.

Victoria Ying

Treasurer

Victoria Ying is an author and artist living in Los Angeles. She started her career in the arts by falling in love with comic books, this eventually turned into a career working in animation and graphic novels. She loves Japanese Curry, putting things in her shopping cart online and taking them out again and hanging out with her husband and furry friends.

Gale Galligan

Secretary

Gale Galligan is a New York Times-bestselling cartoonist living in New York, best known for their four Baby-Sitters Club graphic novel adaptations. Gale holds an MFA in Sequential Art from the Savannah College of Art and Design. When they aren’t making comics or tweeting about Yu-Gi-Oh!, Gale enjoys knitting, reading, and spending time with their adorable family and pet rabbits.

Shivana Sookdeo

Creative Director

Shivana Sookdeo is an award-winning cartoonist and former senior designer for Scholastic Graphix. A lifelong manga reader who tripped over a volume of Inuyasha and woke up a comic artist. She lives in Brooklyn with her absurdly long cat, Faraday.

Kiara Valdez

Communications Director

Kiara Valdez is an Afro-Dominican writer and an editor at First Second. She was born and raised in New York City (shout out to Washington Heights) and has been an avid comics reader all her life. She graduated from Williams College with a double major in English Literature and Japanese, and spends her free time reading, writing, and enjoying a long list of other hobbies she can’t keep up with.