InBrief – Microblog

A collection of my brief notes, posts and tweets, that are too short for a blog entry, first here and then posted on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

  • InBrief230807
    spatiotemporal queerness in a special issue of Monatshefte: slowness, rupture: queer time and history in German studies, the intro analyses my minicomic “Hostile”
  • InBrief230421
    Innovations in Accessible Comics for Blind and Low Vision Readers! Expert panelists and participants weigh in on new projects with five international teams, as Illi and Rae reveal how we made our prize-winning queer webcomic #SeeingInBetween. Free registration is open now. Gain access to early prototypes and hear from experts like Thomas Reid, Walei Sabry, Silvana Rainey and Joshua Miele. Event starts at 10am PT (19:00 CET). Hope you can tune in! Listen, view and read the full comic.
  • InBrief230413
    We published our comic, a queer comic conversation between Rae Lanzerotti and Illi A. Heger, access it audio only, as a visual comic or as a full screenreadable text transcript.
  • InBrief230404
    The audio-visual-text webcomic #SeeingInBetween is online. Choose your own adventure! Eavesdrop on two nonbinary queer people chatting about spaces inbetween and navigating #accessibility.Against dark space, bright pink planets follow blue orbits. Text in big bright letters reads: @raerotti @illiannaheger, Seeing InBetween, our comic is online now.
  • InBrief230323
    We won! First we drew, and then we talked. Then we drew and talked more, building our artistic collaboration to make an accessible comic! For low vision and blind readers, we designed our multimodal comic conversation, #SeeingInBetween.All audio in the comic will also be captioned as text and all visuals image described. Text on a multi pointed star announces: Accessible Comics Design Competition! Our two comic characters, Illi (Munich) and Rae(San Francisco), are drawn loosely, composed of squiggly black lines. We are moving toward each other and gesturing. Rae wears an eyepatch, and both Illi and Rae wear colorful headphones. We float against a bright yellow background above a blue arc of earth. Dots and lines emerge from the headphones to show our connection in space and time. A banner at the top includes portions of black line graphics from the competition announcement, with the following text: Program in Visual Impairments, Comic Studies, The Longmore Institute on Disability.
  • InBrief230127
    Comics on Colonialism Symposium in Münster: at 2pm I’m in a panel with Hannah Bremer and Christian Diaz Orejarena, German comic artists. At 5:30pm another panel discussion with dutch artists: Els Deckers, Dido Drachmann and Peter van Dongen. Register for zoom. Flyer for the Symposium: Comics, Popular Visual Culture, and Colonialism. Symposium Comics, Popular Visual Culture, and Colonialism. Black on white with circular lavendel coloured illustration. January 27, 2023 11.20-18.30, Uni Münster & on zoom, registration to attend on zoom wwu.de/ptts
  • InBrief220113
    A comic about fighting people and pigeons in cities. In German, we use the same word for pigeon and dove. I knew about the dove as a symbol for peace and related it to the pigeons I saw on the street. A screenreadable, text-only, version of the comic is available together with a static visual version.
  • InBrief211112
    Fresh of the press at Wallstein: “Child Emigration from Frankfurt am Main – Stories of rescue, loss and memory” with essays, documentation and almost 50 pages comic biographies. I wrote and drew one of the biographies and worked together with the team of Deutschen Exilarchiv 1933-1945, and used there research for the corresponding exhibition at Deutsches Nationalmuseum. The other Comics were created by Hamed Eshrat, Magdalena Kaszuba, Sascha Hommer, Birgit Weyhe and Ilki Kocer. The essays treat the history of Kindertransport out of Germany and the memorial called Waisen-Karussel. The book contains biographical info and objects from the live of the portrayed children. The book is in English and German. Part of the front cover of the book. Coal drawing of a steam propelled train is going through a snow covered countryside. Text: Kinderemigartion aus Frankfurt am Main Child Emigration from Frankfurt am Main WallsteinPhoto of part of a page from the book. White drawings on dark green background with magenta colored accents, black text in white speech bubbles is not legible.Photo of part of a page taken at an angle. A white sketch on maroon background shows panels of a comic that are numbered. Below text: English translation. Panel 1.1 Lili got accepted! She's going to Malmö! Panel 1.2 Malmö in January! Panel 1.3 Aren't you feeling well, Lili?... The text is cut off
  • InBrief211031
    submitted a minicomic to Oulu comics festival’s 5-day-comic-challenge: comic via Insta, it’s swipeable and screenreadable, please leave supportive comments if you like it. Hope you love peace pigeons as much as me… A wide strip excerpt from the comic, digitally drawn in black on white with some orange and indigo accents. Text at the top reads: »hostile architecture restricts public spaces to be used in only one way«. Left) The facade of an office building, anti-skateboard elements are fastened to the concrete benches in front. Overlayed a warning sign with a crossed out skateboard. Middle) A bench that as an armrest right across the middle. Overlayed a warning sign with an crossed out icon of a person lying down. Right) An inner city overpass with spikes installed underneath. A warning sign reads »no sleeping rough«.
  • InBrief210804
    “Queer Comic Conversations” nominated finalist in the category ✨Best Webcomic✨ for Ginco Award (German Independent Comic Award), Shortlist. Screenreadable comic episodes + interview with me and co-creator Sam Orchard at Webcomic Main Page. Collage of illustrations, Top: mascot of GINCO 2021, a drawn blue turtle and 'Shortlists of Nominees 2021 Now Online!' Bottom: drawn avatars of Illi Anna Heger (magenta) and Sam Orchard (green) at Munich Pride on Marienplatz and large 'Queer Comic Conversations - Nominee Best Webcomic'.
  • InBrief210712
    I am excited, that the xier pronouns I developed, are getting used more, and I am looking forward to any neo-pronoun widespread and recognized as singular they. Thanks to Goethe-Institut London and Oslo for quoting me, <3. My quote, white letters on green: 'I want a widespread gender neutral alternative to »sie« and »er«- beautiful or ugly, I don't care but something that fills the language gap and works within German grammar.' At the left bottom of the image a black and white self-portrait of Illi Anna Heger.
  • InBrief210511
    Minicomic 22 about the ocean, plankton and tiny pieces of trash: Plastic Plankton. The comic is fully transcribed into text, for screen-reader access. The comic is now available in English and German. Title panel of minicomic 22 called Plastic Plankton. Under water, the ocean is dark blue gleaming with yellow and magenta reflections. A seahorse tries to snatch a piece of plastic. Behind it, other pieces of plastic colorful and partly overgrown.
  • InBrief210418
    The English version of my comic on one aspect of Germany’s colonial involvement at the turn of last century, a text-only, screenreadable, version is included.
  • InBrief210326
    We launched our comic book, Queer Comic Conversations, at Goethe-Institut New Zealand in Wellington. I was there virtually on screen. Screenshot of a tweet by Sam Orchard, he writes: »Exciting, @IlliAnnaHeger look!«. Three of comics on a pile. The Cover is in magenta and green and shows our names, the German title »Queere Comic Konversation« and our Avatars.
  • InBrief210204
    Finished another translation of a minicomic to English, Minicomic 19e Quota of a hundred percent, explaining discrimination at the workplace as a game with levels to be reached. Digital comic, black simple line drawing: The five level pile up, one on top of the other like flying slices of cheese connected via tiny stairs, ladders and escalators. With an annoyed face a stick figure persons says: »… and at the top, there is a quota of a 100 percent: 100% white, hetero, cis, male, college educated, able-bodied… A single variation from this seems to be still acceptable. Otherwise, I would not have gotten this far.«
  • InBrief210116
    Another of the #ScreenreadableComics from my workshop: Messy Parent Gender Transition by Joris Bas Backer transcribed into pure text by the author.
  • InBrief201202
    Analytical article about my Comic-Zine on alternative genderneutral pronouns by Nichole Neuman. I do love the depth and breadth of her approach, behind paywall for scientific publication: Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, 56(3-4), 302-321, 2020. Combination of my illustration and text from the article: Illi Anna Heger's Grammatical Futurity by Nichole M. Neuman in Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, 56(3-4), 302-321, 2020. Under red handwritten letters: Article on Comic-Zine, the drawing of a hand retrieving a piece of paper from the back-pocket of their pants. Then the same hand with a piece of paper, the words sif and sier are crossed out, xier is circled. Behind the abstract and keywords of the paper are inserted, see link.
  • InBrief201106
    This months Queer Comic Conversations are sad and quiet, because of TDOR, trans day of remembrance, on November 20th. Sam Orchard and me participate at a quiet vigil in Munich, virtually in our cooperative comic for Goethe-Institut Neuseeland.Teaser for the november episode of Queer Comic Conversations: Sam and Illi sit sadly and quietly on a bench in the dark
  • InBrief201005
    comic documentation of a protest march against colonial street names in Munich: DECOLONIZE München, walking around side streets and listening to historical backgrounds not commonly know enough.www.annaheger.de/decolonize/Watercolor Sketch, one activist with a microphone, the ohter holds a poster saying in German: We are saying no.
  • InBrief200806
    The second episode of Queer Comic Conversations uploaded yesterday. It’s a cooperation comic between me, nonbinary in Germany, and a trans man from New Zealand. We take each other queer places in our communities and actually did draw into each others panels. The hardest part in working together was finding a time we would both be awake. Links to the episodes and to an interview we gave for the German comic festival, Comic Salon Erlangen, can be found at www.annaheger.de/qccComic image teaser for the August Episode 2/6, Sam and Anna sit in bar sipping drinks and discussing labels.
  • InBrief200802
    A reply to a tweet:

    +++loving reminder to put pronouns in your bio+++

    By doing that, you create a safer space for LGBTIQA+ people, cause you normalize the fact that I can’t guess your pronouns from your profile picture or your name.

    If it’s safe for you, put em out there!

    — Aaron’s words🌈 (they/them) (@AaronPhion) August 2, 2020

    I do agree with you a lot, but this also increases pressure to out one’s gender on social media, like misgender myself when I cannot be out and pressured to pick on when I am questioning.

    Even in pronouns workshops I took out the part where people say their pronouns, as those are not needed because once can adress others directly. Several nonbinary and trans spectrum people came after to thank me specifically for that.

    This was not about me doing me or you doing you, but how a general recommendation can end up being hurtful. Also, it was about creating space for others. I see how your recommendation can be a good thing and encouraged people to name their pronoun if they wanted to.

  • InBrief200801
    trans comic reading recommendation for “Gender Queer – A memoir” by Maia Kobabe, about growing up and coming out as nonbinary and asexual, sweet storytelling and theory, more comics on the trans spectrum at annaheger.de/transcomics-en/ Excerpt from the Comic: The head of the main characters with a cross section of the brain, around it words for hormones.
  • InBrief200712
    Queer Comic Conversation, in 3.5 hours, Markus Pfalzgraf interviews me and Sam Orchard on #CSEDigital via http://live.flyp.tv/stadt-erlangen/csedigital/Screenshot from the Panel discussion of all of the three people, text reflects what was said in the tweet.
  • InBrief200710
    Queer Comic Conversation Sam Orchard, Markus Pfalzgraf and me talk at #csedigital about the newly released Kiwi-German webseries and its creative process. Sunday, 12th, 10pm (CEST, central European summer time) on live.flyp.tv/stadt-erlangen/csedigital/.
  • InBrief200707
    A reply to two tweets:

    The German artist, Illi Anna Heger, has an interesting take on neutral pronouns for the German language.
    So, if you’re German, I’d recommend reading it!⬇️https://t.co/zD6xjTwoaq

    — Foeh 🖤 BLM (@Naudh1z) July 6, 2020

    interesting read! I’ve heard of people use these before and while I’m happy they found a solution for themselves, I can’t help but feel it may be more universally acceptable to avoid combining sie+er & make a new pronoun to have it avoid sounding more like one or the other… idk

    — Zeph 🐎 OnTheRun Comic (@zephuko) July 6, 2020

    Thanks for linking to my takes on gender neutral grammar. The project started with merging the existing pronouns, that is right. Then the focus shifted to getting it to work within existing grammatical structures in German.

    Changing the first letter to “x” was suggested by a reader and when I implemented it, the pronouns became something beyond a mix of the conventional binary pronouns.

    I find something easy, so with the word eindings I stuck the questions you ask to ascertain the grammatical cases, “wer”, “wessen”, “wem”, “wen”. So the new proun ended up having male word endings, really.

    The remaining part of the new pronouns, the root “xie” can actually be changed to anything one could want and then have the endings I created. Recommendations for different roots are very welcome and then tested for easy usage.

    I really do love the x at the beginning for its mathmatical variable meaning. But then at least two forms are needed anyways, one for everybody without gender marker and one specifically for nonbinary people with their gender marker.

    I am open to discussing xier pronouns and their usability, because I soon want to take time to issues version 4.0. with some changes and more grammatical background.

  • InBrief200501

    “Theory of the eggplant” is a comic on my nonbinary identity and how it intersects with orientation. Find the full comic at annaheger.de/minicomic03ecolor. I started including detailed scripts with my comics to make them accessible to screen readers, so my audience can access them with speech synthesizer or braille display. Do you make screen readable comics as well? I would like to hear about your experience with translating visual to text based content.

    Digital color drawing with text, 'My orientation has only one side and strip of paper, twisted and glued like a Möbius strip.
  • InBrief140918
    The printed second issues of Comic Zine „Ethical Sloth – Failing Foucault“ arrived. Image of the cover of the zine with its title. A big fully pink circle is printed in the middle and on top three sloth hanging on a line.
  • InBrief131219
    First printed issues of comic zine “Ethical Sloth – Hang with the gang” arrived. Image of the cover of the zine with its title. A big fully blue circle is printed in the middle and on top three sloth hanging on a line.