Small Press ExpoMedia Release -- We are pleased to announce that the cartoonist studio Pizza Island—composed of Kate Beaton, Sarah Glidden, Lisa Hanawalt, Domitille Collardey, Julia Wertz, and Meredith Gran—will be guests for SPX 2011!

Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant is one of the most popular web comics, receiving over 500,000 unique hits a month. This fall it will be celebrated in a collection published by Drawn and Quarterly. Visit her site at http://www.harkavagrant.com.

Sarah Glidden is the creator of the well-reviewed How To Understand Israel In 60 Days Or Less, published by Vertigo Books. She is now working as a citizen journalist touring Syria for the Common Language Project to study the Iraqi refugee problem, posting her cartoon commentaries from this trip at http://www.cartoonmovement.com/comic/10. Visit her web site at http://www.smallnoises.com.

Lisa Hanawalt is a cartoonist and illustrator whose work was published in The New York Times, Vice Magazine, McSweeneys, The Believer and Glamour. In 2009, her mini-comic Stay Away From Other People won an Ignatz Award, and she followed that up in 2010 with I Want You #1 winning the Ignatz Award for Outstanding Comic. Her web site is http://lisahanawalt.com.

Julia Wertz has had two volumes of her popular web comic series Fart Party published by Atomic Books. Her latest book is Drinking at the Movies from Three Rivers Press, which details her migration from San Francisco to New York City. Julia's web site is http://www.juliawertz.com.

Meredith Gran is the author of Octopus Pie: There Are No Stars In Brooklyn, which was published by Villard Books, a Random House subsidiary. A compilation of her web comic, you can see new episodes regularly at http://www.octopuspie.com.

Domitille Collardey is a cartoonist and illustrator, having worked for a number of French magazines as well as McSweeneys. She is currently working on another comic book for Editions Delcourt.