Jamilah Ganyuma — “Steenz”

Cartoonist Profile

Steenz Stewart. “Steenz.” Odam Lviran, 2023, https://www.oheysteenz.com/contact. 17 Sept. 2023.

Early Life and Career

Steenz Stewart (they/them) is a St. Louis-based cartoonist, professor, and editor. They were born in Detroit, Michigan but moved to St. Louis when they were around 10, where they attended Parkway North High School. Growing up, they read daily comic strips like Cathy and Calvin and Hobbes in the newspaper (Cavna). They also loved superhero comics, standalone graphic novels, and mangas (Cherry). They attended college for three years studying illustration. Comics was never a potential prospect for Steenz (Dueben). They found comics working as the manager of a comic book store, Star Clipper (Rieck and Thomas). Star Clipper is where they began to realize that black people, more specifically black women, had a space in the comic world (“Young Local Cartoonist “Steenz” | Living St. Louis”, 01:00 – 01:30). They also worked at a library for some time after Star Clipper. At both these jobs, they published indie comics and began to create a name for themselves in the comic community. This was further cemented when they started at Lion Forge Comics. First, they were social media and community managers but became an associate editor in 2018 (Steenz, 2023). They edited the monthly RPG magazine, Rolled and Told (Babb). Further, the community they found in the comic world also gave them recognition and connections that they attribute to where they are today (Dueben). Working as an editor gave them knowledge of the comic industry. All of this culminated in the success they experience today. Currently, they are the cartoonist for the syndicated newspaper strip Heart in the City, an adjunct professor at Webster University, and a freelance editor.

While working at the library, they met Ivy Noelle Weir. They created a WebToon with them that eventually was published in 2018: Archival Quality. They credit that as the door to the comic world (Rieck and Thomas). Archival Quality follows Cel, a librarian who begins a new job as an archivist at a museum after having a mental breakdown. She only works in the middle of the night and quickly releases some strange things occurring in the museum. Archival Quality went on to win the 2018 Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in comics (“About”). Another one of their fictional works, an anthology they participated in called Dead Beats won the 2019 Ringo Award for Best Anthology (“About”). Steenz has also created comics revolving around pressing social issues. Collaborating with Aaron Cantu, their comic When Innocent Until Proven Guilty Costs $400 a Month—and Your Freedom won the 2021 Media for a Just Society Award (“About”). They were published in the anthology Mine!: A Celebration of Liberty and Freedom for All Benefiting Planned Parenthood which won the 2018 Ringo Award for Best Anthology (“About”). Steenz has written a slew of independently published comics centered around voting rights, comics in libraries, and prominent historical figures. They are currently working on a graphic novel, Side Quest, with Sam Sattin (Dueben). It is a graphic novel detailing the history of tabletop RPGs. 

Heart of the City: Steenz’ Syndication

Steenz became the third Black femme to become a nationally syndicated cartoonist and the second non-binary black person when they took over Heart in the City (Rueda). Mark Tatulli, the original creator of the comic, retired and sold the strip to Andrew McMeel. Editor Shena Wolf approached Steenz to take over the comic. After four weeks of auditions, Steenz was picked to draw for the strip (VanHooker). The comic runs in 50 newspapers and websites across the United States, Canada, and numerous other countries (Milligan). Notably, it replaced the long-running satire comic Dilbert in the Washington Post. Dilbert was dropped from newspapers across the country after the creator went on a racist tirade against Black people (Turner). Steenz was welcomed by the small community of Black comic writers. They received support emails from Ray Billingsley and Robb Armstrong (VanHooker). 

Heart of the City: Overview

The comic followed Heart, a young girl living in New York with a flair for the dramatics. In Steenz’s rendition, they aged Heart to middle school and introduced a slather of new, diverse characters but continued to stay true to some of the main themes of the Tatulli introduced (Pfau) (Babb). Steenz published Heart Takes the Stage in 2022 which follows Heart and her friends on navigating middle school. In that novel, Steenz introduces their first new character, Charlotte, a black girl who quickly becomes Heart’s best friend. They took inspiration from novels they read as a child, such as Goosebumps, Baby-Sitters Club, Fear Street and the comics they read, like Zips and Jumpstart when writing Heart in the City. When reading them, they felt like “there was always something more for you to go back to,” and wanted readers to feel the same about Heart in the City (Jones). Steenz takes special care to make Heart of the City relatable to an eleven-year-old, but still enjoyable for all ages (Dueben). They also moved away from Tatulli’s gag strips and focused on making it a story. They want readers to be able to grow with Heart and view them as actual characters (Dueben).

Heart of the City: Comic Strip Profile

Steenz. Heart of the City. September 5, 2013. https://www.gocomics.com/heartofthecity/2023/09/05

Heart, the girl in the purple dress, is known for her love of drama, which can be assumed through her wanting to go through the VIP entrance while everyone else waits in line. However, Heart is not the main focus on the comic strips, only really being centered in the third panel. The other panels feature her diverse set of friends. One thing Steenz emphasizes in her lessons is visibility–specifically wanting to show others like them they too exist in media and in comic spaces (Rieck and Thomas) (Rueda). This goal shines through in the first panel, where every character is drawn with a different skin tone and hair style. Further, Steenz also portrays a Black hijabi, Lee, who has two lines of dialogue and is the center for the second and third panel. 

Mr. Slice, Kruttika Susarla

Later Career

One of Steenz’s main values in their work is inclusion and representation. Outside of Heart of the City, they make an effort to accomplish this through their other projects. They teach cartooning at Webster University. Their course, a precursor for the comic book-making class, not only teaches their students about the fundamentals of cartooning but also the logistical stuff of their future careers. This includes copyright law and how to file their own taxes (Cherry). Further, alongside Camilla Zhang, they created a Standard Comic Script (SCS) which is available for free on their website. The SCS is a template that aims to standardize the comic-making process. While doing freelance editing jobs, Steenz realized every script they read was different. This, alongside the goal of legitimizing the industry through standardization, birthed the SCS (Knight). Both Steenz and Zhang want to “demystify the comics industry, make life easier for professionals, and open doors for new creators” (Steenz and Zhang). Steenz further helps new creators through the St. Louis Independent Comics Expo (SLICE) as president of the expo. Slice is a revamp of a previous convention that was forced into hiatus by the Pandemic. While both conventions highlight independent artists and small press, SLICE focuses on comics (Green). SLICE is free to the public and “provides resources to authors and creators in the form of training, networking opportunities, and through the annual indie-print showcase that is our namesake (“About | SLICE”).” Slice hosts events throughout the year.

 

Wikidata Profile

First Wikidata link

Second Wikidata Link

Steenz has two wikidata profiles, both with little information. The first wikidata profile only has 5 pieces of information of them and labels them as an American Cartoonist. For their occupation, it says they are a comics artist, cartoonist, and writer. For sex and gender, it says female even though Steenz identifies as non-binary.

The second wikidata profile is more detailed. They are labeled as an author on this one. It lists their full name, Christina Stewart, along with their pen name Steenz. The sex and gender still says female. Their race is African-American and the country of citizenship is the United States. However, this page says nothing about their occupation. In all, both the wikidata pages tell nothing of who Steenz is outside of the most basic generalities which can be found on an ID. Even then, it is not entirely accurate in regards to gender.

 

 

TimelineJS: Steenz

 

 

When I first started this timeline, I was worried there would not be much to put on the timeline since Steenz is very young and only became syndicated three years ago. I first began by creating a rough draft of my timeline. Most of it was filler, trivial facts such as when they moved to St. Louis. Another problem I ran into was finding exact dates for some of Steenz’s accomplishments and milestones. This was especially a problem when I was trying to lay out their career progression. While there are plenty of interviews with Steenz detailing their come-up, they never mention exact dates or years. One of the advantages of Steenz being so young, though, is that they had an updated LinkedIn which is what I used to get their past official job titles and years. That gave me a good basis to start with. After that, I began to recall some of the events Steenz brought up during their presentation and did more research from there. Even then, it was still hard to find information because a lot of it was behind a paywall. They also do not have already written biographies on them like some of the older comics, so a lot of my gathering information is piecing together parts from interviews. The problem with this is that I’ll read one thing and forget to cite exactly what interview that was from and it will get convoluted. 

I struggled with figuring out how much detail I should include in each description. For a timeline, I felt like the descriptions should be small since it’s supposed to be a quick, concise preview of Steenz’s life. My comic analysis description was a lot longer than I wanted my descriptions to be, but that one had to be longer since I was doing an analysis. Another thing I experimented with was changing the layout and view of the timeline. When I tried to put in a new font, it would not update in the preview timeline. Creating the reference slide was bothersome because I gathered a lot of the information from my biography I had already written on the website. I had to go back and find what source was exactly from there, then format it so it would fit well on the website. I also had to figure out exactly how to get it to show up on the timeline because I did not include a date at first. I ended up putting the date that I created the reference list so it could indicate around what time the timeline was made. The one problem I still haven’t solved is how to separate each citation by line. Right now, it is all grouped in one big paragraph. Further, all the italicized words have an asterisk framing it even though I deleted them and italicized them on the spreadsheet.

Overall, I really enjoyed this project. It was a lot easier than the first one because I had more control over the data I was inputting. The spreadsheet template was efficient and made the process a lot easier. The timeline itself is an important part of my webpage because it shows that even though Steenz is young, they’ve already accomplished so much. It is an easy way to quickly absorb information about them. The only thing I may tweak a bit more is the way it appears on my webpage–to make it look more uniform. Otherwise, I think it came out well.

Conclusion

Though very young in their career, Steenz already has a handful of accomplishments under their belt. They are making waves in a white male-dominated industry as the third black femme nationally syndicated cartoonist. They accomplished this only at 30 and two years after publishing their first novel. Outside of Heart of the City, they have numerous awards for their work such as the Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity. They write diverse comics because of how important representation is to them. Even with their packed schedule, they still make sure to give back to the community that has uplifted them. Comics made them realize “how much [they] really enjoy helping people and getting their stories out and making things easy and simple and giving the information away. (Cherry)” This is shown through the numerous projects they have undertaken. They are the President of SLICE. Slice is an expo they relaunched which aims at supporting upcoming artists through exposure and education. They have also created the Standard Comic Script, an outline for new comics to use when pitching their idea to publishers. At Webster University, they teach cartooning to a new generation of comics, being sure to include all the logistical aspects of cartooning. Furthermore, they continue to do freelance editing and have services available for anyone to buy. They do library and class visits as well. Steenz has many new projects to come, including more collections of Heart of the City and a graphic novel detailing the history of graphic novels. 

Student Profile

This exhibit was created by Jamilah Ganyuma. She is an undergraduate student at the University of Richmond double majoring in PPEL and WGSS. She enjoys pop culture and politics. You can find her stargazing outside with her cats.

Works Cited

“About.” Steenz, https://www.oheysteenz.com/about. Accessed 17 September 2023.

“About | SLICE.” St. Louis Independent Comics Expo, 2023, https://www.slicexpo.org/about/. Accessed 5 November 2023.

Babb, Tiffany. “”It’s a very particular process”: Cartoonist Steenz Stewart chats newspaper comics, the Standard Comics Script, and Oni Press.” Popverse, 13 September 2022, https://www.thepopverse.com/steenz-stewart-interview-heart-of-the-city-standard-comics-script-cartooning. Accessed 17 September 2023.

Cavna, Michael. “Newspaper comics hardly ever feature Black women as artists. Two new voices have arrived.” The Philadelphia Tribune, 4 April 2021, https://www.phillytrib.com/news/across_america/newspaper-comics-hardly-ever-feature-black-women-as-artists-two-new-voices-have-arrived/article_b7c0b2d5-fef3-540b-ae39-4d757f3de519.html. Accessed 10 November 2023.

Cherry, Maurice. “Steenz.” Revision Path, 19 April 2021, https://revisionpath.com/steenz/. Accessed 5 November 2023.

Dueben, Alex. “Smash Pages Q&A: Steenz.” Smash Pages, 28 July 2020, https://smashpages.net/2020/07/28/smash-pages-qa-steenz/. Accessed 29 October 2023.

Dueben, Alex. “Standard Comic Script.” Steenz, 28 July 2020, https://www.oheysteenz.com/scs-template. Accessed 23 September 2023.

Green, Jason. “SLICE (St. Louis Independent Comics Expo) brings together over 100 of the region’s finest artists | 10.14.23, The Sheldon.” The Arts STL, 12 October 2023, http://theartsstl.com/slice-st-louis-independent-comics-expo-brings-together-over-100-of-the-regions-finest-artists-10-14-23-the-sheldon/. Accessed 5 November 2023.

Jones, Jenna. “St. Louisan Steenz Stewart Takes Center Stage With New Book in May.” Riverfront Times, 21 April 2022, https://www.riverfronttimes.com/arts/st-louisan-steenz-stewart-takes-center-stage-with-new-book-in-may-37543407. Accessed 9 December 2023.

Knight, Rosie. “Introducing the Standard Comic Script – WWAC.” Women Write About Comics, 10 May 2022, https://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2022/05/may-10th-930amest-introducing-the-comics-standard-script/. Accessed 23 September 2023.

Milligan, Mercedes. “’Heart of the City’ Comic Gets Animated with Slap Happy & Andrews McMeel.” Animation Magazine, 18 July 2022, https://www.animationmagazine.net/2022/07/heart-of-the-city-comic-gets-animated-with-slap-happy-andrews-mcmeel/. Accessed 5 November 2023.

Pfau, Nola. “ECCC 2023: An Interview With Steenz About That Washington Post Gig – WWAC.” Women Write About Comics, 6 March 2023, https://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2023/03/eccc-2023-an-interview-with-steenz-about-that-washington-post-gig/. Accessed 17 September 2023.

Rieck, Dana, and Michael Thomas. “Drawing Outside the Lines.” STLMade, https://thestl.com/culture/drawing-outside-the-lines/. Accessed 17 September 2023.

Rogen, Jessica. “St. Louis Small Press Expo Makes a Triumphant Return as SLICE.” Riverfront Times, 6 April 2023, https://www.riverfronttimes.com/arts/st-louis-small-press-expo-makes-a-triumphant-return-as-slice-39803428. Accessed 5 November 2023.

Rueda, Edward A. ““It’s all about visibility”: How Bianca Xunise and Steenz make their mark on the comics page.” NBCU Academy, 24 September 2021, https://nbcuacademy.com/cartoonist-bianca-xunise-steenz-comic-strip-artists/. Accessed 17 September 2023.

Steenz. “Heart of the City by Steenz for September 05, 2023.” GoComics, 5 September 2023, https://www.gocomics.com/heartofthecity/2023/09/05. Accessed 17 September 2023.

Steenz Stewart. (n.d.). Home [LinkedIn page]. LinkedIn. Accessed 14 November 2023.

Steenz, and Camilla Zhang. “Standard Comic Script.” Steenz, 2023, https://www.oheysteenz.com/scs-template. Accessed 23 September 2023.

Turner, Lacey G Souldier. “#HERStoryMatters: Steenz Stewart Takes over the Reign in the Comic World with ‘Heart Of The City.’” St. Louis Argus, https://stlargusnews.com/herstorymatters-steenz-stewart-takes-over-the-reign-in-the-comic-world-with-heart-of-the-city/. Accessed 5 November 2023.

VanHooker, Brian. “Meet the Newspaper Cartoonists Replacing Scott Adams and ‘Dilbert.’” Cracked.com, 17 August 2023, https://www.cracked.com/article_39107_meet-the-newspaper-cartoonists-replacing-scott-adams-and-dilbert.html. Accessed 10 November 2023.

“Young Local Cartoonist “Steenz” | Living St. Louis.” Youtube, uploaded by Nine PBS. 12 January 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMc6ZfEw3jQ.