Ashanti Fortson is an award-winning cartoonist, illustrator, comics editor, and embroiderer with a deep interest in difficult emotions, quiet moments, and the rifts and connections between human beings. Their work explores transience and reflection through a tenderhearted lens, and their love for color is a thread that runs through everything they make. A good comic essay will always brighten their day. Ashanti lives in Baltimore with their spouse, their cat Miss Cheese, and at least three pet rats at all times. They're the spider-saving sort.
Ashanti's short comic Leaf Lace won the 2021 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Comic, and was nominated in the categories of Outstanding Artist and Outstanding Online Comic. Ashanti also won a Prism Award as part of the Heartwood: Non-binary Tales of Sylvan Fantasy anthology. Their work has also been featured in Mañana: Latinx Comics From the 25th Century (Power & Magic Press), Wonderful Women of History (DC Comics), Bitch Magazine, and many other publications.
Ashanti has done freelance comics editing work for individual clients and independent publications. They worked as a graduate thesis advisor for Lillie J. Harris’ thesis comic, Wilderness, through the Center for Cartoon Studies in 2020-2021, and as an Assistant Editor on TO Comix’ Wayward Kindred anthology in 2019. Alongside Allison O’Toole, Ashanti co-edited the 2023 Ignatz Award-winning horror comics anthology Shades of Fear.
Ashanti is working on a variety of projects, including their solo graphic novel, Cress & Petra, from HarperCollins (2025).
Available for small-scale illustration freelance.
Contact me at ashantifortson@gmail.com.
Please direct publishing inquiries to my agent, Susan Graham, at sgraham@einsteinliterary.com. I am not interested in illustrating graphic novels, but I am available to write them.
Selected Interviews:
- Life & Work with Ashanti Fortson (interview with VoyageBaltimore magazine, 2022)
- The Textile of Grief: An Interview With Ashanti Fortson, Creator of “Leaf Lace” (interview by Brahidaliz Martinez for The Geekiary, 2021)
- Between The Panels (interview by Kevin Sharp, 2020)
- Disability Visibility Episode 59: Comics (podcast interview by Alice Wong, 2019) – transcript
- “Spotlight on Ashanti Fortson, Cartoonist” in Experiencing Comics: An Introduction to Reading, Discussing, and Creating Comics (interview by Rachelle Cruz, published by Cognella Academic Publishing, 2018).
Press:
- Creator Spotlight: Ashanti Fortson
- SHUT IN THEATER: 9 comics for your first itch.io binge
- Spacetime Heals All Wounds: A review of Ashanti Fortson’s smallness
- SPX Preview: ‘smallness’ Tells a Big Story About Being Human
- Wow! Webcomics! Review: Galanthus by Ashanti Fortson
- You Should be Reading: Ashanti Fortson's GALANTHUS
- Eight Comics To Help Cure Your STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI Hangover
- ComicsAlliance Weekender
Workshops & Panels:
- Envisioning Energy with Ashanti Fortson (with the Sequential Artists Workshop, 2022)
- Capturing Comfort with Ashanti Fortson (with The Believer, 2020)
- “Building Collaborative Spaces: Learning from Crip Communities,” (virtual panel discussion with The University of Florida English Department, 2020)
- “Making Art & Chronic Illness,” (virtual panel discussion for the Wayward Retreat, 2020)
- “Color and Sequential Storytelling,” (virtual workshop for the MICA Illustration Practice MFA program, 2020)
- Comics Visual Literacy (panel discussion at MICE Expo in Boston, MA, 2019)