Sanchia Hamidjaja is a visual artist and illustrator based in Jakarta, Indonesia. She has a Bachelors Degree in Communication Design from Swinburne National Institute of Technology, Melbourne and has worked in advertising as a graphic designer and then later as an art director in a motion graphics studio. After 7 years in the advertising industry, Sanchia decided to focus as a visual artist / freelance illustrator. In 2011 Sanchia had her first solo exhibition The Yin & Yang Dogs at Inkubator Gallery. Since then her works have been exhibited in a number of art galleries, including many commissioned mural works in various hotels and restaurants. She currently lives in South Jakarta. You can see more of Sanchia's work here on her blog.

At Comic Art Workshop in Jogja, Sanchia will be working on a short graphic novel about motherhood in Indonesia in its various cultural and social conditions.

Max Loh is a Malaysian comic artist. He has been creating comics independently for over a decade, and his work has appeared in Liquid City Volume 3 (Image) and Driving Malaysia (Maple Comics). You can see more of Max's work on his blog and on his Tumblr.

In Jogjakarta, Max will be working on a project about food culture, its production practices and economics in Malaysia and South-East Asia.

Nicky Minus is a cartoonist from Sydney. Her work has appeared in The Lifted Brow, Overland and Resist. She has self-published a number of zines and comics and her work has appeared in exhibitions in Sydney, Melbourne and Belfast.

She will be working on a comic book based on her experience of being the focus of a media attack. See more on Nicky's Website.

Sam Wallman is a political cartoonist, comics journalist and editor based in Melbourne, Australia. He has drawn for the ABC, SBS, The Guardian and The Independent. His comic Winding Up the Window: The End of Australia's Auto Industry was last year nominated for a Walkley. He recently visited the United States to draw the Presidential Election campaign for Australian, Italian and American media outlets. He is an active trade unionist and regularly draws in support of workers and their organising.

In Jogja Sam will be developing his first long-form comic for print, which will focus on collectivism's multiple forms - most especially unionism. See more on Sam's Website.

Owen Heitmann is a South Australian comic creator and arts critic. His comics have been published in many anthologies and he has published dozens of mini-comics. As an arts critic, he has written about comics for The Australian, The Age, and The Sydney Morning Herald. Owen also helps organise Comics with Friends and Strangers, a monthly sketch club in Adelaide. You can see more of Owen's work on his website.

In Jogja, Owen will work on First Dates, Incorporated, a graphic novel for young adults that he has been developing with the aid of grants from Arts South Australia.

Eleri Mai Harris is a journalist, cartoonist, editor and graduate of The Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont. She is deputy editor of The Nib a political junkie and history nerd, her comics have appeared on Cuepoint and re:form at Medium.com, Symbolia, Narrative.ly and Seven Days. She currently lives in Canberra.

Eleri spent her time at the workshop developing a graphic novella from the true story of Tasmanian nurse, Sarah Bowles, whose mother Sue is serving 26 years in Risdon Women's prison for the murder of her partner Bob Chappell.

Chris Gooch is a Melbourne based artist and cartoonist. He has published several mini comics and a book of dark short stories called Very Quiet Very Still. His work is available to view on his tumblr

In Tasmania Chris worked on a mystery story which centres around stepfather who, while considered meek and pathetic by his wife and adult stepson, lives a series of separate and secret lives.

Sarah Firth is an inter-disciplinary artist and writer. She creates comics and illustrations, animations and films, along with experimental art and performance pieces. Her work explores the human condition, the everyday and the absurd. Firth also works as a freelance professional in communication arts, creating live graphic recordings. Sarah's Website

At our residency Sarah worked on her first graphic novel, a set of intersecting essays and vignettes that cover topics of being, living, learning and the absurd.

Thi Bui was born in Vietnam and immigrated to the U.S. as a child. She grew up listening to the Beatles and Paul Simon on vinyl records and cassette tapes and still remembers the feel of the carpet where she would kneel to make mix tapes. She studied art and legal studies and at one point wanted to be a civil rights lawyer, but got her head on straight and became a public school teacher instead. She lives in Berkeley, California with her son, her husband and her mother. Thi's website

During the residency Thi worked on the final draft of Her first graphic novel, The Best We Could Do, an immigration epic about her parents and Vietnam's tumultuous 20th century history, which will be released by Abrams in March 2017.

Joshua Santospirito is obsessed with anthropology, psychology and human relationships. He is also a multimedia artist and musician. His previous graphic novel The Long Weekend in Alice Springs turned out to be strangely popular, and he is hoping that his next one, Swallows, can ride on its coat-tails. Swallows is due out in September 2015. Josh's website

At the Comic Art Workshop Josh worked on Sydney/Purgatorio: a rambling non-fiction/fictional account of migration to the big smelly Aussie city Purgatory. It's an adaptation of an academic essay by Craig San Roque about the psychology of Sydney.

Mirranda Burton was born in Auckland, New Zealand, in 1973. Since graduating from Art School in South Australia in 1995 she has worked in independent and commercial animation, multimedia design, drawing and printmaking. More recently she has devoted herself to comics, drawing upon her own life experiences. Her comics have been published in Tango and Going down Swinging since 2006, and in 2010 she won the Scenario Prize for her comic strip P.S. at the Fumetto International Comix Festival in Lucerne, Switzerland. In 2011 her first graphic novel Hidden was published in English by Black Pepper and in French by La Boîte à Bulles. Mirranda's Website

At our residency Mirranda worked on a graphic novella which speculates upon real events that took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s when art, politics, the Vietnam War and a wombat collided in time to change the course of Australian politics and society.

Campbell Whyte was born in Perth in 1984. He works predominantly in comics and illustration using a mixture of traditional media such as inks and watercolour that are then combined with digital elements. Campbell completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts at Edith Cowan University. He has exhibited at Freerange gallery, Light Grey Art Lab in Minneapolis and has taken part in a wide range of group shows both nationally and internationally. Campbell has been awarded the DCA Young People and the Arts Fellowship, a DCA Development Grant and an Australia Council Jump Mentorship. Campbell's Website

In Tasmania Campbell worked on his graphic novel, Home Time, which will be published by Top Shelf in the U.S.

Georgina Chadderton is a small, reclusive creature that enjoys sunlight in small doses and pizza in large doses. She spends most of her time drawing autobio comics, watching sci-fi TV shows and drinking tea. She has been published in international comics anthologies and Australian literary magazines but loves self-publishing mini zines and making badges the most. She REALLY wants to talk to you about Star Trek. You can find her operating on most of the social medias (facebook, instagram, tumblr, etsy) under the pseudonym George Rex Comics.

While in Tasmania Georgina worked on Fibrous Union a true story about the time she was diagnosed, at the age of 16, with a rare kind of jaw cancer... and was mostly okay with it.

Leigh Rigozzi is a Sydney-based artist and illustrator. He has exhibited at various galleries around Australia and has self-published many comics and zines over the past decade. Leigh's Tumblr

In Tasmania Leigh developed an exhibition in November for Ex Libris Fisherarium, a book-themed curatorial project at Sydney University's Fisher Library. In April he curated an exhibition entitled ZEEN for this project. His show in November was a selection of his own work, exploring the intersections between zines, comics and the artist's book.

Originally from the Northeast of the United States, Fionn McCabe has a BFA in printmaking from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. He co-founded the Oh Nancy art collective in 2005, and is currently one of the three directors of the project. His work has appeared in galleries and publications internationally. Fionn now lives in Sydney with his wife, son, and dog, where he draws, writes, and finds creative ways to avoid going outside. More of Fionn's work can be found on his website

While in Tasmania Fionn worked on Back Already a comic story about tragic people, made more tragic by being true and more comic by the inclusion of comics.

Dr Elizabeth MacFarlane is the author of Reading Coetzee and a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Melbourne. She is the founder and coordinator of Graphic Narratives, Australia’s first university subject entirely devoted to comics and graphic novels, and co-director of graphic novels publishing company Twelve Panels Press.

Dr Pat Grant is a cartoonist, writer and educator. His first graphic novel Blue has won multiple awards, has been published in three languages, and was listed as one of the great graphic novels of 2012 by Salon. He teaches graphic storytelling at UTS in Sydney and has previously taught at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, The Sydney Opera House and the NSW Writer’s Centre

Tom Hart is a cartoonist and the Executive Director of The Sequential Artists Workshop, a school and arts organisation in Gainesville, Florida. He is the creator of the Hutch Owen series of graphic novels and has been nominated for numerous major industry awards. He has been called "One of the great underrated cartoonists of our time" by Eddie Campbell and "One of my favorite cartoonists of the decade" by Scott McCloud. Tom was a core instructor at New York City's School of Visual Arts for 10 years, teaching cartooning to undergraduates, working adults and teens alike. Among his students were Dash Shaw, Sarah Glidden, Box Brown and other published cartoonists like Leslie Stein, Jessica Fink, Josh Bayer, Brendan Leach and many others. He also teaches sequential art in the School of Art and Art History at the University of Florida.

Leela Corman is an illustrator, cartoonist, and Middle Eastern dancer. Her latest book, Unterzakhn, a graphic novel set in the tenements, brothels, and vaudeville houses of the Lower East Side at the turn of the last century, was published by Schocken/Pantheon in the spring of 2012. Unterzakhn has been translated into French, Spanish, Swedish, and Dutch and has been nominated for the L.A. Times Book Award, the Eisner Award, and Le Prix Artemisia in France. Leela's short comics have run in Tablet Magazine, Symbolia, and The OC Weekly. In 2014, her comic Yahrzeit won a silver medal from the Society Of Illustrators. She has illustrated books on topics that range from urban gardening to sex for the very busy to the history of the skirt, and has worked for a diverse array of editorial clients ranging from PBS and the New York Times to BUST Magazine and more. She studied painting, printmaking, and illustration at Massachusetts College of Art.

Alisha Jade hails from Brisbane, and enjoys warm blankets, rainy days and working herself mostly to death. She is currently on the home stretch of her main series Seven, co-editing a secret comic project (which she is also doing a comic for), writing another comic series and runs the information hub Women in Aus Comics. She loves minicomics and hopes to put several collections together soon. Alisha's website

At the Comic Art Workshop Alisha worked on a short poetry comic called Iphigenia and the Deer, based on the legend of the sacrifice of Iphegenia at the hands of Agamemnon.

Gregory Mackay is a graphic novelist and cartoonist. His works include the graphic novel Anders and the Comet and the Francis Bear comics which have been published by VICE. He works as an illustrator and writer, in Australia and abroad. Greg's tumblr.

While in Tasmania he worked on a new graphic novel written as a short story cycle.

Leonie Brialey is a writer, cartoonist and musician. She is interested in sincerity. Her comics are about small, private moments and thinking. She tries to draw with a minimal amount of lines in an attempt to hollow out her subjects and let them breathe. You can see some of her work here on her tumblr.

At our residency Leonie worked on a comic about thinking and the body and the relationship between the two. It's also about honesty and smoking and sexual fantasies (kind of). But mostly thinking, whatever that is.

Natalia lives in the Blue Mountains. She has been making comics and zines for a long time and her first book Nothing Ventured was published by Finlay Lloyd last year. She is also interested in street art and is currently working on a project with Street Art Murals Australia for the Katoomba Street Art Walk

At our residency Natalia worked on an autobiographical account of caring for and living with an alcoholic father.