An eye-catching feature of the CHS booth at the SCS book fair was a display of artist Glynnis Fawkes’ Classics-themed comic books. Throughout her career, Glynnis has woven together traditional art school training, an academic background in the Classics, and a love of cartooning that was as much inspired by Greek vase painting as by the New Yorker.
After an undergraduate degree from the University of Oregon, where she wrote an honors thesis on Satyrs and Meanads in Red Figure Vases, Glynnis earned her BFA in painting from the Pacific NW College of Art and an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University. The following years found Glynnis working at archaeological digs in Europe and the Middle East, painting sites and illustrating objects. A Fulbright scholarship took her to Cyprus, where her site paintings were published as the book Archaeology Lives in Cyprus. At the same time, she also published Cartoons of Cyprus, a little book she describes as “70 or so obscure jokes about Cypriot archaeology.” It was the beginning of her signature combination of Classical themes and stories told through her richly colored, meticulously drawn, and always amusing comics.
Of her work Glynnis says, “There is so much humor in the ancient world! From early Bronze Age Cypriot pottery to Hermes’ sneeze to everything by Ovid! It’s my goal to bring out the humor in the material I work with, and people seem to enjoy that.” And, of the fellow Classicists who make up a large part of her audience, she says, “Classicists in general may have a particular understanding and appreciation of the depth of human stories– which may lead directly to a sense of humor–but it must be a matter of character as well. You have to have SOME sense of humor to work with these ‘dusty old’ classics!”
See more of Glynnis’ work here: https://glynnisfawkes.com/