Rod Driver stands in front of his show at Fantagraphics, in Seattle.

Rod Driver is a Seattle comics artist, an inspiring international community builder, and one of our very first Microgrant award winners last year. We checked in with him this month to hear more about how his international arts endeavors are going.

Jennie Shortridge: Congratulations on winning a Seattle City of Lit Microgrant award, Rod! Can you describe the project you applied for, and how you’re using your Microgrant?

Rod Driver: I’m supplementing an artist exchange I’m funding between Indonesian and American cartoonists. This year I invited Yudha Sandy and Danang Catur, two accomplished artists who organize the Yogyakarta Komik Weeks festival, to come as special guests of Short Run Comix Fest. I interviewed them at Short Run, they did live readings and music performance, and we did a workshop in partnership with Capitol Hill Tool library where we made wooden decorations for the Short Run venue. We also sent Danang and Sandy original art from the other Short Run guest artists, and they had a special Short Run gallery space at this year’s Yogyakarta Komik Weeks!

JS: Wow, what an opportunity for so many artists! How did you originally get involved with the Indonesian artists community?

RD: In 2019 I won a Watson Fellowship, an amazing opportunity for self-directed international study. My project was to study cartoonist communities. Some people in my network pointed me toward Australia and Germany as project countries.

Rod Driver interviews Yudha Sandy and Danang Catur at Short Run Comix Festival November 2025. — Rod Driver interviews Yudha Sandy and Danang Catur at Short Run Comix Festival, November 2025.

While I was doing recon into German comics, I stumbled upon the Goethe Institute website spotlighting Indonesian comics. The history and variety of work seemed really interesting, so I cold-emailed the project director, Dewi Noviami, and the rest was history.
I used the fellowship to travel to Indonesia. Dewi introduced me to Beng Rahadian, a graphic art professor who became a foundational source for me. It branched out from there, and I became invested in the research I was doing in Indonesia to the point that it became the sole subject of the graphic novel I was writing about cartoonist communities! That book became Komik-Komik Sama-Sama: Adventures in Indonesian Art and Liberation, which I finished in October 2024.

I was only able to complete half my research trip in Indonesia before the early days of Covid lockdown happened. So by 2024 I was like, OK, I’ve been holed up writing comics for four years, and I still have half of this huge grant. I’m gonna do something with that money that keeps the spirit of exchange going and gets me more involved in the communities that I’ve participated in and written about. I decided to share my good fortune with other cartoonists, so I started this project.

JS: That’s a generous and inspiring way to use your Microgrant, Rod. Tell us more about your time with Danang and Sandy at Short Run.

RD: Danang and Sandy are both incredible people-connectors, and I got to bask in that glow. I made a bunch of new friends in town because so many people came out of the woodwork to meet them. It’s hard to sum up their trip because there was just so much pleasure and fun. They played live at the Short Run opening party as their band Los Fungos, and Sandy made a tiny lyric zine that I passed out to the crowd to encourage them to try to sing along in Indonesian. I introduced them to Halloween and we carved jack-o-lanterns. They introduced me to an Indonesian ramen dish called Internet (‘Indomie’ instant noodles + telur (egg) + ‘Coronet’ canned corner beef) that we dressed up with wild local mushrooms gifted to us by a kindly restaurant owner we met at a dive bar. I loved seeing the books that they brought to distribute for their colleagues back in Yogyakarta. I was totally hyping up their table at the festival - who wouldn’t want some incredible, limited edition Indonesian comics?

One of my own acquisitions was They Murdered Munir!!, a graphic novel illustrated by artist/lecturer Terra Bajraghosa (with writer Eko Prasetyo) with a new English translation by art archivist and organizer Sukma Smita. An indictment of the human rights abuses of the Suharto dictatorship, it was written contemporaneously but held on ice until its publication several years after the end of the regime. Munir also tied into conversations I was having with Sandy and Danang about current events in Indonesia and the US. It’s such a potent and fascinating document that I’d wanted to get my hands on for a long time, especially since Terra and Sukma are both friends of mine who were totally foundational to my own book.

Danang and Sandy have also expressed a strong desire for more Short Run artists to come present at Komik Weeks, so next year I’m hoping to visit their festival, Yogyakarta Komik Weeks, and bring two other local Northwest cartoonists.

I definitely recommend finding Danang and Sandy on social media - @caturdanang, @yudhasandyyy, and @mulyakarya_yk (their art organizing collective). Sandy in particular posted tons of cool videos documenting their visit.

Rod and Danang pose with artwork they made for the Short Run festival.

JS: You’ve created such rich and meaningful connections with this project, Rod. So, what brought you to this art form? What made you want to create comics?

RD: I’ve always drawn, and I’ve always read comics. My most formative comic book was Larry Gonick’s Cartoon History of the Universe, which I read when I was about nine. That’s what made me want to do nonfiction comics.

JS: And what are your personal goals for the work you create?

RD: For a long time, my main goal was to inspire people to dive into new subjects and convey a sense of wonder. I think I’m generally good at that - Komik-Komik Sama-Sama is the most recent example - but my new goal is to write more personally and vulnerably. The closest I’ve gotten so far is my latest self-deprecating diary gag comics Chicago Diary and Tiny Crap Drawer.

JS: As we near the end of the year, tell us what’s coming up for you in 2026.

RD: I’m looking forward to continuing the artist exchange and hopefully getting a couple of colleagues together for an Indonesia trip next year. You can check out @yarndollcomics for updates and new comics.

JS: Thanks so much, Rod, for all you do. We wish you continued success and connection in the new year!

Learn more about Rod’s work at his website.