The Minnesota cartoonists have launched an initiative to publicise and expose ICE abuses and called on other artists to share what they are seeing in their own communities.
American cartoonist K. Woodman-Maynard came up with the idea after publishing a piece in The Washington Post about her experience living in Minneapolis with the increase of ICE agents in her city. After the positive response to the article in the paper and the deteriorating conditions in her city, she felt the need to do something more.
Woodman describes how the idea came about in his blog:
A journalist friend of mine from a national publication asked me if I would be interested in writing an opinion piece about my experience on the ground in Minneapolis. Not being a particularly political person, especially on the internet, I was hesitant at first. I also wasn't sure I had enough to say about what was going on, as I spend a lot of time at home in my studio.
But this was an opportunity to reach a lot of people. And what is happening with ICE doesn't seem to me to be a political issue, but a human rights issue. I think everyone should be held accountable for their actions.
I thought about it carefully and decided I had an opinion worth sharing. I proposed two ideas for editorial comics: one about a Hispanic man who was shoveling snow three blocks from my house and was approached by two ICE agents and taken away in a car. And the other was a comic about my mixed feelings about Minneapolis, both good and bad. They preferred the second one, but in the end they turned it down because they weren't technically ready to publish comics. In the end, I pitched it to the Washington Post, who bought it on Saturday morning. I worked intensively on it all weekend and it was published on Monday:
From there, and following the positive reception of the work, the mobilisation began to take shape. After brainstorming with other Minnesota cartoonists such as Jason Walz and Trung Le Nguyen, along with Nate Powell, author of the graphic novel about civil rights icon John Lewis, March, the hashtag #iceoutcomics was born, a grassroots initiative to "invite cartoonists and artists to create four-draw comics about the personal impact ICE is having on their lives".
You can find lots of comics on different websites, press articles, on Bluesky and other networks by searching for the hashtag #iceoutcomics and its variants such as #iceoutcomics - #iceout - #iceoutmpls.
Jim Keefe, Minneapolis, Minnesota - Facebook
Blue Delliquanti, Minneapolis MN - Bluesky - Web
Christine Lynn Chen, Minnesota - Web
