ABOUT OUR TEAM
Dan Mazur
Co-Director
Jordan Stillman
Co-Director
Tak Toyoshima
Art Director
Dan is a cartoonist and comics historian who grew up here in Cambridge. He spent some time working as a screenwriter before returning to his first obsession, comics. He is co-founder of the Boston Comics Roundtable and of MICE. His last two graphic novels are "Lunatic" and "Hannabell Hobb and Her Horrible Heads," and he is co-author of the book "Comics: A Global History, 1969 to the present."
In addition to helping run MICE, Jordan Stillman is a Boston-based writer, editor, producer, and voice actor. She's a producer of The Ordinary Epic, The Wanderer, and The Land Whale Murders podcasts, and a writer/project manager for Greater Boston. Jordan has lent her voice to the The Land Whale Murders (The Author), Space Ranger 421 (Raven), and Take the Mass Pike (Rose). Learn more at https://linktr.ee/alittlejstillz.
Tak Toyoshima is the creator/illustrator of Secret Asian Man comics, the first nationally syndicated comic strip featuring an Asian American lead character. Tak has also been featured in many collaborative publications such as Artists Against Police Brutality (Rosarium), Secret Identities (The New Press), New Frontiers: The Many Worlds of George Takei (SI Universe Media), Gwan (Forward Comix), Enough About Me by Richard Lui (Zondervan Books), RISE (Mariner), and many more.
Barbara Ayala Rugg Diehl
Campaign Marketing Coordinator
Harri Chan
Social Media Coordinator
Olivia Li
Volunteer Coordinator
Barbara Ayala Rugg Diehl, originally from Nevada, is a mixed media artist, SAG background actor, and environmental educator based in Waltham MA. Ayala received their BA in Theater and English (with a minor in Medieval and Renaissance Studies), and MA in Sustainable International Development from Brandeis University. Her awards include the Speculative Literature Foundation 2021 Illustration of the Year and GreenPoint Earth 2020 Screens Award.
Harri is a freelance writer, video game lover, and amateur artist. Harri’s work has appeared in TechRadar, Polygon, PomeMag and more. They graduated from Emerson College with a BFA in Creative Writing. You can follow them on Twitter @heyriette.
Olivia Li is a cartoonist, design/creative services freelancer, and organizer living in Queens, NY. She gets really hyped up about art community resources, and contributes to that with event organizing! She has been on the MICE staff as Volunteer Coordinator since 2022, and dreams of one day building a similar show in New York City (because MICE is the best and she’s jealous). Olivia is currently working on [redacted comic project]!
Ed Shems
Special Guest Coordinator
Paul Hanna
Guest Coordinator
Adrian Alvarez
Programming & Design Coordinator
Ed Shems is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and has been illustrating and graphic designing for more than 25 years. Ed works in the education market as well as for middle grade books and early readers. He also writes, storyboards, and designs animated shorts for large and small companies. Ed’s current obsession is with writing and illustrating chapter books, graphic novels and comics. Ed is a member of the Illustration Advisory Council for the Rhode Island School of Design and a long-time member/volunteer of the Graphic Artists Guild.
Paul Hanna is a Guest Coordinator MICE. He has written about comics for The Harvard Review and is a cartoonist who enjoys spending time drawing with his kids. He is also a librarian based in the Boston area.
Adrian Alvarez is comics. He writes, draws, teaches, publishes, and helps to program conventions about them. When not working on his long-running, anti-capitalist series, "Chough'd!", he is working to create more opportunities for unpublished comic artists to be seen. If we can give voice to more creators, we all rise up together. His greatest love: Cartoons. His greatest nemesis: Hostile design.
Sadie Saunders
Programming & Fundraising Intern
Saoirse Killion
Programming Intern
Ariel Kohane
Special Guest Intern
Hello! I'm Sadie Saunders, and I'm a designer and cartoonist currently in BU's Visual Narrative MFA. I'm a Boston native and currently working on an auto-bio comic about my many years working as a barista. This is my first time helping out with MICE and it will be my second year selling my work along with my fellow BU colleagues!
Saoirse Killion is a BU undergrad student pursuing a Dual Degree in Painting and Comparative Literature. When she's not in the studio or reading Victorian novels, she plays guitar and sings in a jazz band.
Ariel is a half-Chinese Jewish cartoonist, filmmaker, and rubber duck enthusiast from Boston. She's currently an MFA candidate in Boston University's Visual Narrative program ('24). When she's not stressing over deadlines, she's usually watching cartoons, playing videogames, or stressing over something else.
Izzy Rousseau
Intern
Shelli Paroline
Executive Director,
Boston Comic Arts Foundation
Dirk Tiede
Workshop Coordinator
Izzy is a cartoonist pursuing her Masters in Visual Narrative at Boston University. Her goal is to feature neurodivergent women as the main characters in her comics to break stigmas surrounding the stereotypes of how society perceives people like her.
Shelli Paroline and her husband Braden Lamb form an Eisner Award-winning art team, collaborating the Adventure Time comics, Midas, and Making Scents. Shelli co-founded the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo and now serves as the Executive Director of the Boston Comic Arts Foundation non-profit organization. She lives and works in Salem, MA.
Dirk I. Tiede is a comic creator, illustrator and animator, best known for his independent comic series, Paradigm Shift. He works as a professional artist, animator and teacher in Beverly, MA.
Dajia Zhou
Intern
Dajia Zhou is an illustrator, storyteller, and daydreamer based in Boston, MA. She loves futuristic, conceptual, and playful illustrations and graphic narratives related to empathy. Her works are inspired by a variety of topics including daily life, current events, gossip, mass media, and so on. She loves to use her imagination and cartoon her ideas in silly and humorous ways.