An apologetic Vancouver Comic Arts Festival (VanCAF) is “in a state of change” following a controversial ban of local cartoonist Miriam Libicki. Late Sunday night (June 2) the festival had issued a formal apology for a series of events that have drawn international attention and consternation within the comics community.
In a lengthy public statement posted on the VanCAF website and social media:
“VanCAF wishes to express deep and sincere apologies for the impact our previous statement has caused. First and foremost, the individual directly affected by our first post.
“The decision was ultimately wrong headed and moved too quickly and without adequate consultation. We also wish to apologise to the wider impacted community. VanCAF has lost and continues to lose the trust of those we have sought to serve.”
Adding that:
“We moved too quickly on our initial statement as we feared condemnation from our peers in the comics and activist communities. Regardless, this is what our previous statement has resulted in. There is no length of apology that can fully absolve that oversight.
“Conflating the political with the practical safety of those attending our festival was the wrong stance to take.”
With one of its closing statements saying:
“VanCAF is in a state of change and, moving forward, will not be the same organization. We will continue to do our best to ensure the safety of every person who attends, volunteers at, or exhibits at future VanCAFs….We hope that by the end of summer, there is a whole new team working together and improving this important festival.”
The subject of the ban was local American-Israeli cartoonist, illustrator and instructor Miriam Libicki. Her most recent work But I Live is a 2022 anthology of first hand testimonies by Holocaust child-survivors, edited by Charlotte Schallié for University of Toronto Press. Her previous work – a collection of personal graphic essays Towards a Hot Jew, published by Fantagraphics in 2016, saw her exploring themes of Jewish identity and her dual citizenship. In 2017 she had a writers residency at the Vancouver Public Library and also had a 2020 artist residency at Angoulême’s Maison des Auteurs, in France. Her debut was self-published series jobnik! about her time in the Israeli army in the early 2000s.
The Vancouver Comic Arts Festival is a two day event that annually takes place in the city’s Roundhouse Community Center. Begun in 2012, it has grown from over 3000 visitors to over 10,000 attendees in 2019. It is run by the Vancouver Comic Arts Association, a non-profit that supports the local comics and cartooning community. Libiki is a resident of Vancouver and has been a regular attendee at the festival, only having missed the 2023 event in recent years.
The current furore seemingly started on May 25, when VanCAF released an unsigned “Accountability Statement” on its Instagram channel which indicated Libicki would be permanently banned from the festival for “public safety concerns”. It did not refer to her directly by name. It was later revealed that said public safety concerns were by others who took issue with her past history and presence at the event.
In a since-removed May 25 post on social media, VanCAF had written:
“At this year’s 2024 Vancouver Comic Arts Festival, community members approached us to share important public safety concerns involving one of the exhibitors we allowed to participate in the festival. The concerns regarded this exhibitor’s prior role in the Israeli military and their subsequent collection of works which recount their personal position in said military and the illegal occupation of Palestine. The oversight and ignorance to allow this exhibitor in the festival, not only this year but in 2022 as well, fundamentally falls in absolute disregard to all our exhibiting artists, attendees and staff, especially those who are directly affected by the ongoing genocide in Palestine and Indigenous community members alike.
“Upon examining these concerns and conducts this exhibitor will not be permitted to return to the festival.”
It added:
“VanCAF’s Board of Directors apologizes for the harm we have caused by our negligence to address this and inability to take action sooner. Necessary actions will be made for the board to revise our current code of conduct policy as well as our submission guidelines to better represent our communities values. During this revision process we will provide full transparency to the community and furthermore will be adhering strictly to the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) guidelines.”
The specific public safety concerns were unclear in the Accountability Statement but the other references relate to Libicki’s past voluntary service in the Israeli military as a teenager, which were the subject of her self-published graphic memoir jobnik!. Libicki, who comes from a religious Orthodox Jewish background would have been technically exempt from service – which is compulsory for most Israeli citizens on graduation from high school – but volunteered. The period in which Libicki served would later coincide with the outbreak of the Second Palestinian Intifada – also known as the Al Aqsa Intifada – which took place between 2000 and 2005. This period of violent upheaval saw the deaths of over three thousand Palestinians and a thousand Israelis. While her position in the Israeli army was a secretarial one on a remote base, her association with the institution, voluntary enlistment, and it being the setting of her debut work has incensed pro-Palestinian activists.
A Wired article spotlighted the work in 2008, saying:
“The series follows her tour as a secretary in an army infirmary, and interweaves the personal and the political. Her “jobnick manifesto,” a brief introduction to her series, describes her conflicted feelings about Israel’s role in the world, and her discomfort with the perception of Israel by Americans.”
The PACBI guidelines do not necessarily conform to this situation as they focus on institutions linked to the Israeli state and its policies which impact the human rights of Palestinians – particularly in Gaza and the occupied West Bank – and not individuals. It considers targeting individuals may impinge on their freedom of speech. They do, however, make allowances for “common sense boycotts” – which are beyond the scope of the guidelines:
“While an individual’s freedom of expression should be fully and consistently respected in the context of cultural boycotts, an individual artist/writer, Israeli or otherwise, cannot be exempt from being subject to “common sense” boycotts (beyond the scope of the PACBI institutional boycott criteria) that conscientious citizens around the world may call for in response to what they widely perceive as egregious individual complicity in, responsibility for, or advocacy of violations of international law (such as war crimes or other grave human rights violations), racial violence, or racial slurs.”
Shortly following VanCAF’s Accountability Statement being issued, members of the comics community spoke out including Derf Backderf, Nate Powell, and MariNaomi – many of whom implied this ban may be considered anti-Semitic.
According to Powell,
“Their published statement is knowingly incomplete to the point of being misleading & disingenuous – I know this because the blacklisted creator is a good friend of mine, and I’ve been aware of all information & context regarding the last year’s worth of discussion with VanCAF as it developed in real time, including prior to the attacks of Oct. 7th.”
He added,
“The blacklisted creator…discussed and complied with all requested VanCAF concessions (importantly, removing all books & imagery featuring IDF depiction – very reasonable concession in 2024 context, and which I support). Organizers received digital versions of the creator’s recent award-winning work (first person comics narratives directly from Holocaust survivors’ experiences) – but did not download or read the requested work before trying again to deny her a table – still intending to blacklist creator many months ago.
“Even with no IDF-related imagery at the creator’s table, the outbursts of a couple of misguided attendees was the “public safety concern” serving as pretext. The creator had nothing to do with a public safety concern, and the disruption was not even at her table (which had none of the content originally cited as the objectionable issue). VanCAF’s action, including knowingly incomplete & misleading statement afterward, has a hint of antisemitic aftertaste to it – and I know this is likely not their intent. But it is one of the takeaways.”
A letter of protest was submittedby indigenous Canadian creator Alina Pete, and was signed by a number of creators including Alex de Campi, David Brothers, and Reetta Linjama. It said:
“We, the undersigned comics arts professionals, would like to state that we also oppose the current genocide being perpetrated upon the Palestinian people by the state of Israel. However, we see and affirm that there is a clear distinction between the Israeli state and the Jewish people as a whole—even those who have previously served as part of the IDF.”
Adding:
“These guidelines are not a call to boycott all Jewish forms of expression. The PACBI’s guidelines specifically call to “comprehensively and consistently boycott all Israeli academic and cultural institutions” —i.e., state-sponsored sources of pro-Israeli propaganda. Ms. Libicki is not an Israeli academic, and her publications are not sponsored by the Israeli state. Thus, the PACBI guidelines do not apply to her works.
“It is unconscionable, and frankly anti-Semitic, to bar someone from your convention for simply being Jewish and having personal ties to Israel.”
Fantagraphics’ Gary Groth, which published Towards A Hot Jew (2016), stood by Libicki – telling the Beat [note – this was received before VanCAF had recanted on June 2]:
“We condemn VanCAF’s misguided and wrong-headed decision to ban our author Miriam Libicki from its convention. The reason given, in a statement posted on social media, is that after “community members approached” them sharing “important public safety concerns” —namely that Libicki served in the Israel Defense Forces nearly 25 years ago”— is ludicrous on the face of it and is merely camouflage for a craven capitulation to ideological pressure to censor an artist (Libicki was forced to agree a priori not to sell her books at the show in order to table there). Libicki’s service in the IDF is hardly a secret: she wrote and drew a book recounting her experiences (Jobnik!, 2008), about which Publishers Weekly wrote in part, “[the characters] don’t register the horror taking place around them — part of the deadly innocence of youth is how the young can get inured to awful things, and the story shows this excellently well.” The silencing, demonizing, cancelling, deplatforming—call it what you will— of Palestinian voices (such as Adania Shibli’s) since October 7 has been shameful; it is no less shameful to do exactly the same thing to an American-Israeli artist like Libicki. VanCAF’s show trial grovelling in their post —“VanCAF’s Board of Directors apologizes for the harm we have caused by our negligence to address this and inability to take action sooner”— is a perfect example of where this prostration before ideological purity leads: a litmus test(s) before which everyone must humiliatingly bow. And the irony is that Libicki is an artist of compassion and intelligence. We stand with our friend and author.”
The news was picked up by Jewish media outlets and by newspapers in Israel. The Canadian Jewish News ran a comprehensive overview of the story on May 29. It was also picked up by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and Israeli newspapers – the Times of Israel and The Jerusalem Post. To the Canadian Jewish News, Libicki said:
“I am a Jewish artist who makes nonfiction and autobiographical comics. In recent years, I have been working closely with Holocaust survivors to tell their own stories. I consider this urgent and timely work. The award-winning anthology of Holocaust memoirs, But I Live (New Jewish Press, 2022), was the only graphic novel I was selling at VanCAF 2024.
“I am, and I have consistently, publicly, been pro-peace. I am in favour of a Palestinian state via negotiations. Because of the vulnerable populations I work with, I prefer not to discuss my specific political views in public. I believe all policing of artists’ personal identities and nationalities is wrong. VanCAF’s illegal ban, and defamation directed at me, is bad for all artists of all political orientations and backgrounds.”
Around the time of The Canadian Jewish News piece on May 29, VanCAF’s Accountability Statement had been removed and their social media channels had gone radio silent. Miriam Libicki had indicated that she was having a human rights lawyer overlook her case.
On June 1, Libicki’s husband Mike Yoshioka provided some extra context to the situation. According to Yoshioka, an incident occurred in 2022 where “two individuals caused a scene” and that the festival became concerned. While Libicki had skipped 2023 due to missing the application deadline, her application for the 2024 event had a number of hurdles:
“In 2024, we were told that Miriam would not be allowed to participate. We asked why, and were granted a meeting with VanCAF organizers to explain their position, and ours. At this meeting, we discussed Miriam’s newest book about the Holocaust, and also that they did not want her to be showing her jobnik! or Towards a Hot Jew books. We had already thought that given the current situation, we would not bring that material to shows. At that point, they agreed to give Miriam a table.”
One outspoken Palestinian comics voice on social media on this episode has been Palestinian-American cartoonist (The Hookah Girl and Other True Stories), illustrator and graphic designer Marguerite Dabaie. Taking to heart the Palestinian values of Sumud (steadfast perseverance) since childhood, Dabaie has spent much of their professional life actively representing Palestinian identity and voices in their work, often being met with bemusem*nt or silence by the comics world at large. The events of October last year changed that dynamic – but, Dabaie believes, not without problems in today’s extremely polarised world.
As they told the Beat:
“We’re now in a time when Palestinians are in the forefront of everyone’s mind. I appreciate that more people understand what I mean when I talk about the intifada, or the atrocities in the Occupied Territories. However, I feel that folks in both the pro-Israel and pro-Palestine camps get so caught up that the actual humans involved get lost…I also think that there’s a certain amount of overzealousness in regards to policing how to “correctly” react to a genocide. Which is probably one of the stranger sentences I’ve typed–but, my standing in the world changed drastically from “What’s a Palestine?” to “You’re not hating all Israelis enough.” Either way, my voice is being silenced because of who I am.”
Dabaie then focused in on the actions of VanCAF on May 25. Giving their criticisms:
“…I think that constructive dialog is such a rare, precious thing. Giving in to safety concerns when there clearly aren’t any disallows constructive dialog to happen.
“I also think that disinviting an artist because of their work or who they are is gravely misguided. And it, honestly, doesn’t matter if I agree with the work or not, so long as both the work and the artist aren’t glorifying immediate violence. This is what free speech is: Art can exist, but that doesn’t mean everyone has to see it. People are not institutions. People are allowed to have pasts they aren’t proud of–hell, people can be complete jerks if they want to be. I just won’t deal with them because I have bodily autonomy. At the very least, one can follow the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) guidelines on that, but I also feel it just makes sense.”
In the late hours of June 2, VanCAF broke its silence and posted a formal apology on all social media. It made clear that there would be a wide-scale regime change but it is unclear what personnel lay behind the earlier statement, this new one, who exactly has resigned, nor the processes that were at play in any of the decision-making. Still, recanted they did.
On June 4, Miriam Libicki posted on Facebook that she would accept VanCAF’s apology:
“I applaud this. I applaud the entire board responsible for the first Accountability Statement (which contained no accountability) resigning. This is a really positive and necessary first step. I look forward to a restorative justice process with the new board when there is one, and to see the steps they make to ensure they can act ethically when (and it is a matter of when) a harassment brigade dogpiles again.”
She is also hoping to use the increased attention this episode has drawn to promote her fundraising efforts in support of Mothers Call, a partnership organization created by Palestine’s Women of The Sun and Israel’s Women Wage Peace.
Dabaie gave their take on this change – and what they believe should happen next:
“It’s great that the board publicly apologized, but more deeply, I hope they have conversations with people who are familiar with Palestine and Israel and I hope they read up on it (Ha, I know some good links, if they want!). I think Pandora’s Box is now open and the world isn’t going to be so quiet anymore about Palestine.”
Accountability Statement posted by VanCAF on Instagram (May 25), later deleted:
“To members of the public and all associated VanCAF community.
“At this year’s 2024 Vancouver Comic Arts Festival, community members approached us to share important public safety concerns involving one of the exhibitors we allowed to participate in the festival. The concerns regarded this exhibitor’s prior role in the Israeli military and their subsequent collection of works which recount their personal position in said military and the illegal occupation of Palestine. The oversight and ignorance to allow this exhibitor in the festival, not only this year but in 2022 as well, fundamentally falls in absolute disregard to all our exhibiting artists, attendees and staff, especially those who are directly affected by the ongoing genocide in Palestine and Indigenous community members alike.
“Upon examining these concerns and conducts this exhibitor will not be permitted to return to the festival.
“VanCAF’s Board of Directors apologizes for the harm we have caused by our negligence to address this and inability to take action sooner. Necessary actions will be made for the board to revise our current code of conduct policy as well as our submission guidelines to better represent our communities values. During this revision process we will provide full transparency to the community and furthermore will be adhering strictly to the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) guidelines. Additionally, we will develop a cohesive and inclusive safety procedure within our organization that will ensure the future well-being of all VanCAF attendees, exhibitors and staff.
“VanCAF condemns the ongoing genocide and land theft committed by the state of Israel in Palestine. We stand in solidarity with all Palestinians and call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, right of return and complete sovereignty of the Palestinian state.
“We greatly appreciate the support from the community in helping us see where we have failed and allowing us the opportunity to address our mistakes.
During this period of transition, VanCAF will be onboarding new stakeholders, board members and staff to better reflect our community’s values and needs.”
Transcript of Mike Yoshioka statement in full (posted on Bluesky, June 1)
“As some of you may know, the past week has been pretty touch emotionally. I would like to make some things clear.
“First and foremost, I would like for people to not go after the sponsors of the Vancouver Comic Arts Festival. There is already a lack of funds being given to arts organizations, and I really don’t want to see the festival go away. The amount of good things that they do for the local comics scene is immeasurable.
As far as the statement that they made, yes, I find it incredibly irresponsible at best. It was misleading, and disingenuous.
“A few points:
- “Miriam has exhibited at every VanCAF event that has happened up until 2023.
- “In 2022 a couple of individuals caused a scene. This led to the organizers saying that they would need to review the event.
- “In 2023, we were late in submitting a table application. That, combined with the incident in 2022, was the reason that Miriam was not able to take part.
- “In 2024, we were told that Miriam would not be allowed to participate. We asked why, and were granted a meeting with VanCAF organizers to explain their position, and ours. At this meeting, we discussed Miriam’s newest book about the Holocaust, and also that they did not want her to be showing her jobnik or Towards a Hot Jew books. We had already thought that given the current situation, we would not bring that material to shows. At that point, they agreed to give Miriam a table.
- “At that meeting, they also said that the 2 people that made the complaint in 2022, were banned from attending the show, as they are known to cause trouble.
- “That was the last correspondence we have received on this. Even to this date, we have heard nothing from anyone in the VanCAF organization. We only saw the Instagram post because people were tagging us in it. We don’t even know who is making the statements.”
“There has been so much misinformation about this situation and Miriam put out there, and it’s been so incredibly difficult for me to sit back and not scream out, “THAT’S NOT TRUE!”. It’s affected my whole family. I don’t know what will happen next.”
Letter of protest sent to VanCAF (May 29) by Alina Pete
“To the Vancouver Comic Arts Festival,
“We, the undersigned comics arts professionals, would like to state that we also oppose the current genocide being perpetrated upon the Palestinian people by the state of Israel. However, we see and affirm that there is a clear distinction between the Israeli state and the Jewish people as a whole—even those who have previously served as part of the IDF.
“While your announcement via Instagram didn’t name any names, it is entirely transparent that your decision is regarding the presence of Miriam Libicki. There are no other Jewish cartoonists whose works “recount their personal position in said military”, and anyone with even a passing acquaintance with Ms. Libicki’s works has no doubt as to whom your announcement is targeting.
“You say that your decision to bar Ms. Libicki from exhibiting at future VanCAFs is in line with the guidelines released by the PACBI. However, this is not at all in line with what the PACBI guidelines state.
“These guidelines are not a call to boycott all Jewish forms of expression. The PACBI’s guidelines specifically call to “comprehensively and consistently boycott all Israeli academic and cultural institutions” —i.e., state-sponsored sources of pro-Israeli propaganda. Ms. Libicki is not an Israeli academic, and her publications are not sponsored by the Israeli state. Thus, the PACBI guidelines do not apply to her works.
“It is unconscionable, and frankly anti-Semitic, to bar someone from your convention for simply being Jewish and having personal ties to Israel.
“Ms. Libicki chose, at the request of VanCAF board members, to exclude her previous works from this year’s VanCAF, and featured only copies of her latest graphic novel, But I Live, which features stories from the lives of Holocaust survivors. Through these actions, she has made it clear that she is aware of the strong public sentiment against Israel’s actions and took steps to make sure that her mere presence would not cause problems for the general public attending VanCAF – though clearly, some individuals managed to find outrage in her attendance regardless.
“VanCAF’s current code of conduct policy states, “VanCAF reserves the right to revoke attending, tabling and exhibitor privileges, including removal from the festival for any exhibitors or attendees who create an unsafe space for others at the festival.” None of Ms. Libicki’s actions or works violate this clause.
“Your Accountability Statement said that you will be taking necessary actions to revise the code of conduct policy for the festival, and that this process will be transparent. However, at no point since the complaints were made against Ms. Libicki were you transparent about why the decision was made to ban her in perpetuity, or how precisely her presence at the festival violated your code of conduct. Until such time as this is clarified, we must assume that this decision is being made without the guidance of a proper code of conduct policy, and we heartily decry it.
“We, the undersigned comics arts professionals, call upon VanCAF to overturn their decision to bar Ms. Libicki, an internationally respected award-winning cartoonist, from the festival, and to provide transparency on how and why this decision was made in the first place.”
VanCAF Formal Apology [posted online late evening June 2]
“VanCAF wishes to express deep and sincere apologies for the impact our previous statement has caused. First and foremost, the individual directly affected by our first post.
“The decision was ultimately wrong headed and moved too quickly and without adequate consultation. We also wish to apologise to the wider impacted community. VanCAF has lost and continues to lose the trust of we have sought to serve.
“Our statement was one that only represented the VanCAF board at the time of writing and had no relationship to The Roundhouse, any of our sponsors, or any former staff. It was solely our own statement.
“For background, the decision to ban this individual in our previous statement stemmed from two separate incidents on the VanCAF floor that took place during our 2022 and 2024 festivals. Neither incident was instigated by the individual referenced in our previous post. Both involved activists protesting the individual’s presence at the festival in a manner that caused a concern for the safety of our volunteers, staff and exhibitors. To be absolutely clear, the individual in our previous statement was in no way a threat to VanCAF’s safety and we apologize if our previous statement in any way implied that she was such a threat or contributed to an unsafe atmosphere at our event.
“However, the safety of all of those involved in VanCAF is our first and foremost concern. These incidents created a volatile atmosphere and called into question whether or not we were truly taking the right steps to create a community oriented festival. The safety of our festival volunteers, exhibitors, staff, and attending public and our general community is our top proiority. This was what weighed most heavily upon our initial decision and we wrongly handled and conveyed this concern.
“After the incident in 2022, it was decided through discussions with the artist that this year they would focus on promoting their most recent book, But I Live, a collection of first hand survivor stories from the Holocaust, and leave the earlier books at home. We agreed and still agree that showing this work is important, in sharing the first hand experience, and celebrating the cultural resilience of the Jewish community recovering from such a horrific atrocity.
“After the 2024 incident a new internal conversation was immediately started. We all felt we had failed to take the correct precautions to ensure our community’s safety. It was the first time many new volunteers and board members were learning of the initial incident, so emotions were high and opinions varied. It is now clear to us that our conflated response was wrong and we should never have allowed this individual to be scapegoated like this.
“VanCAF is not a well oiled machine but a ramshackle organization made up of caring individuals. We moved too quickly on our initial statement as we feared condemnation from our peers in the comics and activist communities. Regardless, this is what our previous statement has resulted in. There is no length of apology that can fully absolve that oversight.
“Conflating the political with the practical safety of those attending our festival was the wrong stance to take.
“We deeply apologize to all those harmed by our previous statement.
“At the time of the first statement, VanCAF had no staff and an extremely diminished board. The vast majority of individuals involved in the first statement have since independently resigned, with the remainder staying on temporarily to assist in this transition period.
“VanCAF is in a state of change and, moving forward, will not be the same organization. We will continue to do our best to ensure the safety of every person who attends, volunteers at, or exhibits at future VanCAFs.
“Moving forward, the few remaining team members will be working to pass VanCAF off to a new group that is able to take the resources and structure we have built and continue the show in to the future. We will work to rebuild the trust between the community and our festival.
“We hope that by the end of summer, there is a whole new team working together and improving this important festival
“Sincerely,
“The remaining members of the VanCAF board.”
