“I just think that SAIC is a space compared to other comics programs and other schools, where experimentation is celebrated. You’re not the exception, you’re part of the collective in SAIC.”
Beth Hetland is a cartoonist and Assistant Professor at SAIC. She’s been making comics since 2007 as an undergrad at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Hetland has been self-publishing her work since 2010, and her graphic novel “Tender”(2024) is her first book published by a major publisher.
Hetland is originally from Wisconsin and moved to Chicago to attend SAIC. “But how did I get here? I guess technically by car. My mom likes to tell the story that when she dropped me off, and my family was leaving, we were all crying. And I said, like, don’t leave me. My mom spent the whole drive back to the Madison area, like sobbing, like hysterical sobbing. She’s like, I’ll never forgive you for that. So that’s how I ended up in Chicago,” said Hetland.
Hetland originally started making comics at SAIC after deciding not to pursue animation. She explained, “I was pretty unhappy with animation and the pacing that I could go at it. And I wasn’t really enjoying the stories I was telling in that, in that space. And so I just went like, hardcore on comics and self-publishing”
Hetland started teaching at SAIC in 2011, after being asked to apply by her former educator, Surabhi Ghosh. On teaching at SAIC, Hetland said, “I really love how expansive and experimental the way that I can talk about comics and narrative and also how my students are thinking about comics and narrative.” She later said, “Part of my teaching approach is that I’m really operating with two different brains most of the time. I’m operating as Beth the artist and Beth the teacher.”
Hetland has made numerous multimedia artists’ books and ’zines that encompass a myriad of genres. She also has a number of long-form projects, including “Fugue,” which is an auto-bio piece about her family, “Half Asleep,” and “Tender.” Her comic “Fugue” is an auto-bio piece about her family, while “Tender” is A psychological thriller about the societal expectations of women.
She also has had a long co-creating relationship with Cartoonist Kyle O’Connell. Their longest-running collaboration is the eight-chapter series “Half Asleep,” which is a coming-of-age sci-fi about a young girl learning to manipulate her dreams. When talking about “Half Asleep,” Hetland said, “It was one of the longest projects I had worked on. It ended up being about five or six years total. There was a lot of learning involved with what is it like to have long-form series work, and then what is it like in a different iteration when it’s combined into one thing.”
Hetland is influenced by a variety of places, like experimental mini comics, artists’ books, and the Fluxus movement. Hetland also mentioned finding inspiration in film and television.
“I think a lot about narrative structures, how something works in a long format, how something works episodically. And I don’t know, there’s just something really interesting about thinking about film in that way,” said Hetland.
Hetland continued, “I’m so much more excited and interested in seeing how people are applying narrative to other mediums. I’m interested in seeing the material that they’re making comics with [and how they] have an impact on the story that they’re telling.” Hetland herself works extensively with multimedia narrative and form in her self-published works, like her books “Dis (Quiet)” or “Impact,” both of which are made with fabric and screenprinting processes.
The comic community is also deeply important to Hetland’s work, and she is an avid participant in a large comics community. She voiced her love of ’zine and comics shows, her various workshops that she teaches, as well as her frequent participation as a guest speaker for various comics classes. On the note of ’zine fests, Hetland said, “I love the convention scene in Chicago and, in particular, my relationship with Chicago Zine Fest and CAKE are two that I hold very dear to my heart.”
Currently, Hetland and O’Connell are working on a children’s book “There’s A Cat In My House”, which she described as ‘horror lite’, and utilizes mixed media through combining painted and ink washes textures with digital art processes.
Hetland is also currently working on putting together the second year of Industry Week. Industry Week is an event at SAIC that is a week of in-person and virtual events focused on comics and publishing.
This article was updated on April 26, 2024, to reflect Beth Hetland’s new job position.
