Do You Like Me?: A Comics Reading Event

Molly Mendoza is an artist living in Portland, Oregon. Through their work they explore the complexities of interpersonal relationships with a focus on layered visual storytelling, mark-making, and color. Molly is represented by Writers House, illustrating picture books for Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster, Chronicle Books, and Scholastic. Jovita Wore Pants, written by Aida Salazar, was awarded with a Caldecott honor in 2024.

Their editorial/illustration work has been contributed to Wizards of the Coast, The New York Times, The Marshall Project, Wires, and APWOT among others. Molly has created murals around the city of Portland in collaboration with Portland Parks, Trimet, Portland Street Art Alliance, Forest for the Trees, and RACC. Mendoza’s comic have included stories about being lost between dimensions, moody swim team drama, and the troubles of toxic nostalgia. In 2019, their graphic novel Skip was published by NoBrow Press and recognized with an Ignatz and Eisner nomination, while also named one of the Best Comics of 2019 by Kirkus Reviews.

They continue to strive to portray those feelings that we just can’t shake: from bubbling tears of frustration to a good laugh that you’ll never forget. When they’re not drawing, Molly is probably playing Final Fantasy 14 and hanging out with their blue cat named Doodle.

Molly Lecko Herro is a cartoonist from Carmel Valley, California. She was born in 1999 and immediately began drawing. She has self-published the comics Hot Girlfriend from the Future (2022), The Third Gulp (2022), POD (2023), Giant Woman (2023), Thank You God for My Broken Heart (2024), Meatloaf Castle Comic #1 (2024), Meatloaf Castle #2 (2025), and Mind Palace (2025). She lives in Portland, Oregon, and mostly hangs around all day in Floating World Comics.

Aaron Fairchild was born in Aurora, Illinois. Aaron has created web and gag comics like 'Super Cool Squirrel' and 'BeyBlade ReduxXXx Zero-One'. He has recently published the comic romance anthology Do You Like Me? with Molly Lecko Herro, Molly Mendoza, and Ross Jackson through Secret Room Press. Aaron is currently creating a fantasy adventure graphic novel titled Beyond the Cloudy Vale, to be published by Silver Sprocket Comics. Aaron has also written and produced the Halloween Horror Rap album CastleVania alongside Ross Jackson and he has written the rap album Back to the Ocean, produced by Duke Westlake. Aaron resides in Vancouver, WA with his wife and his chihuahua named Boat Beauregard.

Ross Jackson is a cartoonist and illustrator, originally from Florida. A founding member of Secret Room Press, Ross has been involved as a printer, publisher, author, and organizer in the Portland comics community for the past decade. In 2023, his ongoing series "Live Rock Part 1: Aquarium Life" was nominated for an Ignatz Award for Outstanding Comic. He is currently at work on the follow-up entry in the series, which, like several of Ross's stories, takes place in the fictional town of Ft. Carvey, FL. Ross lives in the Sellwood neighborhood of Portland with his wife Lani and their medium-sized yellow dog, Eggy.

The product of a Chinese immigrant and a white polygamist from Fort Scott, Kansas, Ash Yang-Thompson is the author of How to be the worst laziest fattest most incontinent piece-of-shit in the world EVER and Still Worm, both published by Bateau Press. Support her contributions to American Arts & Letters by subscribing to her Substack.