Pride In Panels: SF Queer Comics Festival Returns to San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO – Attention all lovers of indie comics, queer art, and original storytelling: the comics festival of your dreams is back for round two!  Pride in Panels: SF Queer Comics Festival, the premiere biennial showcase of LGBTQIA+ comics creators from the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond, is returning to the Main Branch of the San Francisco Public Library on Sunday, February 15th 2026, 12-5pm,. There will also be two days of satellite events leading up to the main festival! 

Check out the official video from Pride In Panels 2024 showcasing the fantastic exhibitors, panelists, and attendees (also available on YouTube).

This coming Pride in Panels will be substantially larger than in 2024, with  125 queer comics creators personally selling and signing their work and featuring even more wide-ranging panels, maker workshops, and exhibitor tables. There will also be satellite events featuring queer comics readings and film screenings leading up to the festival.  All Pride in Panels events are entirely free for exhibitors and attendees!

 

PANELS, WORKSHOPS, EXHIBITORS, AND SPECIAL GUESTS

Here is the full exhibitor list for Pride in Panels: SF Queer Comics Festival 2026!

We’re thrilled to announce two Special Guests for 2026!

Rupert Kinnard created the first continuing queer, Black characters in comics with his groundbreaking Cathartic Comics, begun in 1977. The recipient of the 2013 World Art Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award, Cartoon Crossroad’s 2024 Transformative Work Award, and featured in the award-winning documentary  No Straight Lines, Kinnard has been a profound inspiration for generations of cartoonists. 

Lee Lai is one of the rising stars of queer and trans comics. In 2021, she was selected as one of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 for her debut graphic novel, Stone Fruit, which went on to win several awards, including the Lambda Literary Award for Graphic Novel, the Cartoonist Studio Prize, the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize, and two Ignatz Awards. Her comics have appeared in the  New Yorker, McSweeney’s, The New York Times, and the Museum of Modern Art Magazine. Her highly anticipated new graphic novel, Cannon, has just hit the shelves!

 

Here is the remarkable line-up of panels and workshops (full panel descriptions and lists of panelists available here) taking place during the main festival:

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 15th - SF Public Library Main Branch

PANELS

  • 1:00 p.m. – 2:15 p.m. / Spotlight on Rupert Kinnard
  • 3:00 p.m. – 4:15 p.m. / Spotlight on Lee Lai
  • 1:00 p.m. - 1:45 p.m. / Drawing From Life: Queer Memoir Comics
  • 2:00 p.m. - 2:45 p.m. / Up From the Underground: Queer Comics Pioneers
  • 3:00 p.m. - 3:45 p.m. / Gay Goblins and Non-Binary Robots: Queer Sci-fi and Fantasy
  • 4:00 p.m. - 4:45 p.m. / From BL to Bara: Queer Manga
     

WORKSHOPS

  • 1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. / Mini-Comics Extravaganza!
  • 3:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. / Making Queer Mini-Comics: Using the Library as Reference

 

Here are the amazing satellite events (full descriptions and lists of readers and panelists here)! 

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 13th 

 

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 14th 

Join us at Pride in Panels: SF Queer Comics Festival 2026 and celebrate the remarkable vitality of the world of queer comics! 

This event is co-sponsored by Silver Sprocket, California College of the Arts MFA Comics and BFA Comics programs, and the James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center of San Francisco Public Library. Thanks to the support of the Hormel LGBTQIA Center Endowment of the San Francisco Public Library, all Pride In Panels events are 100% free to both exhibitors and attendees. Pride in Panels is fiscally sponsored by Independent Arts & Media; tax-deductible donations can be made here.

For more information, visit prideinpanels.org or instagram.com/prideinpanels. 

January 22, 2026