Ryan King

Work Title and Work Place

• Adjunct Lecturer, Queens College Graduate School of Library and Information Studies

• English Librarian, Vanderbilt University

Courses Being Taught Presently and/or in the Past

• LBSCI 790.3: Comics in Libraries

Academic Statement

Ryan King is the English Librarian at Vanderbilt University, where he helps develop their comics and graphic novel collection, serves as the staff advisor for the student organization VU Comics and Cartoons, and is a co-organizer of the Nashville Comic Arts Festival. He currently serves as a Member-in-Large for the American Library Association's Graphic Novels & Comics Round Table (GNCRT) and the Comics Studies Society's Research Librarians Cohort, and he previously served on the 2024 Best Graphic Novels for Adults committee for GNCRT. He was selected by the ALA as one of the 2025 Lois Ann Gregory-Wood Fellows. Since 2023 he has instructed the course "Comics in Libraries"  for the Graduate School of Information and Technology at Queens College. Upon graduating from Queens College with a Dual Degree MLS/MA in History with a Certificate in Archives and Preservation of Cultural Materials, he received a Fulbright award in 2021 to study and write a work of Graphic Medicine at Freie Universitat Berlin. He is a former convention organizer of the San Francisco Zine Fest, East Bay Alternative Book and Zine Festival, and Flame Con, the world's largest LGBTQ+ themed comics convention. He has written and published several independent comics, including Nico's Fortune, ToTully Aces, Cricketsong, The Games We Played, and his work has appeared in numerous comics anthologies. He has presented, moderated, and spoken on panels at New York Comic Con, Vancouver Comic Arts Festival, the Southern Festival of Books, ARLIS/NA, the Southern Library Support Staff Conference, and ALA. He is also a current creative consultant for a comics project partnered with the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrryanking/