MariNaomi

MariNaomi (born 1973) is an American graphic artist and cartoonist who often publishes autobiographical comics and is also well-known for creating three online databases of underrepresented cartoonists.
Career.
MariNaomi's has been drawing comics since 1997, starting out as a zine creator. Her comics are usually autobiographical. She talks about the search for her roots, her status as a mixed race queer woman, as well as her feminism. Her article "Writing People of Color" discusses how people of color should approach writing about people from a race that is not their own. MariNaomi stated "I feel like race is such a sensitive issue that I wanted feedback and I wanted to know how better to do it and to share that information.".
MariNaomi wrote an article "It Happened to Me: I Was Sexually Harassed Onstage at a Comic Convention Panel" for XOJane in 2013 describing her experience of being harassed on stage as a panelist at a comics convention. She did not name her harasser, but Scott Lobdell later came forward and issued a public apology for his actions.
MariNaomi founded and maintains three online databases of cartoonists: the Cartoonists of Color Database, the Queer Cartoonists Database and the Disabled Cartoonists Database. In 2014, she began the Cartoonists of Color Database and created the Queer Cartoonists Database soon after. In 2019, she launched the Disabled Cartoonists Database. The opt-in per creator database Queer Cartoonists contains 775 entries as of May 2018 and has been reported to be helpful in the professional careers of upcoming cartoonists. Librarians and archivists specializing in comic book studies have also highlighted the need for open access databases like these.
Since 2017, she and fellow author Myriam Gurba have been hosting an advice podcast called AskBiGrlz where they answer listener questions.
Personal life.
Her mother is Japanese and her father is a Caucasian American. Born Mari Naomi Schaal in Texas in 1973, she grew up in Mill Valley, California and later moved to San Jose, California. She began using the name MariNaomi in 2003. She worked in illegal hostess bars while she briefly lived in Japan. She wrote about those experiences in her memoir "Turning Japanese".