Ingo Taylor’s ‘The Red Scare’ wins 2025 Jurgen Comics Contest
Winners of the 2025 Jurgen Comics Contest are giving viewers new ways to think about the history of art censorship.
Students from across VCU were invited to choose a specific historical incident of art suppression or censorship and create the cover for a comic book telling the story of the event.
The prompt given for the contest: Imagine a comic book centered around the suppression or censorship of visual art, books, music, film or performance at a particular historical moment. You might tell this story using any one of a number of comic book genres such as real life, comedy, horror, romance, weird/uncanny, fantasy or science fiction. … Now draw only the comic book’s cover.
“This year’s challenge asked artists to think about pulling their audience into a story of censorship,” said Digital Outreach and Special Projects Librarian and contest manager Alice Campbell. “Comic book covers are compact and enticing, much like movie trailers. We wanted to see who could create art that left us all wanting to see more!”
- Ingo Taylor won the 2025 Grand Prize of $1,000 with “The Red Scare.” Taylor’s comic book cover introduces readers to The Masked Moth, a superhero who protects artists, and The Red Scream who emits a scream so terrifying it sends people into a paranoid, anti-Communist frenzy. Ingo Taylor is majoring in Communication Arts.
“For this cover,” said Taylor, “I initially had a lot of different thoughts about what form of censorship I wanted to shed light on and also what kind of story I wanted to tell. I wanted to both portray the seriousness of the subject but also to make something fun and creative; like something you would pick off the shelf and have a blast reading. I mainly drew inspiration from classic comic book covers, such as golden age Amazing Spider-Man and Silver Surfer but drawn in my own style.”
Among other honorees in this year’s contest:
- Naomy Cardoso Perez, a Painting and Printmaking major, received the Research prize ($250) for “To and From Guantanamo Bay,” which was inspired by real-life events. According to the artist, ‘To and From Guantanamo Bay’ “is about man’s relationship to art as it becomes the only tether to the real world during unlawful detention at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. base. Through the creation of his pieces, our main character is offered the opportunity to exhibit his work for a small nonprofit gallery; this quickly gets rescinded as the Department of Defence forbids the artwork from leaving the compound.”
- The Storytelling award ($250) went to Ana Gonzalez for “Blacklisted. Hollywood 1950.” Gonzalez’ cover art was influenced by film noir. It “follows the story of a successful screenwriter whose life is completely changed when he’s falsely accused of being a Communist sympathizer. The story goes into the suffocation of censorship, surveillance, and the struggle to have creativity.”
- Alyssa Hwee’s “Of Kings and Queens” won the Artistry award ($250) for a cover set against the background of the Stonewall Inn and 1969 Stonewall riots. Hwee, a graduate student studying Experience Design at the VCU Brandcenter, said, “This cover features the prominent drag king and queens, Stormé DeLarverie, Marsha P. Johnson, [and] Sylvia Rivera. I enjoyed being able to highlight how drag queens and kings of color have always been at the forefront of political activism and community organizing.”
- Three entries received Honorable Mention: “Carpetas. | 1. Vuelo Blanco” by Heciel, “The Boondocks,” by Winston Broiles, and “The War on Degenerate Art,” by Nathan Persson.
An exhibit of the top prize-winning cover art may be seen on the first floor of Cabell Library. Winning entries and honorable mentions will also be published in VCU Scholars Compass alongside winners from previous contests.
This year, a comic book-inspired facsimile publication for the Jurgen Comics Contest will highlight the award winners and celebrate the unique artistry of comic book cover design.
Images from all 2025 Jurgen Comics Contest submissions will be exhibited on the Cabell Screen–the 25-feet screen on the exterior north facade of Cabell Library– throughout the month of April.
Now in its fourth year, the Jurgen Comics Contest is envisioned as an annual student competition dedicated to telling the story of banned art and encouraging discussion of the complex relationship between art and society. By challenging students to investigate and relate historic controversies through comic art of their own creation, VCU Libraries asserts the value of comics as a medium of expression and social commentary, and as a subject for study and preservation. The contest is sponsored by VCU Libraries with generous support from donors, including the James Branch Cabell Library Associates.
Included in the contest design is mentorship of a student editor. The 2024-2025 student editor is Minuet Curry, an Arts Foundation student with an interest in animation. Curry designed posters and the Jurgen Comics Contest facsimile comic booklet that celebrates the winners. They also helped manage contest outreach and logistics, presenting at information sessions and tabling events.
“The Jurgen Comics Contest challenges students to reimagine these historical struggles through bold, visual storytelling,” said Karen Bjork, head of Digital Libraries and Publishing, the department that manages the contest. “This year’s winners have created compelling covers that invite viewers to engage with moments of suppression and resistance in new and thought-provoking ways.” .”
Prizes this year were awarded by a diverse panel of judges that included Wanda Felsenhardt, graduate student at the VCU Brandcenter and grand prize winner of last year’s contest; Bizhan Khodabandeh, comics artist and faculty in the Richard T. Robertson School of Media and Culture; Mark Jeffries, creative media manager at the VCU Student Media Center and Carla-Mae Crookendale, arts research librarian at the VCU Libraries.
The Jurgen Comics Contest is inspired by the events and issues surrounding James Branch Cabell’s ribald and satirical fantasy Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice. Cabell is the namesake of VCU’s Monroe Park Campus library.
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