This article appears in The Cartoon Issue • 2026.

Melissa Pasanen is a Seven Days staff writer and the food and drink assignment editor. In 2022, she won first place for national food writing from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia and in 2024, she took second. Melissa joined Seven Days full time in 2020, 18 years after the paper published her first (and last, for a very long time) freelance story on church suppers. During the intervening years, she wrote — mostly about food, drink and agriculture — for outlets ranging from the Burlington...

Emily Rhain Andrews is a Vermont-based illustrator and graphic designer who combines her passion for design with the dynamic world of comics and visual storytelling. She is a proud alumna of Syracuse University and MFA graduate from Burlington's Champlain College, where she currently teaches illustration in the Communications & Creative Media department. Her work, ranging from comic creation to collegiate e-sports brand identity development, dives into crafting visual narratives. Each project...