Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest
The Jurgen Comics Contest is named after James Branch Cabell’s ribald and satirical fantasy, Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice. In 1920, Jurgen was declared a “certain offensive, lewd, lascivious and indecent book” by the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. Suppressed just as Prohibition took effect, "bookleggers" sold copies of Jurgen at exorbitant prices. Two years later, courts exonerated Cabell's work, and Jurgen was again available–reaching an even wider audience due to the interest generated by the sensational trial.
2026 Grand Prize: Johnny Eusoof — Tom Lehrer Discovers Australia (and vice versa)
Artistry: Zora Weir-Gertzog — A Classroom Game of Cat and Maus
Storytelling: Keegan Mason — Skin
Research: Devin Smith — Under Literature's Light
Honorable mention: Sophie Nave — Heavy Metal Defenders; Nikki DiSalvo — The Hays Code;
Jana Simmons — Pachuco
2025 Grand Prize: Ingo Taylor — The Red Scare
Artistry: Alyssa Hwee — Of Kings and Queens
Storytelling: Ana Gonzalez — Blacklisted. Hollywood 1950
Research: Naomy Cardoso Perez — To and From Guantanamo Bay
Honorable mention: Heciel — Carpetas. | 1. Vuelo Blanco; Winston Broiles — The Boondocks; Nathan Persson – The War on Degenerate Art
Fall 2023 Grand Prize: Wanda Felsenhardt — The Right to Read: Censorship in America’s Prisons
Artistry: Naomy Cardoso Perez and Gillian Grunenfelder — Monument Woman
Storytelling: Winston Broiles — Spider-Man, Terror of the Comics Code Authority
Research: Hannah Diment — Allegory of Artemisia
Honorable Mention: Cici Eltermann — America’s Sailor Moon; Ayla Bramblett — Dystopian University
2023 Grand Prize: Rena Bridge — A Quick History of Gay Batman
Runners-up: Alexander Tyree — Driven Underground; Emil George — Female Nudity
Honorable Mention: John Novak — Aftertaste; H. M. Smith — The Devil's Fire
First-Time Comic Creators: Daniel Lee — Behind the Scene; Sophia Shokraei — Malicious Compliance
2022 Grand Prize: Erin Crawford — Cabell Walks into a Bar
Runners-up: Jay Crilley — Swear to It; Tess Wladar — The Judging of Jurgen
Honorable Mention: Katy Hooper — Moral of the Story; Hannah Smith — The Banning of Jurgen;
Ty Campbell — A Silent Fate
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Jurgen Comics Contest Comic Book and Artwork - 2026
Minuet Curry
Digital cover art created by student editor Minuet Curry for the 2026 Jurgen Comics Contest comic book celebrating the contest winners. Winners' artwork was included in the print edition of this booklet. This cover art features Jurgen racing through time to thwart the influence of Sir Cen, the censor. Jurgen represents the contest's connection to James Branch Cabell's once-banned book Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice.
The 2026 Jurgen Comics Contest invited VCU students to create the cover artwork for an imagined comic book focused on an historical incident of art censorship.
Supplemental promotional materials presented here include a view of the front and back cover as a two-page spread and an exhibit label related to the 2026 theme. -
The Hays Code
Nikki DiSalvo
Honorable mention in the 2026 Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest.
Dodie grows up absorbing and accepting movies' villainous representations of homosexuality and her family's denunciations until she becomes an unrecognizable monster, wandering cold streets at night. -
Tom Lehrer Discovers Australia (and vice versa)
Johnny Eusoof
Grand prize winner in the 2026 Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest.
An Australian government official sends police to satirist Tom Lehrer's live show in Adelaide. Lehrer bangs away at his concert piano as a pack of officers rush toward him. -
Skin
Keegan Mason
Storytelling prize winner in the 2026 Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest.
Martin Murn is the victim of a freak accident which grants him superpowers. As America's first Black superhero, he ventures into the world to do good, only to be faced with the harsh reality of Jim Crow and segregation. Newspapers demonize him, “heroes” criticize him and the public hates him. All of it makes you want to just crawl out of your......skin. -
Heavy Metal Defenders
Sophie Nave
Honorable mention in the 2026 Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest.
In the wake of the 1985 PMRC/U.S. Senate hearings in which Dee Snider, Frank Zappa, and John Denver testify, a young demon comes to earth to try to spread panic through her heavy metal band. -
Pachuco
Jana Simmons
Honorable mention in the 2026 Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest.
In the summer of 1943, baggy zoot suits are all the rage for young brown and black adults in Los Angeles. On their way home, Aurora and Joaquin are chased by an angry group of military men seeking to attack them. -
Under Literature's Light
Devin Smith
Research prize winner in the 2026 Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest.
As Steven Pico fights for the books that shaped him in his most formative years, he starts to unravel what it means to be human and to understand art and its impacts. -
A Classroom Game Of Cat And Maus
Zora Weir-Gertzog
Artistry prize winner in the 2026 Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest.
An authoritarian cat soldier marches through a generic American classroom, destroying books deemed unfit. Mouse children sit at their desks, witnesses to the act; some watch in fear or confusion, while others remain disengaged. -
Jurgen Comics Contest Comic Book and Artwork - 2025
Minuet Curry
Digital cover art created by student editor Minuet Curry for the 2025 Jurgen Comics Contest comic book celebrating the contest winners. Winners' artwork was included in the print edition of this booklet. This cover art features "King Jurgen," who represents the contest's connection to James Branch Cabell's once-banned book Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice.
The 2025 Jurgen Comics Contest invited VCU students to create the cover artwork for an imagined comic book focused on a historical incident of art censorship.
Supplemental promotional materials presented here include a poster and exhibit label related to the 2025 theme.
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The Boondocks
Winston Broiles
Honorable mention in the 2025 Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest.
A controversial and over-the-top parody of the racist character trope, "The Story of Jimmy Rebel" became the only episode of the television show "The Boondocks" excluded in a 2020 streaming run.
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Blacklisted. Hollywood 1950
Ana Gonzalez
Storytelling prize winner in the 2025 Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest.
A successful screenwriter is falsely accused of being a Communist sympathizer and must endure suffocating censorship, surveillance and the struggle to preserve both his creativity and his freedom.
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Of Kings and Queens
Alyssa Hwee
Artistry prize winner in the 2025 Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest.
Set against the backdrop of the Stonewall riots, this comic book cover highlights the role of drag kings and queens at the forefront of political activism and community organizing.
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Carpetas. | 1. Vuelo Blanco
Heciel Nieves-Bonilla
Honorable mention in the 2025 Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest.
Set in a time when Puerto Rican nationalist sentiments were strongly suppressed and an FBI surveillance program known locally as "Carpetas" was carried out on the island, the children of censored and imprisoned artists, musicians, and poets navigate their restricted personal and communal identity.
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To and From Guantanamo Bay
Naomy Cardoso Perez
Research prize winner in the 2025 Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest.
A man's art becomes his only tether to the real world during his unlawful detention at Guantanamo Bay. When he is offered the opportunity to exhibit his work for a small nonprofit gallery, the Department of Defense forbids the artwork from leaving the compound.
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The War on Degenerate Art
Nathan Persson
Honorable mention in the 2025 Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest.
A dark historical tale about the modernist and avant-garde painters and sculptors whose art was attacked and derided in the Nazi Party's 1937 Degenerate Art Exhibition
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The Red Scare
Ingo Taylor
Grand prize winner in the 2025 Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest.
The Masked Moth, scourge of supervillains and protector of artists from censorship, battles his greatest foe yet—The Red Scare, who emits a scream so terrifying it sends people into a paranoid, anti-Communist frenzy.
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Jurgen Comics Contest Newspaper and Artwork - Fall 2023
Julia Martinez
Digital edition of the Jurgen Comics Contest broadsheet newspaper celebrating the Fall 2023 Contest winners. The newspaper design and supplemental artwork were created by contest student editor Julia Martinez. Supplemental promotional materials include a poster for an online information session.
The Fall 2023 Jurgen Comics Contest invited VCU students to explore a specific historical incident of censorship or suppression of visual art, books, music, film or performance.
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Dystopian University
Ayla Bramblett
Honorable Mention in the Fall 2023 Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest
An evocative look at the conflict between student identify and artistic expression and the structure of an arts curriculum.
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Spider-Man, Terror of the Comics Code Authority
Winston Broiles
Storytelling prize winner in the Fall 2023 Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest
A humorous comic about how Spider-Man comics emboldened the comics industry to reject oversight and censorship by the C.C.A.
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Monument Woman
Naomy Cardoso Perez and Gillian Grunenfelder
Artistry prize winner in the Fall 2023 Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest
The story of Nazi attempts to control art and of the bravery of Rose Valland, a French art historian and member of the Resistance, who secretly documented Nazi art theft.
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Allegory of Artemisia
Hannah Diment
Research prize winner in the Fall 2023 Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest
A consideration of the challenges faced by the talented 17th-century woman painter, Artemisia Gentileschi.
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America's Sailor Moon
Cici Eltermann
Honorable mention in the Fall 2023 Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest.
A wry account of how the relationship of two queer characters in the Japanese anime “Sailor Moon” was changed for the English-language dub.
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The Right to Read: Censorship in America’s Prisons
Wanda Felsenhardt
Grand Prize winner in the Fall 2023 Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest
A surprising look into the vast number of titles banned by state prison systems and the many restrictions that keep books out of prisoners' hands.
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The Blind Art Collector
Rabeeha Adnan
A wordless comic exploring literal and metaphorical blindness and the unwritten codes that influence the art market. Inspired by a story told by Fran Liebowitz. The Morse Code in the comic spells out B-L-I-N-D A-R-T C-O-L-L-E-C-T-O-R.
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A Quick History of Gay Batman
Rena Bridge
Grand Prize winner in the 2023 Jurgen Banned Art Comics Contest.
A humorous look at ongoing discussions about the nature of Batman and Robin's relationship, beginning with Frederic Wertham's influential book, Seduction of the Innocent (1954).