Greetings friends my name is Zeke. I’m a storyteller and cartoonist from

El Paso, TX.

Thanks for taking the time to look at my work. If you're an art director, designer or editor I'd love to hear from you about collaborating on something. I’m currently interested in requests for picture book projects, short comics or short series, interior illustrations for chapter book stories, book covers, and editorial illustration. I’m also available for book and graphic novel projects depending on the pub date. Please reach out, I’d love to hear about what you’re working on and how we can collab!


PUBLISHERS, EDITORS, & ART DIRECTORS of BOOK PROJECTS please contact Steven Malk (Writers House)

I represent myself for all these fun activities:

  • Art Direction + Creative Consultation

  • Editing + Story Development

  • Comics + Illustration

  • Script Writing + Adaptation

  • Character Design + Storyboarding

  • Community Campaigns + Engagement

*LIMITED AVAILABILITY* - Currently my availability for new freelance projects is closed until September 2024. If you’re working on a project with a deadline in Winter 2024 or after please contact me.

 

 

BOOK BIO

Zeke Peña is a Xicano storyteller and cartoonist from El Paso, TX. His work is a mash-up of political cartoon, border rasquache and Hip Hop culture that addresses identity, politics, ecology and social justice. He recently illustrated the NY Times Bestselling book Miles Morales Suspended: A Spider-Man Novel by Jason Reynolds. He has received several awards for his book illustrations in My Papi Has a Motorcycle (Kokila, 2019) and Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide (Getty Publications, 2017). He received a degree in Art History from the UT Austin and is self-taught in the studio. His work is in several collections of American and Latine art including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, National Museum of Mexican Art, and The Billy Ireland Cartoon Museum. Zeke is currently writing and illustrating a picture book about growing up in the Chihuahuan desert.

STUDIO BIO

Zeke Peña is a Xicano storyteller and cartoonist from El Paso, TX. He makes comics and visual narratives that reclaim stories and remix history. His work is a mash-up of political cartoon, border rasquache and Hip Hop culture that addresses universal themes of identity, politics, ecology and social justice. He received a degree in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin and is self-taught in the studio. He has received awards for his book illustrations and his work is in several American and Xicano art collections. Zeke is currently writing forthcoming comic and book projects that he will illustrate. @zpvisual | zpvisual.com

PLEASE EMAIL FOR PRESS PHOTO

Please message for CV, Press Requests, Academic bio and Inquiries.

For all book, comic book, graphic novel inquiries please contact my literary agent Steve Malk at: smalk@writershouse.com

 
 

Selected Publisher + Client List

Penguin Random House | Penguin Young Readers / Kokila| ProPublica | Atheneum / Simon&Schuster | Scholastic | Getty Publishing | The Ringer | Crown Books | NPR Latino USA | Holt-Macmillan | Algonquin Young Readers | The Nib | REMEZCLA | The Believer Magazine | Cinco Puntos Press

 

PRESS


 

My Papi Has a Motorcycle written by Isabel Quintero

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Quintero’s warm, economical text and the desert-sunset tones of Peña’s comics-inflected art feel like a revelation.
— The New York Times Book Review
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The detailed, evocative watercolor artwork and smoothly told story demonstrate the pair’s love for their neighborhood and each other.
— The Washington Post
 
 

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2020 Pura Belpré Illustrator Honor Award

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2020 Ezra Jack Keats Illustrator Honor Award

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2020 Tomás Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award

Bank Street's Best Spanish Language Book Award


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Leila Fadel | Samantha Balaban on Weekend Edition Sunday | August 25, 2019 8:06 AM ET


 
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Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide written by Isabel Quintero

Sara Waldorf 2017

Sara Waldorf 2017

 
 
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[The book} revels in the in-between; mixing elements of photo essay, memoir and graphic novel to create a powerful biography that – like Iturbide herself – defies convention.
— Minh Lê for NPR Best Books 2018
 
 

2018 Boston Globe Horn Book Award

2018 Moon Beam Book Award


Quintero and Peña’s biography of Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide is far more than an account of her life . . . Eye-opening and masterfully rendered.
— BOOKLIST *Starred Review
I would recommend this book to pretty much anyone… There’s darkness and death; but it’s not a morbid story. It’s about learning to find who you are and be brave and true to yourself, and finding beauty in forgotten places and people.
— BLEEDING COOL
Mixing original illustrations, first-person prose, and lyrical interludes with gorgeous reproductions of photographer Graciela Iturbide’s work, Quintero and Peña patiently reveal their subject’s many angles, producing a “kaleidoscopic unraveling” of the artists… Teens will come away with an evolved sense of how to look at a creator’s life and work and how to think critically about art as a process. The importance of being seen, specifically in regard to indigenous communities in Mexico and Mexican Americans in the United States, as a narrative thread will resonate strongly with readers. VERDICT Quintero and Peña have set a new standard in artist biographies. A must for teen collections.
— SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL *Starred Review

 
 

Review of Photographic: The Life of Graciela Iturbide - The Horn Book Magazine  September/October 2018 -

A Gathering of Minds: A Hopeful and Incisive Bank Street Book Festival - By Matia Burnett | Publishers Weekly - Oct 30, 2018

2019 YALSA Great Graphic Novels for Teens

NPR Best Books of 2018

Booklist Top 10 Arts Books for Youth: 2018

One of School Library Journal’s Best Books of 2018


 
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Art cannot change the world, but it can contribute to changing the consciousness and drives of the [people] who can.
— Herbert Marcuse : The Aesthetic Dimension