Get to Know - DUKEScomics

​Hi, everyone. I’m Elvira Carrizal-Dukes, Ph.D., M.F.A. My husband and co-creator Ronnie Dukes and I were in Hollywood, Los Angeles, CA, recently where we received a brilliant Silver Medal for our sci-fi graphic novel “Daizee & the Dukes of Chuco: Chuco-Juárez World Rally.” You can get a copy directly from our website DUKEScomics.com. I wrote the story and Ronnie illustrated the sequential art. I go by Dr. E.C.-Dukes as my author name for my graphic novels. I use my full legal name when I publish academic scholarship. We received the International Latino Book Award – Award Winning Author recognition. Earlier this year in 2024, we were awarded the Outstanding Emerging BIPOC Creator Award presented by Latinx Pop Lab, Ad Astra Media, and UT English for Comics, Animation, Education, and Outreach. This year we were awarded a grant from the Doña Ana Arts Council and the Devasthali Family Foundation, which made it possible for us to teach a Comics Career Art Path to over 400 middle school students in Chaparral, New Mexico. We are also currently mentoring a fourteen-year-old who will be publishing his first comic book by the end of this year.

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DUKEScomics is honored and grateful to represent our geographical borderland region of Chaparral, New Mexico, El Paso, Texas, and Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, Elvira’s hometown. Ronnie is from Chicago, but has lived in New Mexico now for almost twenty years.

This award is exciting for us, especially because this is our second graphic novel that we’ve produced. We met in 1996 working in theatre where I wrote, directed, and produced my play “Father’s Shadow / Sombra del Padre,” which won a National Playwriting Award and it was published by Dramatic Publishing. Ronnie was the artistic director of the staged play that we held in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I then moved into filmmaking and Ronnie into painting when we moved to Harlem, New York City, where I earned my M.F.A. in film from Columbia University and where we eloped in 2006. We then went on a backpacking journey in Guatemala and Honduras and then ended up back in El Paso, Texas, where I earned my Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition. It was during this time that we started adapting my film “Ochoa” into the graphic novel “A.W.O.L.: Cruz Ochoa,” which premiered at El Paso Comic Con and the Japanese version premiered at Tokyo Comic Con within a year. We are currently working on two new titles, graphic novel one-shots, and look forward to bringing a new book into the world in 2025.

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Our graphic novels are in English, Spanish, Japanese, and German and we’ve exhibited our books at Tokyo Comic Con, Japan; The Leipzig Book Fair Manga Comic Con, Germany; and FIL Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico. DUKEScomics’s major US shows include the American Library Association in Chicago and San Diego; Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2); BIPOC Pop; The Latinx Comic Arts Festival; Latino Comics Expo; Texas Latino Comic Con; Con-Front; and Chuco Con.
 
DUKEScomics is our LLC and is an international small press and studio based in southern New Mexico led by Dr. E.C.-Dukes, a Xicana author and native New Mexican, and her husband, illustrator and animator Ronnie Dukes, a Black Chicago native. Our motto is visualizing the future through comics. We specialize in graphic novels, Chicanafuturism, borderland culture, technology, and BIPOC characters. For more information, please visit our website: DUKEScomics dot com (DUKEScomics.com).