Credit: Joe Schickman (ComicsOnline)

The 9th Biennial John Updike Society Conference in Salem, Mass., April 13-15, will feature Ben Wickey, a Massachussetts-born artist, writer, and animator who graduated from the California Institute of the Arts and also happens to be an Updike fan. He is one of the contributing illustrators of Alan Moore and Steve Moore’s The Moon and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic, the illustrator of Ki Longfellow’s The Illustrated Vivian Stanshall, and the director of several stop-motion animated short films. Appropriately, for the Salem conference, his films include the award-winning The House of the Seven Gables. Another Salem connection: after a decade of development, in 2025 Wickey marked his solo graphic novel debut with More Weight: A Salem Story about the witch trials. The title itself reminds one of Updike’s droll naming of yet another large collection of his nonfiction: More Matter.