About Karen Knighton

Karen Knighton is a teacher, animator, and comics maker. She is interested in pairing emotional and difficult subject matter with the anything-is-possible beauty and weirdness of invented worlds. Her favorite question to ask of her characters is “How do you keep moving forward?” and “Do you have any ghosts?”.

Karen has been working in animation and sequential arts for about 15 years, she has an MFA in Experimental Animation from California Institute of the Arts, and habitually seeks out new learning experiences in comics and storytelling. She seems to always be simultaneously both teaching and taking classes. She has taught at Wheaton College, California Institute of the Arts, Provincetown Arts Association Museum, and currently teaches 2D animation, illustration, stop-motion animation, and comics at Westfield State University in Massachusetts.

She has made numerous short mini-comics, and zines, and has been published in many anthologies. Her collection of short comics “Bury Your Stories” came out in September 2023. She is currently working on a long-form graphic novel, “Earthly Journey”.

Karen is married to a fellow animator and comic maker, Skip Wrightson. Together they live in Easthampton, MA with their kiddo Remy, and their Siamese cats Fern and Bear.