Jess Tucker will be appearing at ArmadilloCon 2024!
One-half of what has been described as a “nerd power-couple” consisting of Jess Tucker and Jon Black, Jess is an archivist, pop culture critic, and visual artist. She has presented at events such as CUNY City Tech Science Fiction Symposium and the NecronomiCon Armitage Symposium on topics including to evolution of Red Sonya to Red Sonja as well as historical and cultural trends in the gendering of Cthulhu and other Mythos entities. She has coauthored, with Cushing Library archivist Jeremy Brett, a chapter upcoming chapter on Wonder Woman Historia. As University Archivist for the University of North Texas she has built a rapidly growing science fiction and fantasy study collection focusing on Texas authors and fan organizations. She is also processing the collection of early SFF fanzine publisher, Lovecraft correspondent, and weird fiction collector Willis Conover. As a visual artist, Jess is a practitioner of the whimsical macabre. Her distinctive skeleton tableaus channel influences as diverse as medieval traditions of mementos mori and danse macabre, the campy art of Tim Burton and Charles Addams, the classic animation of “Skeleton Dance” (1929), and the skeleton armies of Jason and the Argonauts and Army of Darkness. Jess’s previous jobs include Austin ghost tour guide and mental health support group facilitator.
