Each Featured Contributor will share what he or she finds vital. For Jamar Nicholas, a natural storyteller, the answer is simple: communication. In the following interview excerpt, the artist and educator talks about how connecting person-to-person has been complicated by technology, especially social media.

Nicholas is Gallery Assistant at Arcadia University. He also teaches at Moore College of Art and Design and is an award-winning comic book artist, landing three major 2011 Glyph Awards at the 10th Annual East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention (ECBACC) for his adaptation of Geoffrey Canada’s memoir Fist Stick Knife Gun. The America Library Association also named Fist Stick Knife Gun among the 2011 Great Graphic Novels for Teens.