Courtesy T.L. Luke
Text the state budget with flow chart arrows.
For Madison-based illustrator T.L. Luke, creating comics is about more than telling a story — it’s about using art to educate the public and create meaningful political change.
“The goal is to demystify complex topics and empower people through facts,” Luke says of her comics, which she calls Auntie Luke’s Guides. These multi-panel pieces employ a combination of illustrations, infographics, and well-researched information to explain issues like abortion access, Wisconsin’s art economy, and marijuana harm reduction. Luke makes the comics available on her website, Instagram page, and occasionally in publications like Tone Madison.
T.L. Luke
A comic with lots of text about an election and a drawing of Janet Protasiewicz.
Luke’s most widely circulated comic series tackled the contentious 2023 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, explaining how a win for Janet Protasiewicz would mean a victory for abortion rights and fair legislative maps in Wisconsin. The series caught the attention of actress and activist Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who partnered with Luke to publish a consolidated comic a few days ahead of the April election. The race, of course, ended in a victory for Protasiewicz.
Comics are still relatively new for Luke, who has built her career creating whimsical, dark illustrations and selling prints, stickers, shirts, bags, and other products at local markets. “I really only have eight or nine comics under my belt right now,” says Luke. She continues to hone her craft, find the right balance between words and images, and figure out how to be compensated for these projects.
“These comics take so much more work than anything I’ve ever done,” Luke says. For example, the Wisconsin Supreme Court election series took 60 hours of research alone, before drawing even began. The time spent actually illustrating the pieces varies a lot. “Some of them took a single day — but a full day, like 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.,” Luke says. But some can take up to four full days.
In her Art Economy Guide series, Luke uses illustrations, graphics and handwritten text to explain how Wisconsin’s lack of art funding harms our community. Part 1 shows that Wisconsin state funding for the arts is lower now than it was 40 years ago — $809,000 in 1983 compared with $807,100 in 2023. (In comparison, our neighbor Minnesota invested $43,551,000 in the arts last year.) The comic goes on to show how investment in the arts fuels consumer spending, boosts tourism, and creates revenue, with cited sources. In Part 2 — the aforementioned comic that took four full days to illustrate — Luke uses Madison-based arts nonprofit Communication as an example of an arts organization that has benefited the Madison community.
As a full-time illustrator, the issue of arts funding is personal. Creating comics is “a very low-paying gig,” Luke says. “I don’t love that structure, and I’ve been trying to think of really creative solutions to get paid for this work. I’m ideally going to be looking into sponsorship and seeing if an organization, business, or somebody who aligns with my audience will help fund the comics.”
Luke’s next big project will include more voter education comics, in partnership with the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin. “We’re going to be collaborating on a larger comic about the April 2 spring election: who’s going to be on the ballot and what do those offices even do?” She’ll also create voter stickers and a larger “what makes a healthy voter” project for the November 2024 election.
Luke is also a new member of the Madison Arts Commission. “I’ve been following along with the arts commission since I became a professional illustrator in Madison — so, since 2018,” Luke says. “They handle how funding is distributed across the city. Sometimes there are choices where I’m like, Why? We have so little funding in Wisconsin. Why are we funding super large organizations that are able to bring in their own massive funding, when we’re not funding individual artists?”
Luke applied for the volunteer position, was appointed to the commission by Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway and confirmed by the city council in September 2023. “I’m very proud of it. I’m very excited to be able to serve Madison in the way that Madison’s been able to serve me for all these years.”
As the only full-time professional artist on the commission, Luke brings an important perspective to the group: “Not every artist has a second job, so we should probably be providing grants that can actually cover things like rent.”
Luke continues to gain attention for her art and political activism. When Vice President Kamala Harris visited Waukesha for the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade in January 2024, Luke was one of five people invited to a closed door meeting with the vice president.
“It was really special and unexpected,” Luke says. “What I really appreciated was that there seems to be a very key understanding that digital influencers and young people are the ones who are mobilizing people to the polls. I liked that there really seemed to be an understanding from [Harris] and her whole team that, ‘No, no — you guys are essential. We need you guys to keep giving information and providing this service on our behalf.’”
